How deep is the penetration on calibres like the 270 Win, 300 Winchester, 9.3x62 and 375 H&H, would calibres like the 9.3/375 penetrate through an animal while the 270, 30-06 type not. What is your experience?

Which game?

kudu, waterbuck, wildebeest, hartebeest, oryx, are like shooting elk. Elk rifles will work well. A 270 would be marginal. A 9.3 or 375 would be better.

impala, duiker, springbok, etc. are in the small deer category, and a 270 would be fine.

eland are like two bull moose taped togehter side by side. Use a big bullet.

A penitrating bullet should have .300 sectional density..An old belief was a bullet should be 2.5X its cross section and I think that holds pretty well today on both counts...particualarly for heavy animals and dangerous game.

Yes, I think it would be safe to say the 9.3 and 375 normally out penitrate the 270 and perhaps the 30-06 but I think that has more to do with bullet construction than any thing else....A 220 gr. Nosler or solid in a 30-06 will about penitrate anything stem to stern but will not destroy the tissue the 9.3 or 375 will...Like in most things the bigger dog will sleep on the poarch...

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Flip,

I have shot several impala with a 270 Ackley, using the Barnes X 130 grain bullets, at the end of the neck while they faced me. The bullet would generally penetrate to the rear legs. Sometimes it would stop just short of the rear leg, but most would be found in the rear leg.

I have had similar shots on the same animal using my 375/404 and the Barnes X 300 grain bullet.

Penetration is slightly better, as the bullets would either exit, or remain in either the rear leg or under the skin by the tail.

Having said that,

I've had the 375/404 with the same bullet penetrate the whole length of a zebra or a buffalo.

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saeed@ emirates.net.ae

www.accuratereloading.com

Gentlemen,

I have had the 175 gr. Nosler partition penetrate about 3 feet of wildebeest or zebra on raking shots coming out of my 7mm Rem Mag. This was before I had a chronograph, and I thought my loads were doing close to 3000 fps at the muzzle, when they were actually doing about 2780 fps. Didn't seem to make a difference.

Long, heavy bullets seem to make a lot of sense.

Joel Slate
Slate & Associates, LLC
www.slatesafaris.com

7mm Rem Mag Page www.slatesafaris.com/7mm.htm

Flip,

Ray is right. You can kill anything with a 30-06 and a 220 grain solid and it will penetrate as well as anything else. Sectional density is like .331 on these bullets and at 2400 fps they will do the job. I think someone mentioned around here a while back that Jack O'Connors wife took her Elephant with this combination. Similarly a boatload of pachyderms have been taken with rifles chambered in 7x57 and 318 Westley Richards. I know a PH in Zim who brains buff with his .308 regularly. Obviously, none of these examples make this course of action a good idea.
IMHO, A big creature should be hunted with a proper cartridge.

JohnTheGreek