Jean,

You are probably correct. It is possible that the brain is damaged from a heart shot, though I have never seen it in my experience. I have never had a buffalo drop in its tracks, other than when brained.

If you talk to experienced PH's they will tell you that a lung shot buffalo is not going to run off and survive. I have never experienced it, while some hunters and even the book Nyati perpetuate this myth.

jbderunze and Will,

I have killed many american bison with one shot to the heart. They were killed so quickly that by the time I walked up to them, a distance of no more than 50-60 feet, and touched their eye, they were dead.

No corneal reaction at all.

I was using a 375 improved with Bitterroot bullets. If you shoot a large animal like this in the heart with a bullet that expands to one inch in diameter at 3,000 fps, you will have brain death.

PH's see this so infrequently because we are all using historic cartridges at low velocity with bullets of great sectional density.

the heart shot on bison was as effective as the spine shot in their neck. It ruined more meat so I eventually switched to the spine shot.

A .300 weatherby would not kill them with one shot to the spine. A .338 or larger would. Interesting.

Andy

Scrutinizing this thread and the Magnum extract from Nickudu, I get puzzled twice.

Never is mentioned the shock induced by a hit right in the aorta, killing the game right in its track or knocking the game senseless (and ultimately killing it by bleeding to death before it recovers).
Should you hit the heart during a particular period, when the aortic valve is open, the blood is violently pushed into the aorta and the carotids and smashes the inside of the brain. A likely result is get in spining along with striking the abdominal aorta. This artery is running just underneath the spine. I saw two warthogs be spined (shot too far back and high) dying on the spot (as well as a couple of boars, roes, stags and such).

One depicts buffs shot in the lungs which survive a couple of hours or even a day. Impossible . I quote Magnum �the lungs almost completely fill the chest cavity and are kept in a fully-expanded state by the negative pressure (or vacuum) within the cavity. If the chest cavity is punctured, air will be sucked into it, causing the collapse of the lungs�.lungs get less than the half the size of their normal fully expanded state� . The game is definitely in apnoea, it will die within 5 minutes, a trifle longer for hippo and croc. No exception.
I think the described games surviving longer have just one lung hit. To be short, each lung snuggles in its own sack, the pleural membrane. Should one sack be pierced, only one lung is deflated. The sound one permits to survive, poorly or not.

I read in old Africa books authors that elephant, hippo, rhino have their lungs sticking to the pleural membranes, consequently their lungs don�t deflate. I have no proof of this queer exception and keep to be doubtful.

The size of the heart is proportional to the animals live weight. This is so well documented that the US fish and wildlife uses it to determine the weight of elk, bear, bison etc.

I doubt very much if there is any difference in the dimensions of an american bisons heart and that of a similar sized cape buffalo.

Users of Bitterroot bullets in 375 and 416 have reported in their track kills for many years with high velocity bullets like the 250 grain 375 at 2950 fps and 335 grain 416 at 2,800 fps in the Rigby. The 300 grain 375 has even killed elephant from a side brain shot.

I know that is herrasy on this forumn but we have all taken it for granted since the late 1970's.

There is no such thing as a magic bullet, but there are so many good bonded soft points out there now, I think all of us could drop down a bullet weight and/or caliber for buffalo.

Just imagine what Saeed could have done if he used a good bonded bullet instead of his expanding solid in the 375 x 404?

Andy

Gentlemen,

My favorite shot on buffalo has always been the high lung shot.

I have killed many buffalos with it, and never had any that have been hit in both lungs go very far.

On one occasion, I shot a buffalo facing me at an angle. And as usual in situation like this one in thick bush, I could not see how he was standing.

We chased that bull for over 2 miles, eventually finishing him off. He did not seem to be too bothered with his injuries, which we found out later that he had one lung punctured from front to rear.

I find it very hard to believe that any animal with both lungs hit can survive for very long.

But, I won't go as far as saying it does not happen.

Andy,

That may be true with bison, but not so with Cape buffalo. I think there is some caliber where there is an "overwhelming force" that can be used on any animal that will put it down with a good heart shot, or lung shot.

It is easy to kill whitetail deer instantaneously with a single heart or lung shot with a 30-06 class of caliber. At some point you could probably do the same with Cape buffalo if one was man enough to shoulder the giant weapon required.

This I believe is shown when similar shots are taken with a .375, a .416, a .458, a .505, and so on, where the bigger the caliber, the faster the kill/death.

I am not volunteering to find the super caliber that will drop a buffalo in its tracks from a heart shot!

Kevin Robertson ("Doktari") is the main proponent of the "heart-brain stroke shot", but recently he has allowed that it might not happen as he has described it after Dr. Thomas Caceci challenged his theory. Tom says that the vascular system is designed to contain pressure and is very elastic, and will not transfer the equally infamous "hydrostatic shock" to the animal's brain.

There are a couple of things in Nyati that "rumor control central" should have squelched.

jim