Hi to you all,
I'm a new visitor to this forum, want to wish you all a good new year. Anyway here is my first post.
After a recently wounding and losing my first animal this past season, I have been giving some thought to the subject of minimum calibres.
The animal I lost was ‘just’ an Impala ewe, a small antelope about 45 kgs (100 lbs), the cartridge was the 7x30 Waters firing a 140gr Nosler B/T at 2250 fps from a 14’’ barrel, and she was broadside at 75 yards, give or take.
It was a gut shot (11 ½’’ from centre of the shoulder), only a portion of the core exited and was recovered in a sapling about 5 feet behind her position, needless to say, blood spoor was minimal. I tracked her for about 250 meters then lost the spoor.
Now I have been asking myself if a more powerful calibre would not have brought her down sooner or at least provided a better blood spoor to follow?
Consider this, if that same shot had been made with a 338 Win mag firing a 210gr Nosler Part. at 2900 fps, the wound would have been such that she would in all probability, not have moved more than 50 or so yards, and there would have been a trail anybody could have followed – I’m sure of it – I know there are rare exceptions.
Clearly a 338 Win Mag is too much for such a small creature, but it does make the point.
What I am asking is this, is it not time for us all to reconsider what is the recommended acceptable minimum calibre for a particular class of game. Based on what can be expected of that cartridge when hits are less than perfect – instead of judging it’s performance when a bullet hits ‘on the money’?
As an example, that particular 7x30 Waters combination had up to that time accounted for 7 Impala’s (1 male/ 6 female) and 2 medium sized Warthogs – all under 100 meters, and so, could be fairly judged to be ‘suitable’ for game in that weight class. Now however, I feel this particular combination should be categorised as ‘marginal’, and better suited to the smaller classes of antelope such as Duiker, Steenbok, and Klipspringer etc.
Reason is that, because in the case of a poor hit, it cannot be relied upon to put an animal in this weight class down anywhere nearly quick enough. We all know a gut shot animal will almost always run off, the question is how far will it run and how much blood will it lose (on the ground) along the way? These factors will determine the probability of recovering it or not.
Obviously the small piece of soft lead core ‘squirting’ through the offside skin left a very small hole – contributing to the lack of blood spoor to follow. So perhaps a better bullet that held together would have improved things a bit. Still she had moved at least 400 yards (250 plus fanning around when spoor was lost), probably much more, from where she was hit.
I just wonder if a 308 Win/30-06 or similar would not have put her down sooner?
I know a lot of what I have said here is a generalisation and is based on a singular incident, it is not my intention to dissect this incident, but rather I used it only as an example of what I mean generally. The same could be said of many of the smaller and less powerful hunting cartridges.
I feel we as hunters tend to judge and so categorise cartridges (un-suitable, marginal, suitable, good choice) by what they can achieve when all goes well. As such we are unwittingly continuing to move toward smaller and less powerful cartridges – which may not be ‘generally’ suitable.
A good example is the recent trend towards hunting big game with the various .22 centrefires. Just because they can kill quickly when shots are perfectly placed does not necessarily make them suitable. What happens when they’re not placed perfectly, how long does death take then? And what are the chances of recovery?
In a recent article in our local hunting magazine there was a story of someone testing Barnes ‘X’ bullets at various velocities on game, many animals were shot ranging from Impala to Zebra, and the cartridge of choice was….……….the 22 Hornet.
While the idea was a good one, the data collected was really only applicable to the 45gr bullet used, and cannot be readily extrapolated to the larger calibres, so its usefulness it questionable. So I must ask why use such an inappropriate cartridge?
Is an article like this not (inadvertently) prompting some people into thinking that the Hornet could be suitable for game hunting ……….even up to Zebra?
sorry this is such a long post, I'll try to keep them shorter in future.
Bush baby
I'm a new visitor to this forum, want to wish you all a good new year. Anyway here is my first post.
After a recently wounding and losing my first animal this past season, I have been giving some thought to the subject of minimum calibres.
The animal I lost was ‘just’ an Impala ewe, a small antelope about 45 kgs (100 lbs), the cartridge was the 7x30 Waters firing a 140gr Nosler B/T at 2250 fps from a 14’’ barrel, and she was broadside at 75 yards, give or take.
It was a gut shot (11 ½’’ from centre of the shoulder), only a portion of the core exited and was recovered in a sapling about 5 feet behind her position, needless to say, blood spoor was minimal. I tracked her for about 250 meters then lost the spoor.
Now I have been asking myself if a more powerful calibre would not have brought her down sooner or at least provided a better blood spoor to follow?
Consider this, if that same shot had been made with a 338 Win mag firing a 210gr Nosler Part. at 2900 fps, the wound would have been such that she would in all probability, not have moved more than 50 or so yards, and there would have been a trail anybody could have followed – I’m sure of it – I know there are rare exceptions.
Clearly a 338 Win Mag is too much for such a small creature, but it does make the point.
What I am asking is this, is it not time for us all to reconsider what is the recommended acceptable minimum calibre for a particular class of game. Based on what can be expected of that cartridge when hits are less than perfect – instead of judging it’s performance when a bullet hits ‘on the money’?
As an example, that particular 7x30 Waters combination had up to that time accounted for 7 Impala’s (1 male/ 6 female) and 2 medium sized Warthogs – all under 100 meters, and so, could be fairly judged to be ‘suitable’ for game in that weight class. Now however, I feel this particular combination should be categorised as ‘marginal’, and better suited to the smaller classes of antelope such as Duiker, Steenbok, and Klipspringer etc.
Reason is that, because in the case of a poor hit, it cannot be relied upon to put an animal in this weight class down anywhere nearly quick enough. We all know a gut shot animal will almost always run off, the question is how far will it run and how much blood will it lose (on the ground) along the way? These factors will determine the probability of recovering it or not.
Obviously the small piece of soft lead core ‘squirting’ through the offside skin left a very small hole – contributing to the lack of blood spoor to follow. So perhaps a better bullet that held together would have improved things a bit. Still she had moved at least 400 yards (250 plus fanning around when spoor was lost), probably much more, from where she was hit.
I just wonder if a 308 Win/30-06 or similar would not have put her down sooner?
I know a lot of what I have said here is a generalisation and is based on a singular incident, it is not my intention to dissect this incident, but rather I used it only as an example of what I mean generally. The same could be said of many of the smaller and less powerful hunting cartridges.
I feel we as hunters tend to judge and so categorise cartridges (un-suitable, marginal, suitable, good choice) by what they can achieve when all goes well. As such we are unwittingly continuing to move toward smaller and less powerful cartridges – which may not be ‘generally’ suitable.
A good example is the recent trend towards hunting big game with the various .22 centrefires. Just because they can kill quickly when shots are perfectly placed does not necessarily make them suitable. What happens when they’re not placed perfectly, how long does death take then? And what are the chances of recovery?
In a recent article in our local hunting magazine there was a story of someone testing Barnes ‘X’ bullets at various velocities on game, many animals were shot ranging from Impala to Zebra, and the cartridge of choice was….……….the 22 Hornet.
While the idea was a good one, the data collected was really only applicable to the 45gr bullet used, and cannot be readily extrapolated to the larger calibres, so its usefulness it questionable. So I must ask why use such an inappropriate cartridge?
Is an article like this not (inadvertently) prompting some people into thinking that the Hornet could be suitable for game hunting ……….even up to Zebra?
sorry this is such a long post, I'll try to keep them shorter in future.
Bush baby