Professional Hunter Owain Lewis killed on safari in Zimbabwe

RRCo. said:
Sounds like if you can't pierce the armour of this African bush tank, you're best to blow his tracks off.

Not very sporting, whatever "sporting" may mean in the context of putting bullets through an unsuspecting animal, but not even adrenalin will help if you're missing your knee joints.

This is good in theory, however the 4' high grass and schrubs usually conceal their propulsion members. If they are already moving and in the clear the head and shoulders are a much larger target and much less movement. If they are in the clear and standing then a lethal shot is much more deirable to breaking a leg.
I can assure you that a Cape buff runs faster on 3 legs than on 4 and given this fact I must assume they can fly on 2 so I wouldn't chance it.

Of the dangerous game I've taken I would say the buffalo and leopard are the two most likely to attempt revenge once perforated, yet the elephant and hippo are most likely to retreat once wounded. However they are the most likely to launch a full blown deadly charge for no good reason, other than they don't like your looks. Where the buffalo and leopard will GENERALLY retreat "poste haste" if encountered and not fired upon.
Elephant are exceptionally aggressive, and are becoming more so every year. They are the true king of the bush and they fully know it, nothing messes with the elephants except the odd dumb sportsman from afar. To my thinking and in my experience the elephant is the most outwardly dangerous animal on the planet. They will come and pick a fight with you, where the buff will not as a rule.
However once you do decide to go pick a fight with a buff it will only end with a single conclusion, death, one way or the other and the odds are not nearly as stacked in favor of the frail little thing with the bang stick as they are with most other animals, as is bourne out by the OP in this case.
The other aspect of the elephant which I find very disconcerting, is they tend to run over and check you out as a group, unlike buffalo where they seem to be more of an "every man for himself" animal and you are usually dealing with a single animal that YOU selected to do battle with, while the rest of the herd thunders off over the nearest hill.
Those who have never hunted Cape buff can not even imagine the feeling of placing a perfect shot on the shoulder of a buff at 60 yds, watching the bullet go through and make a puff of dust on the hillside, and then watch him turn around, with no idication of the hit what-so-ever and walk back into the scrub bush as though he just changed his mind. This identical shot would have bang/flopped any NA animal including bison and he didn't even indicate a hit! There IS a reason they are called dangerous game.

Douglas

If I ever get diagnosed with terminal cancer I'm going to book a buffalo hunt and I'm going to borrow the money to do it !!!
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Ardent said:
Cape Buffalo, among some other African game, have two chambers to their lungs (quite apart from lung lobes), and are even known to fully recover form lung hits on occasion, and peculiarly often with Buffalo (reference Ganyana, of African Hunter).
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Any links online ? First time I've heard that. I've heard of the "overlapping" ribs story before. :D
 
I don't know who these people are, but they are playing with half of one lung. Then there's Ganyana. I'll let you figure out who he is by yourself, but lets just say he'd done more killing than most armies. That will get you started.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMpxE_HcWWo


http://www.shakariconnection.com/bullet-wounds.html
 
tokguy said:
One word...Valhalla.
I'd rather die painfully while living than a lingering death in bed.
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"Either the lion or the tiger is a trophy to boast of in Little Valhalla - not the main hall where the souls of heroes dwell". from Shikar and Safari.
 
A very interesting article from John Barsness

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/newsletters/April_2009.html

And some relevant quotes:

Today the big problem with killing Cape buffalo is that many safari hunters are plain scared of them. This, of course, is part of the thrill of hunting dangerous game, but as one African professional hunter pointed out, being too scared isn't good either:
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"They come to Africa with this big rifle they've only shot a couple of times, and we go hunting. It may take a few days of hiking and stalking to get up on a good bull, and by that the client may just want to get it over with. He's huffing and scared and aims at the whole bloody buffalo, and hits the bull somewhere around the edges. This might not seem possible at 50 yards with an animal that has lungs as big as a bushel basket, but it happens all the time. Then the firing becomes general and after several shots from the client and the PH the buffalo is finally dead. And client goes back to America and starts another round of buffalo-are-impossible-to-kill stories, and the cycle starts all over again."
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Buffalo are tough but not really all that hard to kill. In fact I know more than one African PH who's killed many of them with a .30-06 or something similar, even big bulls, legal when doing "control" shooting, whether of animals damaging crops or just thinning herds in parks. My friend Kevin Thomas has killed quite a few with a .30-06 and 180-grain Nosler Partitions, a load that some American hunters think is on the light side for elk, and Kevin had no problems.
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Dogleg said:
I don't know who these people are, but they are playing with half of one lung.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMpxE_HcWWo
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I'm guessing that's a bison lung, not Cape Buffalo. ;) Pretty thick American accents on those students.
FWIW, a beef cow lung will look the same, they're all bovines.

Cape buffalo are tougher and more aggressive than most in their family, but I've seen Bison soak up lead that would knock a VW on its roof, they just tend to not be nearly as aggressive.
 
bearkilr said:
I'm guessing that's a bison lung, not Cape Buffalo. ;) Pretty thick American accents on those students.
FWIW, a beef cow lung will look the same, they're all bovines.

Cape buffalo are tougher and more aggressive than most in their family, but I've seen Bison soak up lead that would knock a VW on its roof, they just tend to not be nearly as aggressive.
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I just put that video in for fun, did you read the article?
 
Dogleg said:
I just put that video in for fun, did you read the article?
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Yes I did. Seems the author blames bullet construction(round nose solid vs. expanding) on a buffalo's tenacity to survive, not some specially shaped or constructed organs. I would assume the same could be attributed to many species, not just African game. It is just a bovine, albeit a very aggressive one which perhaps possesses higher amounts of adrenaline.
 
1899 said:
Buffalo are tough but not really all that hard to kill. In fact I know more than one African PH who's killed many of them with a .30-06 or something similar, even big bulls, legal when doing "control" shooting, whether of animals damaging crops or just thinning herds in parks. My friend Kevin Thomas has killed quite a few with a .30-06 and 180-grain Nosler Partitions, a load that some American hunters think is on the light side for elk, and Kevin had no problems.
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There is, of course, a world of difference between hunting and culling -- and a hunted buffalo is not the same as a culled buffalo. The former is often stalked and spooked, stalked some more, spooked some more, and generally brought to a state of attention mingled with irritation as it makes its way through increasingly dense cover -- by the time that first shot is fired, the buff is both aware of the hunter and in possession of certain terrain advantages. And almost without exception, that shot is taken from close range where things start happening very, very quickly as that first muzzle blast echoes through the bush.

By contrast, culling operations typically involve longer shooting, jacklighting at night, and resting the rifle over the rear view mirror of the truck. This isn't my description, but rather a general representation of how it was described to me by the handful of African PH's I've met who've done serious culling work.

I completely agree that a .30 cal bullet in the lungs is going to kill a buff quite dead. Eventually. From the safety of a vehicle, there would be no reason to use anything bigger, especially when shooting a buff that's oblivious to what's going on. But as for stalking through the jesse, bumping an old dagga boy at 30 yards, and having to take a quick shot and be ready for whatever happens... Well, everyone's entitled to their opinion. Personally, I think it's madness to be *hunting* any species of dangerous game with a rifle that's insufficient to drop it RFN with a shot directed at the CNS while the animal is bearing down on you in a direct line. I do more hunting with the 30-06 than with all other calibers combined, but I have absolutely no illusions about the odds of it quickly stopping a head on charge from a buff. And while that's actually quite a rare situation to be in if you're hunting sensibly, it's still the one you have to be prepared for.

Admittedly, my own experience in this regard is quite limited. But having put a 300 grain A-Frame from a .375 H&H through the front of one lung, through the major blood vessels along the top of the heart, and through the back of the other lung ... only to have Mr. Buffalo take off ... well, that made quite an impression. Despite that and a second shot that also connected, it was still standing and getting along just fine when we caught up with it 20 minutes later. Was it a dead buffalo at that point? My guess is yes. But it still had plenty of gas and was quite capable of ruining anyone's day.

As it stands, I do think that the .375 is a great rifle for buff. But I don't think that's what I'd choose if hunting alone and without a PH to back me up. Dogleg's got it right, I think, with his growing affinity for buff rifles that start with the numbers 458.

Well, that's my 2 cents...
 
Neo said:
As it stands, I do think that the .375 is a great rifle for buff. But I don't think that's what I'd choose if hunting alone and without a PH to back me up. Dogleg's got it right, I think, with his growing affinity for buff rifles that start with the numbers 458.

Well, that's my 2 cents...
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Well, Kevin Thomas has written several books and I believe has shot over 500 Cape Buffalo. He uses a .375 H&H to back his clients up on Buffalo. That is good enough for me. In fact, when the day comes that I do a Cape Buffalo hunt, I will probably take a 9.3x62.

I really believe that many hunters are simply "psyched out" by these animals.
 
1899 said:
Well, Kevin Thomas has written several books and I believe has shot over 500 Cape Buffalo. He uses a .375 H&H to back his clients up on Buffalo. That is good enough for me. In fact, when the day comes that I do a Cape Buffalo hunt, I will probably take a 9.3x62.

I really believe that many hunters are simply "psyched out" by these animals.
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Let us know what you think afterwards. Meeting Mbogo in the tall grass is not something you will easily forget, particularly if you understand what he is. The first thing to do is imagine grass that can hide elephants.

Tanzania54.jpg



We had that pleasure and it was like nothing else I have ever done. We were in the middle of the herd, buffalo were only a few feet from us, yet other than a patch of hide or a glint of sun off a horn, we never saw them. We could hear them grunt, and we could smell them, we just couldn't see them. When they had had enough of us and began to run, the earth shook. Exhilarating doesn't begin to describe it. That evening we followed up a herd in heavy cover. The light was failing, but we could hear grunting and trees being flattened, along with the sound of pounding hooves, but again saw nothing. Unlike the earlier episode which was exhilarating, this was frightening. If you hunt the African buffalo and come away feeling like there wasn't much too it, you've been cheated.

The great thing about the 9.3 and the .375 is that they are tame (enough) to shoot, so the hunter who is competent with his .300 Winchester at home can shoot well on all manner of game (hunting Africa is never a single species hunt) and not be intimidated by his "big" rifle. If however he opts for a hot loaded .416 Rigby, a large case .458, or a .500 of some description, and has not taken the time to master it, he might get skunked. If the rifle hurts you, you simply can't make yourself shoot it well. But for the fellow who is competent with a big bore, the big bore is the correct answer for buffalo.
 
Dogleg said:
Legal in Zim.
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I think he was being sarcastic!

Edit - But in case he wasn't - Mozambique, some areas of South Africa (I think) and in Namibia the .338 Win Mag with 250gr @ 2700 would be ok too (4000 ft-lb minimum).
 
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