This impala took 3 180 grain barnes tsx and 2 470 and finally had to be stabbed with a knife to finally kill it.

I was amazed how tough even plains game in africa can be. This impala's ability to take lead was stunning.

The 3 180 grain barnes tsx were from a 30/06

Dear Bertta

On my last trip I shot an impala at 50 mtrs in the shoulder and the bullet did not go through.

Shot an eland at 75 and the bullet did go all the way through.

338. with swift A frame.

Regards Mark

Last year I shot a Impala with a 416 rem at 40 yards. It was facing us, so I shot it on the base of the neck using barnes triple shock, droped it like a rock, and recovered the bullet as it did not exit the animal.

The poor little thing looks as it was hit by a car on the freeway!
What on earth caused it to charge you anyway?

Sounds like some squib loads. Or super very very very soft copper. hit and stop.
I have used TSX's on buf down to little antelope and had TSX under skin on far side of buf shoulder,
complete pass thrus on chui, impala, kongoni, kudu, wart hog, diker, croc, widbeast, zebras 3 , and crushed a charging hippo with a brain shot.

I am leaning towards a powder issue in my opinion.

Mike

Did I ever mention the grysbok that took two rounds from my .404 Jeff to put down? ROFL! It just happens sometimes! From the looks of that poor impala I don't see how he could not go down.

One thing I have noticed with the harder bullets that are slower to expand like the Barnes X varieties is that they will zip through smaller game like solids without the spectacular results of a softer bullet...

Amazing! Sometimes an animal will defy imagination as to what incredible punishment it will take and then on another occasion under similiar circumstances you'll get a bang flop. I have noted and I use them myself that bang flops and good blood trails are not the strongest attribute of the TSX.

Mark

Some context to the lead absorbing Impala

Was hunting with Save Safaris/Leon DuPlessis in Save Conservancy in March 2011. Last day of the hunt - already got the buff and was trying to shoot a Kudu (which always eludes me) or a eland.

I was also shooting a bunch or Impala for skins which make cool gifts.

So around 9 am we run into a group of Impala - I take the AHR custom ruger 30/06 with federal premium 180 grain tsx ammo. I shoot this male and he drops right where he was standing like a ton of bricks. Seemed like a easy clean kill. Leon and I start walking to the impala that was like 80 yards from the sticks. I take out my iphone to record the walk to the impala, its all relaxed with the main focus on getting back to searching for mr. kudu.

20 yards from the impala he stands up - this is like a good 3-5 minutes after he had gone down. Looks at us and takes of with a right shoulder clearly injured. I had the rifle on the sling and iphone in my hand - so I trying to put away the iphone and get the rifle. Note to myself - next time hire a film guy.

Now we are off trying to track this injured impala. We were hunting in the north eastern most block of the save conservancy that looks like classical savanna africa. Lots of grass so tough to follow tracks. The trackers - Orbit and Stanford - did a great tracking job in tough grassy terrain and when there was sandy ground a million different impala tracks to follow the injured impala in.

An hour later we run into him and he eludes us again. He is clearly injured. There is some frustration from us as we don't want to really be chasing the impala but mr. kudu on the last day. Leon says lets just get done with this, if either of us sees him lets just shoot him and get done with this impala.

We continue to track him and now get into some thicker bush. He is close like 100-200 yards as we see him once ever 10-15 minutes and there are now clear tracks that he is dragging a foot.

In this constant what seems like engagement with an injured impala Leon shoots his Heym 470 thrice and misses. Now we are burning precious 470 ammo on this impala that constantly eludes us.

I get a shot and hit him as he running into a bush. I shoot him in the back and he still goes on. Now it is like 3 hrs into it and we could have spent noon at a waterhole looking for mr kudu.

Finally, we catch up to the impala is a open patch and he gets both barrels of the 470 and another 30/06 and goes down. We walk up to the impala grumbling at wasting the last day and see that he is not dead. So the trackers grab the impala and Leon takes out the knife and stabs him at the back of the skull.

We set him up for the picture to show the lead he has take - I take out the iphone and that is the posted. The trackers carry him back to the truck which is a good 2-3 miles away.

I was amazed at how strong this little critter was. Leon view was that he initially dropped due to spinal shock. The first shot was a little high but did take out the back shoulder.

I did not get my Kudu who has eluded me on two trips - reason to go back again and again. There was little skin left on this impala so Leon said he would get his son to shoot a impala when get a weekend off from boarding school and add it to my crate.

Leon was not happy shooting 5 470 rounds and us wasting a last morning after this little critter. But both us and the trackers were pretty impressed by this little critter who refused to just die - was like a nyati in impala skin.

I think that was a heck of a hunt.
This story is something you will remember the rest of your life!
ZOMBIEIMPALA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!