Ok, here's another opinion. What say you?. BTW: I may just borrow my brother's Win. M 70 .300 Win Mag. I used to have one, and everything shot with it and a good 180-gr. bullet fell down, including a Tsessebe, Lechwe #3, Warthog and a Sititunga. "Course, if I could take a handgun ... S&W Performance Center 500 Mag with hardened lead 600-gr. bullets. Worked on a giraffe, should do for leopard. Probably pass right through and not stop until Angola. However, can't take it to Namibia.

"Even with good legs, you cannot outrun a leopard and as you have mentioned, shot placement is crucial for a clean kill. I have known a farmer in Namibia who sometimes shot gemsbok (oryx) successfully with a .22. A leopard is not a very large animal and it is also soft skinned. So a .257 WM will be effective on leopard. But in Namibia and Zimbabwe for example, the minimum legal caliber for plains game is 7mm (.284) and I think also for leopard. However in Namibia, a minimum of 1,991 ft-lb (2700 joules) is required for leopard which would make your rifle legal."

I hope this helps.

Werner Dörgeloh

Intu Safaris
Hunting far and wild