One of my hunting partners and his wife are travelling to Botswana this July for a buffalo and plains game hunt. His primary rifle will be his .375H&H. Included in this hunt, are plans for his wife to take an ostrich. She is not an avid hunter or shooter and they are thinking of taking their son's .243WM rifle for her to use on the big bird. She has shot this rifle and is comfortable with it.

My question to the AR group is the .243WM enough rifle for ostrich? I don't think she will be comfortable with shooting his .375 and would probably rule her out using it. He has other medium bore rifles, 7mm RM and .300 Weatherby with brake, to choose from as well. Another option would be to borrow a light rifle upon arrival in Botswana.

If the .243WM is OK what factory bullets do you recommend?

Thanks guys for your input.

Regards,

RCG

I wouldn't pack a .243 Win. halfway around the world for a once-in-a-lifetime crack at an ostrich. I'd either hand her the .375 H&H when the time comes, or else borrow a light rifle from the PH.

AD

Allen:

My thoughts exactly. At this point, they are weighing options and alternatives.

Thanks,

RCG

The Wby will be light enough in recoil, but with the break it will be very loud, and that adds to precieved recoil in the event she misses on her first shot. My advice is have her pratice until she is profecient with it and can hit small targets shooting off sticks, kneeling or standing with support. Thats the advice i would give anyone of either sex. Hope this helps you out. Charlie

700 nitro with a 1000 grains soft point.

This may be a silly response, but last year i was on a hunt where i shot one male ostrich and my friends and clients shot several more, all were shot with 300win mag or 300wsm.

I'm quite sure any standard 30 will do an ostrich, but they are very hard to kill, shot placement is hard to judge in my opinion, due to the feathers. My best bet and eventual best shot was to advise the client to follow the line of the neck done to the breast, drop to the centre mass and fire. One of the birds took 4 hits with a 300win mag and winchester failsafes, mine took at least 3 before it fell over.
Our PH did say that they have very little intellect and so may be too stupid to die. ha ha ha. Was quite shocking to see a bird take the hit, get up and run again after the second or third hits.
On inspection of the carcass later, we found that though we were hitting the body, we weren't connecting with the vitals, quite far forward in the breast.
the other alternative was a head shot which we found almost impossible as they move so much.

ps they can be very dangerous when wounded or guarding a family and we have gotten chased before. we discovered that a good finisher was a 12 bore to the head, but don't stand too close, ostrich brain splatters quite a way as we found out.

As you may gather we enjoy our ostrich hunts which is less like real hunting and more a gooney bird shoot.

have fun,TM

I would reckon a .243 would be to light.....30/06 or the like would work well or whop it with the .375 H&H.

Chase it in the land cruiser and whop it with some 00 Buck shot........................just kidding

I dont think you can shoot ostrich in Botswana....better check

Have shot Ostirch on licence in Bots but that was 20 years ago ... so check.

Shot placement is the key. I use .308/.303 but try to only shoot from front on or directly going away.

As they have "bird" lungs with a through flow system rather than a mammals adding extra holes does not cause death. Also those feathers are hard on expanding bullets. so if you use a .243 stick to something like a X bullet or Swift.

If they are running away aim for the base of the tail - bullet carries right through all vitals, but don't expect them to drop for 75m or so.

After reading the above posts I am feeling somewhat better about my Ostrich story.

My PH and I were chased [strategic withdrawal?] into the middle of a patch of thorn bush where the three male ostrich chasing us would not follow. [I did not have these on license.]

After futile attempts to chase them off with thrown rocks and much shouting the PH was given direction by the Oufitter/manager to "...shoot the bloody things".

The PH used my .338Win and it took 2 shots to take the dominant male, the first shot seemed to have no affect whatsoever. Of course my Barnes X bullets at 2500+fps might not have been the correct choice. But It would seem that something larger than .243 is called for.

Les

Our group took 3 several years ago in SA. I was amazed at how much lead they took. All took multiple shots. Smallest gun was a 7mm-STW. Mine was a 338-06, the final 375 H&H. Make sure you eat some of the meat and keep all the skin for leather.

I would use a varmint rifle and shoot for the head...Hate to blow up a Ostrich skin.

Wouldn't the 45/70 be ideal for this? Certainly the most dangerous bird in the world and with a 405gr flat nose at 1900fps would sort that big bird out in a hurry! Of course you'd want the lever action for that fast follow up shot just in case.

Ray,
Your comments hit close to home....The group hunt I spoke about had a guy that is a bit of a crack shot with his 7mm STW. We told him if he could shoot one in the head we would pay the trophy fee. We were about 100 yards out when he shot. The bird never moved and almost froze. We all thought he had missed however the PH knew something was not right. We walked up to the standing animal, only to find the off side of his head missing. The bird was still standing and alive. One more shot and the event was over. Needless to say we all paid up. Amazing birds and fun to hunt!

I had a similar problem where they wouldnt leave my blind area. Tried the rocks and yelling at them nothing worked. Finally my PH said shoot one of the dam things no charge! Well I put an arrow into the biggest male at the hole that night. Hit him right at the wing butt he flopped off about 20 yards laid down and died. Sprayed blood every where must have hit the heart. He will be a seat for my harley someday.
Dean

AR Posters:

Thanks for the suggestions. I will pass them on.

Regards,

RCG

quote:

Originally posted by ROSCOE:
We walked up to the standing animal, only to find the off side of his head missing. The bird was still standing and alive.

I've heard that ostriches have no brains and this story seems to prove it!

Isn't there a projectile specifically designed to penetrate bird feathers?

I haven't had many clients want to shoot one and I've never felt to urge for one myself but those clients who have shot them, I've had them shoot the bird straight up the ass and they always drop like a sack of coal......but the strange thing is that every time we've done this the bird develops a rock hard erection!.. ....damned if I know why.....

Incidentally, we've always used a .30 cal if memory serves me right.......

Shakari:

That hilarious comment is certainly more than I needed to know!

I guess you don't find those comments in "The Perfect Shot".

Thanks, I think.

RCG

The first time we took one we hadn't realised what had happened and every time we tried to load the thing onto the truck his old chap got caught on the tail gate and we couldn't load it..........when we realised what the problem was the African sense of humour really took over and all the staff were rolling around of the ground screaming with laughter!!...........What happened in th skinning shed was even funnier!!!

I still giggle about it occasionally.

Must be a death thing....the ones we killed did the same thing. Made me blush....they should be in movies eh? John Holmes, eat your heart out!

The 45/70 would definitely work on a large flightless bird.....................the 405 gr rem would be plenty of bullet with good expansion.

quote:

Originally posted by mrlexma:

I've heard that ostriches have no brains and this story seems to prove it!

They do have brains but the frontal brain shot is quite tricky.

I witnessed a similar event in South Texas when an aquaintence shot a particulary aggressive male with his new Merkel 416 Rigby double, straight on frontal shot center of mass... the bird continued charging and dropped like a sack of potatoes on the other barrel (about 50 feet on the first shot, maybe 15 on the last). The first bullet went through almost 3 feet of bird before stopping but the second exited with a great gout of blood seen on video. Weird.

A 22-250 loaded with gs Custom 50 gr HV bullets, a friend took a frontal shot hitting the bird in the hart. Also saw a bird taken by a client of Lochi with 338 win in the head, this one dropped like a rock but carried on kicking for quiet some time.

Wimpie
Winter is comming to South Africa

People keep telling me how dangerous they are..I have been on some captures and never noticed they were much more dangerous than a chicken..we grabbed them and weighted them down to the grown..I guess they could kick the hell out of you but so can a horse or cow...

The only thing about an Ostrich is that wonderfull skin, they make the best boots in the world...I'm thinking my next pair of chinks will be Ostrich, that would be different...

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
People keep telling me how dangerous they are..I have been on some captures and never noticed they were much more dangerous than a chicken..we grabbed them and weighted them down to the grown..I guess they could kick the hell out of you but so can a horse or cow...

The only thing about an Ostrich is that wonderfull skin, they make the best boots in the world...I'm thinking my next pair of chinks will be Ostrich, that would be different...

A woman I knew was actually mauled pretty bad by one on a farm. They can kick but also have a pretty sharp claw/nail on their feet that did some damage.
But again as Ray pointed out a cow or horse could do some damage as well.

I had one come up to the safari vehicle and peck a large dent in the hood.....Darn things would hurt you badly if they hit you on the shoulder from behind.....very large bird but if one needs something the size of a .30-06 to kill one I'd be very surprised. Leg bones are quite large but look....they only got two of them and if you break one they're not going anywhere on the other. This darn bird followed us around all day and got between us and the Springbok we was hunting all the time.....It really irritated us...I was finally going to shoot it but just didn't want to shell out the $350 for an Ostrich that I had no clue what to do with.

If I was hunting them I'd simply use the safari rifle I picked for everything else and ask the PH to bring along a 12 Ga with lead BB shot for the irritating birds that follow you around.....frankly I'd be very surprised if I couldn't have killed this beast with a single .22 Long Rifle round to the head.....There was plenty of times I could have shot it at less than ten yards. My pick would be a 12 Ga shotgun.

I´ll be going for an ostrich in Oct and I´ll be using my new 9.3x62. It´s not a "dream animal", more something of a curio. Where can one get boots sown up?

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
I had one come up to the safari vehicle and peck a large dent in the hood.....Darn things would hurt you badly if they hit you on the shoulder from behind.....very large bird but if one needs something the size of a .30-06 to kill one I'd be very surprised. Leg bones are quite large but look....they only got two of them and if you break one they're not going anywhere on the other. This darn bird followed us around all day and got between us and the Springbok we was hunting all the time.....It really irritated us...I was finally going to shoot it but just didn't want to shell out the $350 for an Ostrich that I had no clue what to do with.

If I was hunting them I'd simply use the safari rifle I picked for everything else and ask the PH to bring along a 12 Ga with lead BB shot for the irritating birds that follow you around.....frankly I'd be very surprised if I couldn't have killed this beast with a single .22 Long Rifle round to the head.....There was plenty of times I could have shot it at less than ten yards. My pick would be a 12 Ga shotgun.

I agree with you without a doubt a shotgun with heavy shot would do the trick...........and a 30/06 if the bullet was a ballistic tip or similar would blow them open, as would a .44 rem mag lever gun. A 22/250 with varmint bullets would struggle due to the feathers.

quote:

...frankly I'd be very surprised if I couldn't have killed this beast with a single .22 Long Rifle round to the head...

As I was VERY surprised when the first .338 Barnes X barely fazed the "bloody thing".

A friend of mine dropped one with a 6.5x55 and 158 or 160-grain bullet on a going-away shot to the body, but while it couldn't get up it was still very much alive and kicking and required a finisher.