Cartridges, Bullets, & Shot Placement for Cape Buffalo
Backcountry Hunting Podcast
Joseph von Benedikt
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 25 July 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Africa's Cape Buffalo, known by those that hunt them as "Black Death," are the most achievable and at the same time most compelling of all dangerous game to pursue.
Hunting Black Death must be done properly, with a good rifle, chambered for a potent cartridge, that's loaded with a premium bullet.
This epside we sit down with Mark Haldane, owner and operator of Zambeze Delta Safaris, who likely has more experience hunting Cape Buffalo than any other PH alive. Mark discusses adequate buffalo cartridges, good buffalo cartridges, and great buffalo cartridges. Perhaps more importantly, Mark states unequivocally what is the best bullet for hunting Cape Buffalo.
Shot placement is crucial on Cape Buffalo, and Mark details exactly where to aim on broadside, quartering, and facing-on bulls, as well as how to follow up your shots... whether it's just an insurance shot as your bull staggers away or facing a charge and maximizing your chances of stopping that bull before he gets to you. Folks, this was one of my all-time favorite conversations. ENJOY!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When I was a young pH, I quite liked looking for wounded buffalo. |
| 0:05.0 | Now that I'm 60, I don't like looking for wounded buffalo at all, in fact, you know. |
| 0:16.5 | Folks, last week I had the rare privilege of sitting down with Mark Haldane and talking about |
| 0:22.8 | cartridge choice, bullet choice, and shop placement on Cape Buffalo. |
| 0:28.3 | Mark is a man that shoots between one and 300 Cape Buffalo per year with his clients |
| 0:35.3 | and has done so for decades and decades. This was a fantastic conversation. |
| 0:42.6 | Maybe one of my favorites of all time for the podcast. Now, we recorded it live on the floor |
| 0:48.7 | at the 2025 Dallas Safari Club summer convention, the inaugural one, the first one. It was a very cool event. |
| 0:56.7 | You'll hear the convention hum in the background, the energy, the conversations. It's kind of |
| 1:03.0 | cool, actually, but to my dismay, I actually had the gain set wrong on our lapel microphones, |
| 1:13.5 | and they picked up, they're just a little bit too sensitive. So now and then there's an audio pop when the microphone kind of fuzzes out. I apologize |
| 1:19.7 | for that. But my friends, what I do not apologize for is this discussion, this conversation. It's |
| 1:26.6 | outstanding and I trust you'll enjoy it. |
| 1:33.6 | All right. |
| 1:38.6 | We're rolling. |
| 1:40.7 | Evan help us. |
| 1:42.0 | Heaven help us. |
| 1:44.1 | Well, this is one of the coolest chance encounters ever. |
| 1:47.0 | Well, it wasn't a chance. |
| 1:48.4 | Austin and I stocked Mark here, but we're at the near Dallas and tracked down Mark |
| 1:54.7 | Halden of Zambizi Delta Safari. |
| 1:56.7 | Our target topic of the day is going to be shop placement on Cape Buffalo. |
... |
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