Dr. Ed Ashby has records on 631 big game animals he's taken across 26 years, and only four were never recovered. He explains why most wounded game is hit too far back, why lack of penetration was the number one reason a hit wasn't lethal, and why hunters need to quit being afraid of the shoulder.

We get into his Natal Parks Board arrow research at Mkuzi Game Reserve, bowhunting rhino with a 115 lb longbow and 1,286 grain arrows, and why it took 650 grains to reliably break heavy bone. From there the conversation runs into double rifles and barrel regulation, the battery he carried in Africa, a PH who survived a leopard mauling, and the one hunt he'd still go back for.

In this episode:

Why four lost deer in 1980 started 40+ years of arrow research
154 animals in 30 days: what failed and what penetrated
Why hunters perceive quartering animals as broadside
Never mount another animal: Ed's one regret
Double rifle regulation, loads, and why most guys shoot them poorly
The guns, handguns, and shotgun he carried for leopard follow-ups

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Access decides more elk hunts than gear, calling, or strategy combined. Private land, resident tags, draw odds, generations of local knowledge. That one variable is why comparing yourself to other hunters is mostly useless, and why the only real measure is for you to calculate

Coffee with Cliff, mostly unedited. Assessing your own progress is a harder, but more useful way to judge whether you're actually getting better, plus why the hunting content world keeps getting people in legal trouble chasing the same scoreboard.

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Cliff's Hunt Planning and Strategy Membership
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Hunt. Fish. Spear. (Experiences, Courses and Seminars)
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Double rifles are the least understood firearms in hunting. They cost more than most trucks, the two barrels are regulated by hand one pair at a time, and most guys buy one for a charge that is never going to happen. I brought in Chris from Heym USA to explain the whole thing from the ground up. Why they cost what they cost. What barrel regulation actually is and why lasers cannot shortcut it. Why 50% of the weight has to sit between your hands. Why a 26 inch barreled double carries shorter than the 22 inch bolt gun in your truck.

Then we get into the part that applies to anybody shooting a big bore. Why the 450/400 Nitro Express is the first double rifle cartridge he tells guys to buy. Why the professional hunter's rifle and the client's rifle are two completely different tools. Why the honest answer on recoil is the one nobody wants to hear. We finish on red dots, grizzly handguns, one hole versus two on a Cape buffalo, and my great great grandfather's Damascus barreled Francotte 12 gauge.

In this episode:
- Why barrel regulation makes a double rifle expensive, explained without the mystique
- The 450/400 Nitro Express, 400 grains at 2100 fps, at roughly 375 H&H recoil
- Weight between the hands, five frame sizes, and why barrel length is about balance, not velocity
- Kinetic energy versus shot placement, and what a 700 Nitro Express actually did to an elephant skull
- PH rifle versus client rifle, and the aspirational marketing that sells you recoil you will never practice with
- Soft point in the right barrel, solid in the left, and why two holes beat one

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https://pursuitwithcliff.com/interviews-and-podcasts/

Cliff's Hunt Planning and Strategy Membership
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Hunt. Fish. Spear. (Experiences, Courses and Seminars)
https://pursuitwithcliff.com/Experiences

Merch
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