I suppose your right, I have been asked that a lot. So rather they type in a whole new answer I'll repost a reply on this topic and another new one from just a week ago. It's not africa but you will see the reason for the post as it relates to your statement that not all shots are under 200 yards.
The reality is that a 300 yard shot for general plains game in natural habitat is a very long shot in Southern Africa. There may be a couple species and habitats that would challange that distance but they are the rare exception.
Here is reprint post #1 I think you will see what my opinion is from this post. It removes all doubt about the cartridge, and the average skill to handle it well.
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As Promised I have recovered and recorded a lot of information on the bullets used this season from my loaner 30/06 rifle.
First some of the facts and details regarding the loads and the gun used.
Rifle: Model 70 Winchester PacNor 23” barrel in standard 30/06 cartridge
Winchester Brass
Federal 210M primers
IMR4350 powder 58 grains
Chronographed at 2900 plus at 55deg F
Game shot by 5 different hunters six male one female
6 warthogs
12 impala
6 Kudu bulls
1 Kudu cow
5 Zebra
3 waterbuck
6 wildebeest
4 Red Hartebeest
4 Blesbok
2 Nyala
1 Steenbok
1 Gemsbok
51 total animals. One was not recovered, a Blue Wildebeest was lost although a confirmed hit with a short blood trail.
Shortest shot was a impala at about 40 feet, longest shots were a Zebra at a laser measured 237 yards, Blue Wildebeest at 198 yards, Kudu Bull at 225, and Impala at 177 yards all measured with my LRF 1200.
35 were shot with the Barnes TSX bullets. 7 were recovered
6 were shot with the Federal Fusion factory loads
6 were shot with Hornady Interbonds
4 were shot with the PMC factory loads
My unbiased assessment is as follows. However I must first say that I was admittedly very skeptical of the Barnes bullets based on my prior extensive experience with the original X bullet design. I must also admit to not being very impressed with the Fusions lack of velocity at only 2700plus fps. The PMC bullets were on hand and used to share the difference between factory cup and core bullets and premium handloads. The Interbonds were already a well known performer and had a lot of respect from me.
My rifle was zeroed with the X bullets and shooting hole touching groups at 100 meters. Prior to departure I shot a three shot group to foul the barrel. Upon arrival I shot a 2 shot group to prove the travel did not compromise the scope adjustments. There were 5 shots now through the barrel. Each hunter using this rifle also shot it before their hunt started. The Fusion, PMC, and Interbond bullets would shoot into about a 3+” group mixed POI's with the settings used for the TSX bullets.
The Federal Fusion Bullets: Underpowered for bigger game. The lack of velocity and the unpredictable bullet shapes left me unimpressed. Although they held together they under penetrated and fell short of my desired performance hopes. ItÂ’s an excellent inexpensive deer and smaller big game bullet but does not have the kind of killing power I expect with a 30/06 using other loads and bullets. A good choice for deer, impala, blesbok, but I would not likely choose them for anything bigger or even on the tough little warthog. I stopped using this bullet for further shooting on game based on the early limited performance on the recovered game and bullets. With the shallow penetration and oddly shaped mushrooms I was not confident to shoot game as tough as wildebeest, gemsbok and zebra with these bullets.
PMC Bullets: As can be expected with these bullets being Cup and Core design they will kill about like the Fusion bullets. If everything is perfect they work fine, but when something goes wrong they will not provide the edge I would like to see in my bullets. All of them failed to stay in one piece and all lost much if not all functional weight retention.
Hornady Interbonds: Work flawless and 100% predictable 4 out of the 6 were recovered and all had massive expansion with great weight retention. Another hunter used these bullets in his 30/06 AI and had identical performace and recovery percentages as my standard 30/06. The AI version was about 90fps faster at 3000fps. A better bullet would be difficult to choose. I have already posted dozens of pictures and text on these bullets in the past. This years experience is the same. It's a class act by Hornady and difficult to choose another bullet over this design.
The Barnes TSX bullet: Well this was the one that drove this project for me. Although I am very pleased with the performance. I am very happy with the results of so many deadly shots on big tough game animals. IÂ’m still skeptical about some of what I have seen. The 7 recovered bullets look almost identical and have from what I can see 100% weight retention. Not a single petal was broken off and all expanded from the close range 40 yard shots to the longer near 250 yard shots. Some exits were massive and the blood was flowing freely. Others showed me a bore diameter hole and not a drop of blood from the exit. I’m stumped as to how these bullets exit with an exact bore diameter hole? Yet some others have a huge exit hole. I had about a 20% recovered bullet rate from these bullets. The lowest recovery percentage of any bullet I have ever used. Exits are the norm with the TSX. I had a bullet zip clean through the shoulders of a Big Zebra at 237 yards which included the vertebra and one scapula above the shoulders. This is enough mass that I have seen it stop a 270 grain Swift A frame from a 375HH plenty of times. Yet a 165 grain TSX from a 30/06 passed through. 4 zebra were shot with the 30/06. One needed a follow up shot, all 4 of the TSX bullets passed through these zebra. Only the one follow up shot was inside one of them. Zebra, Gemsbok, and Blue Wildebeest are about the best bullet stopping plains game we have. All three species were shot clean through with this bullet. Few provided a good blood trail often due to the bore diameter exit holes. Those that had good blood trails when recovered always had good exit holes too.
Here is an Impala with a noticeable exit hole but you can clearly see there is no blood flow.
I have 4 other TSX bullets I could photo and post here. However they are identical to the first two in this photo. They would be difficult to tell apart had I not marked them before I left! The only oddball in the group is the one from the zebra. It was recovered inside the heart. It has a wrinkled petal which you can see in this photo. All the others are exactly the same.
The rifle was not cleaned, barrel swabbed out, or oiled during the entire trip. On my last evening I hunted hard for a warthog. I walked from 2:30 PM til dark about 6PM I was hunting alone and looking for a whopper warthog I had seen twice in the prior several weeks I had been hunting here. In the closing moments of light about 5:55 I saw what looked like a shooter. At 75 yards he was trotting parallel to the road I was on, and slightly quartering away from me through the bush. When the warthog cleared a bush and left me with a fleeting moment between bushes I leveled the upper crosshair and touched off the trigger when it was layed behind the last rib. It appeared as if I rolled him over but the muzzle flash was too bright. I walked to the spot and saw a spot of blood. Then there in the flashlight beam just ahead he layed dead. The blood flow was significant and the exit was through the opposite scapula.
Several times I tested the accuracy during the week with targets. Each time the bullets were into the 1” square “bullseye” on the target at 100 meters. With nearly 60 shots fired during this trip and no cleaning I trusted this rifle and bullet combination on the last moment shot at the warthog. There was simply no fouling problems with these TSX bullets and this PacNor barrel!
I would certainly feel a whole lot better if the exits looked like they had more consistency in size. However I have also come to another probably arguable conclusion with the TSX and the 30/06. I would much prefer to have a 30/06 with this bullet and a rangefinder then a 300mag of any make without a rangefinder. I feel 100% confident that these bullets will penetrate and shoot accurately as far as I would like to shoot. Say 400 yards or so. If you know the distance with the rangefinder hitting the target is not complicated or risky with low wind. These 165 grain TSX bullets in a 30/06 will out perform a 300 magnum with a standard cup and core bullet every time. Sure you can up weight with a 300 magnum and use the 180Â’s. However if the 30/06 killed 50 of 51 tough big game animals IÂ’m not sure moving to the 300 mag is a practical choice if you want more power. I think moving to the 338 is much more logical. If shooting long range 450 yards plus is the reason then would I agree. However a rangefinder with a 30/06 is still a very do-able shot with these TSX bullets on a calm day.
So do I switch now from the Hornady Interbonds I love so much to the TSX bullets? ..........Wow talk about a tough choice! The TSX shoots a tiny bit better in Accuracy, the tips donÂ’t deform, they seat very tight in the brass with the groves. They don’t have the 100% internal damage consistency that the Interbonds have, but they are close and I cannot explain why the exit holes are bore diameter on some of the game. I do have a photo coming of the exit on a zebra. It looks like the stallion was shot with a small broad head. It has 4 slices about ¼” long each. It’s a brilliant exit hole. Why donÂ’t they all show this? Maybe 35 big animals under nearly identical conditions is still not enough information? I will say that If I only saw 10-12 of the best exits I would swear these were the best bullets on earth no question, hands down, end of story. I may yet agree to this statement. However there were those few that leave me wondering why a tiny little exit hole as if the bullet did not open or the petals all sheared off? ( no petals ever found inside) I will continue to use them until the first time I find one that is unopened inside an animal. If that does not happen I may not use anything else in this rifle. I think they make a better large big game, Elk, bear, zebra, wildebeest, gemsbok, eland, waterbuck, moose, etc bullet then the Interbond because the exits at least in theory should provide more blood flow. I think the interbonds will provide much more explosive impact and internal trauma on deer sized game like antelope, sheep, blesbok, impala, etc.
They do not have a similar POI or load to shoot well from my rifle. They are as incompatible with a single scope setting as possible. I will have to pick one and stick with it. So for now I’ll stay with the TSX. As far as I’m concerned the TSX does more with the available power of the 30/06 then the Interbond does. The much higher frequency of exits is a benefit to good blood trails. I know my weakness as a confirmed bullet recovery junky even though I know they should all exit.
I’m not sure you can make a mistake in choosing between the 165 grain AFrame, Interbond, Accubond, TSX, or Partition, The one that shoots best in your barrel and gets a minimum level of functional velocity should do fine. I guess having to choose between the 165 grain Interbond and the 165 grain TSX for me is actually a good problem to have.
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Here is post #2 using the same rifle and ammo, although not Africa game it will give you some input towards the longer range questions you had.
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I took my little boy to Northern California this week to hunt wild hogs. I've hunted pigs all over the USA and outside the USA on several occasions. Hogs are a passion of mine I just can't explain it.
We drove down in the pickup with the camper and stayed right on the ranch we were going to hunt. During the stay I would guess I saw 50-60 pigs, although none provided any normal ethical type of shooting ............... for me. The Pigs here are all very nocturnal. In daylight or across open ground they are moving all the time towards the thick stuff. It took a while to figure this out for me. I was always expecting them to stop at some point and offer some kind of standing shot.
After a couple days of this the manager of the ranch I was hunting went out with us. We came across a group of hogs crossing way ahead of us and he said "shoot one"....... They were trotting at a good clip, but not quite full out running.....yet.
When he yelled to me I sat and rested the rifle across my knee and picked one out, but dog-gone they were moving fast and getting out of range in a hurry.
Then he yells..... Better shoot, they are going to be gone.
So I lead the biggest one which is quartering away and moving fast at 150 plus yards. I squeeze the trigger and nothing falls or even flinches.............A miss?
He yells over to me shoot again!
I'm trying my best now to steady this rifle and only have a tail shot as the same hog is heading up the hill about 250 yards away. I lay the crosshairs between the ears hoping it's enough lead and click it off...........Nothing at all, no reaction nada ...........zip.......nothing!
He says to me "wadda ya missin these hogs"
Then I get a break, ........well kinda........that big hog stops just below the rise in the hill, turns broadside and stands looking back. I said to the rancher, how far? My rangefinder is in my pocket but I have about 2 seconds to shoot. He says " he's all of 300 maybe 350" I was thinking 400 but at least he's motionless. I know my rifle is 13" low at 400 so I hold the crosshairs right on the top of his back. Slowly squeeze off and Boom!...... the good sound of a solid hit with the pig lurching and stumbling then running up the hill and over the crest.
The rancher says........well that last one got him.
So we load onto his ATV and drive up to hill. He drops Jesse and I off on the down hill side to look for blood and he drives up the really steep sidehill where the pig was standing. Before I could even get serious about the direction I was looking he yells down the pig is up here!
So we climb up and he says you hit it twice about 3 inches apart right through the chest. Perfect shots. Wow how did that pig go that far with a double lung hit.... up that steep hill at a run? When we were rolling him over for photo's he says "holy cow you really blew a hole into this hind quarter". I looked over and said WOW...... I actually hit him all three times! He did not seem to think it was reason to be pleased that I blew a ham to bits. I'll take a bad ham and a running shot at 250 yards every time! Better to lose a little meat then the whole animal. But what's even more impressive is that this hog was double lunged at 150, had a complete length wise penetration at 250, and still made it to 350 plus for a needed 3rd shot.
And this was a Sow too! Anyway it was a good hunt with my nearly 5 year old son. And three more complete pass throughs with the 165TSX from that 30/06. I'm not one to shoot running game as a normal practice. I've taken a few head running, but I never like the odds. The Northern California Ranchers don't look at pigs like normal big game, but rather they seem to consider them as most of us would coyotes. I would never pass a chance at a coyote even running. I guess I was slow to grasp that when I arrived there. I definately gotta practice a bit more running shots if I do this again!
All the exits looked like good expanded functional TSX performance. The entry on the hindquarter was 1" and that inner thigh was just mush. The exit was between the front legs but very near the right front leg "arm pit". The exit was about 1/2" diameter. They also kept the TSX tradition of no game reaction at all when hit. Only that last shot which broke the exit side Humerus and poked through the entry side scapula gave an indication of a solid hit.
Hard to argue with a 250 yard lengthwise pass through on what is probably a 200pound animal as tough as a hog is. Let there be no doubt about the toughness of a wild hog. These aniamls are like African Game where the ability to absorb bullets are concerned.
Since I have taken a number of exceptional hogs in my life, I've become just as happy with a nice size meat hog. This was a sow which will be great table fare. Just as good as big tusks sometimes. I have another tag good til June. Maybe I'll try and head back down for another one before this tag expires.
