Hello All - I am planning a bison hunt in Nebraska in 2008/09 and would like recommendations on appropriate calibers. Sorry if this subject has come up before, I could not find it using my limited search skills. FYI - I have rifles in every caliber known to man from .17 Mach II to .458 Lott, so availability should not be an issue. Many thanks.

The only cartridge that could possibly work is a 45-70 pushed by some FF black powder. A 405 to 525 gr lead pill should do the job.

Be sure to use a Buffalo Bullet.

'Twer me, anything from a .338 with 250 grain bullet and up. Could cheat a little on the lower end with premium bullets- say a 300 Mag and up.

Do remember that a few million bison were wiped off the face of the earth with lesser calibers, if one considers the old Sharps calibers as "lesser".

I would take your 458 Lott with full on 500gr loads. Read Phil Shoemaker's article in Successful Hunter about hunting bison in Nebraska; he did so with a D'arcy Echols 458 Lott and did not feel overgunned.

i've done it twice with a .454 casull 300 gr swift A-frames. IMO, it's little light (have to pick your shots). watched a friend shoot one with an M1 -- also worked well. anything .277 & up will work but I'd go with a "classic" gun if you have one

The most experienced bison guide I know says that the .25-06 is the best choice, and that a 100-grain bullet just below the ear does the job neatly.

45-110 with black powder :GRIN:

A friend of mine, borrowed my 300 WSM using 168g TSX bullets and shot his bull. One shot just behind the ear at 100 yards dropped it in it's tracks.

I shot mine with a 7mm08. My brother shot his with a 44 mag pistol. My dad shot his with a 358 winchester. All worked fine once you put the bullet in the right spot. The rancher recommended anything over 270. He claims to have killed them with a 17 remington if you put one in the ear. Take whatever rifle you can shoot the most accurate with in all field shooting positions and you should be fine. Are you hunting a herd or an individual. In a herd situation a head shot is the only shot to take. If you do not drop your animal right away the rest of the herd may turn it into buffalo burger for you.Once the herd smells blood their instinct is to kill the wounded and move on. They do not want to be around anything that would attract predators.If you are hunting an individual body shots would be an option. If that is the case take a big thumper to do as much damage as possible. One of the main reasons to "hunt" bison is the meat. The quicker the kill the better.

+10!!!

When I've hunted bison before, it's been with a 338 Win. Mag., and when I hunt bison again, it'll also be with as 338 Win. Mag.

Load premium 250 gr. bullets, such as the Nosler Partition or Swift A-Frame, or else the 240 gr. North Fork (225 TSX should work perfectly, too), zero for 200 yds., and you'll be set for any sort of bison situation............

AD

From the sounds of it - some people's definitions of "hunting" Bison vary quite a bit from other people's.

Oh sure, if you are driving up to the tame ranch bred animals who are used to people and vehicles to "hunt" them - then I'm sure a 25-06, .270 etc. shot into the ear hole or eyeball will do just fine.

But if you REALLY want to HUNT Bison (Northern BC or Northwest Territories) then such talk would be foolish. They are much bigger than a Cape Buffalo - and wounded ones have been known to stomp people pretty good. They have huge lungs too.

In B.C. it is illegal to attempt to hunt Bison, armed with anything with less energy than a 7mm Remington magnum shooting a 175 grain has. Such a law was enacted after a few people hunting them became part of earth, in a manner they'd never imagined. I'm sure the thought of joining the "circle of life" looses all appeal when it actually happens.

I've seen them wild up there - and the herds were as spooky as any wild herd of elk on the planet. When they stampede it's a sight too.

Personally, if I were really "hunting" wild Bison, I know I would be carrying one of my 30-06's with a big "penetrating" bullet like a 200 gr Barnes TSX, or a 220 gr Nolser Partition, or my 7mmSTW with either of those makes of bullets in 175 gr - or something bigger. A big, wild, mature bull Wood Bison is bigger than any Moose, and it has a lot more "attitude" when hit - or so I'm told.

I know a lady outfitter (a native) from the Sikanni River country who has shot a mature Bison bull, once a year, since her youth, and takes people on Bison hunts every year - and she has hunting tales that "can make a man's blood run cold" - to paraphrase old Robert Service.

One tale she told, was about a "know-it-all-city-slicker-hunter" who was charged after wounding a big bull with a smaller than optimum caliber - with great laughter she described how the area they picked him out of looked like a "strawberry snow cone", as he'd done so much bleeding - he turned a wide swath of snow red as the bull tried to grind him into protoplasm. It was funny she said because he was relatively unharmed due to the depth of the freshly fallen soft snow - and but for the blood, and the screaming, and the torn clothing, he escaped with only his pride seriously wounded - when a bullet to the brain finally stopped the Buff.

But, I don't know how they hunt them in Nebraska. Perhaps Plains Bison, particularly farm animals, are different.

If, I draw for a Bison in northern BC, before the "natural conservationists" extirpate them as they are doing with other game species in western Canada, I will not mess around. I will use one of my crf .375H&H rifles, loaded with a 300 NP over H-4350 and I will put as many slugs into the varmint as needed to put him on the sod or snow or even ice!

Having seen too many aboriginal expert hunters and the wounded, wasted and suffering game resulting from their depredations, I have NO desire to see a pile of bloody snow or be part of one, I believe in being capable of dealing with my own potential problems in the bush.

If I had my druthers I'd use something like a case-colored octagonal-barrel 45/70... or 45/90... with iron sights (if that was a reasonable setup for the area). It would be fun to at least pretend, and all... :-)

If I were choosing something from my actual collection of rifles it'd be the .338 WM for sure...

I was off skiing one day last winter when a runaway bull showed up on our property. It had run away about a week earlier, and the owner was concerned it was going to hurt somebody or something, and the terrain and vegetation and size of the properties around ours (5-15 acres) made it about impossible for it to be caught, apparantly... anyway, he and a bud showed up with a .270 and killed it cleanly with one shot.

I wish I'd been here. He says he would have let me try out one of my elk loads on it... that would have been cool!

-jeff

If I ever got to hunt Bison, I think I would like to use my 9.3X62 with the 286gr Nosler Partition.

I would have buffalo jerky for a lifetime.

Not if MY kids were around! They are jerky-eatin' MACHINES.

-jeff

I agree with your sentiments Kutenay,

But, this lady shoots her buff every year, often in the dead of winter, on horseback, often far from any roads in an area with a very high grizzly population. She's also quite a photographer, and she showed me the photo's taken with a delayed shutter, of her gutting it, skinning it, boning it out, putting the meat on her pack horses - all alone, in deep snow, in real wilderness - and all by herself.

She told me that one per year, provided her and her kids with something to break the monotony of moose every meal.

I thought to myself - if every native hunter (or white hunter - for that matter) had her work ethic, her wilderness ethic and her self-imposed conservation ethic - our province would be in good hands.

I sure admired her.

Elk are big



But bison are a lot bigger (this on is a wild one from the Jackson Hole Area)



I'd use the biggest thing you got that you shoot well

Never seen a tame bison. Seen them in fences but would not ever call'em tame. Any shot plenty of them and as usual shot placement is the key. I would'nt go less than a 30 caliber and a careful well placed shot.

Just... WOW!

-jeff

I am going to hunt bison and I am going to use my 45-110 with BP and paperpatched bullets. The rifle really WAS a buffalo gun. Why change things at this late date??

I shot my bison in SD on an Indian res. many years ago with a 45-70 using a traditional BP load & a tang sight single shot replica buffalo rifle. The most difficult part was obtaining a clear shot in the herd. Cows with calves are the most dangerous. A 75 year lady shot hers with a 220G.30-06 that she had used to take over 35 elk in Oregon with. Plains Buffalo by nature are not wary animals as reading history of buffalo hunters in the 1860's & later will verify. I wore buffalo hunters attire & used wooden shooting sticks. I shoulder mounted the bison in a display feeding on wild wheat & grass. Bison hunting, if you can call it hunting, is interesting & makes for some good low cholesterol meat.

I've seen em shot with a 25/06, 7 RM, 300 Win, 338, 340 300 Wby and a bow and a 45/70.

They had this in common.

The lung shot critters died in about 3 minutes with a rifle and with the bow it took 13 minutes (and yes I did actually time these).

The ones shot in the neck died right pronto if the neck was broken.

IMO and IME it don't matter tons, take the break the neck and it is over. Hit them in the lungs and then pour yourself a cup of coffee and wait till they tip over.

Dober

You are of course entirley correct. I do have to say that after seeing my rifle body slam a moose, I have a bit of confidence in it.

I killed my last 2 bison with the 7mm-08 and 140 grain TSX. This year I'm going with my 9.3x62 and 250 grain Accubond.

Interestingly, the Montana FWP specifies a bullet of no less than 160 grain be used for the hunts outside YNP. No specific minimum caliber.

Most Bison "hunts" are more like drive-by shootings

When the elk don't cooperate it's either that or "hunting" at Costco.

Hunting? I don't "hunt", I just take my rifle for a hike

Kind of like shooting buffs, you take your rifle for a ride....grins

Dober

and by the way, lets get this right, it is buffalo shooting not hunting (for the most part at least)

Unfortunately I've seen far too many Montana elk, deer, and antelope shot the same way.

No question it happens that way, not normally by design however.

But, you're right it does happen.

Dober

Hey! I resemble that remark!

-jeff

You guys just have too many critters. If you had as many as the rest of us, it wouldn't be a problem! :-)

Wolves should help with that... evil laugh...

-jeff

Thats the shot I took with my 460 loaded with 550gn Woodleigh at a little over 2500fps. Never have I felt so guilty after killing an animal.

It is a personal thing.

AGW

Aussie, far be it from me to pass judgment on where other's draw lines. There are more than a few animals I'd never shoot. That's a personal thing and needs no explanation.

To me a buffalo "hunt" is really a "meat shoot" which is why they should be head shot. Saves meat and puts them down dead asap just like a cow. My Grandad had a slaughter house and as a kid, before it was made illegal, we'd use a Sears single shot 22 to put down cows for slaughter. I see Bison exactly as I see cows and definitely don't see them as a game animal per se.

Aussie and Brad great posts!

The older I get the less I want to end it.

Brad, I won't go any further with it- because it's one of those "third rail" issues among hunters- but there are also a LOT of animals I won't shoot...

Isn't that great how they made the feedlots mandatory?

-jeff

The bison I killed was a wild one, I could have hunted one on a ranch anytime but never felt like it. If I did it would be a meat hunt only.
The hunt in Jackson was a good time But still was not what I would call exciting, the fact that My father and Nephew were with me made the hunt.
I saw over 20 shootable bulls on the day I hunted.
Processing the bull my self was a big part of the hunt to me, my dad, nephew and my son helped, it was a lot of work but worth it.
Believe me I have No guilt over shooting him just a lot of respect for the animal and the native Americans that use stone tools to cut them up.

You did it right gotlost.

gotlost, I should have said "most" buffalo hunts are meat shoots. My bad. Yours is an example of the other sort.

My post about the .25-06 was of course meant to be somewhat humorous--but is also absolutely true.

Hunting bison can indeed take various forms. My friends in Alberta who hunt wood bison that stray outside Wood Buffalo National Park (which straddles the Alberta/NWT border) tend to use the same rifles preferred by Cape buffalo hunters. These are wild bison and sometimes charge seriously. Since much hunting takes place in winter, with the hunter up to his knees in snow, stopping a charge is very necessary, since running ain't an option. The .375 H&H is considered a decent minimum, but some use hunters use .416's or .458's.

I have only shot one bison, an eating-size bull in mid-winter that, as Mark described, took about three minutes to die. The rifle was a .375 H&H with 300-grain Nosler Partitions, and shooting him twice (both times fatally) did not speed things up.

That was a meat shoot, plain and simple. The rancher told me that how long they take to die depends a lot on the season. In winter, apparently, their metaolism slows down so much that it takes longer. In summer they die quicker.

I have seen quite a few other bison shot. The quickest-deadest from a chest shot was a mature cow my wife shot in Texas in warm weather. It was actually an interesting hunt, as the cow was in fairly thick thornbrush, and had shown some aggression when her brother had been killed a few days earlier. Eileen stalked her for 2-3 hours before getting just the right shot, and put a 130-grain Triple Shock from a .270 through both lungs just above the heart. The cow went about 40 yards and keeled over within 20-30 seconds. Live weight was around 900-1000 pounds.

I have also seen bison taken with traditional blackpowder cartridge rifles and they do about as well as anything on heart-lung shots, as long as the bullet has something of a flat point, is heavy enough to penetrate, and is put in the right place.

If I ever do it again I will either use a .25-06 (when slaughtering one for meat) or on a real hunt, something much bigger.

I also once helped field-butcher a cow bison with stone tools, which was actually a lot easier than it sounds--and was a lot more efficient than many of the "modern" field jobs I've seen.

From what little knowledge I have of stone tools, I have heard that a good flintknapper can get an edge much sharper than is possible with steel. A professor I had for an archaeology class spoke of a flintknapper from Idaho who had to have open heart surgery and talked the surgeon into using a flint blade because it was sharper than a scalpel and the scar would heal better.

Anyway, sorry to get off topic, but I do have a real question. I've noticed you guys mostly consider Bison hunting to be a meat hunt, which I understand. My question is where are the few places one can hunt a truly wild, free ranging bison?

Wyoming for sure, I believe Utah and Ak has some and sounds like Canada has some..

Brian
"They have huge lungs too."



Sorry, but for their size I think they have tiny lungs.
art

Several free-roaming herds in AK including the Delta, Chitna and Farewell Burn herds.

Wow, they make those Chevettes powerful up there in Alaska...never saw one pulling a horse trailer and haulin out a buffalo down here ;~))

Very interesting info gents.

George Frison and George Ziemens, two archaeologists I know, along with Bison Pete (Gardner), the Bison rancher who I also know, wouldn't of happened to have been there too, would they?

Utah has two herds. The herd on Antelope Island is kinda of a wild herd. Antelope Island is a large island in the Great Salt Lake. About 21-25 miles in length and several miles across. The buffalo have free access to the entire island.

There are many mountain bikers, horse riders, hikers using the trails, that the buffalo don't worry much about humans. So even though they are free roaming, I would not consider them much of challenge to hunt. As they do not run away and hide from humans. In fact once a year they are herded into a large pen, vacinations are given and the animals are sorted. Usually 300 animals are sorted out and sold at an auction. Lots of bison ranchers like to buy animals from the island to broaden their gene pool in the ranch herds.

The other herd is the Henry Mountain herd. These are truely wild buffalo. They are very hard to hunt and will challenge an experienced hunter. They will disappear if they wind you, let alone see you. It is very rough and remote country.


It's common when I ride horses on antelope Island to ride close to the herd. The cows will circle up and march toward the horses. The big bulls usually just ignor you unless you get to close in which case they often charge.

I think Bison have a lot in common with Rough Grouse. After going out in some places that hadn't been hunted for a long time, I amazed another hunter as I shot one grouse after another as they sat on the ground - his comment "And they call them the wily Rough Grouse?!"

We went back a few weeks later, and the tire tracks and the shell cases showed they had in fact, been hunted in the interim. This time, they spooked at a twig braking, and were taking off when we were 50 yards away, his new comment was "NOW, I see why they call them the wily Rough Grouse!!!"

I toured Antelope Island - and those Bison are as tame as any cow, or the numerous Bison I took pictures of in Yellowstone.

Canada's Wood Bison (and the Plains-Wood crosses in B.C.) are truly WILD!

If they smell you - and a herd can do that when you are still many hundred yards away, or see you, or hear you, they WILL stampede away into the thick stuff - and your hunt is over. They are as wily and wild as any Whitetail or any Elk.

The difference?

These Bison I speak of - never see a man - unless he's hunting them. They understand, like the heavily hunted grouse, that man is bad news, and that they'd best be moving out if they want to survive.

To equate Bison that see people on a regular basis, with wild Bison, is to equate farmed Fallow Deer with Whitetail deer that live in areas where they are heavily hunted.

In short - there is NO comparison.

Want to HUNT Bison?

Come to Canada.

Here's a couple of nice Yellowstone bulls I photographed:

I never heard of that law, is it just in Montana? We still have a cold storage in our family. I worked there for several years, and many more hunting seasons, and they still use .22lrs to slaughter cattle, sheep, and hogs. I did used to break out a .22mag once in a while when I dropped a bison -- I'm not sure if I had to, but I just did. It makes it easier for the taxidermist that way. From 10' to 30' right between the eyes and a few inches up I never saw one that didn't die instantly.

My dad also used to raise buffalo years ago (well Bison Pete who I mentioned earlier in this thread did, but on our land). We'd feed the retired bulls then drive back along them while they ate and let the "hunter" drop one from 50 yards or less. They got to bring their own rifles, but my dad was always laying across the hood with an 06 trained on their head just in case. IIRC I don't think he ever had to use it for back up. I always thought it was funny when the hunters would put on their safari suits get a photo, their mountain man suit and black powder rifle, get a photo, and their camo and fluorescent orange for another photo, all while my uncle would be sitting over there with his winch truck waiting to haul the carcass back to the cold storage.