22 Creedmoor in South Africa

I was out working putting a fence around my property in the middle of June when my phone started to ring. I was listening to the Big Game Podcast about hunting elephants in Africa, I looked at the caller ID – it was Derrick with Horizon Firearms. So, I answered the phone and asked him what was up. He asked me if I was interested in going to South Africa on a six-day hunting trip with him and Hornady to test out the Hornady 80-grain ELD-X in 22 Creedmoor and the 22 ARC (Advanced Rifle Cartridge) in the Horizon Firearms Venatic Wombat Action on African game. The answer was, of course, “Heck yeah!” Going on a Safari had been a dream of mine for as long as I could remember. I asked, “When are we going?” Derrick said the end of August, which gave me just under 90 days to update my passport and complete all the paperwork.

Horizon got me the rifle within thirty days of leaving for the trip. That was enough time to install the Leupold VX-6HD 3-18x44 CDS-ZL2 scope for the journey. This lightweight rifle was built with the long-range hunter in mind. Horizon achieved that goal by using the Stiller Wombat action that is butter smooth, an Iota EKO X stock that features thumb detent, a long grip with a negative comb in a lightweight sporter style platform and Horizon bottom metal with a Benchmark 416R stainless-steel barrel with four-flute and two twists with a 1:8 twist rate for stabilizing heavy bullets. It also comes with a TriggerTech trigger that breaks smooth at 2 pounds, 3 ounces. The rifle weighs 6 pounds, 8 ounces without a scope, with a Leupold VX-6HD it weighs 8 pounds 11 ounces. For me, this hits the goal for a backpacking rifle. Installed was a Zero Fox Given Picatinny to an ARCA Adapter so I could mount the rifle to the tripod and shoot off that just in case the Gunwerks Elevate 2.0 bipod could not provide enough height. The Gunwerks bipod weighs 12 ounces and offers excellent flexibility with a range from 5 to 19 inches along with 120 degrees of cant and three-leg splay positions. My favorite thing about the Elevate 2.0 bipod is its NeoLok Picatinny attachment, which provides a simple, quick-twist solution for attaching the bipod to the rifle or taking it off to mount it on a tripod. Both options are great, stable ways to engage targets at longer ranges.

Once I had the rifle set up, it was time to get it sighted in and confirm my DOPE (Data On Previous Engagements) out to 800 yards. After all that was confirmed, a few practice range sessions were in order, with shooting off sticks, a bipod and a tripod until I felt comfortable.

 The rifle is an absolute tack driver, every five-shot group was under .75 MOA off a bench. I used Hornady Precision Hunter 80-grain ELD-X factory ammunition which had an average velocity of 3,140 feet per second (fps) at the muzzle. A Garmin Xero C1 Pro chronograph was used to record velocity, the average being based off of 30 shots.

For those of you who are like me, traveling can be stressful, let alone traveling to a different country with a firearm. I have traveled several times with a firearm, but it can be daunting when traveling out of the country. Thankfully, Seth with Hornady had done the trip previously, allowing me to pick his brain about many of my questions and concerns. We also hired Gracy Travel International to help us with all the paperwork needed for the trip. They booked the flights for us, along with setting up meeting with a guy named Bruce to meet us off the plane when we arrived in South Africa. Bruce helped with our second flight to East London and to get our rifles through security. He was excellent and made this process a breeze. If you are considering taking this trip, I recommend using Gracy Travel; it takes all the guesswork out of the traveling. They helped me get all the forms I needed for flying into South Africa with the firearm and the ones needed to bring the rifle back into the United States.

My journey started on Friday, August 23rd, when my wife and kids dropped me off at my local airport, where I hopped on a 3-hour shuttle to Sea-Tac airport. From there, I flew Delta to Atlanta, a major international travel port and met up with the rest of the team I was traveling with. We hopped on the plane to Johannesburg for a flight that was just over 15 hours across the ocean and over most of southwest Africa. Once we landed in Johannesburg, an employee of the airport met us at the plane, helped us through customs and claimed our checked bags. This is where we met Bruce with Gracy Travel, then he took us to the police station to get our firearms paperwork done. Let me tell you, it sure was nice having him there to help with this process. We stayed overnight in a hotel at the airport, then went back through security again to check our rifles; this is where Bruce was a significant help. We said goodbye to him and hopped on a plane to East London which was about an hour-and-a-half flight. Once in East London, a tiny airport next to the Indian Ocean, we met the Professional Hunters (PH) as we exited our plane. We once again showed our paperwork to the local airport police for our firearms. Off we went for a two-hour drive southwest to Baviaans River Conservancy in a sweet Land Cruser that I wish we could get to the United States. So far, the weirdest part of this trip is driving on the opposite side of the road; it feels so unnatural.

Once we get to the Baviaans River Conservancy, we turn off the main highway to a one lane dirt road. The property has a low fence-free range of 450,000 acres. Right off the bat, driving in, we saw a small herd of impala and baboons down in a creek bed. We went a little over 20 minutes on the dusty dirt road past farmhouses, churches and sheep fields. The number of game I saw on that drive to the lodge was nothing like I had ever seen before. I saw a warthog, a kuda, a zebra and a female giraffe with a newly dropped baby.

Once at the lodge, we got set up in our rooms and were ready to hit the range to confirm zero on the rifles now that we had suppressers that the outfitter supplied. The suppresser I was given to use was a Freyr & Devik Featherweight 149 lightweight with a 6.5mm end cap. I was impressed with how light this can was, and that it did not change the point of impact at the range. The rifle stayed zeroed from the flight by stacking five shots on each other, then I stretched the legs to 300 yards, then 400 yards and finally 600 yards calling it good. The rifle and ammunition performed as expected; I like to use the Hornady 4DOF Calculator to verify my DOPE. I will be hunting at an elevation of 3,500 to 6,500 feet; so it is essential to know the elevation you are shooting at and punch it into your ballistics calculator to make sure you are right on the money for the dial on your optic or the holdover with the reticle. With the rifles zeroed and ready to knock down some plains game. We headed back to the lodge for a fantastic dinner and a glass of bourbon around a fire where we swapped hunting stories.

After six hours of sleep, I was up with the sun. We headed out, looking for an animal on my list. With the four of us hunting separately, we headed out in different Land Rovers, each getting our own PH and tracker. My PH was Josh Cooke. I was immediately impressed with the professionalism and experience he brought by knowing the size of the game, what to shoot, what to leave and his unreal abilitiy to spot the game. These guys could spot game like no other people I have hunted with, and the way they can talk you onto the game amazed me.

The first morning, we went into a valley called Buffels Kloof looking for Cape Kudu. After a little over two hours of glassing, we saw quite a few young bull kudu and impala, but no shooters. We did see a bushbuck that was a shooter, but it got away into the thick brush too fast. So we packed up for a bit of road hunting and glassing. Around noon that day, my tracker C.T. spotted a Mountain reedbuck laying under a shepherd tree with a cow. Josh put the truck in park and got his binoculars on him; The next thing I heard was “Zak shoot that thing, he’s a hell of a ram!” I bailed out of the truck, chambering a round and the reedbuck stands up. Josh tells me he’s 47 yards, so I placed crosshairs on his shoulder, exhaled and squeezed the trigger. One of the nice things about shooting the 22 Creedmoor is the lack of recoil, so I could see my shot hit him right on the shoulder, run five yards, and fall over as I heard Josh yell, “Great shot! You blitzed him!”

At 47 yards, that Hornady 80-grain ELD-X had a perfect entry wound and exited with about a half-inch exit wound, performing as it should. Walking up to the Mountain reedbuck, I was glad to see he was dead. I was thrilled with a clean kill and was impressed by how awesome this animal was. His coat was the softest I have ever felt on a game animal; he had remarkable growth on his horns and a fantastic trophy for my wall that will remind me of an experience I will never forget. We spent the day looking for kudu or an impala but didn’t see any worthy of a shot. That evening, Josh asked if I would shoot a black wildebeest because we found a good-sized herd; my response was, “Get me close enough, and we will see what this 22 Creedmoor will do”. I am here to tell you these guys can hunt; they sure got us close. We got the wind in our favor and got close to the herd at 15 yards, at one point crawling on our belly trying to pick out a shooter. Unfortunately, after watching them for an hour till dusk, we didn’t see a shooter, but that has to be one of the best hunting experiences I’ve ever had. I could have walked away not shooting anything and the trip would still be worth it. That wrapped up a fantastic first day. The day just felt unreal, and I was thinking, how will tomorrow top this day?

Day two started by waking up to crazy wind blowing by the little hut I was staying in. Oh, and cold! So, I put on my long underwear and lucky killing pants and jacket and went out to meet Josh at his Land Cruiser. He was standing there in shorts, I kid you not! I asked him if he was crazy. He told me he never wears long pants. I laughed and told him, “It’s 28 degrees Fahrenheit out, man, it’s cold.” We loaded into the single cab, and the tracker sat in the back in the cold. We made our way again back behind the lodge up in the hills. We went climbing 3,000 feet in elevation up to the hills where the landscape flattened out. On our way up the mountain, we saw mountain zebras, herds of blue wildebeests and the blisbuck. We decided to put a stalk on a herd of blue wildebeest.

As soon as we got out of the Cruiser, I kid you not, it started to snow, and I looked at Josh and said to him, “I bet you wish you had long pants on now!” In my wildest dreams, I never thought I would go to South Africa and hunt while it was snowing, it felt so magical.

We began our stalk on the wildebeests looking down on them from about 75 yards, laying on our stomachs glassing, trying to see if we could find a shooter. I used my Leupold BX-4 Range HD 10x42 binoculars; these worked amazingly for glassing and simultaneously getting my range. This was my first hunt with range-finding binoculars, and I will never go back back to using two separate devices. While we were glassing the wildebeests, unfortunately, we did not see any shooters in that herd. However, off in the distance, Josh spotted a herd of springbok, and that is an animal that I wanted to get. So we set off to close the distance. As we got closer, about 400 yards, they started to move down into a valley a little bit, so we got low and closed the distance, about another 200 yards, and the tracker hung back with binoculars to watch. Josh and I crawled onto our bellies out to a ledge, and we saw a lovely ram at 212 yards away with about a five-mile-an-hour wind blowing left to right. I got set up, dialed one MOA up, put my crosshair right behind his shoulder, and sent it. We first thought I missed it because we saw the bullet hit the ground behind the ram. But he ran about 25 yards and fell over.

The blood we saw on the ground is what every hunter wants to see when tracking an animal, a solid trail. Once again, ELD-X performed. There was a small entry wound and about a half-inch exit wound. I love to see a pass-through on a game this size at 212 yards. Once we got all our pictures, Josh went to the truck to load up the springbok, and we hunted more. As a Western hunter, it’s wild to me that they will leave the hide and guts in the animal till they return to the lodge. I was taught to get the guts out immediately and get the animal cooling off. It shows we can learn a few things and that there is more than one way to do things.

We got the springbok loaded in the back of the truck; Josh says, let’s see if we can get you a good blesbok ram. We drive for about thirty minutes, stop and glassing the mountain ridges. We spot two blue wildebeests running along with a big blesbok ram. We drove a little, trying to close the distance as he was probably at 800 yards with a good 20-mile-an-hour wind wiping around. I knew I could make a good clean shot if we could get within 550 yards. We followed it for a few more hundred yards, and he stops and gives me a shot. He stood there looking at us, 512 yards away with a 22 MPH wind blowing left to right. I have a lot of experience shooting 22 Creedmoor at this range, so in my head, I knew where to hold over on him. I held for a shot on his neck, thinking if my wind call were off, the wind would push the 80-grain ELD-X into his shoulder. My hold was dead on; as the bullet found him the light switch went off. As the bullet hit him, his tail shot straight out, and his legs went straight and fell over right there. At that moment, I was convinced that the 22 Creedmoor was more than good enough for Plains game as a blesbok is close to mule deer-sized game back in the US. The moment I hit that blesbok, Josh, and the tracker C.T. yelled “Great shot!” As we got up to him, my shot was accurate, I had shot him in the neck right on his spine, but he did not have an exit wound.

Getting these three animals all happened within the first three and a half hours of hunting. It was an unreal day already, but it got better. We decided to load up the blesbok in the truck bed and head back for lunch. Halfway down the mountain, C.T. starts banging on the cab’s roof. Seeing a massive waterbuck, Josh asked me, “Will you shoot one?” I had to do mental math and decide whether I wanted that or a zebra, but once I got out and saw it, I had no doubt I would put the 22 Creedmoor to the test yet again. We put the stalk on the waterbuck and got within 37 yards of him.

Josh whispered to put it on his shoulder and make sure you rechamber right away because you might need to put a second one in him. I got the Gunwerks Elevate 2.0 bipod set up on a big boulder, set up on him and squeezed the trigger. Thwap. The big waterbuck rolled over on his back; Josh said to shoot again, so I put a second one on its spine; that was all she wrote for this remarkable animal. Walking up to this beautiful animal, I was amazed by his size, battle scars all over his cape, and wear spots where he had rubbed his hair off. This old guy was a true warrior; it is an incredible memory I will never forget! With that being the third majestic animal of the day, we returned to the lodge for lunch.

After lunch, we decided to call it a day for hunting while deciding what animals to go after next. Keeping that in mind, my PH Josh and I thought it would be fun to take the 22 Creedmoor along with the 22 ARC that Seth brought to the range and shoot steel out to 1,000 yards. We started with 22 Creedmoor at 400 yards; using the Hornady 4DOF, we dialed 5 MOA up with a 5-mile-an-hour wind left to right, held 1 MOA left, and shot. We then heard the fantastic sound of the steel ring with impact. I shot five rounds, then let the rifle cool while switching to the 22 ARC. The 22 ARC rifle build is also on a Horizon Firearms Venatic with the Wombat Action, a Benchmark 416R stainless-steel barrel with four-flutes, two spiral twists with 1:7.5 rifling twist rate. Like the 22 Creedmoor, it comes with a TriggerTech trigger that breaks smoothly at 2 pounds, 2 ounces. The two differences between the two rifles are the stock and optic. The stock on the 22 ARC is an Iota EKO CARBON FINISH, which features dual thumb detents for reduced rifle torque along with Horizon bottom Metal. The optic atop of the rifle is a Leupold Mark 4HD 6-24x52 M5C3 Side Focus FFP PR3-MIL.

Starting at 400 yards with the 22 ARC, I again used the Hornady 4DOF app to figure out what to dial in MRAD. I dialed 1.5 while holding it for .4 mils with the reticle and set it, and once again, I heard that wonderful sound of contact on steel. While letting the barrel cool down, Josh hopped on the 22 Creedmoor and dialed 16.75 MOA for 800 yards while holding for 3 MOA left for the wind. With me on the spotting scope, I told him when he was ready. He squeezed the trigger, and we saw the vapor trail and impact on the steel. Then, a second later, we heard the impact. The smile on his face was pure joy. He shot a few more, then switched to 22 ARC repeated at 800 yards. Dialed 5.6 mils while holding 1 mil left, and once again, first round impacted. That’s when Josh told me he had never shot 1,000 yards before. We decided to set the 22 Creedmoor up for 1,000 yards. I dialed 25.25 MOA and told him to hold for 4.25 MOA in the scope for wind. I got behind my Leupold SX-4 PRO GUIDE HD Spotter and got on target, and Josh let it fly. With a flight time of just under one and a half seconds, we saw the impact on steel, but it felt like forever to hear that sweet sound of steel ringing! Just like that, he shot 1,000 yards! He hit a few more right before we lost daylight. It was a successful range trip, and Josh was impressed with both cartridges and how well the Horizon rifles were built.

On day three, we headed out looking for a monkey and a giant impala. We drove around and glassed hillsides, seeing a lot of good Impalas, but there was nothing that we would want to shoot. We did see two jackels chasing a fallow deer at a little over 500 yards. I was not able to get a shot at them, but they were fantastic to see. The Jackel is a lot like our coyotes back home but more red-looking in color with a black stripe down its back. Not seeing anything worth shooting, we headed back for lunch. Shortly after lunch, we found some monkeys on a creek bed. Those things are brilliant. If they see you or hear you, they are gone. We got lucky by walking up to them without them seeing us. I got on one at 87 yards. To date, this takes the cake on anything I have ever shot. Here’s what I saw through the scope: the impact on the monkey’s chest, him grabbing his chest where I hit him, then falling over. As we walked up to him, we were surprised to see how big he was and how bad he smelled. Thanks to the monkey, we did not strike out on day three. With a successful day of hunting, we hit the hay to get up bright and early for day four.

The next day, we searched for a good impala ram. We headed to a property called Cowie for a trophy ram, spending the first half of the morning glassing a hillside. While glassing the hill, we saw nine different kinds of game animals. I can hunt a whole weekend up in the mountains where I deer hunt and be lucky to see a doe. After not seeing a good-sized ram, we drove to a different part of the property and headed out on foot. C.T., the tracker, spotted a good-sized ram about 600 yards away. I could have taken the shot, but I wanted to get closer. We put a stalk on the ram. At one point, we walked up to a small herd of cows and a small ram where we took a knee and waited for them to move on. Watching these intelligent and majestic animals in their habitat is a fantastic sight. Once they moved on, we started to cut the distance on that big ram. We got within 300 yards of him with the wind in our faces. Josh told me to lay prone and get comfortable as we would watch this big ram till he came out of the Bush and gave us a shot. He was with a bachelor herd of five other young rams that kept walking in front of him, blocking a clear shot.

We laid in wait with me on the rifle and Josh on the spotting scope, keeping an eye on the ram. He stood in place for just over 20 minutes, and right around then, he decided to start moving to the left side but was still blocked by a few of the smaller rams. After five more minutes, he finally gave me a shot. Josh gave me a range of 303 yards, and I held right on his shoulder. I squeezed the trigger, felt recoil, saw the vapor trail and the 80-grain ELD-X hit the left front shoulder. I saw the impact ripple throughout his shoulder and the rest of his body. He ran about five yards and fell over dead. I was very impressed with how the 80-grain ELD-X out of the 22 Creedmoor performed and how accurate the rifle had shot on this trip! I had 100 percent faith in every single trigger pull that the rifle and bullet would land where I was aiming.

With one day left for hunting, I switched it up to put the 22 ARC to the test. I was on a mission to see how the Hornady Precision Hunter 80-grain ELD-X would do with a muzzle velocity of 2,805 feet per second (fps) out of the Horizon Wombat action with a 22-inch barrel. I wanted to test it out and see what it could do on two medium game animals, so I looked at the cull list and decided to look for a female blesbuck and a male non-trophy impala. After about three hours of glassing a hillside watching a group of female blesbuck, we noticed one was limping; after watching her for a few minutes, we noticed she had a back left rear broken leg. Once she came broadside, Josh ranged her at 473 yards; I dialed for my elevation and held for half MIL left of her front shoulder and sent it. I saw her jump on impact and heard the terrific thud; she ran about 15 yards and fell over right next to a shepherd tree. After walking about 10 minutes up the hill, we noticed she was an old gal, most of her teeth gone or worn down, along with that broken leg. It was a good call to pick her; I was delighted with how the 22 ARC performed. The 80-grain ELD-X broke her left front shoulder, passing through the heart and lungs, stopping on the opposite side of the hide; the bullet performed terrific out of the 22 ARC. After getting her back to the Land Cruiser, we headed out for impala. We got on a bachelor herd of about six rams; Josh picked out one younger ram, and he said we should cull because his horns pointed in and were almost touching; that’s the type of genes they want to remove. We spotted him at 400 yards, but I wanted to get closer as I was going to be shooting through some heavier brush. We slowly put a stalk on him, getting the wind in our favor; we got to 200 yards of him, got set up standing on my Leupold tripod, and watched him until he gave me a clear shot on his front shoulder. Once he did, I held right on his front shoulder and squeezed, hitting him solid right on his front right shoulder; he stood up on his back legs, ran 10 yards on them, and fell over dead. Josh high-fived me and said, “You blitzed him!” Walking up to him, I was very impressed with how much of a blood trail from where he was shot to where he fell over and died. Once again, the 80-grain ELD-X punched through the front shoulder, broke the opposite shoulder and passed through. With my limit on animals hit, we returned to the lodge for a beer around the fire for one last night. Back around the fire before sunset, the property owner, Andrew, was impressed with how the 22 ARC performed today; he said he wanted to see it in action. So he started glassing his hillside by the fire and spotted three female fallow deer at 345 yards. He told me if I could kill one of them on the hill, it would be free, and they would use it for bait. So, with everyone at the lodge watching me, I set up on my tripod with the 22 ARC, dialed the Leupold scope for one mil, and with five minutes of daylight left, I was amazed at the light transfer in the scope and held on her front shoulder, and down she went rolling down the hill dead on her feet! Just like that, Andrew was a believer in the 22 ARC.

With that, I am bringing a fantastic hunt to an end. I will always be looking back on this trip with great appreciation for being a part of the journey with a great company and great people that I can now call friends.