What calibre for Cape Eland

[tarbe]

However .220gr partitions would surely also be effective and satisfactory.

And you are going to have a stash of them soon enough, to try out for yourself! Not to mention 200 and 180 grain Partitions as well.

Being as I have never busted game animal number one on the African continent, I read all these caliber and shot placement threads with keen interest.

Usually I hear folks talking about busting the harder to kill critters on the point of the shoulder....but here I read about shooting the Eland through the lungs, like we do our deer here in the States.

My reading here has me just a little paranoid about lung shots. Am I misinterpreting the recommendations??

 

[Mekaniks]

You guys keep this up and Nosler is going to start making pink Partitions.

 

[enysse]

A double lung shot is usually 99% effective. Unless some one uses the wrong bullets or wrong caliber, it should be 100% effective. No animal can live without oxygen!

 

[billc]

Tim I took that eland with loodt through the shoulder and got both lungs but bullet did not come out far shoulder though.That 200 grain aframe took him down with in 50 yds of the shoot.You shoot them far enough back on the shoulder you will get both lungs and break the shoulder down.

 

[Velo Dog]

And you are going to have a stash of them soon enough, to try out for yourself! Not to mention 200 and 180 grain Partitions as well.

Being as I have never busted game animal number one on the African continent, I read all these caliber and shot placement threads with keen interest.

Usually I hear folks talking about busting the harder to kill critters on the point of the shoulder....but here I read about shooting the Eland through the lungs, like we do our deer here in the States.

My reading here has me just a little paranoid about lung shots. Am I misinterpreting the recommendations??

Excellent question Tarbe,

Most African antelope's heart-lungs and related plumbing are very well set between the shoulders and so shooting them behind the shoulder, as we do the deer family here is potentially a gut shot when said antelope is perfectly broadside or worse yet, ever so slightly quartering toward you but in the excitement appears to be exactly broadside as you let fly.

Trust the hunters and PHs here who advise that even a gut shot impala can try a very healthy athlete to keep up, for mile after mile until it hopefully makes another mistake, thereby giving you a 2nd chance.

Don't even think about the marathon death march often required for a gut shot eland, zebra or blue wildebeest (although the blue w-beest's heart is located a little further back than most of his PG brethren).

I've only gone hunting over to Africa four times but so far, not very many of the animals were obliging enough to stand perfectly broadside for me anyway, no matter where their vital parts are located.

For my luck, most have been somewhat to thoroughly quartering, usually toward me, and some, (including my one and only buffalo) were totally facing me straight on, for that very brief moment, before either I got the shot in or, they bolted.

Well anyway, Enysse is correct in that "no animal can live without oxygen".

Therefore, since most of the African antelope species heart/lung processes are located smack between their shoulders, I "Strongly Recommend" that you memorize the shot placement photos posted here by Jerome / AfricaHunting.com and/or if you only buy one book for Africa, make it "The Perfect Shot" by Doctor Kevin Robertson, posting in this forum as doctari505.

Someone mentioned recently that the original hard bound book is already out of print but I have seen the pocket version for sale lately (under $20.US) - worth every penny.

My parting shot is that the above things are why I prefer a bit larger caliber/heavier bullet/moderate velocity, for typical thornbush Africa (woods hunting in other words) than I do a bit smaller caliber / lighter bullet / high velocity.

Not only does this give me more assurance of breaking through shoulder bones to lacerate heart/lung but, it has the added advantage of not ruining quite as much meat as the lighter/higher velocity bullets tend to do.

Cheers,
Velo Dog.

 

[daved]

Nothing wrong with the 30-06.
If you are wanting to shoot at 250+ yds though 300winmag

 

[MJ75]

Peter recently bought himself a new gun. I haven't seen it but from what I was told it is custom built "PINK"
HA HA HA HA

Best tell Pieter not to go hunting in Uganda, if you know what I'm sayin.

 

[buchnerl]

Best tell Pieter not to go hunting in Uganda, if you know what I'm sayin.

Yep, not that good of an idea, and @billc forget about hunting Uganda brother!

 

[IvW]

Blaser BBF 97 in 9.3x74R/9.3x74R O/U double with a qd 1 to 6x scope would be my ideal Eland rifle and caliber combo....for a tracking hunt in the bushveld that is.....and no it wont be pink.....

 

[TERMINATOR]

As the title says, what calibre and ammo combination would you recommend for Cape Eland bulls?

Would a .30-06 with 220 grain ammo be enough when shooting at distance? Thanks in advance.

I took my eland with a 300 Wby on a mixed bag safari that included Eland, Zebra, Kudu Hartebeest, Impala, Springbok and Gemsbok. I thought the .300 Mag was a PERFECT plains game gun....except for on the Eland. It was the animal that made me think "A .375 sure would have been good on him"

Take it for what is is worth

 

[grand veneur]

I shot only one eland in my life and that was with the cartridge 375 H&H Magnum and a 300gr A-frame bullet. The shot placement was perfect and the game fell on the place. I don't think that a buffalo would have gone down so easily after the same shot placement with the same cartridge and bullet.

I often read that elands are shot without problem with much powerless cartridges than the 375 H&H Magnum, so I think that the game is not so hard to shoot, especially if one compare with a buffalo, but as I said, I have no experience with this game species.

 

[WAB]

I’ve shot eland with a .375 H&H and 9.3x62. Always with A-Frames, always decisive kills.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

I have shot several eland bulls with .30-06 Springfield rifles and 220Gr Remington Core Lokt soft points over the years, till now. With any reasonably placed shots to the heart-lung region, they all went down extremely fast without giving me any trouble.

But for a novice, I would highly recommend a minimum caliber of .338 Winchester Magnum and 275Gr Swift A-Frames.

 

[typilotguy]

One more thing I’d like to add. I haven’t looked through all the replies, so forgive me if somebody else has addressed this.

Shot placement is paramount. And it should be with a PREMIUM BULLET. Bonded, monolithic…it doesn’t matter. You want something that will not come apart and will penetrate. The cup-and-core bullets that work so well elsewhere just do not hold up to African game, and will undoubtedly leave a lot to desire on an eland.

I may have written about it here elsewhere, but last year (maybe the year before…where does time go?!?!) I personally witnessed terrible failures of 220 grain CoreLokts from a .30/06 fail miserably.

Blue wildebeest just shy of 200m. Shot placement was perfect, right on the shoulder. Bull dropped in its tracks. In the skinning shed, it was discovered that the bullet did not even penetrate into the vitals. The animal was killed, but there was virtually no penetration. Moreover, the largest bullet fragment recovered was a piece of jacket, perhaps the same size as my pinky nail.

Second instance was a magnificent sable from 18m. Shot in the neck. Another up through its chest as it was laying on its side. Neither bullet exited, and both appeared to have blown up, as we only recovered tiny fragments.

Finally there was his kudu. Shot was perfect, on a relaxed animal, from 80m. We chased that animal up and down the Drakensberg mountains for the rest of that day until sunset the next, when I was finally able to anchor him. When we positioned the bull for photos, we saw the glint of the client’s bullet…merely under the hide of the same shoulder he shot. We plucked out the bullet with our fingers…while it was a larger hunk of copper and lead than we had found in any of the other animals, it was still tiny compared to what it should have been.

So yes…as everybody has said, shot placement is key. WITH the proper bullet.

 

[grand veneur]

We all know that a perfect first shot placement is important, after that an enough deeply penetration of the bullet and that this depends on the structure of the various bullets.

The question that arises with bigger game species is how extensive the wound-channels have to be to keep this game in place or eventually to keep the escape distances as short as possible. Larger wound channels depend on the expansion of a bullet but also on the caliber of the bullet. Accordingly is the choice of a cartridge for a particular species of game, in our case the eland.

 

[Nyati]

Mine went down with a .338WM 210gr AFrame, one shot in the heart lung area.

 

[RudiB]

There is no replacement for shot placement. Use a top quality bullet for example, TSX, TTSX, swift A frame, rhino solid shank or Nosler partition in 165gr and higher. I prefer 165gr-180gr for a little flatter trajectory client gun. Works well if you make the shot count.

 

[grand veneur]

As I already wrote above, good shot placement is required no matter what caliber, also by using the biggest ones.

The difference in the size of the wound-channel depends above all on the caliber, as far as it is adapted to the size and weight of the game. Many people don't believe such things, but it is so.

The first question was what would be recommended for shooting an eland and for this reason our discussion is imho rather about whether an eland go down with a smaller wound-channel or whether it would be better to use bigger calibers.

 

[Beck]

I've always thought that a .375 is the perfect caliber for eland, and moose - obviously the .30-06 will also work.

 

[Tom Leoni]

I shot mine behind the shoulder with my go-to cheap-ass Speer 270gr .375 boat-tail spitzer traveling at a moderate 2,500 f/s and the bull fell dead without even taking a step.

In my PH's experience, anything 30 caliber or over is more than adequate for eland. As nice as it is to split hairs over the ideal caliber and ideal shot placement, if I had to get a second one I wouldn't change a thing--perhaps I would try my .318 WR. As other have said, shot placement is much more important than cartridge selection. If you have a 30-cal rifle and want an eland, don't think you have to get anything bigger or faster.