Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Is my 375 enough for buffalo

M70Guy, good info. I appreciate your insight and opinions on which bullets seemed to work best for you. By the way, I agree with you on the A-frames, not that I have the experience to back that, but just on repeated recommendations of those that have the experience.

I would love to hear more about your experience with the 300 RUM and 30-06 on buff and what bullets you were using at the time and how they performed. Just out of curiosity.

Model 70 guy,

Thanks for sharing your experience.

I've heard that the CEB can frag if it hits something before hitting the critter.

Loading my bud's .416 Rem, I found that the 400 NPT and the 400 SAF were both very accurate, solids less so. I was using 4064 per Swift info, reportedly their choice for factory ammo.

Thanks for your input.

DF

Absolutely, i have three loads for buffalo for my pre-64 375, 270gr TSX, 300gr partition and 300gr BBW #13 solids, that said, and going down in velocity, the 375 Flanged Magnum has been getting it all done for over 100 years, it's a cartridge i'll buy when i'm too old to carry and shoot the big Nitro guns, a 75 year old me would have no issue shooting a Cape Buffalo with a 300gr A Frame at 2400 fps, your rig may be faster than that.

One of the most interesting conversations I've had in Africa about buffalo bullets took place on my first safari, a plains game hunt in RSA in the early 1990s--though there was an outside possibility of arranging a cancellation buffalo hunt in Botswana if the timing worked.

It didn't, but the owner of the safari company in RSA was John Van Der Meulen, who grew up in what was then Rhodesia back when the country was more involved with killing off wild game to help cattle ranching. Like many back then, John did a lot of "control" work on ranches, killing over 1000 buffalo. This was in the 1950s, and his favorite tool for the job was his .458 Winchester Magnum, using their then "solid," which had a gilding-metal jacket. This bullet was highly criticized by some, including Jack O'Connor, because the jacket was so soft the bullets often "riveted"--but that's the reason John liked them: They mushroomed on typical lung shots, and killed quickly. (By the way, he was still using the same .458 for backup on buffalo hunts when I met him, at that time mostly in Tanzania, where he also PH'd. It had the same early Bushnell 2.5x scope he'd mounted back in the 50s--which still worked fine.)

Then there's my old friend Kevin Thomas, the PH I've hunted most with, who's younger than John. He started as a Rhodesian game department ranger at age 17--and eventually, like John, also did a lot of control work on ranches. He killed over 500 buffalo on "control" on a big ranch, where the black workers drove herds by him. Kevin used the .30-06 with handloaded 180-grain Partitions, back when they were lathe-turned with the "relief groove," and says he never had problem, even with mature bulls on frontal chest shots.

I really wanted to try some 350gr A-Frames in my 416, but they have been pretty much unobtanium. When they become available again I will certainly give them a go.

Interesting, good stuff Mule Deer, Thanks for the history lesson.

Our dear and departed friend Allen Day, cleanly dispatched a buffalo with one shot out of his 300 Winchester Mag with 180 (I don't remember, but it was either Partitions or A FRames) because his 458 had gone tits up with a broken extractor (I think). The kill is shown on one of Mark Sullivan's videos.

Jorge,
Allen used factory WW Fail Safe 180gr ammo to kill that buffalo. His 458 had some trigger issues develop during that hunt.

The only bullet I think is at least as good as the A-Frames are the North Fork Premium Bonded line. I have had very good luck with those bullets.

Also like their Cup Point Solids for buffalo. The quickest kill I ever had in a buffalo was with one. Shot it through the shoulder with a 470 Nitro at about 15 yards, never took a step, DRT. The most shots I ever required on buff were with the Cup Points also, but that is another story.

I wanted to be all in on North Forks. Then the business was sold and moved out of Wyoming to the west coast, then production ceased again and the company moved out of country. Too much uncertainty for me. Great product though.

I heard NF went bankrupt a while back, but their site was up. It is different with several international contacts.

I have quite a few, but with Swift and others it is certain we will not die because of our bullet choice.

As an aside...MD mentioned his good friend, and PH Kevin Thomas. I just completed reading Kevin Thomas's book, SHADOWS IN AN AFRICAN TWILIGHT. The book was a good read, enjoyable and informative.

Glad you liked it!

Kevin published a book on Cape buffalo, titled THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT BUFFALO. It's not just by him, but also contains a number of chapters by other PHs, along with some a few safari hunters. (I contributed a chapter on the American perspective, but there are quite a few others.) It's a very good look at buffalo hunting during the last few decades, and I highly recommend it as well. Have probably reread it myself 3-4 times.

https://www.kevindthomas.com/

John,
The link goes to a photographer.
R

Here you go, the buffalo book is by Kevin D. Thomas:

https://www.kevindthomas.com/

I have two stories in that book as well.

Thanks, Rick, I corrected it.

Mike,

Just looked at the book again. Good stories--and congratulations on the big one!

John

John,

Thanks, that big buffalo was a once in ten life time trophies. Good hunt too.

You wrote about the Okavango Delta. My first safari was to Tanzania in 2008. I wanted to hunt the Okavanga after that hunt but put it off while hunting in Zimbabwe in 2009 and 2010. Then they shutdown the hunting. That is one of my few hunting regrets.