Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa How to recover TSX's without some of their original weight ?

Just hunt bigger critters

Just kidding, I'm just back from a Namibian road trip (Mostly Sossusvlei and the Namib desert, Swakopmund, the skeleton coast and Etosha) and hunting trip (6 days hunting in the black nossop conservacy area, Gobabis district, 140 miles N-E of Windhoek).

It was a late honey moon, and outstanding adventure with my wife for our fifth wedding birthday, then my best hunting experience ever and a 8 years long dream made true.

My order was only wild animals, from local species in totally open territory and that's what I had on a 50000 ha hunting ground covering serveal big cattle farms in the area, only local and wild species, and free game without high fences.

Mostly bushveld, camelthorn trees, stalking and tracking a lot.

Unfortunately, I lost one red hartebeest, my mistake, but everything else was perfect, the food, the mood, the hunt, the conversations, the trackers, the drinks, the other shots ... An outstanding and unforgettable experience in the life of a hunter.

Here are the results:

10 years old blue wildebeest bull



8 years old warthog



12 years old burchell's zebra stallion



7 years old red hartebeest



8 years old gemsbok bull



Outstanding and enormous 12 years old greater kudu



14 years old red hartebeest

[img]http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/9805/img1369y.jpg[/img]

I'll post the pictures of the recovered TSX's later ...

Very nice pics. Congratulations!

maddog

Excellent, excellent stuff GV!!

been wondering where you were...


Congrats!

Ingwe

Thanks maddog and ingwe

Here are the Tsx's, caliber .375, 270 grains, from a winchester 70's 24 inches barrel.

From left to right:





1. 551 pounds gemsbok, 164 yards shot, broad side, hitting right elbow, low chest, left elbow. Remains: 184 grains.

2. Same oryx, coup de grace, 87 yards, 2/3 face lungs shot. Remains: 211.5 grains

3. Greater Kudu, about 992 lbs , 3/4 facing 109 yards shot, stone dead in its tracks. Remains: 229 grains.

4. Blue Wildebeest, about 600 lbs, 109 yards shot, 3/4 facing, stone dead in its tracks; remains: 249.7 grains.

5. Burchell'zebra, 705 lbs, boradside, 165 yards, heart shot, ran 330 yards away before it admitted it was dead ; remains: 270 grains.

6. red hartebeest, 330 lbs, 175 yards 3/3 facing shiot, dropped stone dead in its tracks; remains: 270 grains.

Bullet went through the other hartebeest (broadside heart shot 131 yards) and the warthog (broadside heart shot 77 yards, but the bullet went out higher than the entry - it was a up to down shot - and went out in the middle of the body the hog running 90 yards before it felt).

The gemsbok shaved some weight off that particular TSX!

Great stuff, GV.

How did you come by these weights?

Did you actually weigh a kudu that was 992 lbs?

A Burchells Zebra that was 705 lbs?

These would be so far beyond normal that they would set a Guiness record, especially the Kudu. The biggest Kudu we have ever measured was a hair over 650lbs. We have killed many giant bulls in the last two decades too. The biggest Zebra I've ever personally seen was a 600plus Zebra and she was killed with twin colts inside that were each about 60lbs.

Just curious how these weights were determined. The Kudu is way more then double the average I've experienced. We weigh a lot of game at the lodge because the hunters all make these claims/guesses of weights so we can easily hang a scale between the gambrel and the chain hoist. We have a 1/2 ton scale at the lodge to use. So I'm fairly comfortable that these weights are darn good, since the people buying the meat from us use this weight without argument.

The only PG that have ever pegged the scale are Eland and Roan antelope. Roan are the second largest species of Antelope, and they get to the 1000lb mark on rare occasions

That weight of the kudu amazed me too, Weights from the trackers and skinners, but the Kudu was actually huge, far far more than the gembsok when hanging after skinning. Last Eland reported there, killed by a friend was reported 1873 lbs and the kudus in the area are reported bigger than the ones from Etosha. Sorry I only brought back the bullets for my RCBS scale but I don't mind the actual weight.

My black tracker was quite a joker, who knows ? The owner told me the carcasses (skin, insides and head off) were usually from 200 to 220 kilos, weighted for selling.

Or was I lost in translation there between kilos and lbs ?

I was kinda wondering about some of those weights myself....

A "hanging weight" (skin etc off...) of 200 Kilos would be about 440 lbs....add a third for missing parts and you are at about 600 lbs...just about right...
Your tracker might have been pulling your leg a bit..

And the "lost in translation" part I can identify with...I once caught a fish that was a kilo....dont know if it weighed a kilogram or was a kilometer long...but I'm going with the latter!!

Ingwe

You see him on the first Picture ... Zamuel ... We had a lot of fun everdy, both of us alone in the bushveld.

Omitting the weight claims, those are still some very, very nice trophies. Congrats on a good hunt.

Thank you for taking the time to post the bullet info. Although we all get lots of opportuity to shoot paper, it is rare to see how bullets perform on game. As someone who is in the process of testing TSX's performance in some of my hunting loads, I've been unable to get samples (ie. pass throughs).

GV,

What did the kudu measure in inches? He's a lovely looking head...........and I don't care what he weighed

Sorry, not yet, I will have the measurements via e-mail soon. All I know is that it's a 12 years old.

The strange thing about the weight case, if Zamuel joked me or if confused Lbs et Kgs, is that I saw every game hanging after cleaning, skinning and beheading. The hartebeests were much bigger than the warthog (this is believable ), the oryx was far bigger than the hartebeest, the wildebeest was bigger than the oryx, the zebra was bigger than the wildebeest and the kudu was far bigger than anyone of the others.

Anyway, it is my first and maybe last kudu and I will cherish its trophy a lot. I was shaking so much waiting for it to move the head away, after the stalk, I thought I would have never been able to kill it properly. Heart pumping too hard, uncontrolled brathing, and the "dancing reticle show". Hours later my arms were still shaking.

how can you not care what it weighed? that is simply the best venison!!

Just because you can't bring the whole meat with you back in the airplane ... or just one or two kilos in bitlong

aah!! biltong, busy on some while typing

Me too

Perfect!

When my wife killed her first Kudu she was visibly moved, and on the verge of tears..I told her simply that if you can kill an animal like that and not feel great emotion, then you do not belong to be there, and do not deserve it...


Ingwe

my kudu came into view about two seconds beefore he saw us and turned to run. I shot him in the turning motion hitting the heart. It was my best shot in Africa. I believe it was because I had no real time to contemplate the shot. Afterwards I felt a quiet revery for the beast, and a joy that he fell in the turning and never moved. Our respect of the game is demonstrated in various ways, but as Ingwe says, they are deserving of our best effort, respect and admiration.

As Lt Dan says, it is the best venison, and the sole regret I have, is that I could not bring meat home. The good thing is that not a bit of the meat will be wasted

You did a great job GV, thanks for the photos, and please regale us with the anectdotal reports.

Randy

Hi guys, and thanks from your comments.

I've just received news from my Namibian host sending me my trophies SCI scores.

I don't realize if or how much it means something, centimeters are not so important, but I wanted tohave information about the SCI scoring.

It seems it's not so bad from the hunting area and my tracker's selection.

I particularly appreciate the Zebra scoring But I'm Belgian, this could explain that.

I could see the difference in the horns.....one reason I was interested in the measurements, GV.

Going back to Africa again?