AFRICA HUNTER QUEST© 

INTRODUCTION 

     I’ve hunted in South Africa five times. Four times I have stepped onto the plane confident that my modifications of technique, equipment, preparation, and ammunition would resolve the buffoonery and “Oh  $#!+” moments of the previous hunt. Four of these times I have stepped off the plane back in Atlanta, claiming to have successfully plotted and schemed to eliminate the new buffoonery and “Oh $#!+” moments of the trip just completed. 

     My last trip was different. When I stepped off the plane, I had absolutely no clue of how I was going to solve my self-imposed purgatory problem: “What chambering and bullet(s) combination is preferred as an all-around system for both trophy and cull hunting plains game throughout South Africa?” The analytical and numbers-based way that I answered that question is both the motivation and basis of this book.  

     There was no real reason to ask the question in the first place. I had developed five different loads using six different bullets for my 375 H&H. Bullet weights ranged from 235 grains to 350 grains. With that chambering and those specific bullets, I had the flexibility to take dangerous game out to about 200 yards and plains game out to about 600 yards, if need be. The accuracy I had achieved with most of the bullets was sufficient for some hunters to call me a liar. The system’s demonstrated Africa performance came reasonably close to meeting my philosophical terminal performance criterion that can be articulated by the following statement: “If an animal is alive 10 seconds after the shot, that is 9 seconds too long”. As far as I was concerned, John Taylor was right when he opined in 1948 that the 375 H&H was an ideal all-around big-game chambering.  

     So, why was I considering fixing something that obviously wasn’t broke? Because three PHs whose opinions I greatly respect said that the 375 H&H was basically too much gun for cull hunting.  

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     My first four trips were trophy hunts. The primary objective of a trophy hunt is a recovered animal. Standard practice is a broadside shot on the shoulder to take out the heart or at least the plumbing on top of the heart. In doing so, the mobility of at least one front leg would be significantly debilitated, and both lungs would be perforated in the process. Shots other than broadside increased the risk of an unrecovered animal, with an extreme-angle rear quartering shot considered riskiest of all. Although the recovered animal would be productively used, meat damage is a secondary consideration. 

     My fifth trip had consisted of both a trophy hunt and cull hunts. Cull hunts are an integral part of South Africa landowner wildlife management practice. Cull hunting is used to strategically thin herds to improve the balance both within a particular herd and among herds competing for the same feed source. Cull hunting is simply body count for meat, commonly with shots to the lungs from any angle. The run-and-gun nature of the process can result in high-angle rear quartering shots being more prevalent. Recovery is important, but not to the extent as with a trophy hunt. The superior tracking skills of the typical resident South Africa hunter reduce the incidence of lost animals from less-than-optimal shots. 

     As opposed to trophy hunting, maxing out the useable volume of meat is a priority of cull hunting. Smaller caliber bullets are preferred to reduce the wound cavity. Off-the-shelf ammo cost in South Africa is exorbitant, and these small-caliber bullets pushed from non-magnum chamberings offer significant economy. For these reasons, my 375 H&H is not considered a good cull rifle chambering. It is more like a broadsword where a rapier is preferred.  

     An alternate chambering and bullet combination to my 375 H&H system that is considered compatible for both trophy and cull hunting had been presented by my PH friends. All three agreed that a 308 Winchester shooting a 165-grain solid copper bullet worked quite well in both applications. Not knowing why, I couldn’t shake the notion that the smaller chambering and bullet proposed by the PHs would not even come close to achieving my stated philosophical terminal performance criterion. My 375 H&H and selected bullets had essentially stopped animals. I was skeptical that a 308 Winchester with any bullet could do the same. Somehow quantifying a bullet’s terminal performance potential with a numbers-based analytical process was really the only way I could personally address my skepticism.  

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     Numbers-based. I have over four decades as a consulting professional engineer who has relied on numbers-based analyses to provide the basis for my clients making informed, strategic choices and reducing risk. Strategic choices and assessing risk of a lost animal are the objectives of the numbers obtained from the analytical tools that you will find in this book.  

     Numbers-based. I have developed a way to indirectly model and actually calculate the volume of the inferred wound cavity made by a bullet as it passes through synthetic gel. I believe that the cavity volume as well as other strategic measurements of the cavity housed within the gel blocks can form the basis for evaluating and ranking bullet performance regardless of caliber or generic design. Results of my own gel testing are included and have been used to rank specific 30-, 35-, and .375-caliber bullets to assess a solution to my self-imposed purgatory question.  

     Numbers-based. The penetration length and wound cavity volume of bullets from each of what I interpret as five major generic designs are controlled by impact velocity. Each generic design has a sweet-spot or recommended impact velocity range that few manufacturers specifically stipulate. Speculative guidelines for impact velocity ranges for bullets from each identified generic design are presented based on the gel testing performed and selected published accounts. 

     Numbers-based analysis. An empirical equation that I developed over 15 years ago is presented that allows what I believe to be reasonable and prudent estimates of plains game weight that could potentially be taken based on a bullet’s weight and impact velocity. The empiricism’s veracity is keyed to field accounts and recommendations in books published by Kevin Robertson, Finn Aagaard, and Craig Boddington. The empiricism’s results can be applied as either a pass/fail criterion or in the form of a risk evaluation tool.  

     Analysis-based. I present an outline for identifying relevant issues associated with defining most big-game hunting scenarios. The outline is also the basis for determining impact velocities of selected trial bullets. These impact velocities can then be used in the furnished empiricism to assess if the selected chambering and bullet are compatible with taking the plains game animal under consideration.  

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     I am a four-time, 1000-yard benchrest Nationals Champion and at one time held a six-target aggregate score record. I present a generic equipment list of suggested, specialized reloading tools that can be used with hand loading techniques to significantly improve hunting ammunition accuracy beyond that customarily obtained with off-the-shelf ammo. I also present my method for identifying powders compatible with the rifle’s harmonics, as well as basic concepts for evolving a load to a successful conclusion. 

     The issues associated with the simple word ‘present’ in the above list of book deliverables were vexing and formidable. The focus of ‘present’ began with organizing and interpreting the gel test results. That focus transitioned me from a hunter who might have been satisfied with a qualitative approach into an engineer that would only be satisfied with a quantitative one. My entire professional engineering career had been one of gathering data that could be used, through analysis, to tell a coherent and logical story based on the physical sciences and engineering mechanics. That story then had to be told to my clients in a form suitable enough to solve their problems on their terms. That template of ‘present’ was the one I intuitively knew I needed to accommodate. 

     I found no help or even clues associated with ‘present’ in online content. Only one source in my admittedly limited literature review actually quantified the cavity entity formed in a synthetic gel based on a broad range of impact velocities from testing only one bullet. I could find no one that gave a published account, authoritative or otherwise, of what I believed was a reasonable and coherent technical explanation of the mechanics associated with the cavity formation, nor how the cavity could be used to make judgements concerning the actual field terminal performance of the bullet that made it. 

     What started out as backyard, rogue tinkering to give me a clue about a potential answer to my personal purgatory question morphed into the realization that I may have metaphorically created the ‘Rosetta Stone’ for interpreting and potentially predicting wound cavity formation based on a bullet’s generic design. All I knew (and still know, for that matter) was that the resultant concepts and ‘numbers’ spawned from my evaluating the gel cavities made sense to me on my terms, and could potentially make sense to others. Based on these wound cavity evaluations, I believed I could make reasonable judgements concerning the likely field terminal performance of the bullets I had tested.  At the very least, my testing,

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analytical methods, and conceptual explanations could potentially serve as focal points for true experts to weigh in and furnish rigorous quantitative explanations, test methods, and wound cavity metrics for evaluating field terminal performance of hunting bullets. 

     I was then faced with the far more formidable issue associated with the word ‘present’. What was to be the template for introducing and explaining the concepts, analysis, and numbers spawned from the gel testing? 

     The issues that needed explaining fall under the general heading of ‘technical analysis’. My consulting experience indicated few people are willing to subject themselves to such mental gymnastics, particularly if the analysis being considered is abstract or theoretical. The analysis needed to be productively applied, preferably through a problem actually solved using the methodology being introduced. Any peripheral, inter-related issues suggested by the problem should be reasonably addressed, if for no other reason than to give a reader potentially beneficial takeaways if there were objections to the technical aspects of the problem’s solution. 

     Such a solved example problem is the fundamental storyline of the book. The story is fact-based and actual events-based fiction that has literary elements from the book Alice in Wonderland, the TV series MacGyver, and the movies “Forrest Gump”, “Jeremiah Johnson”, “Dances with Wolves”, “Young Frankenstein”, “Star Wars”, and “Back to the Future”. 

     A first-time Africa hunter from North America becomes obsessed with stalking and taking a kudu with his 270 Winchester and 130-grain uber ammo. In face-to-face conversations with multiple Africa PHs, he asks a simple question: “Would my 270 Winchester be okay for hunting a kudu?” Each time the hunter believes the answers are not definitive, bordering on PC pandering. As a last resort, he asks the resident grouch at his home range that is reputed to have Africa hunting experience the same question. The grouch’s non-answer is a book to read and an empirical equation. The hunter’s prideful, stubborn tenacity to find a simple answer to his simple question ultimately leads him down a rabbit hole into the grouch’s alternate universe of terminal performance evaluation. 

        The grouch is a purveyor of seemingly mad science, believing that the answer to the hunter’s question is numbers and analysis based. The analysis takes into

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consideration the hunter’s desired terminal performance expectation, his tolerance for risk, the likely bullet impact velocities that could occur during the hunt, the bullet’s generic design, and the characteristics of the animal. 

        The hunter reluctantly allows himself to reconsider accepted notions of evaluating a hunting bullet’s terminal performance. In a leap of faith, he ultimately accepts the grouch’s characterizations of a hunting bullet’s terminal performance, knowing full well that they have no mainstream acceptance nor validation. 

        The grouch helps the hunter define his hunting problem. The hunter then integrates his newfound terminal performance understanding with his defined hunting problem in order to select his chambering and bullet. To prepare for his safari, he learns to reload, to refine his load to achieve his stipulated accuracy criterion, and to shoot in positions typically used in stalking Africa plains game. 

        While he is in Africa, the hunter’s experiences foster enlightened respect for the animals. This respect provides the motivation for the hunter to critically evaluate his personal terminal performance criteria based on the animal’s reaction to the shot, skinning-shed autopsies of animals taken with his and other chamberings, and feedback from other hunters and his PH. These newfound terminal performance perspectives provide the hunter with the relevance link to Africa old-school, tried-and-true medium bores. 

        In football terms, the good faith intent of this book is to put an Africa plains- game hunter in the red zone. If he scores or how he scores is up to him. I wish you success and good hunting. 

     Scott Fletcher

     March, 2022

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