First, I loaded my .45-100 (2.6") cases with Goex Cartridge grade black powder. It is a rather specialized load using heavy compression (0.5"). That is followed by a wax paper wad, then 0.3" of SPG bullet lube, and a 0.6" card wad and finally a 535 gr paper patched bullet swaged from 40:1 alloy. For those of you familiar with Dave Corbin's terminology, it would be a .443" LSWC 1e FN CB, that is patched to .453 using Bienfang Graphics 360 paper, and then taper crimped lightly.
On the first evening we stalked an oryx that we had spooked. It was an old solo bull and I told Claude I'd like to hunt an animal like that. He asked me "why not that one? Let's go!" and we did. We stalked him for quite a while, and I sort of figured he was long gone. But suddenly, Claude froze and then slowly set the shooting sticks. I couldn't see the animal from my position but as I leaned forward to put my rifle on the sticks, I could see the back end of the bull facing to my left. By leaning forward far enough, I could put the crosswires on the bottom of his shoulder which was about about 50 yds away. I knew I needed to be about 4" low since my sights were set for 100 yds so I held just about even with the black belly line along his side.
It would have been a perfect shot except I somehow managed to shoot through two 1.5" invisible cat-claw acacia trees. I cannot figure out how that happened. Consequently, the bullet hit just above the sternum at the back of the chest cavity, passed through the diaphram, tip of liver, and into the stomach. It took a lot of tracking (over 2 km) but we got him in the end (with a little help and a good shot by my hunting partner, Mark). Unfortunately, the bullet was not recovered, but it appears to have hit him sideways judging from the bullet hole. The bull was very old and badly scarred and wounded by other bulls.
The next day, the shooting was a bit better. I shot a good warthog at about 98 yds. The bullet entered the point of the right shoulder and exited out the left flank, just ahead of the rear leg. He ran maybe 75-80 yds spouting a huge blood stream and died in midstride. We had a lot of fun at this waterhole watching lots of smaller warthogs, hartebeests, bat eared foxes, red mongooses, an aardwolf, and a whole bunch of the brightest blue, red, yellow and green birds you can imagine. Definitely, plan an evening at a waterhole with a camera if not a rifle.
In the last few minutes of the last day that we hunted this particular farm, I also took a hartebeest right at 200 yds with a broadside shot through the top of the heart. He went maybe 30 yds and toppled over. The bullet passed through and made a really nice exit hole as with the warthog suggesting good bullet expansion. The light was fading fast and he fell on the shady side of the hill so the lighting for the photos was not very good.
We moved to a new location to hunt eland. The first night there, we stalked a group of 11 animals for just under 3 hrs. In that time we closed from 250 to 60 yds but could not find a clear shot on a good bull. There may not have even been a good bull in the bunch, but it sure was a fun stalk and I'd have settled for a lesser bull for that reason. In the end, some waffling air currents finally tripped us up and they blew town. When eland decide to leave a place, they do it with gusto and put an immediate end to any ideas about following.
On the next day, we found a pile of fresh pellets and tracks and started out stalking them down a ridge and then over a low saddle into another drainage. The brush was fairly tight. Not so much that it was hard to walk through, but visibility was fairly limited to 25 to about 75 yrs most of the time. Nonetheless, Claude and I agreed that my sights should be setfor 200 yds because we expected to see this group climbing out of the bottom on an opposite ridge at some point. Shots of 150 to a bit over 200 seemed most probable.
However, best laid plans sometimes go amuck. Coming down from the saddle we are spotted by baboons somewhere way up ahead. They start barking - maybe a kilometer or so away. They are mighty spooky critters since everyone but us shoots at them regularly. Normally, this is not be a good sign, but we press on and suddenly Claude freezes and then very slowly plants the crosssticks. We are standing in a wide open bare spot at least 10 yds from anything like cover, but there is no time to move because the group, 4 bulls, have doubled back on us. Apparently, they hear the baboons and have reversed course, not realizing that the trouble lies behind them. They are almost on top of us in thicker bush below and quartering to the left. Only one bull at a time is visible as they pop in and out of holes in the shrubbery. I edge up to the sticks and get the rifle up, cocked, and set. I start to fumble with the sight to knock it down to 100 yds, but Claude hissed at me to stop. I'm risking too much movement.
Claude tries to figure out which bull is best. The second and fourth are highest on his list but he is struggling to make the final decision. The fourth is older so his horns are a bit shorter and more worn. He is not a real old bull, so it isn't clear thtat his age and character is better than the somewhat younger, longer bull that is number 2. Meanwhile the eland are edgy and pausing only briefly as they moved passed. Then, just as #2 stops in an opening before he disappears for the last time, somehow Claude and I decide that he is the one, and I take a shot just before he steps behind a bush.
The range is only about 50 yds. At that distance, I know I have to hold under 12", but holding low is, w/o a doubt, the hardest thing for me to do. I have spined two elk, an antelope, and probably several deer because I can't seem to force myself to hold low when I need to. But on this trip, it worked. The shot goes in just behind the left foreleg, centering the heart and then stops under the skin at the base of the neck on the right side. The 535 gr bullet does not expand for some reason, and it loses only 4.6 grs. The lack of expansion bothers me a lot, but the animal makes about 5 steps and dies no more than 20 yds from where he was shot. So it all works out well in the end (for us - the eland may think otherwise).
The next day, we moved to another farm to chase springbok. They were very edgy, skittish animals here. It turns out that much hunting at this place comes after being chased by trucks. As a result, stalking was tough and there was very little cover. Shots were likely to be long, but that evening, Mark shot a nice springbok, so the next day, our last day of hunting is pretty much all mine. As it turned out, I really needed it.
In the morning we froze in a waterhole blind where the temperature was about 20 degrees F. We saw nothing but birds for our troubles. By late morning we were stalking again. We didn't have cross sticks. Somehow they had been left behind. Mark has shot his off of Claude's shoulder, but Claude is too short to make that comfortable for me, and it just isn't steady enough for my slow shooting style anyway. I tried once on a really nice ram at 240 yds or so, but missed completely. We chased that ram for a long long time and I got another shot at him at what I thought was 200 yds. This time, I sat down and used Mark's 25-06 as a monopod. That wasn't very steady either, but it was a bit better. Unfortunately, the ram was probably less than 150 yds off and in my hurry to try sitting with Mark's rifle, I didn't spend enough time looking over the distance. So, once again, I shot way high.
It was getting late by then, and I wasn't really worried if I did not get a ram in the end. But Claude as determined. Mark and I grinned at each other and wondered whose survival as most at risk - the springbok at risk from my rifle, or us at risk from the "forced march"
. Either way, it was going to be fun though. The weather was perfect even if my shooting wasn't, and before long we found another ram, a bit smaller to be sure, but good enough for the time and place. By now, I had found a decent stick in a ravine to use for support. I figured that if I used it in combination with Mark's rifle, I'd have cross sticks to shoot from while sitting. And, that is something I'm totally comfortable with. The ram was 235 yds out and uphill and almost directly facing us, but we cut off about another 20 yds so I held about 3" high on the side of his neck as he turned just slightly I touched off the shot. For the longest time, nothing happened. All of us thought I had clean missed again! But then he suddenly staggered and that lovely "whop" of a bullet hitting home reached us.
That bullet hit where intended and stopped under the belly skin on the opposite side. It was very well mangled and mushroomed and weighed only 372 gr. The difference between this bullet and the eland bullet are hard for me to explain. But both worked. He wasn't a huge animal, but we sure worked for him.
If anyone is considering a bp cartridge rifle for a hunt, they certainly work, but you really need to work on your sight settings, and hold over/unders. You cannot always expect to have time to adjust sights to the given range so memorizing these for 1 or two settings is critical. Not really a big deal you might think, but it can be hard to remember when the animal is on top of you and things are happening fast.
And spend some time familiarizing your PH with your rifle, it's trajectory, how the sights work and can be changed and reset, and so forth. It might take him a while to catch on to how these things work.
We hunted with Claude Thorburn, and he is quite interested in seeing a few more folks hunting with these rifles in Namibia. I highly recommend him as a PH. He knocked himself out making arrangements and ensuring that everything went smoothly. He is an all around great guy in my book, so I highly recommend him and he is now quite familiar with our favored sort of artillery.
We bummed around Namibia for another week checking out sand dunes and spending a couple days fishing on the coast (also arranged by Claude). This is not the best time of year for fishing (esp for the sharks we wanted to catch and release), but it was a hell of a lot of fun.
Brent
The obligatory sunset photo from a top the dunes at Gobebeb Research Station.
You wearing some advertising 
Outa be worth something 