HS--I don't know that it is that much of a story, as I have used a Sharps as my rifle of choice for over 20 years.
I took the zebra on my second trip to South Africa, using a Shiloh Sharps Business Rifle in 45 2 7/8, often called a 45-110. The load was 106 grains of 2f black powder pushing a 511 grain round nosed paper patched bullet out of one of my Steve Brooks molds. It pushes the bullet to 1380 fps. This is pretty much the old buffalo killing load from the American west in the 1870s. I use the standard buckhorn barrel sights and a blade front sight made from a copper penny. The Sharps sights are a buckhorn with a ladder that stands up and a sliding leaf for long range. I have correlated it with a Leica CRF 1200 rangefinder. These sights are much more capable than most people suspect and in conjunction with the excellent set trigger give the Sharps its well earned reputation for long range accuracy.
I have had good results with the Sharps, and had gotten complete pass through penetration on every animal I had shot on the first safari. I had shot a blesbok from end to end the previous day,in the chest and out the base of the tail on this second trip. When we spotted the herd of zebra and began the stalk, my PH commented that he thought my string of pass throughs was about to come to an end. I asked him why, and he said that his 375H&H would not consistently shoot all the way through a zebra and he doubted the Sharps would.
I had a pretty good string of pass throughs going, and I told him that I would shoot the zebra on an angle to maximize the penetration distance as a sort of penetration test. We got within 96 yards, and I shot the zebra from sitting cross sticks as it quartered toward me, taking it on the left shoulder. The paper patch bullet exited just in front of its left ham after traversing the body from front to back on a diagonal path. The animal went a bit over 100 yards before it died on its feet.
It is a beautiful skin, and I had it made into a rug. It covers the bed in our guest bedroom.
