This bull was a good indication of how tough it is to find these buggers even after a good shot.

He took a 300gr 375 bullet straight thrue the heart ran 80m without leaving a drop of blood

Here is the bull I took with Mike Kibble this year. Range was 292 yards with a 231 Lapua Naturalis Monometal, frontal shot , from a 338RUM. He was knocked down by the shot, could not regain his feet, slid 40 yards downhill and was dead..



This pic shows the extensive damage done by the Naturalis............





I had previously lost a bull in Zim with a too far back lung shot and a 150XBT in a 7mmSTW. They are tough

quote:

Originally posted by Blair338/378:
Here is the bull I took with Mike Kibble this year. Range was 292 yards with a 231 Lapua Naturalis Monometal, frontal shot , from a 338RUM. He was knocked down by the shot, could not regain his feet, slid 40 yards downhill and was dead..

Blair,

I know wildebeest can be really big, but this one of yours looks like it is a monster!
Or, on the contrary, is it that you are rather small?

B.Martins

I'm only a little bloke, 5'7".........so the comparison is skewed, somewhat!

But he still is a big bastard!!!

Just last week a client, who posts here as Code4, shot a non-trophy blue wildebeest as part of a cull hunt. He has by then proven himself to be a very good shot - making a few one shot kills with his .308 handloaded with Woodleigh 165 grainers. The bull was facing us just about straight on, like the leftmost buffalo on top of this page. You know, the way it is very likely that the bullet will just enter and deflect along the ribs, never entering the lung cavity. The client being a good shot and the range being about 50 yards, I allowed him to take the head on shot. On the shot I heard the very solid 'thump' of the hit, saw the bull crumple, and run off with the rest of the herd. Well, onto the bloodspoor! Almost no blood! A sign of only an entrance hole and no bullet exit at all? A drop here and there - soon to change to a drop here and another way gone over there! And the very little blood found is bright red, not pienkish like lung blood. Trouble! Search some more! Eventually no blood at all! Now it is big TROUBLE! Eventually we find the bull stone dead 217 meters [GPS waypoint ranged] from where he took the shot. When we moved him from under the bush into which he collapsed finally for the photo, there was almost no blood on the ground where he lay! He simply did not seem to have bled at all! How come?

On skinning and autopsy it transpired that the bullet did indeed stay outside the rib cage and was found, well mushroomed, between the shoulder bone and ribs. Quite a bit of blood around the bullet path, but not nearly enough to kill through blood loss into the wound cavity.

What killed the animal? Code4 has medical knowledge and he suggested that the solid hit on the sternum and the enormous energy transfer in this instant caused the heart to stop! According to him paramedics sometimes also restart the stopped human heart by a solid thump on the breastbone. But similarly a solid thump can also stop a beating heart. Did this happen on this shot? The theory of the stopped heart explains the very little blood found on the spoor. It also explains the death of an animal that most certainly did not have the bullet passing through any vital organ.



Yes, the more you hunt, the more such mysteries are encountered. Blue wildebeest are tough!

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

A wise old bushveld character once told me that Blue Wildebeest are all born sick and they get better every time you shoot them.

Maybe you guys must start bow hunting

This one only went 30 yards from where I shot him...


But I had to make very sure of the shot. Double lung and top of the hart shot is a good way to pull up his hand brakes.

Blue wildebeest are though animals to kill it does not matter what weapon are used.

quote:

Originally posted by Rikkie:
A wise old bushveld character once told me that Blue Wildebeest are all born sick and they get better every time you shoot them.