I’ve written about bullet failure several times before, and you can read the article I did for Field & Stream HERE. But on Tuesday morning, while on safari in the Limpopo Province, an event occurred that brought bullet failure up again.
Right now I’m on a veranda of a permanent tent camp just outside Musina in the Limpopo Province. It’s hot — 89° — and the sun feels good compared to what the weather is doing at home in West Virginia. I’m living the good life, as the say, and feel the morning’s events were worth sharing. But before I get into what happened let’s take a practical look at what a big game bullet is actually supposed to do.
Some inaccurately assume the job of a big game bullet is to kill game. Technically, that’s not true. A bullet is a tool that a hunter uses to kill a big game animal, but the bullet does not know that killing is what its supposed to do. A bullet is actually a mechanical device that’s designed to react to — and change shape — because of impact with living tissue. A bullet’s job is to damage tissue as a result of that action. It is the hunter’s job to use the bullet — and its abilities — in conjunction with a rifle, to efficiently and quickly kill big game animals.
If you shoot a kudu bull in the ass, and expect the bullet to kill the kudu, that’s called hunter failure, not bullet failure. However, even with hunter failure you can still kill a big game animal. I know this because I have failed as a hunter and still been successful.
A few days ago I made a bad shot on a kudu bull that was running away. The bullet was a 0.358-caliber Leigh Defense Xtreme Chaos bullet and it hit the bull just below the anus in the edge of the left ham. The bull was quartering away and the bullet exited just forward of the left hip. It’s not a shot anyone wants to make on a kudu bull, but it worked. It worked because the bullet or one of the petals the bullet is designed to shed, cut a large artery. Hunter fails, bullet saves the hunt.
Hunters have a variety of responsibilities when it comes to bullet use, and when they ignore those responsibilities, or fail to address them properly, bullets cannot be blamed.
The hunter must select a bullet that is intended for the type of animal they are hunting.
A hunter must insure the bullet is capable of withstanding the muzzle velocity of the cartridge they’re shooting.
Hunters should also choose a bullet that will work — deform as intended — at the most distant range — slowest velocity — they intend to shoot.
It’s also the hunter’s responsibility to make sure the bullet will do the work it was designed to do — from the muzzle to that extended distance — while providing the necessary penetration to pass through the animal’s vitals, given acceptable shot placement.
And finally, the ultimate responsibility of the hunter is to shoot the animal in the right spot.
Hunters that do not do these five things can’t blame a bullet for failing to make an animal die.
Case Study
On Monday I met up with several hunters to continue my 2024 safari, which stared in the Eastern Cape, progressed up through the Northern Cape, and is now occurring in Limpopo. I was invited by Remington Ammunition to test their new CuT mono-metal bullet. I did not bring a rifle with me, they had several on hand for me to use.
This morning it was my intent to look for a nice nyala and my rifle choices were a 300 Winchester Magnum or a 308 Winchester with Remington’s fairly new Tipped Core-Lokt bullet. (Remington only brought the CuT bullet in a 7mm PRC loading.) Nyala are not big animals — they typically weigh about 225 pounds — so I chose the 308 Winchester, and ere’s how the hunt played out.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to EmptyCases Substack to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.