MOZAMBIQUE: Hunt With Tootabi Valley Safaris

Wheels said:

Seems they are a low cost provider for a reason.

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This!

Although I do trust their penetration on paper, at least fairly well....

My god, another horrible story about Hornady DGX bullets. If God allows me the opportunity to hunt buffalo you can bet the farm I'll be shooting Swift AFrames.

johnnyblues said:

My god, another horrible story about Hornady DGX bullets. If God allows me the opportunity to hunt buffalo you can bet the farm I'll be shooting Swift AFrames.

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As @Velo Dog says, I'm sure you could kill a buffalo with a well placed frozen herring, but what's the point???

Well if @Velo Dog can kill a buffalo with a frozen herring then......dammit that's good enough for me!

Royal27 said:

As @Velo Dog says, I'm sure you could kill a buffalo with a well placed frozen herring, but what's the point???

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If you can kill a buffalo with a frozen herring, what do you kill a blue duiker with?

I'd like to see that!

Wheels said:

If you can kill a buffalo with a frozen herring, what do you kill a blue duiker with?

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You kill it with love

I also hunted Mahimba in 2014 with all Kleinhans Bros in camp. Beans guided one of our hunters. Also certainly enjoyed spending the ten days with Beans in camp. Delightful individual. My avatar photo is the buffalo I harvested. I was shooting a .375 Ruger African with 300 gr. DGX. We retrieved one of the eight DGX bullets that it took to bring him down and it had come apart and or separated. Being primarily a bird hunter and shotgun guy i bought the rifle and ammo based on their heavy advertising. The setup performed great on the other five pg species and large croc, but after reviewing this and other threads regarding the DGX ammo I'm probably going to change .375 Ruger ammo brands. Please advise what other manufacturers make this round that are better quality. In addition is the 'lot number' on the other FIVE boxes of this ammo I purchased printed on the box? I wonder if Hornady would honor a refund request?

I had a problem with Hornady DGX in .404 Jeffery on a hunt a couple of years ago. The bullets didn't seem to be properly seated in the brass - after a few shots, the shells in the magazine wouldn't load properly. When I tried to figure out why, it was my PH who saw the problem. The ones in the magazine were noticeably shorter than ones out of the box, so wouldn't load properly. Not fun at all on a buffalo hunt when your gun jams trying to get the second shot.

When I returned, I sent a note to Hornady. They asked for the lot number, which I gave them. After a bit of time, they emailed me back to say they'd checked, and all of those shells were fine (not sure how they could know that, since I'd bought them probably a year prior, but who knows). No explanation for why this happened to me, if it wasn't a seating problem!

Now, on to the point at hand. You are shooting a .375 Ruger. In order of preference, my go-to cartridge is the Barnes TTSX, followed by the A-Frame and the Trophy Bonded Bear Claw. None of these has ever (really) let me down, on the toughest game (up to and including elephant).

Hiho fellow hunters, rifle enthusiasts and bullet diggers,

Apparently the Hornady DGX has a quite low velocity threshold.
Likely well below what the .375 Ruger drives them at.
My limited experience best guess for the ones in .458 diameter, weighing 480 grains is not much at all over about 2,000 fps.
In other words, pretty much the same velocity threshold that a frozen herring begins to break apart at, when impacting African Buffaloes.

So, unless you are shooting a double rifle that doesn't want to regulate with anything but the DGX and it's chambered in a low velocity cartridge - I feel a hunter would be much better off with the Swift A-Frame on large animals.
Damn the frozen herrings and full speed ahead!

That fish-eyed fool,
Velo Dog.

Wheels said:

If you can kill a buffalo with a frozen herring, what do you kill a blue duiker with?

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Frozen guppies....

Hutch01 said:

I also hunted Mahimba in 2014 with all Kleinhans Bros in camp. Beans guided one of our hunters. Also certainly enjoyed spending the ten days with Beans in camp. Delightful individual. My avatar photo is the buffalo I harvested. I was shooting a .375 Ruger African with 300 gr. DGX. We retrieved one of the eight DGX bullets that it took to bring him down and it had come apart and or separated. Being primarily a bird hunter and shotgun guy i bought the rifle and ammo based on their heavy advertising. The setup performed great on the other five pg species and large croc, but after reviewing this and other threads regarding the DGX ammo I'm probably going to change .375 Ruger ammo brands. Please advise what other manufacturers make this round that are better quality. In addition is the 'lot number' on the other FIVE boxes of this ammo I purchased printed on the box? I wonder if Hornady would honor a refund request?

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Honor a refund? They won't even acknowledge there is a problem with their Ammo. I called them last year after seeing numerous reports here from members like Gizmo. They unequivocally stand behind their bullets and claimed at least to me they have never had any issues with them. Hogwash! To be nice. Hell I've heard that Craig Boddington when he hunts buff for the tv shows uses Swift AFrames even though Hornady is the sponsor.

johnnyblues said:

claimed at least to me they have never had any issues with them.

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You aren't the only one they've ever said that to.

That's for sure my brother

youssefchagoury said:

Stunning pictures!!! May i ask what camera and lens were you using?!

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youssef, my wife is the photographer. She uses a Nikon SLR digital camera. Does D-50 sound right? I believe all but one of the lenses is Nikon. Bill

Congrats on a great safari. I agree with you that it is very different hunting with a guide when you spent your life just you and your rifle. I am definitely that way.
Regards,
Philip

Congrats for a great hunt, love that bushbuck , and thanks for sharing.

I use A-Frames for most of my hunting, except buffalo where I used a Bearclaw, excellent performance.

Hutch01 said:

I also hunted Mahimba in 2014 with all Kleinhans Bros in camp. Beans guided one of our hunters. Also certainly enjoyed spending the ten days with Beans in camp. Delightful individual. My avatar photo is the buffalo I harvested. I was shooting a .375 Ruger African with 300 gr. DGX. We retrieved one of the eight DGX bullets that it took to bring him down and it had come apart and or separated. Being primarily a bird hunter and shotgun guy i bought the rifle and ammo based on their heavy advertising. The setup performed great on the other five pg species and large croc, but after reviewing this and other threads regarding the DGX ammo I'm probably going to change .375 Ruger ammo brands. Please advise what other manufacturers make this round that are better quality. In addition is the 'lot number' on the other FIVE boxes of this ammo I purchased printed on the box? I wonder if Hornady would honor a refund request?

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Before my safari, thankfully, I had trouble with accuracy using 300gr Hornady DGX in my .375 Ruger and never made it to Africa with that load. On the advice of Tim Fallon, owner of SAAM Shooting School, I had Safari Arms load me some 300 gr Nosler Accubond. The accuracy was as amazing as the performance. I know many of you reload but Safari Arms is great to deal with and puts out great ammo. It goes without saying that matching your load to your gun is the most important part of safari planning. The cost of having custom ammo made is minuscule in comparison with wounding a buff and having it get away or worse!
Regards,
Philip

Thanks Phil. I'll try Safari Arms next go around.

In August, we hunted in the East Cape with Beans, Andri Fox, and a young PH named Pierre. Beans took my 17 year old nephew and 22 year old son out hunting with him most of the time while Andri and Pierre took my brother, dad and I out. Beans was absolutely great with the boys. It was good to have a pro like Beans teach the youngsters the correct way to hunt without picking up my bad habits. Andri took my son out towards the end of the safari and guided him to a huge gold medal Kudu bull (proud dad's photo attached).

All of us enjoyed our hunt. Not surprisingly, the boys both tagged out with five trophies each. My brother did as well. I tagged out, but lost my damn kudu after (what P.H. Pierre thought) was a gut-shot (pretty bummed about losing this one- never like to wound one and not get him). I am thrilled with the Oryx and Red Hartebeest. I will say to all that are looking at a first time hunt. If you take a .308, you better be a perfect shot, bring 100% of the same type of ammo with you-preferably what you practiced with in the states (we had problems with out Hornady ammo too), don't clean gun after sighting it in (yeah, I never thought that would significantly affect shot placement- it does, as Beans showed us on the range), and bring a back-up rifle with more knockdown power.

I finally broke out my .444s Marlin with open sights after two-shooting an Impala (175 yards) and Hartebeest (150 yards) and three-shooting the oryx (freaking close at less than 100 yards) with the .308 (they don't drop like North American deer when you hit them with a .308 in front leg below shoulder). One shot with the "triple 4" at 138 yards was enough to drop the Blue Wildebeest.

These guys were VERY good at getting us up close to the game. We all learned a lot from them. Major note for those interested in accommodations- Andri's family members were fantastic hosts and we really enjoyed our stay with them at their ranch.