For all the expereinced guys ?
Where did you shoot the croc brain neck or heart ? If you look at Kevin Robertsons, book The Perfect Shot it almost looks for me that the neck is a bigger target than the brain.

What are your thoughts ?
Obviously you want to disable the croc asap so brain or neck would do it but what is the better one ? And how big really is a the brain of a 12 foot croc comapred to the neck vertebrae ?

Having shot one big lizard I took out the brain at 110 yds. with a 375H&H 300gr TSX..
The brain is not much bigger then a golf ball..
The vertebrae is larger but it it more what he gives you to shoot at...Stealth and no mevement is very important...
The head on my croc was 24 inches across..He died of a fractured skull..A 14 to 16 inch crack in his head...

Mike

Former King of the Ruaha River..R2 Selous





here's a hot link...

http://picasaweb.google.com/retreever/TanzTest/photo#4964445458058575890

http://picasaweb.google.com/retreever/TanzTest/photo#4964445482183491602

Yep I've got only red X's. Would love to see the pic's!

Allen

Right click on the red and then click properties and then drag arcoss and copy address and then paste it into where you would normaly open an internet site. Here are the two of them

http://lh3.google.com/image/retreever/ROVA12JiABI/AAAAA...c0szfo/DSC02000.JPG?

http://lh6.google.com/image/retreever/ROVA3QBXABI/AAAAA...02006.JPG?imgmax=512

doesn't work either

I shot mine in all three places named and he was moving 16 hours later in the skinning shed! Once his heart was cut out, all the movement stopped, however.

UEG,

What was your first shot on the croc and did it disable him ?

i brained mine with a 375. then quickly took a 2nd shot behind the smile. I think the brain shot is a more sure thing than is the spine, because of the concussion. In my case I blew the top of the head off. a heart shot is not good, once the guy gets in the water he's going to sink and then you get to wade around trying to find him. In retrospect I think if i was to do it again and had my choice I'd use something a lot lighter than a 375 so as not to do so much damage to the mount. on a croc the skin is attached right to the skull bone so the repair job gets a bit more work for the taxidermist. We shot him on a island and had a 10' boat to get accross the river with. There was a dam about half mile down river that would make it easy to unload the croc, only thing was the PH & tracker and croc were in the boat when he sort of came back to life again. Still kicking hours latter. The blacks insisted on burning the carcas because of evil spirits. What a stench that made

Safari-Hunt

I was fortunate to be able to get almost directly above my croc and I shot him down through the brain. I've looked at quite a few basking crocs and I think the spine shot seems much more difficult to me. I agree with Butch that a smaller caliber or solids might be the way to go. The 250 TBBC from my 338 destroyed one eye socket and put a 2" crater in the top of the head. As for the croc hunt itself it is one of my most memorable African hunts. Once they had the 13" 7" croc in the 14 foot boat the beast opened its eye and looked right at me. I think my comment was "Holy s---!" It really gave me a start. After that as we headed back to camp in the little boat with the croc on board the big lizard decided to start flapping its tail. Very unconfortable! A crocodile provides a totally amazing experience that I recommend to everyone. The croc is a real challenge as they are very switched on, are not easily approached at all and the shot needs tobe precise.

Mark

Mark, So even though the neck is a bigger target you think the brain shot is the best. What if a 9.3 is used big slow bullet shouldnt damage that much should it ?

Thanks all for the info so far !

the other thing is that i believe the brain is more identifiable than the smile shot, especially if you have anything other than a right angle shot

Ok so that settles it the brain shot seems to be the best option. Hopefully I will be able to post result sometime later this year.

I really would love to end up with a whole skull meaning not with a big hole of some sorts. But well see.

A heavy "soft point" bullet is the way forward for a brain shot on croc. Reason being that if you are slightly off with point of aim you still fracture the skull and very often drive shards of bone into the vital areas. A .375 or 300 magnum shooting conventional softs like Swift A-frame or TBBC is best.

Crocodile skulls are very brittle. They shatter into pieces when hit.

Two of the crocs I have shot were hit in the throat. They both went into the water, but were unable to stay down for long. Both came up to the shore, and a second shot anchored them.

The rest of the crocs I have shot have been either head or neck shot. None have moved from where they were lying.

One croc was still moving hours after he was skinned! And that one was hit in the head, and his skull broke into pieces.

The rest of them seem to have died very quickly.