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Rich,
In my hunting club in Sweden, we do everything ourselves – field dressing, skinning, cleaning, quartering and cutting for freezing. We hunt moose mostly. I have quite extensive “autopsy” experience. Most of the guys use rifles in .30 caliber (.308 Win and .30-06) with sprinkle of 6.5x55 and 7mm. No one uses magnum calibers although I have taken several moose with .375 H&H (Trophy Bonded). Bullets we use are Norma Oryx, Norma Alaska, Norma Vulkan and Nosler Partition. Some colleagues are partial to Lapua Mega. I use only reloads but other chaps shoot with factory ammunition.
Usually, shot through ribs only is considered most “kitchen friendly”, but even with hit behind the shoulder we notice severe bruising with expanding bullets. Not much good meat is lost although the bruises look sometimes rather nasty. Broken shoulder means more meat lost especially on entry side. In most cases front leg is just mincemeat as those parts that we could use for stews and roast are usually gone.
That is why performance of bullets I wrote about in my report surprised me so much. I am going to shoot those bullets into gelatin to see more, even though the field test (with all its limitations) was satisfactory.
During my hunt I used my custom takedown .30-06, build on FN Mauser action. The rifle was equipped with Redfield 4-9x40 scope. As usual in South Africa, I shot from the sticks even though the distances weren’t that long – never exceeding 100 yards (this was unusual). For all loads with 180 grains bullets, I use Vihtavuori N550 powder. Light Impala load called for faster propellant, which in this case was Norma 202. I never tried US manufactured powders since they are virtually unobtainable in Sweden.
The preserves I hunt in South Africa are located in Eastern Cape Province. I hunt there regularly almost every year. What nice about Eastern Cape is that you have all kinds of landscape there, ranging from bushveld to open plains. Population of game is enormous and trophy quality excellent. I don’t care for this that .much but most of heads I took during all these years qualify for SCI or Rowland Ward. I was lucky, I guess.
Roman
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