THis what a buffalo heart looks like after being hit with a 300 grain Walterhog bullet.

Any guesses of why it is shreaded to pieces?

Did Walter have something to do with it?

Fred

Saeed,
At the beginning of systole when the ventricles are full of blood and beginning to contact, it would be more prone to rupture under tension from the hydraulic shock of an entering bullet or bone fragments.

Can you tell if only the bullet hit the heart or were any secondary missles involved?

Could entrance and exit wounds be found for a bullet, or any nose fragments from the bullet?

Did the bullet exit the buffalo or tumble and dump all its energy in or near the heart?

What tissues did the bullet pass through before it hit the heart? Any big bone or just hide, ribs, muscle and lung?

That heart is well exploded!

Did he "drop right there?" Did he move from the spot where he was standing?

Saeed,

Besides RIP's observation about the systolisis of the heart;

This wound would be consistant to a military FMJ spitzer that turns over 180 degrees and does not fragment at the cannelure.

(An old 172 grain 7.62 mm Nato Match bullet for instance).

Or 375 caliber Walter Hog?

I would guess your buffalo was shot side-on and the bullet exited?

What does a heart shot buffalo normally looke like with your 375 x 404 and a Barnes X?

(I would think a >2 inch diameter hole like a large bore solid would produce?)

Andy

I would concur with RIP.

Saeed,

You sure ruined a nice lunchtime meal! On a trip to Zim in '98, I killed my first buffalo in the Omay district. My PH cut up the heart into bite sized pieces and sauteed them in butter with garlic and onion. The renderings made a nice gravy for the meat...
Very tasty, my mouth is starting to water right now! With the exception of the oxtail soup I had in TZN last year, the heart is the only other part of the buffalo I thought was really good

Bull1

Saeed, I think it was shot long ways in the arse (texas heart shot) with no exit. I do not understand what Rip said.If so was the bullet recovered?

Rug,
Diastole is the phase of the heart between beats when the main pumping chambers are relaxing and passively filling up with blood.

Heart beat: systole pumps the blood out, and diastole fills the heart back up, thus two phases of each heart beat ... lub-dub-pause ... lub-dub-pause ... lub-dub-pause ...

The atrial kick comes in at the beginning of systole and finishes topping off the tanks of the ventricles. The right and left atria are the weaker chambers sitting above the right and left ventricles. The atrium serves to fill the ventricle below it.

The ventricles are the shredded thing in Saeed's picture, the lower main pumping chambers of the heart, right and left. The right one pumps blood to the lungs to be oxygenated, and the left ventricle pumps oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.

Anyway, at the beginning of systole, after the atrial kick, the ventricles are topped off and begin to contract, slamming shut the tricuspid and mitral valves, and begin to build pressure to squeeze the blood out along its way.

If the bullet struck at this point, the heart would be like a tensed muscular bag full of blood and more likely to "pop like a balloon" if a bullet struck it at just the right instant.

Some have guessed this might be the mechanism for causing the animal to have a stroke and drop dead instantly by sending a high pressure column of blood from the heart to the aorta and carotid arteries leading to the brain.

Clear as mud now?

Yes much better thank you Rip

This buffalo was originally hit in the spine by a bullet that had turned sides after going through a 1 inch leadwood tree branch.

He was lying on his side, and as we usually, do, I fired a shot into his heart.

The bullet entered through the lower chest bone, fragmenting it and turning it into secondary missiles, shredding the heart to pieces as you can see,

Also, we were trying a slight different design of our bullets this year.

The ones we have used in the past worked great for very deep penetration, but, they seemed to not open up enough on the smaller game animals like impalas for instance.

This new desighn seems to work great. The smaller animals hardly run at all after receiving the shot, and the excit wound is very large.

I will post photos later in the day.

I used this same bullet on the leopard I shot, and he seemed to have died instantly from a heart shot.

Saeed,

So much for the exploding heart theory! It was sliced up by bone fragments, my alternate explanation. But, it could have been a little bit of both.

To explode a sternum into a Samurai Shower of secondary missiles would seem to take high velocity and an excellent soft point that opened promptly on entry.

Congratulations on the good design.

What is your favored muzzle velocity for 300 grain Walterhog in the .375/404 Saeed?

Gerard,
Take notice of this excellent performance of a .375 cal/300-grain monometal copper, banded, boat tail hollow point soft. Why does Saeed not use 265 or 270 grain buletts. Hmmm?

quote:

Why does Saeed not use 265 or 270 grain buletts. Hmmm?

Because he has the case capacity to make the 300gr bullets work like the 265s do from a 375H&H. Thought you knew that.

Poking fun aside, is this not a graphic illustration of speed and bullet construction getting the job done? A well known gunwriter said on occasion: "It is well-known that the more momentum a moving object contains, the harder it will be for that object to stop. When it comes to bullets and hunting, the more momentum a bullet contains, the better and deeper it will penetrate. This has been proven many times." A 300gr .375 bullet at 2800+fps develops more than 120 lb-f/s and that is substantial. Couple that with the undisputable toughness of construction and the weight retention and it can do nothing else but work.

Well done Saeed!

Hi Gerard,

Right! I just wanted to "hear" you say it.

Since Prince Saeed has bugged out on this thread, I am left with my recollections of the velocities he has touted for his 300-grain Walterhogged .375/404, or ".375 United Arab Express":

2650 fps to 2900 fps

Just like what you do with 265 grain HV's in your .375 H&H, which we know is what inspired Saeed's design.

His bullet has progressively wider driving bands from nose to base, but less total bearing surface than an HV. The nose portion of the Walterhog was very long and would require a .416 Rigby length box to use with the .375 H&H-length cartridge such as the .375 UAE.