Attached are a few photos of the Hippo i took in September. What i find unbelievable is that the bullet did not enter the brain cavity, despite a pretty good shot.

I was shooting my 470NE with open sights at 75yrds. This bull was quartering away when i took the shot. He went down, but soon came up thrashing and porpoising like crazy. Needless to say i did not spare the lead at that point. It wasn't long before he was done for good.

The bullet was a 500gr Woodleigh SOFT. I had asked the PH if is should shoot a solid and he said no, the soft is more than adequate. Put it this way, next time i will shoot solids for any head shot on a hippo.

I was instructed to use solids on mine and that's what I used. Nice hippo.

Woodleigh soft points are definitely on the softer side of soft. And a .470 is definitely on the lower side of high velocity. Probably not a great combo for a hippo head shot at 75 yards.

OTOH, I have used Barnes TSXs on hippo head shots (at much higher velocity than a .470 can generate, and at much closer than 75 yards) with no problems.

Still, can't go wrong with a solid.

Indeed nice Hippo but if the first shot was the one visible below the ear and he was quartering away then the brain would be missed.

Between the ear and eye is a broad side brain shot.

Any pictures of the bullet?

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
Indeed nice Hippo but if the first shot was the one visible below the ear and he was quartering away then the brain would be missed.

Between the ear and eye is a broad side brain shot.

Any pictures of the bullet?

Looks like the bullet went below and behind the brain. Without seeing the bullet, it's hard to tell if it was a bullet failure to perform or just a missed shot.

Bryce,

As I remember it and the picture shows the hippo died after a short gun battle so all turned out fine. You got your hippo with an open sighted double and that was the object.

As for solids on hippo maybe it would have helped in your case. I don't know but a soft is what the Luangwa boys use on brain shots and I promise you they've work very well in my experience.

Mark

Small target for sure
With the info offered, a missed brain shot.
Nice Hippo and sounds like you got to warm up
the barrels on the 470, Perfect !

No bullet was recovered to my knowledge. And yes, it all turned out very well. I was just expecting to see a giant hole in that skull when it came back and was surprised with what i saw.

I would say it is a bit of an annomally, and i am not suggesting bullet failure, just more of a conversation piece really.....

Woodleighs are soft bullets but it still should have worked.

Quartering away...that shot should have worked. But from looking at the missing bone on the skull and the entrance...it looks like he was straight lateral or slightly quartering towards.

From what you describe, you probably clipped one of the neck spinal bones, which would also explain the pristine skull.

Alternatively, you got the wrong skull, which happened to me with my hippo. (I shot mine with a .416 through the eye from a side view, the skull has a hole right between the eyes, as if shot from in front. Saw the right skull in camp, wrong skull on delivery.)

Depends on the angle, but to my eye if the bull was quartering just so, looks like this could have been a perfectly good brain shot to me.

Had the bullet penetrated, of course.

quote:

Originally posted by 376 steyr:
Woodleighs are soft bullets but it still should have worked.

They are now producing the "heavy duty" range (certainly in the 375RNS anyway) which is good new for those after tough heavy Game or with higher velocitys .

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
Quartering away...that shot should have worked. But from looking at the missing bone on the skull and the entrance...it looks like he was straight lateral or slightly quartering towards.

The height of the riverbank where I presume the shot was taken would effect the angle.

I find it difficult to see how this could have happened.

Hippo on a side brain are very easy to kill, years ago 1985 I actually shot a big bull at about 10 yards with a 243.

Either a soft or solid in a 470 is plenty of rifle to make a head shot on Hippo, had to have been a bad batch of ammo, or slighty off correct placement, or wrong skull.

To me it looks like the brain would have just been missed if that shot was taken from above the animal. (I am making a few assumptions here, which may not be valid, so please forgive me if that is wrong). I had a similar incident with a rouge bull that a farmer wanted me to shoot. The shot was almost front on from about 50 yards, but having not really studied a bull's skull, I aimed a little too low, and although he went down in a heap, he got up again a few seconds later. My second shot finished him off for good. That is the problem with brain shots, the brain is a small target and if you miss, there is nothing else nearby that will be quickly fatal, unless you are lucky to hit the spine, which is also a small area. I assume with a 470 that your shot was with open sights, so at 75 yards that is a good shot, but just a fraction below where it should have been if you were shooting from above.

I have always use either Barnes X or our own Walterhog bullets, and they all worked fine.

Guessing from looking at the photo, if the hypo was quartering away, that shot was too far forward.

Regardless of the bullet performance, that is one heck of a shot with a .470 at 75 yards. I don't know that I'd try that with my .470. I shot mine with my .458 Lott at about 25 yards with a Barnes solid. Tell you what, that made the brain and turned out the lights, like right now!

Great Hippo good story and a great shot. You can be proud of that one.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bwanna:
Regardless of the bullet performance, that is one heck of a shot with a .470 at 75 yards.
QUOTE]

+1 to that good grief. Congratulations.

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Bryce,

As I remember it and the picture shows the hippo died after a short gun battle so all turned out fine. You got your hippo with an open sighted double and that was the object.

As for solids on hippo maybe it would have helped in your case. I don't know but a soft is what the Luangwa boys use on brain shots and I promise you they've work very well in my experience.

Mark

Mark I've shot some hippo on the Luangwa River and I never used anything but solids, and was never recommended to use a soft bullet, in fact the recommendation was for solids all the way. Softs were recommended for buffalo however. Like you I don't think I would attempt a head shot at 75 yds with a 470NE double on a hippo, especially if he was in the water.

Nearly all were complete pass through on head shots and under off side hide on body shots. Judging from what I've seen, I would never use a soft on a head shot on hippo if I had a choice!

Of course that was some time back, but I have trouble thinking the hippo have become more fragile over time.

The shot placement on the hippo in this article would not have hit the brain even with a solid IMO! Of course I was not there and am going only by what I see in these pictures.

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With regards to bullet choice.

Perhaps the intention was to have a frontal brain shot. The brain from the front has very little protection and is an obvious target sitting in the "triangle" on the forehead.

That said I would still have gone with the solid as it would have the benefit of massive internal damage should the brain be missed on a frontal shot.

If the PH was afraid of over penetration and the possibility of shooting into groups then that may also have influenced his decision.

Anyway, nice hippo all the same. And as has been said many times over no matter what the caliber, shot placement is all that matters.

I should have mentioned that the angle was from a fairly steep bank above the river, but the distance to target made the incline a lot less significant.

The bull was only quartering away slightly, its was much closer to a broadside shot than a straight away shot.

All that said, the bullet probably did enter a little lower than it should have.

I have awesome video of the shot and i will post it as soon as i can. Unfortunately, by brother, the video guy is a little slow on the editing end of things.

I think this is my skull. Muchinga was very maticulate with their trophy control and shipping procedure.

We waited about an hour to pick this bull out and take the shot.

Mac

I knew you or someone would pipe up on the soft point question for hippo brain shots. I'm sure your right that some PH's recommend solids. My statement was made based on the 8 PH's I've been in camp with on the Luangwa who all recommend softs for hippo brain shots. These guys collectively have shot hundreds of hippos with their clients over the last 30 odd years. I personally have shot 4 hippos on the Luangwa. 3 hippos were taken with softs and 1 with a solid. The only difference as far as the hippo was concerned was that the solid made two holes in the skull as opposed to one with the soft.

Mark

Sometimes, even with perfect or near perfect placement a bullet can do something strange.

Even if the bullet functions perfectly, it can be sometimes just slightly defected, or theanimal might move just as the trigger is pressed.

I have had the latter happen on 2 Zebras, and we never saw them move with the naked eye as the shot was being fired. Only on the video could you see the animals move before the bullet struck them. With out the videos we would have been stumped as to how the bullets hit where they did.

Bassically it boils down to "Sometimes "stuff" happens".

Hey, I just keep it simple. I used my .375/.284 XP 100 and brained mine at 120 yds. Found the bullet about halfway through him. The 260 gr. Barnes worked great.
http://s1104.beta.photobucket....ia/P6220045.jpg.html
http://s1104.beta.photobucket....ia/P6220051.jpg.html
http://s1104.beta.photobucket....ia/P6250054.jpg.html

It just amazes me as to how massive the head bone is on a hippo. The jaw bones are incredible.

quote:

Originally posted by Bwanna:
Regardless of the bullet performance, that is one heck of a shot with a .470 at 75 yards.

Hear, hear. That was the first thing that went thru my brain!

I had the same problem when i shot mine with the 404. that angle from the back and the result are mirror image, when i got a second side shot the bullet entered the brian and job done

No point doing a CSI Africa

Nothing will be achieved

You got your trophy

It was a good shot

You enjoyed it

End of story

Now do the same with hippo on land 10 yards away

Interesting I made an almost an identical side shot into the brain of a hippo with a 375 HH using 270 grain core lock Remington's at about 60 to 70 yards got great penetration instant kill and the bullet went in about 12 to 14 inches. hard to believe a 470 preformed so poorly

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Mac

I knew you or someone would pipe up on the soft point question for hippo brain shots. I'm sure your right that some PH's recommend solids.

Mark

Mark, as I said that was some time back, a lot closer to when all PHs reccomended solids for any of the big three and Hippo. Actually it surprised me when my first PH recommended a soft for buffalo, and I only had five cartridges for my double rifle loaded with softs, and all the rest with old Hornady solids.

My light rifle was a scoped FN Mauser 375 H&H and I even had about ten rounds for that with the old Barnes super solids so I used that to shoot my Hippo which I had planned to use for hippo anyway, but mostly for all the planes game, hence all the Nosler Partitions for the 375H&H.

With the new soft point bullets available today, I suppose they may be better for things like hippo, but in my case I would still use something like the North Fork CPS copper expanding solids, rather than a core and cup solids even today!

I guess it is all a matter of personal choice as Londohunter says below!

quote:

Originally posted by londonhunter:
No point doing a CSI Africa

Nothing will be achieved

You got your trophy

It was a good shot

You enjoyed it

End of story

Now do the same with hippo on land 10 yards away

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