SBT,

Facing the same problem you did, I loaded my .375 H&H to 2500 with North Fork 300 grain soft points. I only wanted to have one type of soft point on the trip. Although I did not get a shot at a leopard, I made one-shot kills on lion, zebra, and impala, and bang-flopped a buffalo.

For a scope I picked the Burris 1.5x6 Signature because it has a 40mm lens and therefore a better "twilight factor" than many other scopes. Also it came with a red dot reticle which I found very useful in shooting the lion.

I did not want to take another rifle, such as a 30-06, for plains game or leopard because I wanted to use the same rifle for all game I might encounter.

I also recommend you hunt buffalo as well. While checking tracks, we came across buffalo tracks many times, and deemed some of them worth following. Also a buff makes a lot of leopard bait.

Scott I took both my leopards with a 375 last year. Although both of them started to run after been shot in the chest/lungs after the first shot. One from 25 meters and one from a few inches.

Hornady sst

139 gr 7mm sst at 2950 = dead cat

I took my leopard with a 338 Win. mag. I had an assortment of premium loadings like 210 NP, 250 Woodleigh and Barnes 225 X. When I asked the PH as to what loading to use, he suggested the cheap Win. 200 gr. power pts. that I was using to whack baboons.

I didn't care to, but forced myself to always listen to the PH. The cat was only 50 yds away in broad daylight and quartering away. The power pt. entered near the last rib on the left. The cat rolled over and only twitched once.

The bullet did not exit. In fact, the skinners advised the it completely disintegrated and they could not recover any part of the power pt. except a piece of the cup. It went off inside like a grenade. By current standards, this was complete "bullet failure", but it did the job better than expected as the skin was not damaged other than the entrance hole.

So, on the other side of the coin, cheap lighter bullet at 2,900 to 3,000 fps also equals dead cat.

Geoff