My fourth safari. I had taken my S&W to Zim and South Africa before. The first time, I took an old stink bull giraffe with it at 48 yards. The Hornady 500-gr bullet hit him in the second vertebrae - DRT. Sounded like a tree falling when he went down. He was down to his last set of molars and wouldn't have survived winter.

Second trip with the 500 was for a zebra and lion. The zebra never got close enough to use the 500 on, so I shot it with my Ruger #1 in 375 Ruger. Two days later we went lion hunting. Found its tracks up near the high fence. I said to myself, "this should be easy!"
Three hours later we were still chasing. Decided that the lion had been leading us in a big circle. Exited the safari truck and set off to cut the corner. The tracker was in front, I followed, and my PH made up the rear.

We came out of some trees and the tracker froze. He was looking left, so I assumed we had company over there. I turned my head and saw absolutely nothing. Zero! Then the absolutely nothing's ear twitched. No the lion wasn't 60-70 yards away. It was right in close and personal. My S&W was full of 440-gr hardcast. I set up the red dot in a hurry and touched off the trigger. First shot was too far back. Second went in the chest and stopped in the left hip.

All happened very fast. My chest shot was interesting because the PH said as I sighted up, the lion's body raised up slightly and the hind legs tensed. We paced off the shot at a bit over 23 yards.

You gotta believe the first sundowner tasted REAL good that night.

I've got both giraffe and lion photos, but not too sure how to paste them up.