Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa .308 180 Accubonds for leopard

Here's what I think so far after reading everyone's posts and also what I could find Craig Boddington wrote (he tends to favor slightly larger bores for leopard than the .243 suggested) and also why some choose .243. The .243 is apparently good if using dogs with leopard as with frontal shots there's less chance of the bullet exiting and wounding the dog. I don't hunt with dogs. It's also better in that there is less hide destruction. This isn't of prime importance to me, but killing a leopard on the spot (pun not intended!) is. A lot of people can shoot a .243 more accurately. I can shoot a slightly larger bore just as accurately if the rest is good. With the .308, I 'm now thinking the 150 E-tips might be a bit hard and possibly the 180 Accubonds on some shots such as behind the shoulder. So I'm starting to favor the Nosler Partition. My rifle likes 180's and usually does well with them and drives them at roughly the same speed as the 165's. I could get the flat nose version of the 180 Partitions and avoid the deformation under recoil problem in the magazine or experiment with plastic inserts in the magazine which block the shoulder and use the spitzers. With the scope, I know the 8 x 56 fixed power will give me slightly better night vision and be excellent from a good rest. But as I have found when using it on varmints, on off-hand shots and if they start to run, I'm at a disadvantage with the high magnification. So I'm leaning towards the 3-9 x 42 for its versatility. I'm not buying a new scope for a hunt that I'll only do once, although I really would be over the moon getting a black panther on a subsequent hunt in the north of the continent (but that is highly unlikely to happen and the $$$). Anyway, I will chew all these things over a bit more and do some more testing of the scopes at night and even buy and load up some 180 Partitions and try them out to see how expansion is on light game. Thanks everyone for the input, especially those who have hunted leopard or those who have seen others hunting leopard.