Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Nilgai

Pretty sure I've got an invite to a 50,000 acre lease on the coast in Texas. It's got plenty Nilgai. I think I'll be able to shoot whatever I want to number wise and size wise. I want at least one good bull and I'll shoot whatever others they'll let me.
Gonna bring my 375 H&H model 70 Classic and my 338 WM!!
Landowner said I could shoot em with a 243 if I picked my shots, but I wanna shoot my big guns!!!!!
His hands on the ranch shoot with barnes bullets in 416 bolt guns backed up by solids for running away shots.
Can anyone give me a good starting powder and bullet for the 375. May have a case of solids and a case of heavy soft points somewhere from my brother practicing for buffs and eland, but I can't find em now. Have 100 pieces of fed premium brass.
Also gonna rescope from a 1.5-5 old VX III German reticle to a 3-9 trijicon or VX-R. If either of those scopes are a mistake lemme know.
As far as mounts go it has leup QDs on it now. Should I change em? Or get 30 mm leup QD's since boththe other scopes would be 30 mm tubes.
Thanks. I've learned a lot about Nilgai anatomy from my buddy out there who's taken many stalking with a bow!!! But he says there are angles that you shouldn't shoot with any gun or bullet on these critters.
Seem tough if you screw up a shot on em. I don't wanna mess up on this hunt.

Won't be till next march so I've got plenty of time for load development and practice. Will probably use the 375 on some doe culling and and some pigs for practice. I've shot a few does with it and it is a very accurate rifle.

My .375 H&H really liked 260 grain AccuBonds over 69.0 grains of RL-15. I used it to take two really big-bodied bull elk in Colorado and plains game in Namibia ranging from impala up to eland. I would forget the solids unless you are just dying to shoot something with them. They won't be necessary.

When I was in graduate school, we collected quite a number of nilgai over the years for dietary studies and meat research. We shot them with .243s and .338 Win Mags and most of the commonly used cartridges in between. I don't have time to excavate my field notebooks from that era, but we never lost one that I can remember.

The area around the heart is easy to get to.. its whenyou get up higher shoulder and especially the neck that the hide is thick like a boars shield. I"ve shaved some before to tan them, that were on the order of 2 inches of hide thickness.

If you can pick shots, no big deal. We were on a time frame and had to take whatever we got often, while I shot all mine with 300 wtyb and 180 partitions, the performance was iffy enough that is what caused me to go to Barnes bullets and never ever look back.

The 375 I had many years ago was easy to load for. I'd grab a TSX or TTSX and just didnt' seem back then that they were too picky.

Nilgai are weird looking but quite tasty at the right time of the year and I"d go back in a heartbeat just to shoot a cow.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Jeff

I have a friend who shot a nice Nilgai in Texas at some ranch..

Any how he used a 308 Win. loaded with 180 grain bullets. He told me, one shot and the ol'boy just fell down.

For what its worth..

You should give the new 250gr TTSX bullet a try. Thats the next bullet I'm going to be working with in my 375's. If it acts anything like the 270gr TSX's, it will be a keeper.

270 TSX and a max load of RL-15.

Varget worked well for me in the .375 H&H