The Bushbuck is one of my favorite animals to hunt. On my first safari, I actually had three opportunities to take a bushbuck before I finally connected. This video shows my first encounter with a bushbuck, in which I missed the shot. I had two more chances after this one, but both times I was unable to see the elusive animal in the thick brush in which it lives.
The next bullet I tried was the Berger VLD. All loads used Winchester cases, Federal 215 primers and RL25. All cartridges were loaded to a C.O.L of 2.955 inches. Starting at 60 grains of powder, I had the following results:
60 gr – 3058, 3086, 3065. Group size was 1.2 inches
61 gr – 3072, 3108, 3100. Group size was 1.6 inches
61.5 gr – 3115, 3100, 3100. Group size was .7 inches
62 gr – 3137, 3167, 3182. Group size was 2 inches
62.5 gr – 3205, 3197, 3159. Group size was 1 inch
63 gr – 3220, 3236, 3220. Group size was 2 inches
At 63 gr, pressure once again became an issue, so I stopped there.
With the Berger not delivering the accuracy or velocity I was looking for, I tried the 140 gr Sierra Gameking with the same components.
61 gr – 3145, 3167, 3155. Group size 1 inch.
62 gr – 3267, 3292, 3308. Group size .8 inches.
63 gr – 3300, 3333, 3333. Group size 1.5 inches.
At 63 grains, the last round blew primer.
With a coues deer hunt scheduled in Mexico, I loaded up a batch of the 140 gr Gamekings with 62 grains of powder and headed south.
On the fourth day of the trip, I found a nice 3X3. After missing him at 315 yards, I finally sealed the deal, hitting him not once, not twice, but three times at 435 yards. How that little deer took all those shots is beyond me. Even at that range, the damage done by that soft of a bullet was significant. All three bullets passed through with large exit wounds. There wasn’t much left of the cape…
Tags: 6.5 WSM
Out of all of the different calibers of rifles I’ve owned, the various 6.5′s have always held the most interest for me. Especially fast 6.5′s. The various 130-140 grain bullets available in this caliber have always struck me as having the the perfect combination; high B.C. and high Sectional Density, enough weight to kill deer sized game effectively, yet light enough that you can launch them really fast without punishing recoil.
When Winchester introduced the 300 WSM in 2001, my first thought was that the case would make a great platform for a 6.5 wildcat. Like many ideas I have for projects, this one stayed on the back burner for several years. In 2004, I finally took the plunge and decided to build something. The basis for the rifle was a stainless MRC1999 action to which was added a 24 inch stainless Lilja barrel with a 1:8 twist. The barreled action was then sent to Lone Wolf Riflestocks to have one of their Kevlar and carbon fiber Summit stocks fitted to it. When we got it back, entire action and barrel was Duracoated in black and a Leupold 4.5-14X LPS was installed.
With the rifle built, it was time to put some ammo together. Using Lee dies, I ran a bag of Winchester 270 WSM brass through the resizing die and trimmed them for length and neck turned them. With the brass prepped, it was time to start experimenting with powder. I had already decided that the Barnes 130 gr TSX was the bullet I wanted to use. My hope was that I could come up with a load that would launch this bullet at close to 3400 fps.
I started with H4831 and RL22 in my initial loads. Using 270 WSM load data, I backed off the minimum charge by a few grains, then loaded up three rounds at each .5 gr increment. Much to my surprise, I found that my starting loads showed considerable pressure signs. Back to the drawing board.
I took the rifle back to my smith and had him bore out the throat to allow me to seat the bullets out as far as the magazine would allow. With some additional case capacity, I decided to try a slower powder, RL25.
The next weekend found me at the range to try again.
My starting load consisted of:
Winchester 270 WSM Brass, trimmed to 2.095 inches and neck turned
62.5 grains of RL25
130 gr Barnes TSX
Federal 215 Primer.
C.O.L – 3.172 inches
My first three shots grouped about an inch. The chronograph gave me the following velocity readings: 3384, 3427, 3401.
It was the velocity I hoped for, but I could tell by looking at the brass that I was at higher pressure than I wanted to be. With an antelope hunt only a couple of weeks away, I loaded twenty-five more rounds, backing the powder charge back half a grain and sighted in. It was off to Montana to see how it performed in the field.
On the second day of our hunt, I spotted a nice buck on the side of a bluff with a herd of does. The rangefinder said 385 yards and the wind was still. Taking a solid prone rest over my pack, I centered the crosshairs a few inches below his back and squeezed off a round. A fraction of a second after the boom of the rifle, I heard the smack of a bullet hitting meat. He dropped in his tracks.
While the load was doing what I wanted it to do, I went back to the drawing board with two goals: find a lower pressure load and do it with a softer bullet that would perform at the greatly reduced velocity between 300 and 500 yards.
On my 2006 safari, we were given permission to hunt in the Fimbiri camp at Lemco. As the sun was setting, we came over the top of a ridge and spotted this kudu. I only had a couple of seconds to decide whether or not to take the shot. George made up my mind for me when he shoved me out of the truck with orders to “shoot that kudu!” I didn’t have time to wait for Tyge to get setup on the camera and the sun angle was terrible. I did manage to make a pretty good offhand shot on him as he stopped to look back at us.
Most of us learn how to hunt and fish from our fathers. As children, our fathers are bigger than life. When I was little, I knew my dad was the best outdoorsman in the world. He knew everything there was to know about guns, tree stands, calling ducks, catching walleyes and gutting deer.
In one of my earliest memories, my dad and I are walking by the National Guard tent at the county fair on a crisp August night. To get people to stop, they have an airgun range with moving targets set up. “Hey Doc, let’s see how you can shoot!” one of the soldiers calls out as we walk by. “I’m not joining the Guard,” my dad responds. “I’m too old.” This resulted in laughs all around. I have no idea who these men in camouflage uniforms are, but it’s obvious my dad does. Soon they’re needling him for free medical advice, information on where the walleyes are biting and what his plans are for deer season. As I listen to the conversations of men, I finally can’t contain myself. “Dad, shoot the gun!” I whisper as I tug on his hand.
One of the soldiers hands my dad the air rifle and says with a smile, “This is the end the bullet comes out of.” This gets a round of laughs from everyone around. As the target moves down the track, he shoulders the rifle and there is a light pop as he squeezes the trigger. When the target is returned, there is a small hole through the bullseye. “Lucky shot,” the soldier says putting the target back on the track. “Let’s see you do that again.” Three more times the target goes back and forth in front of us. Each time, there is a small pop as the gun goes off. When the target is returned, all of the shots are in a tight cluster in the center. “That’s the best shooting we’ve seen all night,” the soldier comments as my dad hands him the rifle. Of course it is, I think to myself. My dad is the best shot in the world!
As I got older, I started accompanying my dad and older brothers on hunting trips. We hunted waterfowl in North Dakota and Manitoba, Pheasants in South Dakota and deer in our home state of Minnesota. He taught me everything he knew about calling ducks, driving a slough for pheasants, training dogs and finding the best place to put a deer stand. As I got older, my hunting interests started expanding beyond my father’s. We always subscribed to Outdoor Life, Minnesota Sportsman and Field and Stream. I read each of these magazines from cover to cover soaking up every bit of information I could.
For the past twenty years, my family has made an annual trip to northern Minnesota for the opener of the firearms deer season. While we’ve never had much luck finding trophy animals on the land we hunt, the deer are plentiful. In the years when I was starting out my professional career and my brothers were in medical school or residency, deer opener was one of the few “guy weekends” we spent together.
As my brothers started their own families and I found myself more and more focused on my career, I realized that the time we spent hunting together was some of the best family time we had and we needed to start doing more of it. Five years ago, I met a rancher in SE Montana who has some prime hunting land on the Little Powder River. We soon developed a friendship and an annual trip or two to hunt deer and antelope have become part of my normal hunting season. Three years ago, I asked him if he would mind if I brought my dad with me to hunt. He didn’t have any objections, so the following year my dad and I put in for antelope licenses.
To get ready for the trip, I bought him a new bolt-action rifle and binoculars. I carefully developed loads for the rifle and sighted it in at 250 yards. After all these years, this was going to be my chance to teach my father a new way to hunt, as he had never hunted big game outside of the Minnesota woods and always from a stand.
October found us with a twelve-hour drive in front of us and gave us a good chance to get caught up. Over the past few years, we haven’t had a lot of one on one time with each other. While Dad’s in his seventies, he’s always been young for his age. He’s in great health and very active, but listening to him talk about life and the world, it was clear that his perspective on things had changed. In some ways he was more opinionated, in others more reflective. His pride in “his boys” and what they had accomplished was very clear, but there was also a twinge of his own mortality in his words. For the first time, I realized that the number of days I have to hunt with my dad is fixed, and one day I’ll use the last one.
On our first day of hunting we slept in, still a little tired from the long drive the day before. We grabbed an ample breakfast of eggs, pancakes, bacon and thick, black coffee at the local truck stop then drove out to the ranch. Within minutes, we spotted our first herd of antelope. “Do you see one you like?” I asked as we glassed the herd of about twenty animals. A lone buck looked back at us from the group of does. My dad said that he thought the buck looked good, but after looking at him some more, I thought we could do better. Besides, it was a warm, sunny fall day and I wasn’t ready for his hunt to be over so soon.
As we drove the ranch roads, we stopped and glassed several more herds. All of the herds had one or two bucks in them and all of them were about the same size. My dad has never been much of a trophy hunter, so he was getting a little frustrated with me for not letting him shoot one of them. “I think we should go back and shoot that first buck,” he said as we sat on the tailgate of my truck eating our lunch.
When we returned to the spot where we had seen the first buck, we found that the herd had moved further back into a series of draws. “That’s good,” I said. “It’ll be easier to sneak up on them.” Using the contours of the land for cover, we were soon within about 200 yards of the herd. “We can’t get any closer. You’re going to have to shoot from here,” I told him as I pulled out my rangefinder. “They’re smaller than deer and a lot closer than they look. Hold dead-on for his heart.”
As I watched through my binoculars, he squeezed off the first shot. The buck’s head snapped to attention and he stared right at us as in ones and twos, the does started running up the draw. Another shot rang out. This time I saw dust fly on the hillside far behind the buck. At the shot, he took off with the rest of the herd for parts unknown.
“I think you shot over him. I know you didn’t hit him,” I said as I watched the antelope go over the crest of the hill. “No biggie, there are a lot more.”
As we walked back to the truck, we discussed the shot. In all the years we’ve hunted together, I can only think of a one or two times where my dad had missed a deer. We both decided that it was just because he wasn’t used to shooting at antelope and wasn’t used to shooting his new rifle yet.
Over the next few hours, the scene replayed itself several times. Each time, I would get us into place within what I had thought was easy shooting distance, which would be followed by one or two misses. The sun was starting to set when we pulled into the last section of the ranch we hadn’t hunted yet. As we came over the crest of a hill, we spotted a lone antelope on top of the next ridge. A quick glance through the binoculars showed that he was a mature buck. Normally, I would have just set up for the shot from where we were stopped. But given the difficulties we’d had earlier in the day, I wanted get us as close as possible.
The plan was simple. This was the opening day of the season and this antelope probably hadn’t been shot at yet. Trucks are a common sight to the animals and at this point in the year, I didn’t think that he would see the truck as a threat. “Dad, I’m going to drive right up to that antelope. When I get about a hundred yards from him, I’m going to turn the truck broadside to him and stop. Then, you get out and shoot him.”
The plan worked like a charm. I drove straight at him until we were a hundred yards away, then turned the truck broadside and cut the engine. Dad got out, leaned over the hood and squeezed off a round at the curious antelope. At the shot, he turned and walked over the crest of the hill.
It took a couple of seconds for me to realize that he had missed again. Filled with a combination of frustration and disbelief, I jumped out of the truck and motioned for him to follow me as I started jogging up the side of the hill.
Reaching the top of the hill, we quickly spotted the buck in a small wash at the bottom of the hill. “That’s him,” I said pointing. Dad extended the legs on the bipod on his rifle and took aim. The rifle went off, shattering the silence of the evening. At the shot, the antelope looked up at us, but didn’t move. Another shot, and still the antelope stood staring up at us.
“That’s it,” I thought to myself. “We’ve spooked every antelope on the ranch and still haven’t killed anything. I’m going to go back to the truck, get my rifle, and shot the S.O.B. myself.” As I turned to start back to the truck, I saw the antelope slowly walking away from us. I was about half way back when another shot rang out, this one followed by a loud slap of a bullet hitting meat. “Finally,” I yelled out and looked up to the sky for a quick moment of thanks.
When I got back over to my dad, I saw the antelope laying dead a long way from the wash. “You got him,” I said with a big smile on my face. “Yeah, I finally just aimed right for his heart and it dropped him.” “Where had you been aiming before?” I asked, puzzled. “Well, they looked like they were so far away so I’ve been holding over the top of them. I guess they’re really not that far away.”
Pulling out my rangefinder, I did a quick check on the distance. “That antelope is 315 yards from this spot. Now do you believe me that you can hold dead-on out to 300 yards?”
We walked down the hill in the fading light, the sun painting the landscape in pastel hues of orange and pink. As we admired the fallen antelope, the smell of sage and goat filled our nostrils. “He’s a good one?” dad asks, as he runs his hands over his horns. “Yeah, he’s a good one,” I reply with a smile. “One I’ll never forget.”
I like to kill. That’s not something most people will admit to. But I’m a hunter and that’s what hunters do. We hunt and kill animals. It’s that simple. I love the sound of a bullet hitting meat. I love the warm, sticky feeling of fresh blood on my hands. I like cutting meat and turning it into food.
In the core of my being, nothing (except maybe sex) feels more natural. Instinctually I know it’s one of the things that I’m meant to do. It feels far more natural to hunt (and kill) than it does to sit in endless meetings or spend hours in front of a computer. Trying to explain that to someone who’s never hunted is difficult.
In our increasingly urban society, with school shootings and gang violence a part of the everyday news, hunters feel the need to play down the essential violence of our sport. “I just like getting outdoors” or “I really do it to hang out with my buddies” are explanations I’ve heard many hunters sheepishly give non-hunters when questioned about our sport. Worse yet is “It’s just an excuse to get out and drink beer with the guys.” We use terms like “harvest” and “take” instead of kill to describe what we do. We play down the essential act, the essential consummation, of our sport.
I realize that everyone hunts for a different reason. Maybe for some it really is just an excuse to get out of the house or spend some time with friends. Honestly, I don’t really care what a person’s reasons are for going afield, but by definition hunting involves killing. If killing something isn’t a possibility when you go out, then you’re not hunting. You’re hiking or wildlife viewing, both of which are noble endeavors in and of themselves, but they’re not hunting.
I have a great respect for the animals I hunt. I do everything in my power to ensure that my kills are as quick and painless as possible. Unfortunately, sometimes they’re not. In nature (and I’m a part of nature) death is not always painless or quick. When I make a kill, I sometimes feel a sense of sadness at turning a beautiful animal into meat. But in the end, that’s the way every living thing ends up. Whether it’s by my bullet or arrow, or disease, starvation, injury or old age, everything eventually dies. It’s the cycle of life and our species has been a part of it for at least the past 30,000 years. I can’t comprehend how people can say that humans hunting and killing is unnatural. It’s unnatural for us not to do so. We’re just another of many predators that inhabit this planet.
Our sport continues to come under increasing pressure from many well meaning, but uniformed people. When questioned by these people, if we act embarrassed by our actions we’re sending the wrong message. Hunting is our birthright and we shouldn’t be embarrassed by enjoying it. Personally, I’m proud to admit that I like to kill.
“We’re going to sit in the blind from 3PM until 6AM.’ Sitting silently in chair for fifteen hours wasn’t exactly what I had imagined when I booked a Leopard hunt with PH George Hallamore of HHK Safaris for July 2006. My mind went back to the flight I’d taken six days earlier starting in Minneapolis and ending in Bulawayo. The leg between Atlanta and Johannesburg had lasted fourteen hours and I’d barely made it through that. At least on the flight I could get up and walk around from time to time, sleep or watch a movie. If the leopard waited until morning to show, or worse yet didn’t show at all, the time in the blind would make the flight seem like a short trip to the store.
For my hunt, I chose the Lemco Conservancy in Southeastern Zimbabwe. Lemco encompasses approximately 700,000 acres and is home to over 35 game species including all of the Big 5. Hunters can stay in any one of seven permanent camps that offer first class accommodations and excellent food. For this hunt, I was based out of the Ripple Creek camp on the northwestern corner of the concession.
Formerly a cattle ranch, Lemco has become one of the best areas in southern Zimbabwe for plains game as well as buffalo. But what Lemco is best known for is its big leopards. Since this was my first safari, I wanted to hunt an area with quality plains game that would give me a good shot at taking leopard. After talking to George, I felt confident that if we worked hard I would come home not only with a good bag of plains game, but also big leopard.
Accompanying me on my trip was videographer Tyge Floyd of Fulldraw Outdoor Media. Tyge has filmed numerous African safaris and is an accomplished bowhunter. On top of that, I can’t think of a better guy to share a camp with. He was often the first to spot game and was always willing to help out hanging baits.
Upon our arrival in Bulawayo, the first thing I noticed was that my gun case was not in the baggage claim area. When we cleared customs, the second thing I noticed was that George was nowhere to be seen. No guns and no PH. The sick feeling in my stomach was just starting to turn into a burn when George showed up a few minutes later. It turns out he had been given the wrong arrival time for our flight and actually thought he was getting there early. We quickly filed a claim with the airline for my rifles (which showed up at camp three days later) and set off on the four-hour drive to camp.
The first night, we stayed at the Nengo camp with George’s father Lou. His clients were just wrapping up their safari and had taken great trophies including buffalo, leopard, sable and kudu. The next morning, Lou and I were the first ones at the breakfast table. As I sipped my coffee, he reassured me that things would start going more smoothly once we got into camp and gave me a couple good points of advice. Specifically, he recommended that I shoot two zebras for bait as soon as possible; so that once we had cats feeding we’d be able to switch the bait from impala to zebra immediately. “If you can get a leopard feeding on zebra, you’ll kill him. Once they start feeding on zebra, they keep coming back. Then it’s just a matter of being in the blind at the right time.”
After dropping our luggage at camp, we immediately set out to start gathering baits. George lent me a 375 H&H that has been in his family for many years. His father had used it for culling buffalo and he had used it as his primary back-up rifle for the first half of his career. Looking at the stock of the rifle, its checkering worn smooth and bluing complete worn away, I couldn’t help but wonder what stories that rifle could tell.
Over the next few days, we worked ourselves into a routine of collecting, setting and checking baits. Following the advice I was given earlier, I shot two zebras the first day, and ended up shooting 10 impalas for bait. Whenever we would find a good spot, we’d hang one of the impala’s from a tree with a steel cable, then cover the animal with brush to keep the birds off of it. The ground below the bait would be cleared down to the dirt so that any tracks left under it would be visible. To finish off the set up, one of the trackers would make a drag, using the guts from the impala soaked in what George affectionately referred to as “juice.” Whenever we would shoot an animal, the trackers would put the blood, stomach contents and intestines into a 40 gallon plastic barrel strapped to the back of the truck. This particular barrel had been on the back of the truck for over a month. As the concoction fermented, the trackers would collect the scary looking black liquid that formed in the bottom of the barrel and use it as a scent lure, splashing it on the drags and the bushes around the bait sites. The smell coming from that barrel was one of those things that needs to be experienced to truly be appreciated…
By the end of the fourth day we had seven baits up, two of which had already been hit by female leopards. We had also taken a great waterbuck and eland. Our daily run to check baits entailed over 80 km of driving. That afternoon we received a tip that day that one of the game scouts had seen a large leopard near the boundary fence separating Ripple Creek from the rest of the concession. As we drove along the fence we came to a dip in a brushy area and George stopped the truck. Everybody was tired and nobody except George made an effort to get out. He walked into the brush about 20 yards and stopped, staring intently at the ground. As we got out to see what he was looking at, we all noticed that the trail was covered with huge leopard tracks. This one trail had more tracks on it than we had seen on the rest of the concession!
“He must have a kill nearby,” George said. “We won’t go and look for it, as I don’t want to disturb him. Let’s get one of those impalas up and get out of here.” We quickly hung the bait and cleared an area for the blind, anticipating that the cat would feed that night.
When we arrived the next day there were claw marks on the tree and a small amount of the impala had been eaten. We hung a quarter of zebra, attached a timer to it and set up a rheostat-controlled light.
As the trackers set up the blind, Tyge, George and I prepared our gear and got ready to sit for the evening. That evening was fairly uneventful until a swarm of bees flew in one of the windows, forcing us to make a hasty retreat out the back door. After the bees decided there was nothing in the blind they wanted, we settled back in. That evening, we saw a troop of baboons and large herds of wildebeest and impalas, but no leopard. At 8:30, we decided to call it quits and headed back to camp for some dinner.
When we arrived at the bait the next morning it was obvious the leopard had been back as he had fed heavily on the zebra. When we checked the timer, it was stopped at 3:15 AM. It was at this point that George informed us that we would be spending the entire night, if necessary, in the blind. After surveying the area, we also noticed that the leopard had walked within about 10 yards of the blind. “I don’t know if he knows the blind is there or not, but we’re going to move it anyway,” George said. “I think he just may have been running the civets and honey badgers off the bait, but better safe than sorry.” After selecting another site for the blind about thirty yards further back, we reset everything and then headed out to check the rest of the baits.
We arrived at the new blind location a little after 3PM, anticipating a very long sit. The first couple of hours went fast as there was enough light to read, but once the sun went down, there was nothing to do except sit in the dark, try to keep warm and listen to the crickets. The night was very calm and aside from the crickets and occasional snort from the wildebeest and impalas, dead silent. At about 7:15, I realized that I shouldn’t have drunk so much water. With legs already stiff from sitting for four hours, I tried to stand to use one of the bottles the trackers had provided to us in case nature called. I almost fell through the side of the blind as I staggered to my knees. I could see George shaking his head at the amount of noise I was making. Once relieved, I zipped my jacket up against the cold and settled back into my chair for what I thought was going to be a very long night.
At 8:00, I was startled by the sound of claws on the bait tree. “Get ready, he’s in the tree,” George whispered. Heart racing, I eased the safety forward and peered through the scope. Looking through the scope, all I could see was black. I took a deep breath and whispered “Ready.” As George turned up the rheostat on the light, I slowly saw the leopard appear dead center in my crosshairs. It’s hard to describe what I felt as the huge, golden cat suddenly seemed to appear out nowhere in my scope. After all the planning and hard work we’d done baiting, I found it really hard to believe that he was actually there. The leopard was stretched out on the branch, quartering slightly away from us. He had pulled the zebra quarter up on the branch and was already feeding. As George whispered, “Shoot” I squeezed the trigger and sent a 168gr. Barnes TSX just behind his shoulder. The shot flipped him out of the tree and we heard him hit the ground. For several minutes following the shot, we could hear him rolling around on the ground and growling. Knowing how fast a wounded leopard can charge and how much damage he can inflict, it was a little unnerving to sit there and listen to him.
After having a nerve claming cigarette, we started back to the truck to get the shotgun, spotlight and trackers. We hadn’t walked more than a hundred yards when we ran into them, already carrying everything we’d need to follow up on the leopard. As we slowly inched up to the bait tree, we spotted him lying on his side directly under the bait. To my surprise, he was still alive. When the spotlight hit him, he weakly raised his head and growled at us. “Shoot him again,” George instructed me. A second shot through the chest finished him.
As we approached him, everyone was excited. My hands shook as I stroked his fur. For the trackers, it meant no more hanging baits, pulling drags and getting their hands covered in “juice.” Leopard hunting is never a sure thing, and I know George was happy to have this part of the trip concluded successfully early on. Tyge got excellent footage of the shot and I got the trophy of a lifetime. Everyone was smiling and shaking hands as we took pictures and loaded the cat on to the truck. As we drove back to camp with the trackers singing loudly, I realized that while this was my first safari, it would definitely not be my last.
Notes: While the leopard was the primary animal I hunted, I actually took eighteen trophy animals during the fourteen days I hunted at Ripple creek. This far exceeded my expectations. While I’m not an experienced African hunter, I felt the overall quality of the trophies I took was excellent. In addition to the leopard, which we measured 16.5″, some of the better trophies I took included a 54.5″ kudu, 32″ waterbuck and a huge bushpig. For a first time hunter looking for plains game, I can’t imagine a better place to start than Lemco.
My primary rifle on this trip was a Territorial Gunsmiths TGL Personal Rifle in .300 Winchester, topped with a 2.5-10 Swarovski PH. Handloads of 168 grain Barnes TSX bullets at 3200 fps completed the package. With its very good light gathering ability and a German #4 reticle, the scope worked very well for low light shooting. Bullet performance was also very good, with all but two shots completely passing through their targets.
Originally Published in African Sporting Gazette 14.1
Tags: hhk safaris, lemco, leopard hunting, zimbabwe
