The Accurate Reloading Forums THE ACCURATE RELOADING.COM FORUMS Hunting African Big Game Hunting Buffalo are more difficult to kill than elephant, thereforeGo | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
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Many hunters including some well known authors and elephant hunters (like Nyschens, Everett, Manners etc) have said a elephant is easy to kill, either brain shot up close, through the big heart and they go 50-100 yds, or anchored through the hip, but buffalo are more difficult to stop, including in a charge; therefore, you should use a bigger bore / powerful gun for buffal. What's the view of the jury? | ||
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Bullshit! Hit them in the right place, and they will die. Hit them in the wrong place, and you will have a hell of a job on your hands. Applies to everything on four legs. Difference is that some might hurt you, and some might not. And this applies regardless of caliber, as long as one has some commonsense to use what he can handle well. | |||
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Buffalo at 20 yards broadside. Find the elbow slide the crosshairs up about 3" and blow a big hole thru his heart. He ran 30 yards and piled up dead. (my second buff) Im with saeed on this one. Well placed shot easy tracking job. Poorly placed shot oh crap. I have walked in the foot prints of the elephant, listened to lion roar and met the buffalo on his turf. I shall never be the same. | |||
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Saeed has my vote. Big bores blah blah can't compare to the scalpel precision if a little ole scoped 375. The exception to the rule would be in close quarters were one would not want the hindrance of a scope. One can have precision from a beaded sight especially when I consider my full choke shotgun at 20 yards. I no longer shoot a spray of pellets at birds flying but rather take cleanly off the head only of ducks and geese. If I can do this with my little flying birds I suspect hitting the spine or brain of a large Buffalo at 10 paces would and should be very easy if your able to keep your head calm? There seems to be some talk of Buffalo with collapsed lungs being able to breath, pure rubbish. | |||
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 Anything new to talk about here? | |||
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I would have agreed with Saeed prior to my last buff. On my last buff, I made a number of shots right through the vitals and the damn thing just would not die. It was shocking to me. This bull's vitals were in tatters yet he kept trying to get up. I have shot a hell of a lot of buff and I have never seen anything like this. By the way, part of the lungs were blown out onto the ground at the initial shot and he still went quite a distance . It had been 8 months and the memory is fading but I think he went at least a half mile .the overwhelming majority of other buff I have shot went less than 50 yards but this one....... | |||
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I've only killed two buff. One died fairly easily. One shot about 1/3 up the body centered on the front leg bone. Ran off about 30-40 yds and gave his death bellow. The second took 3 shots. After the 3rd shot, he gave a bellow and then charged. He died after going only about 10 yds without any more necessary shooting. Still, if you read enough accounts of buff hunts, you will find accounts (by recognized authors) of buff that simply refused to die, even though everything important has been turned to mush. The prevalent theory is that if a buff gets up a load of Adrenalin, it can keep on coming, unless you physically break down its bone structures (i.e. spine shot, both front shoulders, etc). BH63 Hunting buff is better than sex! | |||
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The reason you hear so much more about buffalo being bullet sponges is that orders of magnitude more are shot than elephant, and by and large, more experienced shooters are hunting the elephhant. Look, the only thing that will stop a charge now is a CNS shot. The elephant is a much better protected CNS than a buffalo, Hemingway, Ruark and Capstick's writings to the contrary. If you can get that bullet into the CNS, you stopped the charge, if it is shot elsewhere, you are waiting for a number of other factors to end the animal. While I do believe that if all else is equal, the bigger bullet is somewhat more effective, let's face it, the bigger round is not as easy to place well, and actually in a charge, using too much gun might cause you to not be able to follow up a shot as quickly as you need to, so the opposite can be said as well. The fact is, both animals are routinely killed by the 7.62x39 round, just not very humanely. Use what you want... | |||
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Tatters or not the only thing that will stop a Cape buffalo in his tracks is a solid hit in the central nervous system. ~ ie brain or spine! A hole through a lung, or even both lungs, if low, will allow a buffalo to go some distance before he is down for the count. If that lung vital shot is made during a charge the distance he can stay on his feet is certainly an important thing to the guy trying to stop him,or someone in his party I'd think! .................................................................  ....Mac >>>===(x)===> MacD37, ...and DUGABOY1 DRSS Charter member "If I die today, I've had a life well spent, for I've been to see the Elephant, and smelled the smoke of Africa!"~ME 1982 Hands of Old Elmer Keith  | |||
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That is probably the reason why the .500 Nitro is considered to be the ideal caliber for a DR to handle such situations.  | |||
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I have not shot either but have never read of a CRITICALLY wounded elephant charging someone! Yes I have heard of head shot elephant recovering because the bullet missed the brain. That is not a critical injury. I have never heard of a heart shot elephant going more than 50 or 100 meters. Most seem to drop much sooner. I have read of many instances over the last 100+ years of critically wounded buffalo charging. Seen photos of a solid thorough the heart (photo after autopsy) and the buffalo is still running or charging. How do you explain that? "When the wind stops....start rowing. When the wind starts, get the sail up quick." | |||
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Hunters are much more careful when taking a shot at an ele compared to a buffalo.They get closer and do not attempt certain shots. | |||
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Buffablo, like other game animals, require lung and heart function to live. A well placed shot that takes out the heart or BOTH lungs will put'em in the dirt and fairly quickly. Taking out only one lung, and you got serious problems and you're off to the races. Single lung shots make buffalo appear bullet proof. Frontal shots are common presentations for buffalo, and a misplaced frontal shot that is off the midline - left or right - and takes out only one lung will cause serious recovery problems, possibly a lost buffalo. Buffalo can live a long time on one lung. I know because this happened to me twice, one buffalo was recovered and one was lost. Be very careful with and sure of your frontal shots, they must be right down the center into the heart or into the CNS. With frontal shots there is not much room for error. | |||
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Lost a few buff to this shot. ROYAL KAFUE LTD Email - kafueroyal@gmail.com Tel/Whatsapp (00260) 975315144 Instagram - kafueroyal | |||
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Usually after a solid hit on the 1st shot, a significant other's anthill pirouette will give them cardiac arrest. | |||
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Enjoyed the discussion... It s great when the big "guns" get fired up! I agree hitting the right spot of course is critical but I believe there is a lot to be said either for a higher velocity 375 like Saeed's based on a 404 or in my case those I have based on Gibbs 505 cartridge .. Blows big holes. I also love my scoped Gibbs .505 for all round Africa hunting but for a buffalo charge I ll take my .577 NE. | |||
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Lost various game to this shot - period! The frontal heart shot is tricky because the "lower 1/3 rule" is not valid any more as the paunch hangs down. The heart is actually located just below the mouth for most animals when facing front on. I think most people tend to shoot too low when taking this shot - resulting in low lung or gut shot animals.
"When the wind stops....start rowing. When the wind starts, get the sail up quick." | |||
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I have figured out how to improve the angle for this shot - assume the prone position immediately in front of the animal, and wait until he is less than 10 feet away.  Seriously, shot placement will always trump caliber selection, rifle selection, bullet choice etc. If you put it in the right place, he will go down for good. Miss that spot, and chances for Bad Things go up. Master of Boats, Slayer of Beasts, Charmer of the fair sex, ...... and sometimes changer of the diaper..... | |||
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That's just vomitus talk..... 470NE it should read! | |||
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"Wait until he turns" was the remark the late/great Ian Gibson told me on hearing of a hunter in camp that lost his Buff. | |||
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I have been hunting buffalo for many years. My PH used to say "wait for him to give you a good angle". One of the last hunts I did with him was when we followed a herd all day, then we caught up with then feeding across an opening. As we came up from a dry river bed, he put the shooting sticks up. As I lined up on the sticks, I said "they are a bit far" He said "Yes, too far for buffalo" I fired a shot at the bull we were after, and could hear the shot connect. He took off and disappeared from our view. We ran after him, and as we got there he was lying dead. We measured the distance, and it was about 270 yards. I think the bullet cut his aorta. | |||
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Lost a few buff to this shot.[/Q I have a buff you won't believe. I took a frontal shot. Knocked him flat. Blood everywhere . Caught up to him 18.5 GPS miles later. Last time I do that. | |||
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Take a broadside shot mid-height right behind it's front leg, like anything else from mice to elephant, and a buff will go down. It's piss poor shooting that make wounded buff so tuff. ------------------------------- Will / Once you've been amongst them, there is no such thing as too much gun. --------------------------------------- and, God Bless John Wayne. NRA Benefactor, GOA, NAGR _________________________ "Elephant and Elephant Guns" $99 shipped. “Hunting Africa's Dangerous Game" $20 shipped. red.dirt.elephant@gmail.com _________________________ If anything be of note, let it be he was once an elephant hunter, hoping to wind up where elephant hunters go. | |||
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I have hunted buffalo with what seemed big hearts and lungs and ones with what seemed like they had neither a brain nor a heart , the same for elephant , I have seen picture perfect brain shots deflect or break up , wither shots deflect and cut the heart in 2 ; heart shots drop an elephant like a brain shot , brain shot elephants run 20 miles . That's why we love hunting and wildlife . | |||
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Yeah, they all die when shot right but on average I would say that buff are a bit harder to kill "quickly" than elephant or rhino from what I have seen; not including brain or spine shots. | |||
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Well now there is the difference in comparison. Many elephant are brained....... at least it is the shot most elephant hunters would like to pull off successfully. I see many attempts on video and for those that do not hit the mark, follow up shots put them or keep them down for the most part on the videos. The heart/lung shots are never fast on video and you would not expect them to be. With buff how many do you see trying for brains shots........... uh, just about none. I have not seen one, other than Mark on his follow up videos.  Buff hunters are always aiming for the shoulder/hear/lung area. So, given the difference, how many do you think are going to go down quick in comparison to ele. Have to only compare ele heart/lung with buff............ then you have to factor in that ele hunters are always using non-expanding bullets, while most buff hunters are going to be using a good expanding bullet for the first shot...... like an A-frame or a TSX, etc. Oh ya....... not long ago I got called onto the carpet for referring to the non-expanding bullets as solids. No that can only apply to mono-metal bullets, not full metal jacket, blunt nosed bullets with lead or other cores. Or steel jacket with lead or other cores. People are getting so anal it pisses me off. Traditional nomenclature should be what it is and we can all easily understand what others are talking about............... but I digress. When comparing buff and ele we have to make sure the shot placement and what is used are the comparators. ______________________________________________ The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who are bereft of that gift. | |||
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Having bowhunted (not buffalo), I try to aim for the exit hole, although with buffalo it's not likely to exit with softs. What I try to envision is the upper half of the heart and plumbing immediately above the heart. With one exception, I don't care about the entrance hole. That exception is an animal quartering away and showing his left side. Don't take that shot if you have to go too far behind the shoulder as you will have to go through the rumen, and you won't make it. I've lucked out and pulled it off once, but the bullet barely made it to where it needed to be and if the bull had been quartering slightly harder, I'd have had a problem. I learned my lesson. Quartering right side, you are good to go. Very well might hit the liver though, which will not make you popular with your staff. I like frontals and especially frontal quartering. Same deal. Shoot for the top of the heart. It's worked well for me. Now I botched the first shot once and it wasn't pretty, but that's on me. | |||
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Very limited experience on elephant. On my only elephant, I missed a quartering away side brain. He went down front legs first. Heart/lung follow ups kept him anchored, but not the way I'd have scripted it. | |||
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Damn. That was a tough animal... | |||
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Good advice  | |||
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BTW liver shots take out major arteries and bleed like a heart shot - if centered. Deer & such die very quickly. Not sure if they are as effective on buffalo. "When the wind stops....start rowing. When the wind starts, get the sail up quick." | |||
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Again liver can be very tough follow up, besides it makes meat pretty gamey Just like any other organ and also depends on bullet expansion " Until the day breaks and the nights shadows flee away " Big ivory for my pillow and 2.5% of Neanderthal DNA flowing thru my veins. When I'm ready to go, pack a bag of gunpowder up my ass and strike a fire to my pecker, until I squeal like a boar. Yours truly , Milan The Boarkiller - World according to Milan PS I have big boar on my floor...but it ain't dead, just scared to move... Man should be happy and in good humor until the day he dies... Only fools hope to live forever “ Hávamál” | |||
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A PH I know, who is also a bowhunter, said that best shot for a bowhunter on a buff, is the white "armpit" of the animal as it steps forward with the near side front leg. Even heavy draw bows with super sharp arrow points sometimes fail to penetrate an old buffalo's rib cage. I think killing a buff with an arrow is more a gimmick than anything else, since the bowhunter always has a heavy rifle as backup if things go south. A properly placed arrow with a perfect shot can kill anything give enough time. PCH once killed a buff with a spear, but it is not a sane, recommended way of killing DG imo. BH63 Hunting buff is better than sex! | |||
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Still if you read the words of hunters that have killed thousands of buff, they will almost always say that most buffalo, when hit properly, die much like any other large animal, but occasionally there will be the animal that just refuses to die for some reason or another, even when hit repeatedly in the right spots with the rifle bullet/cartridge combination. BH63 Hunting buff is better than sex! | |||
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Hunting buff is better than sex! | |||
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I have very limited experience in this buff vs ele comparison but never the less here is what I have to share. I'm from Finland so I don't know all the words of English and this fact made things a bit confusing when I was first time taking aim at the buffalo. My PH whispered in my ear to shoot it on the shoulder. Shoulder ?? What. No way. He must mean behind the shoulder. We were at distance of 80 yards of a buff and I did what I have done at least hundred times here at home with moose. We meat hunters always try avoid not to destroy animals shoulder plate instead always aim for the lungs behind shoulder. Just simply to save as much meat as possible. And without thinking, this is what I did with my buffalo. I used 410 gr Woodleigth soft nose in my .416 Rigby and I was very pleased with the shot placement when suddenly PH starts yelling to shoot again. I could not understand why because the buff acted just like a moose after good lungshot. It ran away without any additional jumping or limping which are in my experience a sign of a bad hit. We had our moment of listening my PH explaining to us that he have seen buffalos still living three years in the herd after the shot I just took. Finally after ten minutes lecture we started to follow up and found beautiful lung blood on the spoor and the buff was found dead within 250 yards. I got to hear that I was very lucky with my shooting. My PH said that this "moose shooting style" aka one shot through lungs is something you just don't do on DG hunt. Not with the buffalos. And especially not with the elephants if I ever get the chance to hunt one. He said that the only thing that puts ele down at the spot is brain shot . Lung shoot them and you follow them for miles. Or if I still prefer to hunt African dangerous game same style we hunt moose in Scandinavia, then use something like Four Bore. Couple years later I was in Zim again, this time after bull elephant. I had .375 with 300 gr solid in chamber for that frontal brain shot. However it turned out that I had to take the shot just like I had done with the buffalo earlier. Broadside at 60 yards. At this point once again my PH said to me something that did not make any sense. "Aim just behind that crease". With my limited English I only knew word grease and I could not understand what the fu...ing head fat his talking about. I'm not going to try side brain shot with iron sights from this distance. So I aimed for the place I use to aim. Lungs, a bit low behind the shoulder. And I was very amazed when I saw that huge animal drop instantly. No steps taken. And this with small .375 solid that went straight through hart which lies just under that crease formed between the rib and the front leg. So I missed the perfect lungshot after all, but my PH was happy that I did what he had told me to do. Afterwards I got to learn difference between words crease and grease when we made temple meat bbq sticks made of ele's head fat. So in my opinion based on this huge experience I have of hunting big game in Africa, is that it looks like elephant dies quicker after hart-lung shot than buffalo. | |||
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Lahtari, That is a great story! well told and humorous. I am pretty deaf a sometimes don't hear the PH like I should. It makes for some interesting moments, for sure. Unlike most buffalo hunter and PH's, I like a solid with a wide flat meplat (front) for the first bullet. That way I know that I can get the bullet into the heart. In my limited of experience of two buffalo it has worked perfectly. (I know all the reasons why folk like to use a soft for the first shot. It comes from Ph's who got sick of tracking the "other buffalo".) Anyway, Lahtari Thanks for the good story! Brian PS. I get a lecture from my PH once in a while too. Usuall from shooting to slow. I can tell he is a bit frustrated with my "old-mad" style of doing things. His Afrikaans accent becomes slow and sing-songy. His granchildren giggle when I tell them about it back at camp. "Well boys" I say, "I had a nice little talk with Oepa in the veld this morning. He sounded like this..." IHMSA BC Provincial Champion and Perfect 40 Score, Unlimited Category, AAA Class. | |||
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They can die like a milk cow in a pasture and make you wonder what all the fuss is about. Or not. | |||
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The Accurate Reloading Forums THE ACCURATE RELOADING.COM FORUMS Hunting African Big Game Hunting Buffalo are more difficult to kill than elephant, therefore
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