Weighing as little as 10 pounds, southern Africa’s often overlooked miniature antelope species require just as much consideration over caliber as their larger plains-game counterparts.
Eland are the largest antelope in the world, and they can walk for miles. Hunters who have missed a bull learn that soon enough; most give up the track eventually. Too bad most of them don’t hunt behind the white bushman.
Overall, in fit and finish you'll find the Sauer 100 Classic XT at or near the top of the budget bolt-rifle class. It’s atop the price ladder, too, but if you want Sauer precision, you won’t find it for any less.
Based on the successes of the other proprietary bullets from Norma—the semi-bonded Oryx and the Kalahari—I’d be willing to bet the TipStrike and EcoStrike will make a lot of believers in the near future.
Old is not dead, and though the 8x57 has had to endure vast improvements in cartridge design, powder development and bullet performance, it remains a perfectly viable hunting cartridge.
E.R. Shaw is a company in Pennsylvania that makes a huge number of rifle barrels in just about every configuration imaginable, including a lot of barrels for OEM use by some big-name gun makers. Odds are if you have a few rifles, you have one of Shaw’s barrels. What a lot of hunters don’t know is the company also builds rifles based on its Mark VII action to customers’ specifications.