SOUTH AFRICA: KZN Free Range Nyala Hunt

[enysse]

Great hunting report! Lovely nyala!

 

[Lrntolive]

That Nyala looks HUGE! Great trophy and report. Thanks for sharing.

 

[LDK]

Congrats Frank on your bull. I love KZN, great hunting there. How was the CEB's performance all around on your hunt?

 

[Fjold]

Congrats Frank on your bull. I love KZN, great hunting there. How was the CEB's performance all around on your hunt?

I was not happy with them. Here's the report that I sent to CEB's US Representative:

Bullet Report

Cutting Edge Bullets - 375 Caliber – 235 grain, Raptor - Extended Range

Remington cases - Remington 9 ½M Primers – 79.5 grains of Reloader 15

Muzzle velocity 3,002 fps – Muzzle Energy - 4,704 Ft-Lbs.

Winchester Model 70 – Classic Safari Express chambered in 375 H&H Magnum.


I recently used the 235 grain CEB Raptor ER bullets on a Nyala and Bushbuck hunt in the Kwa Zulu Natal region of South Africa and this is my experience with these bullets.

My first shot was on a bushbuck was at 230 yards, almost exactly broadside with about 10 degrees of downhill elevation. The bullet struck the buck directly on the shoulder. The buck did a backflip and then lunged forward approximately 20 yards into the brush. After a long tracking session and multiple follow up shots we had a chance to examine the buck.

It appears that the initial shot with 235 grain CEB Raptor ER blew up on the buck’s shoulder and failed to penetrate into the chest cavity. We found four of the petals from the six sided hollow point in the first inch of the buck’s shoulder meat.

The buck’s shoulder bone and joint was completely destroyed and bone fragments were found in the chest cavity with some damage to the buck’s left lung but there was no bullet hole into the chest cavity.

There was a large hole in the buck’s lower chest are where it looks like the bullet core deflected straight down after breaking the shoulder, damaging the sternum.

Our conclusions were that the bullet’s hollowpoint fractured immediately on contact with the buck’s shoulder and the bullet core deflected down the leg, shattering the breastbone but not penetrating into the chest cavity.


The second shot with the 235 grain CEB Raptor ER was on a jackal at approximately 200 yards. The bullet hit the jackal in back of the ribs and exited the offside without impacting any bone. At the shot the jackal dropped immediately. Examining the jackal showed that the entrance wound was approximately 2” in diameter and the exit wound was in excess of 5” in diameter. Again, it looked like the hollowpoint shattered on impact because of the size of the entrance wound.

Most of the internal organs were destroyed and exited through the large hole in the left side of the jackal’s belly.

The third shot that I took with the CEB 235 grain Raptor ER was at 140 yards on an approximately 400 Lbs Nyala bull. The bull was standing on a hillside across a narrow canyon facing downhill at a slight angle to the right. The only target that I had was an almost perfect overhead shot into the bull’s spine. Normally I would have aimed on the spine directly between the bull’s shoulders so that the bullet would break the bull’s neck and travelled between the shoulders through the bull’s chest and exit through the sternum. Even if the spine is missed, the bullet would break either of the bull’s shoulders from the top and travel through the bull’s chest. Because of the performance of the bullets on the first two animals that I shot, I was afraid to try to shoot through any heavy bone. I aimed instead about a 1/3 of the way up the bull’s neck where even if the bullet failed it should damage enough of the bull’s neck to put the bull down. At the shot, the bull dropped straight down, kicked once and died.

Examination of the bull showed a caliber sized entrance hole located about 1” to the right of the bull’s mane, broken neck vertebrae and an approximately 1” diameter exit wound about 8” down the left side of the bull’s neck. This bullet performed as I would have expected any quality bullet to do. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of the wounds, or carcass after skinning.

My opinions:

The Cutting Edge Bullets Extended Range Raptor performance is too inconsistent to be a good big game bullet. I think that because the ER bullet has a longer nose and different ogive this makes the walls of the hollow point cavity too thin and they shatter easily on impact. This may not be an issue with other CEB models as they have a great reputation but I don’t know how many people have tried their Extended Range bullets.