Henry Rifle Forums

If you ever used a 45-70 on a Cape Buffalo, you would just end up with one very angry buffalo. They are by far the most dangerous of all of Africa's wild game.

Enjoy your trip - Zimbabwe is a beautiful country.

So, my Cape Buffalo hunting buddy has seriously fallen in love with my double rifle.

I have offered to let him hunt with it...and I will tote my Ruger No 1 in 450/400.

If he shoots a Buffalo before me, I can carry-on with the Searcy, if I want.

Which opens up a spot in my gun case. The Henry might be back in. Either it, or a Ruger No 1 in 30-40 Krag...another old-timer that deserves a crack at old Africa.

Right now, I am thinking the Henry 45-70. But with nearly 12 months to go, and the way I change my mind, who knows?

Well, my last post above was rather prophetic!

I ended up buying an American Hunting Rifles 450 Dakota and that ended up being the only rifle I took to Zimbabwe.

Here is what I managed to take, on day 6 of the hunt:

Here is the whole team...My PH John Sharp and the trackers Isaac and Lovemore (the two guys who probably deserve the most credit...and their tip reflected that!).

congrats on your hunt .... were you able to get any size / weight estimates .... what distance did you shoot .... where did you hit the Buffalo .... I'd really like to hear your comments on your Dakota rifle along with the ammo used ... when it was cleaned, what did you learn about the bullet's penetration .... sure appreciate you taking us along ...

JEBar wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:46 am

congrats on your hunt .... were you able to get any size / weight estimates .... what distance did you shoot .... where did you hit the Buffalo .... I'd really like to hear your comments on your Dakota rifle along with the ammo used ... when it was cleaned, what did you learn about the bullet's penetration .... sure appreciate you taking us along ...

There is a detailed trip report at AfricaHunting.com...

On the day we took the bull, we hit tracks at 0700 and caught up with the Dagga Boys at 0900.

Then we played cat and mouse with the wind and the buffalo for 7 hours straight until we finally got into position on this bull where we could take the shot.

Many times we were sure we were busted, and I had to rush my shot a bit at the last second as we were certain another bull was about to smell us and take the herd with him.

One shot kill made at 40 yards. I was hoping to get closer, but if I hadn't taken the shot given, we would have been starting over from scratch the next day for sure!

Long story on the bullet, but the 550 grain Woodleigh Weldcore failed. It did not perform as designed or expected. It shredded the heart/lungs after breaking the near shoulder, but only retained 59% of its mass (designed to retain about 80-85%) and it stopped in the lungs!

Head man at Woodleigh admitted they were having some operational issue (bonding bullets at too low a temp for the bonding to take).

I wish they had recalled these bad bullets. Someone could get killed! Here is the recovered bullet next to an unfired specimen:
All of that bare exposed copper jacket should have lead attached to it!

My load was 99 grains of IMR 4350 in Dakota cases with Federal 215 primers.

The muzzle velocity of the 550gr bullet was 2,170 fps.

The rifle was this AHR custom CZ550:

Here is the view from the dining table in camp.

No way to weigh the buffalo...here he is in the skinning shed just prior to getting the knife:

thanks for the info .... most interesting about the bullet's performance .... sounds like it still did a great deal of damage