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Two thoughts come to mind at this stage:
1) Good Safari outfitters do not ask their client to adapt to them, they adapt to their client.
This is your time, your money, your hunt. You deserve it to be tailored to your needs. I agree with what has already been said regarding modern Africa hunting. Unless you CHOOSE to hunt hard on foot, or unless you are engaged in very specialized hunts such as Bongo in Cameroon or giant Eland in CAR, etc., you should really not be concerned.
I know for sure that other outfitters do the same thing, but talking from experience at Huntershill, we accommodate on a very regular basis hunters with physical challenges far greater than what you describe. I would clearly discuss this with your outfitter and PH, so that they can plan the hunt you want, but based on what you said, I would not worry overly about it.
2) In typical africahuning.com fashion, in answer to your question, here is one perspective on the choice of bullet for your .300.
Various folks will have various experiences and recommendations, and various likes and dislikes. I always try to stay away from the likes & dislikes, we all have those, right?, and I tend to focus on objective criteria.
So..... objectively, the traditional recommendation for 200 gr for a .30 cal, whether .30-06 or .300 something (insert here at will: Win, Wby, Nosler, RUM, Blaser, etc.) mag - or the general traditional recommendation for "heavy for caliber" bullets in Africa - dates back from the times when bullet designs and bullet performance were not as advanced as they are today. To summarize the typical cup & core bullets issue on large, tough game: because they tended to break apart during penetration, in order to have big enough bullet chunks that could penetrate deeply, the wisdom was to start with heavier bullets. For example, a .30 cal 200 gr bullet that would loose about 50% weight during penetration would in the end penetrate with about 100 gr.
The new generations of bullets, either very tough bonded bullets such as the Swift A Frame, or mono-metal controlled expansion hollow point bullets such as Barnes TTSX, Hornady GMX, Nosler ETip, etc. typically achieve great expansion AND 95% weight retention. This means that a 180 gr .30 cal bullet that retains 95% weight typically penetrates with 170 gr.
These new bullets have been literally game changers. Hunters have reacted to them in three ways:
- A fair number do not really think about these things and keep shooting what they always shot, or whatever is on the shelf that day.
- A fair number fully realize the advantages the new bullet designs provide and decide to continue to shoot the same weight with modern bullets to increase the performance of their rifle. In effect a 200 gr .300 A frame or TTSX likely produces nowadays effects on game similar to, or better than what .325, .338 or .358 cup & core bullets used to produce in the good old days.
- A fair number fully realize the advantages the new bullet designs provide and decide that they do not need to up gun their .300 to .338 outcomes, and choose to shoot lighter bullets than the traditional weight to gain two very useful advantages: significant reduction in recoil and flatter trajectory.
I personally went from .338 cal with 250 gr Nosler Partition that typically shed their front core, lost 40% of weight, and penetrated with 150 gr, as a do-it-all plains game rifle (from Duiker to Eland), to a .300 cal with 165 gr TTSX that retain 95% weight and penetrate with 156 gr.
To prove the concept to myself, I even did one plains game safari last year shooting a .25 cal with 100 gr TTSX that penetrate with the same weight (~95 gr) as a cup & core 180 gr .30 slug that lost 50% weight used to, and I got 16 one shot instant kills on anything from Vaal Rhebok to Roan. As a matter of coincidence, I was just posting about this yesterday in answer to another question:
https://www.africahunting.com/threa...her-of-these-bullets.42997/page-2#post-667068
So, you can certainly continue to shoot 200 gr with a .300, but 180 gr or 165 gr A Frame or TTSX will kill just as well, and will shoot easier, faster and flatter. I will even go as far as saying that if you do not have the heavy weight plains game species on your list, a .300 launching 130 or 150 TTSX is quite an awesome platform. Your call in the end
