Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 06/200 @ 2700 question

I have hunted with several PHs who had done a bunch of buffalo culling in their careers--and probably already mentioned some of this earlier. But what they said was NOT theory, but experience.

One culled around 500 buffalo--all sizes from calves to mature bulls--at various angles with the original 180-grain Nosler Partitions (those with the "relief" groove) from a .30-06. They were not shot in the head at night, but were killed on day-time drives on a big Rhodesian ranch when domestic cattle were more valuable than buffalo. He never had a problem. Same deal with a buddy of his--though he preferred the original "blunt-nosed" 200 Partition.

When I hunted in Tanzania in 2011, the 17-year-old son of my primary PH had just killed his first bull buffalo with a .300 Winchester Magnum and one 180-grain Barnes TSX. He shot it behind the shoulder, and the bull went the pretty much average 100 yards and keeled over dead.

Another PH on the same hunt had used a 7mm Remington Magnum with whatever "good" bullet he could get to handload to kill a bunch of buffalo

Eileen and I killed a bunch of big game with the 140-grain Fail Safe--and eventually Barnes TSX--with the .270 Winchester. I am sure any similar bullet from the .270 would work on Cape buffalo, partly because one of the animals Eileen killed with the .270 was a mature, 900-pound cow bison in Texas, that required a couple hours of stalking in thick brush, due to having the other cow it hung out with being killed a day or so before. When Eileen finally got a shot, she put a 130 TSX behind the shoulder, and the cow went 40 yards, wobbled a little, and keeled over before Eileen could shoot again--and she's pretty quick. Oh, and the "little" TSX exited.

If the bullet penetrates and expands sufficiently on the game at hand, it will kill pretty quickly with typical heart/lung shots--whether it's a Fail Safe, Barnes X, Nosler Partition or whatever.