Hello Gentlemen
I have been viewing this forum for several years now and really enjoy all the useful information and tales of hunts. Early last year I was asked by a friend if I would like to head up to the NT for a buffalo cull hunt in early August, seeing I had never hunted the NT or bovines before I jumped at the chance this also meant I would need to purchase an appropriate rifle as my largest rifle at the time was a 300 win mag. I was considering a CZ 375 which I would scope until a used Parker Hale safari 458 win mag popped its head up the owner sent me some detailed pics and I decided it was what I wanted (a Mauser 98 action with open sights and flag safety) I had the rifle sent to a friend who also got me a supply of Woodleigh 500 grain softs and solids. After a few Nitro members gave me some advice regarding load data I loaded up some test rounds and after a trip to the range had it shooting dead on with both solids and softs at 50m I then took the rifle along on several NSW hunts to practice shooting off hand at 25m to 100m targets once I was hitting beer cans at 50m meters on a regular basis I was confident if I did my job then the rifle/calibre combination wouldn't let me down.
The rifle

The Hunt
So its early August 2010 and our group of 12 are at Sydney airport waiting for our night flight everything went fairly smoothly and a few hours later we were out the doors of Darwin’s airport and on our way down to the property (Conway’s) an hour and a half out of Katherine we arrived at sun up and all had a bit of a rest until midmorning we then had breakfast and a bit of a yarn to our guides 4 in total which worked out 1 guide and 3 clients to each vehicle we soon headed to the range and after everyone had proven there rifle we headed of in separate directions to cull genetically inferior buffalo cows and bulls as well as shooting donkeys and scrub bull ad trophy buffalo if desired.

Day 1
Saw our group John myself and Dean all taking a cull buffalo as well as several donkeys me with my 458 win Dean with his scoped 375 H&H Blaser and John with his Merkel 500NE double.

my 1st buff

Day 2
Had us heading out early as we planned on spending the whole day out in the field our guide John had asked on the 1st day what we all were planning on taking as far as trophy’s were concerned. I wanted to take a mean old scrub bull Dean was after an old heavy buffalo bull and John had his eye on a scrub bull with the right colour hide to make a floor rug. An hour or so later we had been glassing a nice mature buff when we spotted 4 or 5 scrub bulls feeding in an opening I had my eye on a large mature red bull with impressive horns and made it clear to our guide that I would like to take him then the closest bull lifted his head out of the grass spotted us and took off with his mates following down into some thick scrub alongside a dry creek bed. As soon as I saw his head gear I knew he was a monster and quickly put my hand up to take him followed by Dean saying if you don’t I will , me and John quickly got ready and followed the bulls direction as we slowly closed ground I spotted his head swing slightly in the thick stuff now that we had him pin pointed we had to close the 500m or so gap this meant dropping into the winding creek bed and stalking our way closer and closer, as the wind wasn’t in our favour it turned into a half hour stalk we finally got to within 50 and my last place of cover which was a large tree’s stump on the edge of the creeks bank I stretched up on my toes over the stump and waited for a broad side shot he soon presented the shot I was waiting for and sent a 500 grain soft into his shoulder his front end dropped a little then he turned and ran directly away up and over the opposite bank carrying his front leg, I had enough time to place another soft into his hip as he took off. We reloaded and waited some time before the follow up, my guide was confident the 1st shot did the job but we approached the crest of the bank guns loaded and very alert as we came over the crest there he was down but not out John told me to take my time as he was not going anywhere as his shoulder was broken I approached to around 10 meters and gave him another one in the shoulder he pushed with his back legs and dropped 5 or so feet off the bank and into the dry creek bed where I gave him another one in the spine seconds later he gave a loud death bellow my guide until then had not indicated to me how big this guy was, as soon as he was finished he yelled out that’s by far the biggest scrub bull I have ever seen it will make the top ten SCI easily. Minutes later my mates Dean and John had followed the sound of the shots and came up for a hand shake and congratulations I was over the moon it was a great heart pumping stalk and follow up with a great result we spent the next few hours taking photo’s and preparing the cape.

My Scrub bull

Day 3
With my trophy out of the way it was time to try and get a nice buff for Dean and the right scrub bull for John after a few hours we came to a large open area with lots of buffalo down at a watering hole as we glassed the area we noticed some scrub bulls to the right one of which was what John had in mind we made a plan for me and John to go after the Scrub bulls and Dean and guide John would take a closer look at the Buffalo I head of with John and after a while we had relocated 3 bulls one being our target. They had spotted us about 150 meters out I stayed put and watched while John used the available cover to get closer as they were alert to our presents this took a long time but John managed to get within 40 or so meters of the bulls which had dropped into a dry creek. All of a sudden they were onto him and exploded out of the creek John stood up and gave the one he was after a Texas heart shot with his 500NE double which slowed the bulls pace as it turned broad side another shot in the shoulder put him down as me and John were going over the bull we noticed a large buffalo bull slowly making his was down the same dry creek bed the scrubbers were in, he was heading in Dean and Johns direction we both thought he would be a good trophy for Dean a while later while skinning Johns bull we heard shots and hoped they were connecting with that great buff turns out they did and Dean had himself rare blond mature bull a trophy to be proud of.

Johns Scrub bull and 500NE double

Deans Buff

Some recovered 500 grain Woodleigh softs from my 458wm

Conclusion
Me and our group had a great few days in the NT we each culled several buffs/donkeys as well as each taking a trophy for me it was a great 1st guided hunt with my 1st of hopefully many big bore rifles we measured my scrub bull back at came and it will go somewhere between 75 – 80 SCI points
Cheers Matt