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As requested, this is a copy of my report posted on AR:

I recently returned from Zim after my first safari. I hunted with Charlton McCallum Safaris and you can see my hunt report on the Hunting Reports – Africa forum. I used Hornady’s 400gr DGS on the elephant and their 400gr DGX on the buff. The DGS performed well, but surprisingly (to me, anyway) the DGX came apart and did not penetrate as well as expected. I hit the buff with the first shot (the second shot was a miss). The bullet certainly killed efficiently, but would it the next time?

This is only one bullet and anyone with experience knows sometimes bullets do weird things. However, as much hype as this bullet is getting on the shows right now, I felt obligated to report to my compadres on this instance.

The shot was at 35yds and the load chrono’s at 2070fps. On a quartering-to shot, the bullet broke the on-shoulder and passed through both lungs. The first post mortem surprise was that it didn’t penetrate the offside ribs – it was clear that the bullet had struck a rib in line with where you would have expected – behind the off- shoulder, but the bullet was not there, and it did not do substantial damage to the rib. I had a bounty on the bullet and the guys spent a lot of time searching – even searching through the stomach contents. We found a longish piece of jacket in one lung and another embedded in the abraded surface of the offside rib. The crew could not find any more of the bullet during the recovery.

The next day one of the guys approached us and handed me both parts, noting that they had been found in the “chest meat”. It appears from the flattened surface of the lead core that this struck the rib.

Now, these bullets shoot very well in my double and believe me when I say that I do not relish the thought of finding another soft load that regulates as well; however, based on this performance I will feel compelled to try other bullets – at least for thick-skinned DG.

Edited by Antlers (29/11/11 03:37 PM)

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