Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa African Myths about big calibers.

It's not the continent they come from, its the development and species that matters.

I've never seen anything anywhere that takes more lead and shows no lethal reaction then mountain goat or moose. However they are not usually distance runners and typically lay up rather quickly.

Elk are distance travellers and soak up some lead as well. This gives them the toughness reputation that they deserve White tails are much like kudu they seem to have the least will to live of the normal species we hunt.

Now consider game that is like a mountain goat with the travel plans of elk that lives in big herds. This is why the reputation of African game exists. Wildebeest is every bit as tough and solid as a goat, travel like elk, and will stay with the herd all the while having spoor erased by the group. These factors make finding these animals difficult which adds fuel to the African game stereotype.

There is some physiology issues too. The thick thorn laden bush may have developed some more rubbery thick better sealing hides. I have given this a lot of thought. When you look at the thickness and texture of a raw skin from an African animal it is different for many species. It's defiantly different between kudu and gemsbok and wildebeest. Coincidence? Herd vs loaner?

Herd animals crash thru brush wildly running to stay with a group. Kudu ( white tails too) carefully and delicately pick and choose a path to find a place to hide. Kudu thin skin frail skeleton amazing agility. Wildebeest much thicker skin much heavier build, and not even in the agility game by comparison.

African game tougher? Well that's a broad statement. Certainly not all of it. American hunters will be exposed to the toughest PG species on there hunts and have other hunters in camp that are as well. So the amount if game seen killed in a ten day hunt could be a lifetime of experience for many.

This causes the opinion that it's tougher. Lots of solidly built game shot in a single trip. How many hunters see 30-40 big game shot in a ten day trip in America? It's not a blanket answer that covers all species on both continents.

How tough do you African hunters consider a barbary sheep to be?

In my opinion, the belief that African game is harder to kill comes from elderly gentlemen who think they have to buy a heavier caliber rifle for Africa, and either from lack of practice or recoil, flinch with it, wounding the game. Far better to just take whatever you use for deer or elk. For plains game, that is.

In my experience, shooting anything from an impala up to a gemsbok, Wildebeest, or kudu one time in the chest with a 180 grain Nosler Partition bullet from a .300 magnum produces a dead animal. Same for an elk.

I wanted to shoot a lion with a 180 grain Partition (legal in Zimbabwe). Lions only weigh about 450 pounds max. But my PH made me use a .375 to heart-lung it. I'm not sure it did any better than the .300 would have done. Following up a wounded one might have been a different matter.

I disagree with JJ Hack about using .30 caliber bullets at a minimum to leave a blood trail. After all, the difference between a .30 caliber and a 7mm is only .024 inches, which hardly seems to matter when compared with the organs and arteries of an animal weighing several hundred pounds.

IMHO African Game is not 'tougher' per se...just evolved in a predator rich environment.Basically to me this means they are more 'tightly wrapped'..
Kinda like the difference between whitetails a mule deer ( though my predator rich environment doesnt hold up on this end of the argument...)Whitetails are more tightly wrapped in my experience. The same behind the shoulder shot that will often put a mule deer down on the spot will just put a whitetail into warp drive. Granted, he will die just the same, and soon, but he will put as much real estate between him and you as he can before he succumbs.
Alot of African game Ive shot has done the same thing...with the exception of Impala...but as JB noted, there are exceptions to the exceptions....

It's about a 20% difference. Not just .024 examples:

Would you like a 20% raise?
Would you like to pay 20% more for food, gas, home, etc?
Would you like to miss the target by 20%
would you like to get 20% more fuel economy?

When you have had to look for hundreds of animals in a 20 year career there begins to evolve a commonality in some of the tracking jobs. One of these has been the 30 caliber diameter. If you're content with the success you have, then go with it. I on the other hand have had very diverse skill levels of people with me. I prefer to help my hunters to choose cartridges that have been known successful and have a track record of allowing us to quickly locate game. A kind of a base line to start with. Something like the idea that the 375HH is a minimum for DG.

I want my hunters hunting, not searching for game that they shot in the morning or the previous evening. I have to deal with hunters of every level, from kids to seniors, professional athletes to the handicapped. My resolution to this business is clearly different then the individual expert arriving to hunt. It's always the choice and the checkbook of the visiting hunter to take the advise of a professional or go forth with his personal choice and play the odds.

6MMWASP,

Where the hell did I call you a liar? I've read my post to you twice, and can't find it.

I'm sure you posted exactly what you saw. Aside from my experience with imapala being different, my point (perhaps not too well made) is that in hunting occasionally some animal acts far out of the norm when hit--like the pronghorn I shot, and the impala you cited. I was merelu suggesting that pronghorn might be as tough as impala--and providing an example.

Mule Deer,

I'll not argue with you, it would be foolish for me to do so. You a write for a living.

Your last comment ( Maybe Zambian impala are a lot tougher ) simply hit me wrong. I was simply stating what I saw in South Africa on my first hunt, you must have assumed Zambia as I did not say it happened there.

It appears that others read it the same way, remarking on the antelope you had shot. Tougher antelope in Montana than S.D.

Pronghorn aren't usually hard to kill--if you hit them right. That can be said about any of the animals we're discussing. But there are exceptions, which is all I was pointing out.

Plus, another definition of "tough" is how far animals will go when hit around the edges. I used to guide pronghorn hunters here in Montana and saw quite a bit of that, and pronghorn will go a long way after such hits, whether gutshot or with a leg broken--even if they're bleeding like crazy from a broken leg. The pronghorn guides I've hunted with in a few other states are pretty much of the same opinion, which parallels your friend's statement about "if impala were as big as elk."

Anybody?

Not being disrespectful JJHack, but i don't follow some of your logic. I guide hunters sometimes myself, probably around 100 or so over the years, mostly for the pure joy of hunting. I always suggest to bring something they can shoot accurately. Obviously it has to be an adequate cartridge and bullet combo for the intended game. For example, I'd much rather a guy show up mule deer hunting with a 7-08 that he can shoot well, than a 30-378 like some clown showed up with and proceeded to miss 23 times over the next 3 days. It seems to me a guy flinching while shooting a 300 mag would be looking for more wounded game than the same guy shooting a 180 gr partition through his '06. Maybe I'm missing something.

This is just a wildazz guess but I'd have a hard time imagining an oryx or wildebeast being able to carry more lead than a big bull elk.

Bar none, the toughest animal to kill is a 3 legged pronghorn.
Don't call me to help you with following one of these up. Too dangerous
I only have so much time and I don't have any to waste

of the many adjectives I would think of to describe pronghorn (and I freely admit I have never hunted them) "dangerous" would not be one of them....could you please explain?

AFTERUM: I think he was tongue in cheek....

Though JBs wife had one get after her one day, after soaking up a magazine full of .257s...properly placed ones at that...

I find that most guys that shoot bad with a big gun also shoot bad with about anything. Ego drives the choice for a big 30 but laziness in practicing is the real problem. Money wont make you a hunter and shooter.
If you practice enough you know your limits and will choose your armaments better.
For a large segment of hunters minimums make sense.
What makes more sense is to start with a good trigger and work up from there to find your limit

I have had to help guys that after a bad first shot at a four legged antelope ended up with me spending far too much effort on finishing a 3 legged antelope.
It's a humor for those that have been there done that. You wont forget the experience after a couple of these chases

The best trigger in the universe wouldn't have helped the idiot with his 30-378 on our hunt.

Those guns are an idiot magnet for sure

Tom,

I forgot to mention that one! It happened maybe 10-12 years ago, and here's about what we remember:

Eileen center-punched a good pronghorn buck just behind the shoulders with a 120-grain Nosler Partition started at about 2950 fps frrom her NULA .257 Roberts. He was harassing some does about 200 yards away, and at the shot trotted off a little ways. She expected him to fall, like they usually do, but instead he tried to come back to the does--which had run around in a little circle, then stopped, confused about where the shot came from.

The buck wandered up to one of the does and stuck his nose in her butt. He was quartering toward her at that point so she whacked him in the near shoulder. He staggered, but then stuck his nose up the butt of one of the does. Eileen shot him again broadside through the lungs (probably in about the same place as the first shot) and after that could see through her scope (per usual turned up to 10x) that a 1" stream of blood was pouring out his side. At that point he fell.

When she walked up to him he "charged," dragging himself along the ground for a couple yards while making hooking motions with his horns. At that point she shot him in the head, horns be damned, as she's never backed away from a charging animal.

We were hunting with our friend Casey Tillard on his ranch in central Wyoming and he still talks about the "iron-clad antelope." When we field-dressed the buck the chest cavity was just about completely dry.

99% of the time the first shot would have done the job within 10 seconds. Why didn't it? I dunno, except that it was the peak of the rut.

Well if you remember us telling you the story of a smallish Mule deer buck will and i got years ago...we called him " The Terminator" no amount of good killing seemed to work...for awhile

You could make a classy thong from that hide, if you were wondering..........