I am leaving next Monday for a trophy ellie and Nyati hunt in Zim. I have been shooting several times a week for the last two months or so. Ever since I picked up one of these awesome buffalo targets from Sable Trail, my 500 NE has gotten quite a workout.


This weekend I was shooting and wanted to experiment with the effects of brush and trees on the 500 NE solids, as far as deflection is concerned. I have never hunted Zimbabwe this early in the year and I am sure the full foliage and thick green everywhere will make visibility much more difficult than the times I have hunted there before. Understand that this was not a very scientific experiment but to me the results were still interesting.

I set up with the target 15 yards from the small tree I planned on shooting through and then set myself up 10 yards on the opposite side of the tree. In the photo below I was standinf to the far right of the picture.

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How many times have you seen a buffalo in a situation like this?

I shot two solids through the largest of the smallish trees in the clump. I tried to center up the shots on the tree as closely as I could, as I am sure a bullet going through the outside edge of the tree would have much more deflection.



As you can see one of the bullets went through the main tree and then another smallish branch about a foot behind it.


The results suprised me. Boths solids struck the target very close to where they were intended. Both shots were in vital areas of Mojas buffalo. It was hard to pick an exact amiming spot through the thick brush. I have often wondered how effective those, through the bush, followup shots are as an ellie or buffalo is running off through the thick stuff. The two holes with the 500 NE cartridge cases sticking out of them are the impacts.


Hope some of yall find this info interesting, I did.

Did you try any of the tree? I don't think they have too many parasites

quote:

Originally posted by silkibex:
Did you try any of the tree? I don't think they have too many parasites

I think it wood.......

In fact there a theory they're the root cause of the infections........ but I reckon whoever came up with that one must be barking mad!

Cool experiment. Just curious, did you try any softs?

CTJ

Carlos,

I did not try softs this day, however; if you look closely at the first pic of the buffalo with the double leaning aginstit, look inside the buffs left, horn curl, the one above the shoulder...you will see two holes the one on the left appears larger....this is 458 Lott soft that hit brush. There is a hole below the buffs nose completely off his body that is covered with tape, this is a 458 Lott soft that hit brush. The hole on the right that has one of my 500 NE cases sticking out of it is large and oblong partially covered with tape is also a 458 Lott that appeared to go through the target sideways after being shot through a 6" dia tree and the target was @ 20 yds past the tree. Lastly the hole in the buffs belly near his sheath that is covered with tape is another 458 Lott soft shot through the same 6" dia tree right after the one that hit the vitals sideways, serious deflection. The 458 is my dads shooting and he did not hace any solids. I have not shot any 500 NE softs through the brush to see if the same results show up.

What happened to teh one that near hit him in the dink?

silwane

You had the advantage over me when I was preparing for a buff hunt back in '92. I wanted to visit my Bronx Zoo in NY to inspect a buff for "aiming points". They didn't have any and, in fact, practically no zoo in America had one (I did hear vaguely that there was one in a Florida zoo). MY PH told me very tersely " "Break bones". Im glad to see that you picked the shoulder for an aiming point. (One shot from a 375 solid discouraged my buff that I got to register in the SCI Record book. Good luck to you. You are on the right track.

Thats pretty neat!!! Did ya try ricocheting one off a rock so you wouldn't have to shoot through the tree?