Funny. My PH said the exact opposite. He wants maximum damage and insisted on softs for buff in my 375 H&H and 500 NE. Now for giraffe, he wanted solids to get through the thick skin. But WTF does he know, he's only been doing it for over 30 years.

As an aside, I love TSX and had used them exclusively ever since I found out about them in '05.......until a lion hunt in the Save in '18. We recovered 3, 300 gr .375 TSX (Pre War Mod 70 3-7-5 H&H). They barely opened up and we were both disappointed in the failures. I truly don't remember my loads, but I always start a few tenths off Max and go up from there (one of the main benefits of the TSX). When we showed these to two other PHs they all said the same thing: "A Frames." Thankfully I had my .300 Win with me. My PH insisted I use that gun for my lion instead of the 3-7-5 as we knew it would open up and not fail (recovered PG bullets). One of his comments was that when the TSX first came out he was really impressed with them, but lately (at that time) they had lost their luster and questioned an alloy change. Regardless, I no longer load TSX in any of my DG guns. Great for the .300 & .270 Wins but I won't use them in DG.

FWIW my 3-7-5 at 75y- buff went 60-80 y before he dropped. Needed a kill shot. 500 NE at 40y, dropped dead on the spot. 900gr arrow (75# draw) at 30y dropped dead in 40y. (Just showing how truly meaningless this all is- you can control where you want it to hit, but you can't control what you actually hit under the skin.)

Actually, I've given up rifle hunting DG anyway.

I agree with 250 gr......broad head that is. Taking the bow back in September for another buff & lion.

Also recovered from a dead buff and did not fail.

[Linked Image from live.staticflickr.com]

Last edited by Tony_Soprano; 06/26/23.