On his 16th trip to the Dark Continent, outdoor enthusiast Scott Haugen hoped to fire only two shots. Haugen was after two animals that had eluded him for years. Would Browning’s X-Bolt 2 Speed SPR in 6.8 Western be up to the task?
On a recent trip to South Africa, I intended to fire two shots: one at a sable and one at a roan. It was my 16th African safari.
The shot at the sable came at 177 yards. I was standing, rifle in the tripod. The creek bottom hadn’t a breath of wind. A sable appeared between towering thorn bushes and stood facing me. I placed the crosshairs between the center of the brisket and the right leg. The 500-pound bull ran 40 yards and fell over. Field dressing the bull, we found the bullet traveled the entire length of the body cavity, including through a stomach packed full of grass, and lodged in the back left hind quarter.
The shot at the roan came at 195 yards. It was evening. All was calm. Steady in the sticks, this time, the shot came broadside. The shot angle was intentional. Roan are big, thick-chested, tough animals. The bullet entered behind the shoulder. The 600 pound bull loped less than 20 yards and dropped. The bullet pierced both lungs and lodged just under the skin on the offside shoulder. Bullet performance was perfect, as was its weight retention.
I write more about hunting than guns. But I do write about guns I like.
Before writing about any gun, one requirement I have is to shoot several animals with it or be present when fellow hunters shoot animals. I’ve shot hundreds of big game animals in Africa, both trophies and on cull hunts. The bottom line is that clean killing is the best gauge of a rifle’s performance. If you want to punch paper for hundreds of rounds all day, go for it. For me, the best test comes by shooting animals at various distances, angles, and under a range of conditions.
I first shot Browning’s X-Bolt Speed 6.8 Western at a bear. I killed it with one shot. So did five other buddies on that hunt. We also killed four Roosevelt elk with that rifle. One bull fell to a single shot. I’m confident the others would have fallen to one shot, too, but given the setting and time of day, quick follow-up shots were a must to quickly put down the bulls to avoid potentially long and arduous pack jobs. I rank Roosevelt elk as the toughest North American ungulate to bring down, even more challenging than moose. The 6.8 Western had my attention.
On the recent trip to Africa I shot Browning’s new X-Bolt 2 Speed SPR in a 6.8 Western. An adjustable length of pull, comb height, and grip angle allow for a precise fit, which equates to maximized accuracy. You can pull this rifle’s other cool specs off the Browning website, but I’m here to say this gun is a killing machine.
If you’re looking for one all-around big game rifle to handle not only all of North America’s big game—save for grizzly and brown bears—but anything in Africa up to and including eland-sized animals, the 6.8 Western Speed is a great choice.
In addition to my sable and roan, Shaundi Campbell, Browning’s Senior Marketing Manager also shot the 6.8 Western X-Bolt 2 Speed with conviction on our recent trip to Africa. I was with Campbell when she pulled the trigger on nine animals, and all fell with one perfectly placed shot. Her shots weren’t just good but perfect—all of them.
I’d never hunted with Campbell. I’d heard she was a good shot. We shared the same rifle on this safari.
Campbell zeroed the rifle at the Browning factory with three shots. A week before our Safari, she put 10 more practice rounds through it and was good to go. The day we arrived in Africa, Campbell shot three sub-one-inch bullets through paper at 100 yards, then rang gongs out to 500 yards. Each shot was perfect.
Campbell took a record-class sable on this, her first African safari. The bull was quartering to us at 284 yards. She placed the bullet tight to the shoulder. The bull walked 12 yards and fell over. The bullet passed through the length of the body and lodged just under the skin in front of the opposite hind quarter. The shot placement and fast death were impressive.
Campbell also shot a big East Cape kudu at 435 yards. The bull was broadside and traveled less than 50 yards after being hit. She dropped a blue wildebeest with an intentional high-shoulder shot and punched a dandy gemsbok that spun and fell three yards from where it was hit. Wildebeest and gemsbok are among Africa’s toughest plains game. A warthog also fell to Campbell’s 6.8 Western, and she whacked an impala just inside 100 yards with a shot to the neck, a shot she called before pulling the trigger.
A buddy with us on the hunt was so impressed with the 6.8’s performance that he wanted to try it. He dropped a bushbuck at 225 yards and a lechwe at just over 300 yards. The lechwe took a bullet on the point of the shoulder and went 10 yards, spun, and collapsed. The shoulder of the 250-pound bull lechwe was shattered, and the bullet was found in the opposite shoulder, perfectly peddled, lead core intact. Another buddy shot a gemsbok with it.
Over a dozen one-shot kills on the Dark Content with Browning’s X-Bolt Speed 2 SPR got my attention and respect. Four people contributed to the stats, which made this gun’s performance even more impressive.
Two more vital tools are essential in building a perfect shooting rifle: the bullet and scope. Every African animal fell to the same bullet, a Browning 175 grain Long Range Pro Hunter Sierra Tipped Gameking. The 6.8 Western is a .277 caliber short-action cartridge that’s strategically designed to shoot bullets that are heavy for the caliber, thus delivering high ballistic coefficients and sectional density. In other words, it shoots long, travels fast, hits hard, and has minimal recoil. Every shot is as precise as the shooter.
The 6.8 Western X-Bolt 2 Speed rifle wore a Leupold VX-6HD scope in a 3-18×44. It was fitted with a Custom Dial System (CDS) for the specific cartridge at the 1,300-feet elevation where we’d be hunting in Africa. If you’ve not tried the CDS, consider it. I rank it among the most revolutionary innovations to help hunters optimize shot accuracy.
Any accurate shooting rifle comes down to the gun, the bullets, the scope, and the shooter. The setup on this 6.8 is tops. Making my living as a full-time writer and former TV host of 14 years, I shot a lot of rifles. I can count on one hand the number I’ve kept and would take anywhere for just about any animal. The 6.8 Western X-Bolt 2 falls into this elite category. I’ll be using it on future deer, elk, and black bear hunts, and I plan on taking it to Alaska next fall for big bull moose. That’s how much I love and trust this equipment.
