“For Africa bites like a tsetse fly, and once the drug is in the blood, it can never be wholly exorcised.” — Frederick Forsyth, The Dogs of War

The deep guttural grunts from tracker, Kapetja, reverberated from the elevated seat of the Land Cruiser, bounced around the interior of the cab in which I sat, and settled deeply, deeply into my chest. The resonant, deep-throated singing in Otjiherero, from Game Guard, Nico, acted as a counterpoint to the grunts. When asked, my Professional Hunter (PH) Kabous Grünschloss explained to me that Nico and Kapetja were singing to their ancestors, rejoicing with them in song that their hunter had protected their families, friends, and themselves by removing a known predator of humans and livestock.

Both the singing and grunts gave me, for the first time in my life, a hair-raising sensation on the back of my neck. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate; the same effect occurred about two hours earlier, this time caused by the grunts of the huge tom leopard now resting in the back of my PH’s vehicle. The tom had ‘sawed’ repeatedly as he walked slowly past our blind, about 100 yards to our right. A short while later he dropped with a thump off the bait tree, hit on the point of the shoulder by a single Hornady 162 gr ELD-X bullet from my MG Arms 7mm Remington Magnum Ultralight. He did get up and run, but only for about 15-yards before succumbing to the heart/lung damage from the ELD-X’s path.

Though only a 60-plus yard shot from blind-to-bait tree, it was one of the most important shots of my hunting life. Not only did it fulfill a dream I had held since I was a young boy reading Ruark’s account of his leopard hunt with Harry Selby, but it was also only the second time I had fired at a dangerous game animal (the first being a Cape buffalo in Mozambique). I was nervous about my own abilities, but I was not concerned about the accuracy of the rifle and ELD-X bullet. I had first documented the remarkable accuracy of this combination at my local range while preparing for the Namibian adventure with Jamy Traut Hunting Safaris. Shooting from my 4StableSticks standing rest at 100 to 400-yards, the groups obtained were all sub-1x-MOA, with a 300-yard result of just over 0.2xMOA.

The other trials with the 7mm ELD-X bullet prior to the tom leopard not only showed its accuracy, but more importantly its effectiveness on game animals. Four days earlier, the first African animal to fall to the rifle/bullet combination was a beautiful, old, Damara springbok. Hit while following his harem of ewes through a gap in the vegetation, at a distance of around 70-yards, he stumbled for only 10 feet before falling to the ground. His well-worn horn tips and teeth, spoke to his age and thus perfect conservation status for harvest; the ram would have previously passed on his genes into many generations of younger springboks.

The second animal taken with the MG Arms 7mm Remington Magnum, stoked with the ELD-X topped reloads, represented a much greater challenge for the shooter, ammunition and firearm. Needing more meat for the three active leopard baits, Kabous suggested we head into the surrounding hills and try hunting another of my dream animals, a Hartmann’s mountain zebra. That morning before we left camp, Kabous’ binocular-rangefinder gave up the ghost, and I loaned him my Vortex Fury HD 5000. My only request as we made our way through the tinder-dry hills was for my PH to tell me the distance of any zebra he felt was a shooter.

Soon after starting our walk into the hills, we bumped a herd of around 10 animals and watched as they galloped over a crest, nearly a quarter of a mile away. Concluding that we would likely need to find another group to stalk, we headed slowly in the general direction taken by the first herd. Topping a slight rise, Kabous froze and raised the Vortex binocular-rangefinder to his eyes. Being lower down the slope, I could not immediately see what he focused on but set up the 4StableSticks rest anyway, laying the rifle into the front and back supports. Looking through the riflescope in the general direction of Kabous’ intense study, the forms of several stationary zebra appeared in the field-of-view. My PH slowly lowered the optics and mouthed, “The animal biting the other zebra is a shooter.” I whispered back, “How far?” Kabous’ raised the Vortex’s back to his eyes, took the reading and breathed out “342 yards.” Adjusting the crosshairs for the known trajectory, I squeezed off the shot.

When my shot rang out, I saw Kabous jump and quickly turn his head, simultaneously exclaiming, “I didn’t mean for you to take the shot at that distance!” A few seconds later with the binocular-rangefinder back up to his eyes, he gasped, “He’s down! I can see his hooves in the air!!” I grinned and replied, “I don’t appreciate you sounding so surprised.” His rejoinder was, “Well, I’m now ok with you shooting at a leopard.” A post-mortem of the stallion found that the 162 gr ELD-X entered just behind the on-shoulder, traveled across the entire chest cavity, taking out the aorta, coming to rest against the inside of the off-shoulder. As designed, the front portion of the bullet disintegrated, while the base held together resulting in maximum damage and a straight-line path through the zebra’s vitals.

Fast forward two days to our trip back to camp from the successful time in our leopard blind. I sat transfixed by the deeply moving singing and grunts resounding from behind me. I also reflected on the fact that all three animals — including the beautiful cat resting in the bed of the Land Cruiser — from this safari in Namibia’s Kaokoland each fell to a single 162 gr 284 ELD-X bullet. The excellent accuracy, and immediate effect on the animals, was what I expected from Hornady products; ‘perfect performance’ described the results.

___

Author profile

Mike Arnold is professor and Head of the Department of Genetics at the University of Georgia and author of the 2022 book, BRINGING BACK THE LIONS: International Hunters, Local Tribespeople, and the Miraculous Rescue of a Doomed Ecosystem in Mozambique. Mike’s book is available for purchase now at bringingbackthelions.com. You can find a description of Mike’s travels, talks, and articles at mikearnoldoutdoors.com.