Our hunt was a fabulous success. I took a gnarley old warrior of a bull that measured just over the magic 100 inch mark.
He succumbed to one arrow on a slightly angling away shot that entered about the third rib back and lodged into the offside shoulder. The arrow was completely inside the animal and was lodged so tightly in the bone I could not pull it out. We cut away ribs to expose the fletch end of the shaft but neither the guide nor myself could budge it.
What I learned was that with correct arrow placement this setup should work nicely on a Cape.
Can I ask what your set up was?
After a long stalk and pretty extensive belly crawl my guide and self closed the distance to six bedded scrubs. We had the wind but there were too many sets of eyes, and with doing our best boa constrictor crawl, there was no way to do it silently through the dry leaves so the animals were alert to a presence that they could not identify. Finally one of the bulls stood for a better view adding pressure to the tense situation. Finally at 39 yards the target bull stood slightly quartering to me...I rose to me knees and drew waiting for him to turn. The first bull, already standing started to move away, the target bull turned his head to look at his buddy and I dumped the trigger hitting him square in the point of the shoulder.
Lesson learned, focus, focus, focus, and don't get distracted...what would have gone down if this scrub had been that Cape next year.
Second lesson, no matter how much you research your equipment and try to purchase the best there is, it can fail.
Now I am questioning broadhead selection for the cape hunt? I still think the GK will perform with the right arrow placement, but as we all know, things don't always go perfectly as hard as we try to be perfect.
I failed in perfect execution of shot, and the head failed in heavy bone.
Now I throw myself and the equipment to the wolves to see what we can digest in further preparing for next June.
Take a look at Abowyer or Tuffhead broadheads. You will end up heavier but they will not fail.
Who did you hunt buffalo with?
We had the same situation...in fact I was doing testing on some dead buffs and the only arrows I could pull were the light 434gr...
We did have a few complete pass throughs with the very heavy 840gr arrows- so we got those
Congrats on your water buffalo! You could look at VPA broadheads. Very solid construction, solid steel. I have never and will never trust aluminum ferrules. The VPA's are machined from a solid piece of steel and I've had very good success with them. I've had them punch through heavy bone on many big game animals (albeit, not quite as big as what you have been and will be hunting). When I go for Cape Buffalo in 2017, I will be shooting VPA's. I believe they're a Bowsite sponsor, but don't quote me on that. I know the owner is a Bowsite member (Rayzor) and he quite often offers shipping deals for Bowsite members.
