Book Chapter 30-Home

Hunting Bullet Metrics

Apply Terminal Performance Truth

AFRICA HUNTER QUEST©

Chapter 30 - THE PILGRIM’S SAFARI PREPARATION

Donny once again failed to beat the Old Man to the range, but at least this time he was close. GG was unloading his equipment from his truck when Donny showed up.

GG saw him and smiled. His smile broadened when Donny got out of his truck, target in hand.

GG: Even from here and in this lousy light it looks good. Custom fit for a fountain pen.

D: Thanks. I wanted to show you this and tell you again how much I appreciate what you have taught me. I realized you took as much of a chance with me as I took with you. I figure you deserve to know that your considerable effort wasn’t wasted.

GG: Thanks.

D: I only took one trial with increasing powder and one trial with adjusting the seating depth to get this result. Is that typical?

GG: Absolutely not. Your system has fallen in love with the primer, powder, and bullet. My loads typically take 100 to 300 bullets to figure out. To get that result with less than 100 shots is exceptional. It’s also testimony to the quality of your system and your shooting skill. Putting in practice time off the sticks and seated from a bipod should make you well prepared for most any plains-game hunting situation that should come up.

D: Any advice?

GG rolled his eyes.

GG: You must really want the answer.

Donny’s eyes got big and GG let out a belly laugh.

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GG: I may be grouchy, but that hasn’t affected my situational awareness at any level. Grab your coffee and let’s sit a spell. What you have likely seen in any of the Africa hunting videos has only scratched the surface of what you can expect.

They both got their mugs and pulled over stools from the benches. GG sat down and again grabbed his dog-eared accordion file, fumbling for a piece of paper. “Yep,” thought Donny, “the fire hose has only two settings: on and off. Incoming.”

GG: You can’t start too soon learning, practicing and refining your field craft. I had considerable gorilla and greased-football time with both the sticks and seated bipod. Based on my experiences, those positions accommodate the majority of the shot opportunities you will see. Other shooting positions that could come in handy are kneeling, off-hand, and prone, kindly in that order. Unless there is a sufficient elevation difference between you and the target, prone is typically not an option because of the grass height.

GG found paper to his liking and began writing. Donny could see that it was another book title.

GG: I would suggest you read Chapters 6 and 7 in The Ultimate Sniper by Major John Plaster, published by Paladin Press. Those chapters cover the basic positions as well as basic marksmanship principles. I’ve modified the sitting position shown in the book to suit me. I have not found this sitting position shown anywhere else, and it is readily adapted to use with a bipod.

D: Is the sitting position steadier than off sticks?

GG: I think so. I can hold slightly less than a minute of angle when seated with a bipod. I can’t even come close to that off sticks, somewhere between one and two MOA after I practice hard.

D: What bipod do you use?

GG: One that has legs that extend out to 27 inches. You want one that swivels, but you don’t need a locking lever. If you use a sitting position approximately the same as shown in Plaster’s book, my visual cue is the bipod’s legs are centered on the knee that is pointing directly at the animal. That’s how I orient my body: my off-side knee is pointed directly at the animal. I’m right-handed. I sit, then scoot

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around with my legs crossed so my left knee is pointed at the animal. Once the knee is positioned, I position the rifle. It’s faster than it sounds after you practice. I mount the rifle into my shoulder and my elbows fall naturally to placement on both knee joints. No muscle, only bone support. I carry a bean bag or a sock filled with plastic beads to prop my right knee up over the left foot to elevate my trigger hand and help steady the position. You’ll have to tinker. If it feels right, it is.

D: Can I buy some sticks or do I have to make my own?

GG: I found a set I bought, but the leg diameter is too small for them to really be effective. The manufacturer makes a big deal out of the type of wood used rather than focusing on true functionality afforded by larger diameter legs. As you have discovered, I am all about technical merit, not style points.

D: The videos give the impression that shooting off of sticks is no big deal. What say you?

GG rolled his eyes.

GG: The polite way to respond is “all is not as it appears”. A camera attached to a scope would likely tell a different tale than what folks typically assume. I will say this: in my opinion, the height at which the PH places tripod sticks is seldom optimal for the shooters. My tinkering indicates the ‘optimal’ height is when the crotch formed by the sticks is approximately at the shooter’s throat when the shooter stands completely upright. Most of the time the stick’s legs are opened up too far, which causes shooters to bend over when they aim the rifle. That equates to poor balance which translates into wobble. Not only that, the fixity of sticks allows limited to no flexibility in vertically adjusting the rifle to obtain the sight picture, again causing the shooter to wiggle into an awkward posture.

D: Knowing you, I’m confident you have worked out a remedy that few people are aware of.

GG: There is a remedy, but not of my conjuring. On my first trip over there, my PH used two sticks to form a tall-a$$ bipod. He set them up high so the crotch was slightly higher than my throat. I placed the rifle on the sticks, then grabbed the sticks at the crotch and began the typical modest foot shuffle backward to bring the animal’s shoulder into the scope’s sight picture. This inclined the sticks toward me

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so that I could subsequently lean into them slightly to better control wobble. My feet seemed to fall naturally at a 45-degree angle to the animal that facilitated any subtle side-to-side or back-and-forth foot movement to get on the animal in the sight picture. If you practice, the process is faster than it sounds. The final result is I’m not out of balance and I’m standing pretty much erect for the shot. I hold the sticks rather than the rifle, with the friction between the sticks and the rifle’s fore end keeping everything locked down.

If you feel compelled to hold both the rifle and the sticks, keep your fingers off the barrel. The finger pressure can mess with the harmonics. For God’s sake, don’t hold the rifle by the scope; it messes with the aim point.

The only visual cue for rifle placement is noting the location of the fore end on the sticks. There is a placement sweet spot where wobble is reduced. I think the sweet spot is determined by arm length and how the rifle stock fits you. Ya gotta tinker to find it. Once you do, the whole process is way faster than it sounds.

D: Does anybody make two-legged sticks?

GG: Not that I know of, but that’s not an issue because you can tie two of the legs together on a set of tripod sticks and you have what you need.

D: Do you have any recommendations for dry-fire targets?

GG: Paper plates with a red paster in the center. I use small paper plates on the order of 6 inches in diameter for seated bipod practice and regular paper plates on the order of 10 inches in diameter for stick practice. I also use them as targets for live fire.

D: Red paster in the center. Another ‘aim small, hit small’?

GG: Yep. Always practice with your scope at maximum power. If you get good at maximum power, things really slow down at reduced power. You will have the illusion of precision, which calms you down for actual shots.

D: What distances do you practice at?

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GG: I practiced at 50, 100, 200, and 300 yards: 50- and 100-yards kneeling; 50 out to 200 yards off sticks; 300 yards seated off a bipod.

Each year before I go, it’s almost like starting over, except I have the shooting positions figured. It takes a while for the muscle memory to kick in, and even longer to settle things down. Age is robbing me of my balance on the sticks, and arthritis has and is buggering my knees. That makes kneeling an adventure. The old gray mare ain’t what she used to be. But the seated bipod position is still square between the ditches. It’s sitting and getting up that’s the bitch.

D: I saw you had a retractable bubble level on your 300 Winchester scope. Do you use scope level when you hunt?

GG: And practice. Always. If you keep both eyes open and check level for any shot you take, bench or otherwise, it’s habit. Your constant use of the bubble forces you to find rifle level almost automatically, and it gets to the point you know you are level before you check.

D: Is the fact that I ginned my load in March and early April with low temperatures going to be a factor when I get to Africa?

GG: Which country, and what month?

D: South Africa in late June or early July.

GG: Shouldn’t. That’s their winter. Temperatures should range from the mid to upper 40s to high 60s to mid-70s. That’s kindly what we have during Indian summer days here in November and isn’t far off from conditions here in March.

Temperature triggered a point: take plenty of clothes to layer. When you leave, you will be used to day-time temperatures in the 90s and humidity in the 50s to 60s. The temperature and humidity extreme you will experience will hit you like a hammer. Plus, the wind can blow like a mother in some of the provinces. Which one will you be in?

D: Thinking about the Orange Free State.

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GG: A real duke’s mixture of terrain, vegetation, and weather. If you catch a winter front, the wind can be awful. The three most valuable pieces of clothing I take are a down vest, a synthetic neck tube I can stretch over my head, and a sock cap. Those are in addition to a hooded sweatshirt with pockets for your hands or to hold gloves. Riding around in the back of the truck in the morning can be brutal.

That province just triggered other stuff. Do you have a range finder?

D: Yes.

GG: Take it. The terrain and vegetation are way different from what we are used to in South Carolina. The air is so dry and clear I can’t judge distance worth beans. Some of your opportunities could be way on out there. Give it to the PH to use and make him give you an actual range as part of the pre-shot protocol. You will also need it for sight-in.

D: Sight-in? You mean checking scope zero?

GG: Yep. I have only found one camp with a legitimate 100-yard target frame. Everything else has been in meters with no uniform distance to the frame. You will need to take a range reading on the frame to figure out if your impacts are where they need to be. I always take my own targets, ruler, and a printout of my bullet’s drop at 5-yard increments. That way, if the frame winds up at say 66 yards away, I know that an impact of about 1½ inches high is where I need to be, and confirm or adjust accordingly. Take your small bipod as well so the sight-in process is comfortable and you are better able to accept any potential bad news that indicates your zero is different. There is nothing worse than having no confidence in your zero.

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D: What zero do you use?

GG: Depends on vegetation and expected shot distances. For the thick stuff, I have settled on 200 yards for my 375 H&H and 300 Winchester, and 175 yards for my 358 Winchester. I’ve had a zero of 300 yards for my 375 H&H. I would expect the same for some shooting scenarios with my 300 Winchester. Know what they need to be, based on your hunting problem definition. Run various scenarios with ballistic software to make a strategic choice and have an idea of holdover for the ranges other than your zero.

D: What about windage?

GG: If you are going to be in the Orange Free State or other provinces where the wind could really blow, I would suggest buying a wind meter and knowing holdovers at your zero for each 5-mile per hour wind increment. If the wind is over 15 miles per hour for shots greater than 200 yards, I would think twice about actually taking the shot, particularly if you are on the sticks. Not only does the wind push the bullet, it pushes you. Your hold won’t be as good.

D: Lordy, the devil is in the details.

Donny got up and held out his hand.

D: Sir, you have helped me on so many levels. Simply saying thank you can’t begin to express how much I appreciate what you have done.

GG shook Donny’s hand.

GG: It’s really no effort to polish gem quality. Telling me your stories when you get back will be thanks enough.

D: Will do.

Donny picked up his target and headed to his truck. He had a pretty extensive laundry list that needed tending, with developing and improving hunting marksmanship only a small part.

The first item of business was to actually book the hunt and make the necessary online reservations. Through a series of emails, Donny booked his hunt with the outfitter in the Orange Free State. The outfitter had access to a bank in the U.S., and Donny sent a check for $1000 as a down payment/deposit.

When Donny was in Harrisburg interviewing outfitters, several recommended a travel agency in Texas handle the travel arrangements. He contacted it and was immediately glad he did. Its web site referenced items he hadn’t considered, such as vaccinations for various diseases like hepatitis, cholera, and malaria. As the travel agent explained, sometimes flights get diverted to countries where proof of

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vaccination against these diseases facilitates re-entry into the U.S. Donny had been vaccinated for Covid, and he figured he needed to carry that document, at a minimum.

Donny inadvertently lucked out by already having a passport. In order to make his airline reservation, he needed to furnish his passport number. He had gotten his passport several years prior for an anniversary trip he had taken with his wife to Europe.

He would be on a direct flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg, a 16-hour enduro each way. He had learned the hard way on his trip to Europe that connecting flights were a bad idea, even with no firearm to shepherd.

Donny contacted his local health department and set up appointments for the various vaccinations. It was inconvenient and disruptive to the work that now needed done on the farm, but he figured the potential alternative, as administered by bureaucrats, was far worse.

The other aspect that became apparent was the paper work associated with getting his rifle into South Africa, then back into the U.S. He had to fill out form SAPS 520 that the South Africa Police had to have on file before he could bring his rifle into the country. The travel agency offered a service to file that form, and he felt it was money well spent. The agency told him about form CBP 4457, the one necessary to show U.S. customs when he came back home that the rifle was actually his. That was a real pain, as he had to take his rifle and the form to a CBP port of entry to have agents sign off that the rifle had been in his possession while he was here in the U.S.

There was a CBP facility at the State Ports Authority in Georgetown, and he spent a good part of a day getting it done. It really was not a pleasant experience. He had to hand over his driver’s license and then wait. He figured that he was being electronically frisked by numerous databases. The agents were brusque and officious, obviously impressed with their own importance. Two armed agents accompanied him to his truck to verify that the serial number of his rifle matched that of the one identified on the form. He definitely had the feeling that he was guilty of something until proven innocent. He also had the distinct impression he would be in deep $#!+ if he came back to the U.S. and failed to produce the form they finally stamped and initialed. “A sign of the times,” he thought. “But sad nonetheless.”

Another service the travel agency provided was a meet and greet at the Johannesburg airport. Donny figured he would be a stranger in a strange land, and some manner of a face-to-face people-based lifeline could come in handy. He also elected to buy the travel insurance. Too many unknowns not to.

His ‘stranger in a strange land’ assessment got him thinking about finances and his ability to actually pay for emergency goods and services that he could not predict. He contacted his bank to make sure he could use his credit card in South Africa. He could, but exchange rate fees would apply. Travelers’ checks were no longer available. He would have to inform his bank of the actual days he would be in South Africa. Otherwise, there was a good chance any charges would be denied.

The travel insurance got him thinking about the security of his rifle. He had a hell-for-stout poly-case but no locks. The case could accommodate four of them. He decided to get four locks, two of which would require extensive effort to pick. He recognized that if folks really wanted his rifle they would get it, but he wanted them to work for it.

Donny looked into getting his phone operational while he was in South Africa. He thought the pricing was reasonable and elected to have it activated while he was over there. The camp at which he was staying had Wi-Fi, and communicating via the internet could also occur.

He ordered some sticks. While they were in transit, he considered various dry- firing plans that he could implement there at the farm. The woods line adjacent to one of his fields offered unobstructed shots from 50 to over 400 yards. He finally decided to rig paper-plate targets at 50, 150, 200, 250, 300, and 350 yards. Donny figured he would need a 50-yard target for him to develop his method and technique for the sticks, the seated bipod, and the kneeling position. He wanted to practice shooting from the kneeling position at 50 and 150 yds, off sticks at 150, 200, and 250 yds, and seated from a bipod at 300 and 350 yards.

He cut 5-foot lengths of 2x4s and drove them partially into the ground at those distances. He decided that the average shoulder height of the animals he would shoot was 36 inches, and he used that height to position the paper plates. He rigged a small paper plate at 50 yards, large paper plates at 150, 200, and 250 yards, and small paper plates again at 300 and 350 yards.

When the sticks got there, Donny first tried using them deployed as a tripod, aiming at his 50-yard target. As GG had indicated, positioning the sticks so that the crotch was about throat height worked the best. Even so, it felt awkward, and properly positioning them was a crap shoot. Donny couldn’t decide if that was because of trying to learn something new or if there was something his body really wasn’t comfortable dialing in. He noted that he had to shift his upper body to bring the sight picture down to the paper-plate target, a procedure that resulted in both an unnatural balancing act and muscle tension. In fact, he realized that most of the time he was adjusting to the sticks instead of the sticks adjusting to him.

He also found that moving the scope forward for a good sight picture off the bench was not compatible with a good sight picture off the sticks. He had to move the scope back to its original position, taking care to tighten it down using a torque wrench. He had recorded the scope’s prior 100-yd zero and reset the scope’s elevation.

He couldn’t bring himself to use duct tape, so he tied two legs of the sticks together to make a bipod on steroids. In order to use it, he had to hold it in position with one hand and place the rifle in the crotch with the other. He found that once the rifle was on the sticks, he could easily and relatively quickly position his point of aim by moving his feet to shift the rifle fore and aft of the original placement. The net result was he felt like he could quickly achieve a less contorted hold with less wobble than he had with the sticks arranged as a tripod. The bipod arrangement simply felt better than the tripod from the git-go, so Donny decided he wanted to refine a bipod stick technique as best he could.

It wasn’t easy. His ‘aim small, hit small’ approach at 50 yards almost backfired. It took a while to get his arm and feet placement approximated to even come close to consistently keeping his aiming dot on the small paper plate, let alone the plate’s paster. As GG had indicated, inclining the sticks toward his body, then compressing the rifle forward against the sticks slowed things down. Adding his sling significantly enhanced the friction between the rifle and the sticks so that he could dial in what he felt was a Goldilocks compression. Arm and elbow orientation were important. Positioning the stock’s fore-end on the sticks at the same spot facilitated that placement.

He figured out the path of least resistance with the sticks was a snap compared to figuring out an optimal seating position with the bipod. Donny found he initially wasn’t limber enough in the legs to even sit cross-legged. He got his wife to help

him based on her knowledge from both yoga and Pilates classes. After over a week of stretching every day, he was able to get his knees positioned to accommodate elbow placement. He found that placing a small brick bag filled with plastic beads between his foot and knee to elevate his knee to align his trigger-hand elbow helped tremendously. As long as he supported both elbows on knee joints, the position was surprisingly stable.

Shooting from the kneeling position was less stable than shooting from the sticks, no matter how he adjusted his position. He figured that if he had to use that position, the shot would likely be in the thick stuff and not all that long.

Once Donny had his positions settled down, he began to practice his dry firing. He started with the sticks at 50 yards, practicing until he had all of his called shots on the paper plate before he live fired. It took several days of periodic practice to accomplish that goal. When he finally felt confident that he could consistently hit the small paper plate, he rigged a target frame for live fire at 50 yards by driving in an adjacent 2x4 and installing a 2-foot by 1½ -foot piece of coroplast between them. He then stapled a fresh small paper plate with a ½-inch red dot in the center to the coroplast and shot a five-shot group.

He wasn’t pleased with the result. Only three shots were on the plate, with the two others totally flung. He assessed that he was likely yanking on the trigger rather than squeezing it. “The jerk on the trigger,” he thought. “Better that I discover him here than in Africa.”

Donny’s thought momentum tripped on the word ‘Africa’. “The target isn’t going to be a red paster on a paper plate,” thought Donny. “It’s going to be a specific spot on an animal. Just what does that spot look like?”

When Donny got back to his shop, he pulled out Robertson’s The Perfect Shot, second edition. He studied the pictorial anatomy representations of his selected animals and Robertson’s recommended shot placement. For the first time, he consciously decided that his target would be the heart. He decided to visualize the animal and the heart shot location as he focused on hitting the red paster.

Donny put Robertson’s book down. He had neglected his spring planting preparation chores for too long. He needed to focus on the farm tasks at hand.

But he couldn’t. The implications of his heart-shot decision and visualization of that during practice caused him to focus on a full-blown fundamental truth. For the first time in his life, he was actually aiming small, at a specific spot and at a target half the size of what conventional North America hunting wisdom said it needed to be: the heart. Why had he done that?

“My 270 Winchester is marginal,” There it was. Front and center. He had thought it and said it out loud. The statement of the obvious he had always been unwilling to entertain, let alone accept. Regardless of what Jack O’Conner thought, an expert in South Africa that hunted for a living had pretty-much said so. Like GG had said, ignoring local practice and experience was foolish.

A sure way to mitigate the risk associated with a marginal chambering was shot placement on the heart. GG was fixated on it. Almost to the point of chanting. Even with his big-a$$ calibers and chamberings. Donny now realized he had subconsciously accepted shots to the heart as gospel when he blurted out his five-shot group accuracy goal. Actually seeing shot impacts missing a simulated heart at 50 yards had brought the issue up from his subconscious to ‘fix it’ focus. Not only that, the potentially gross inaccuracy that was possible when shooting off sticks now led him to recognize he needed to decide on a maximum allowable shot distance, yet to be determined.

All of the above kindly of fell into the trite ‘good news/bad news’ method of problem assessment. The good news was that the limitations of his 270 Winchester and ammo, both real and imagined, were now front and center for consideration and relevant mitigation and contingency planning. Such focus precipitated the conscious decision not to take rear quartering shots. That meant he would only visualize broadside, front quartering, and full-frontal shots during practice. The bad news was he had to fix his 50-yard accuracy bust, and he wasn’t really sure how. He decided that trigger technique was the place to start.

He was right. Focusing on good trigger skills during dry fire eliminated flung shots. His next five live rounds at 50 yards resulted in most of them seeming to like each other. Donny was glad he started at 50 yards off the sticks; refining his stick technique at this short distance with his scope at maximum power was the best thing he could have done. It made the spot correction of his trigger squeeze far easier and forced him to modify his stance and hold to reduce wobble.

And so it went. His groups off the sticks got progressively smaller, although he was challenged to keep all five on the big plate out at 250 yards. He decided that 250 yards would be his limit for the sticks; shot distances beyond that range would have to be done seated off his bipod.

Donny felt good about his seated bipod shooting. He could keep his wobble less than ½ inch at 50 yards as indicated by tracking his scope’s target dot on the red paster. It never strayed onto the white of the paper plate. He used the seated position to obtain actual zeroes at 200, 250, 300, and 350 yards rather than interpolating any from his ballistic software printout. Based on his live-fire results, Donny decided that his maximum shot distance from the kneeling position would be 150 yards, and the maximum shot distance from the seated, bipod position would be 350 yards.

He loaded up 60 rounds and stored them in three, 20-round plastic slip lid boxes. He taped them shut so they wouldn’t come open during transit. He prepared a little tool kit to remove and replace his bipods, to remove and reattach his scope to enable adjustment on the Pic rail, and to check the torque on his scope screws, ‘just in case’ He included a small 3-foot retractable tape measure for measuring impacts on his sighter target. He also had a printout of bullet drop in 5-yard increments out to 150 yards so that he could be sure of any sight-in zero adjustments, no matter what the distance to the frame.

Donny had decided to use a hard, dialed-in and confirmed 200 zero which he obtained off his bipod while seated. He also had windage holdovers for 200, 250, 300, and 350 yards based on 5-mph wind. He could factor the actual holdover based on the wind speed at the time of his shot. He put the zero and windage data on the back of a business card that he had laminated. He taped the card to the inside of his stock with clear cellophane packing tape. He was ready as he knew how to be.