I shot several rounds of 300 grain soft points suppressed in Africa and I didn’t think it was bad at all. Even shot some buffalo loads, solid brass, not suppressed and it wasn’t terrible. About like a 12 gauge.

I had always heard about how hard they were to kill. I showed up to hunt with my 300 RUM, all the guides and others ran it in the ground as too small, one had never heard of a 300 RUM. I shot my bull Nilgai at 200 yds with a simple low shoulder crease shot and he wilted where he stood. The guide is coming unglued telling me to chamber another round, he is going to run. It had been 5-6 seconds since I had already chambered a round. I sat there with the gun on him for 20 minutes while the guide got the Jeep. When we got back everyone was astonished that I had killed a Nilgai with something besides a 375H&H. We left there to go help track two wounded or maybe missed Nilgai that had been shot or shot at with the 375 H&H. We never saw animals or blood. This was a corporate hunt with most of the crowd being blow hards and having a richard measuring contest. They all wanted to know what kind of magical ammo I used. When I said just plain old 180 Gr Nosler Partitions they just dismissed the deal. It is my thinking that most all people get overly exited about these things, take way more gun than they are comfortable with and make a bad shot. This day in time if one wants more power, there are way better choices than 375 H&H.

I know a guy that killed a nilgai with a .243. Shot placement is important.

I killed a cow nilgai with a .22 LR and a 40 grain CCI mini-mag

A nilgai would have to put on an extra 1000 lbs before getting into the range of needing to use a .375.

A .338 is a good caliber for them but a .300 mag of any flavor will crush them with appropriate shot placement.

Hunters here LOVE to make animals seem tougher than they really are and hype up an animal to near mythical status if they can. I had one person tell be axis were so tough they didn’t allow bow hunters because most arrows wouldn’t go thru them. These are the same people who have a bigger gun for Hogs than they do Deer at the same blind/feeder set up.

guess it's the .375 then.

wouldn't want to go into a rattlesnake den while following a blood trail.

You're in south Texas, the entire place is a rattlesnake den...if you're the least bit concerned boot up. I don't wear boots because I'm scared, I wear boots because I don't want to have to always be looking where I'm putting my feet down.

JG stated it correctly...practice and the ability to put a bullet exactly where you aim and want it will fare far more than any big caliber...listen to your guide, he has seen enough of them fall he knows where the shot needs to be in order to recover the animal. It requires an entire system (I know you know this) to put a bullet where you want...good rifle, good ammo, proficient shooter. Practice shooting off sticks, practice shooting off your pack, practice prone, etc...practice just like it's game day.

You gotta go...you've talked about it too long and it's just money, if you don't spend it your daughter will.