Its been a couple of weeks since my wife and I got back from our first trip to South Africa. Below are some pics, terminal data, & commentary. This is a long thread but I'm not apologizing as its a great way to relive the experience. Feel free to read if interested or move on....
Goals For Trip:
1) Have an amazing vacation with my wife as its been over 2 years since we've gotten a break from work and small children.
2) Develop and test dual loads using the Hammer Hunters and Bergers for my 300PRC and 28 Nosler. Some of you may recall a previous thread as I was working through load development for this project as there were a lot of opinions....positive and negative!
Backstory and about the guns:
-- Gunwerks 28 Nosler LR1000 w/ NF G7 NXS (wish you could still buy these scopes). Gunwerks set up this gun with 180 Berger VLDs. I've had it for approx 7 years and have 30+ kills ranging from Javelina to Bull Elk and from 35 to over 700 yards. Overall I've been extremely pleased and gun shoots an avg of .6 moa (others shoot it better) and no animals have traveled more than 25 yards and most are DRT. That said, I was a little less than impressed with the performance on a bull elk shot in the shoulder (slightly quartering to) @ 291 yards a few years ago. Bull never flinched (hunting partner said i missed). Shot it again...bull didn't flinch....before i could cycle the third round....it tipped over dead. After this, I decided I wanted a bigger gun thus the 300 PRC.
-- 300 PRC built by Sage Precision Rifles in Hondo, TX. Curtis Custom Helix Hybrid Action, Bartlien 3B 8 twist, Trigger Tech special. AG Composite stock and Leupold MK5HD 5-25. (My wife had the gun built for me for fathers day last year....yes i'm lucky). Gun shoots @ .25-.4 MOA with Berger 215 and Hammer 214s.
Load Development.
-- 28 Nosler -- Gunwerks gave me the load data for this gun for the berger and it shoots the 180 at 3060. I stuck with the same powder type and was able to find an accurate load (.65 MOA) with the 169 Hammer Hammer Hunter @ 3120 fps. Unfortunately, while each individual bullet shot well, I wasn't able to get POI close enough to use both interchangeably....and I really wanted to test the Hammer Hunters since I had lots of data on the Berger. I didn't have enough time to dial in the BC's and this limited my comfortable range to 600-700 yards. I also was planning to cap my wife at 500 yards so I decided to let her shoot the 28 Nosler with 169 hammers.
-- 300 PRC. Shooting the Berger 215 & Hammer 214. Bullets impact at exact same elevation at at 100 and Hammer hits POI 1/2 MOA left of the Berger. I solved here by running my kestrel with spin drift on for the Berger and off for the Hammer. Hammer runs about 65 fps faster than the Berger and don't really see the higher BC berger start to separate until approx 400 yards. I decided to use the Hammer to 400 and Berger on anything beyond.
Hunt was in northern Limpopo with African Wild Safaris. Limpopo isn't exactly known for Long Range opportunity its its very thick brush country. But the ranch has some elevation changes so I wanted to be prepared. Our travel to S. Africa was in the middle of the riots, so we decided last minute to charter a cessna vs driving 6 hrs to the ranch. Accommodations and staff were fantastic. While my outfitter/ranch owner is a long range shooter, my PH was more of a traditionalist. I mentioned something about long range at dinner the first night and got a sour look....! The next day at the range, my wife and I shot at 100. Range went to 1000 meters. I asked the PH if he minded if I shot one of the longer targets....we decided on the 600 meter target....I dialed it....smoked it. He asked me to do it again....I did. He decided to drive down to look at impacts and they were about 1" apart in the middle of a 12" gong. I could literally see his opinion changing about long range before my eyes. Now it was time to hunt but the PH was unbelievably engaged in discussion about calibers, bullets, ballistics, etc.
As luck would have it, I didn't get a shot opportunity beyond 133 yards....even when we tried to cull some nuisance animals.. My wife on the other didn't get a shot under 249 yards....and she made them count.
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Kudu -- 300 PRC/214 Hammer. 133 yards quartering to. Entrance in front of shoulder, exit in crease on off side (pictured). Both lungs and top of heart. Bullet not recovered, DRT.
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Sable -- 300 PRC/214 Hammer. Approx 85 yards....happened too fast to range. First shot 6 inches behind shoulder but caught both lungs and would have been fatal....after ran 40 yards, I was able to get a second in him and dropped him w/ high shoulder. Both bullets exited.
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Blue Wildebeest -- 300 PRC 214 Hammer. 45 yards and shot in shoulder through very dense brush. Ran 60 yards and piled up. Bullet exited.
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Zebra --28 Nosler/169 Hammer. 249 yards. Hard quartering away. Entrance at 4h rib and lodged in offside shoulder. Ran 40 yards and died.
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Blue Wildebeest -- 28 Nosler/169 Hammer. 471 yards. DRT. Bullet stuck under skin offside shoulder (bullet pics below)
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Impala -- 28 Nosler/169 Hammer. 281 yards. Both shoulders and heart. Snowplowed 35 yards.
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Blesbok -- 300 PRC/215 Berger. 90 yards walking. Hit just behind the crease (both lungs)....ran 30 yards and piled up.
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300 PRC/215 Berger. 65 yards. High Shoulder...DRT. Bullet exited.
Not Pictured -- Cull Impala. 300 PRC/215 berger 35 yards. High shoulder, DRT. Bullet excited but jacket under offside skin (pics) below.
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Ribcage of my Blue wildebeest shot w/ 300 PRC/214 Hammer. Big hole entry side small hole is exit. Performance exactly as prescribed.
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Recovered bullets. 169 Hammer is from wife's blue wildebeest shot at 471. 215 Berger is from cull impala shot @ 35 yards.
After the hunting was done, we went back to 1000 meter range and burned some ammo with the PH. He's hooked and has been texting me since I got back trying to figure out how to get a long range gun and components to south africa.
Conclusions:
1) Take your wife to Africa. My wife has been all over the world have we've had the pleasure of some amazing hunting and non-hunting trips (Bora Bora, Europe, New Zealand, Australia, etc) and on the way home, she said this has been her favorite trip. It even changed her mind about some species of the big 5. If you take her, she will want to go back.
2) Going forward, I will use my 28 nolser/180 berger from 0-1000 yards on all animals up to mule deer/sheep sized game. If my wife wants to hunt large animals (elk, moose, eland), I'm comfortable loading the 169 Hammer and limiting her range to 600ish yards. For myself on large animals, I'll use the 300 prc with the dual loading of 214 Hammer/215 Berger for the appropriate distances. I was a little disappointed that I didn't have the opportunity to shoot anything at distance w/ the 215 Berger but that bullets performance at distance is well documented on this forum and others.
I'll post some additional pics below:
Thanks for reading.
LHP
. We were scheduled to go back in June of 2020 to celebrate my daughter's college graduation and my son's high school graduation, but that obviously didn't work out. We will hopefully make back in the near future. Again, congrats and great write up.
My taxidermist (with Trophy Games Safari) and his wife, along with 4 husbands and wife team members, just returned from his Safari trip this week with similar success and enjoyment. I showed my wife, and she is thrilled as well.
