The aforementioned Morrison .30-06 that I call Mr. Clean Sweep has a perfect record so far, including a Livingstone bull eland that knowing hunters said weighed 1,800 pounds on the hoof. One 180-grain AccuBond entered the shoulder where my little picture text on bullet placement instructed. The eland went nose to the ground, the bonded bullet penetrating deeply into the vitals.

Sometimes bullet design fails. These three bullets were taken from the chest cavity of a sable antelope. The lower example shows an ideal upset (mushroom), while the bullet at top left did not open up at all, and the bullet on the far right seems to have lost its front end. The range, according to the PH, was close for all three shots. The maker of this bullet is in the process of perfecting it as this is written.

Should every big-game bullet be bonded? To bond or not to bond: That is the question. My answer is "Not all the time." A favorite bullet in Mr. Clean Sweep is the Hornady 180-grain SST. It is wonderfully accurate and shamefully deadly.

A little story: Mr. Clean Sweep has a perfect record of hits with one-shot-to-a-customer results. Two shots were perfect strikes, yet two deer were lost. I know the hits were right because when my brother, Nick, and I hunt together, only one fires on game while the other watches through binoculars. On both deer, Nick was using my fine 15X Swarovski binocular. A mule deer buck angled at 200 yards took a bullet at the back of the rib cage. That bullet, I am confident, exited the front of the rib cage. That buck was in the bag.

Not to be. He made a short dash over the crest of the hill and down into a jumble of boulders and four-foot-high grass, lost in spite of two hours of searching by us plus another stint with our wives helping to look.

The second disaster occurred on a whitetail doe at 125 yards. Nick verified that the bullet struck the rib cage. Without doubt, both lungs were zeroed. The doe dived into a tangle of creek-bottom growth that could hide an elephant.

A search lasting three hours detected nothing. What went wrong? A bullet that proved perfect on heavier game in Africa and back home simply sailed through these two deer without telling effect. I switched to a 180-grain Hornady SST. A whitetail doe dropped instantly at 130 yards to the same hit that lost my first whitetail doe.

I went back to the harder bullet for another shot because we agreed it was "neck shot or no shot." At a rangefinder-measured 177 yards, a mule deer buck with a smallish 4x4 rack but superior heft hit the deck with one 180-grain bullet through the neck. I salved my soul about the two lost deer by the fact that the area was heavily overpopulated and Mother Earth plus coyotes and even a wolf or two would dine on the lost carcasses. But having previously lost only two animals over about a half-century of hunting, my attempt at reasoning fairly well failed, and what was shaping up as a brilliant hunt was tarnished.

I normally avoid running shots, especially when the target is the south end of an animal heading north. But I confess that I took this shot recently on a buck antelope. While antelope reside in my backyard (literally), and while my season is a full month long, other duties must be attended to. So I allowed myself only three days searching for a reasonable pronghorn.