Rule303 I have never hunted sambar but plenty of red deer both large and small so was interested to hear that sambar are a bit more tenacious than reds. This is a point I have made a few times on the forums to those discussing suitable elk rifles where suddenly going from whitetail or mule deer which seem to get to some good sizes in the States, it seems nothing short of the big magnums is required for putting elk to bed. Experienced hunters here in NZ have the opinion that elk are soft compared to reds and easily taken with smaller calibres including the 243 Win and of course the venerable 303 British which was about the only rifle most hunters had in the early days when scores of elk (wapiti to us) were taken in Fiordland and hundreds of thousands of red deer culled by many of these same hunters.

Sometimes there is a distinction too, most who have hunted enough red deer know that red hinds can be but not always, much more difficult to get on the deck than big stags, I certainly know that.

I guess what we can take from this is that it is not always body size or weight that determines how easy or hard an animal can be to kill. Of course terrain also comes to play where if an animal hit hard runs some meters before tipping over in open flat country e.g. a lot of of Africa for plains game, then it's not a big deal but if animals such as our tahr and chamois which are not particularly difficult to kill, run even a few meters after being hit often it is a lost animal.

I have owned and used a 7x57 on red deer and chamois and found the 139-145gr cup and core bullets by far quicker and better killers even on big deer. I used up half a packet of Winchester factory 175gr ammo once to get the cases and they were miserably slow killers, often thought I had missed with a body shot as there was just no reaction. I don't like animals that still stand and look after being shot, the bang flop or take a step and tip is my kind of shooting.

Then again I have been known to clean miss, grrrr.