“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

– William Shakespeare

This eBook was originally published online in 2022 to assist hunters in planning and preparing for hunting thin-skinned, non-dangerous African plains game. The topics and content are based on five personal hunting trips to South Africa prior to 2020 and the results of personal, 20% synthetic gel testing of 11 selected hunting bullets conducted in 2020 through 2021. This hunting experience and the gel-test results identify issues, as presented in this eBook, that hunters of any thin-skinned, non-dangerous game may wish to consider to enhance the odds of a successful hunt.

The eBook is fact-based fiction about a first-time, North American hunter who has concerns about his rifle’s chambering and preferred ammunition being capable of taking the plains-game animals on his bag list. His quest to understand terminal performance results in a tumultuous student-mentor relationship with an experienced African hunter who repeatedly disregards accepted terminal performance norms. The lessons the hunter’s stubborn tenacity compels him to learn are validated during his stalked hunting experiences in Africa.

Embedded in the storyline are technical explanations of how expanding hunting bullets of various generic designs produce wounding in big-game animals. These explanations are based on engineering mechanics/material strength principles, wounding research published by Colonel Martin Fackler, a military physician, and a personal wound- evaluation model based on gel testing of expanding hunting bullets.

A self-funded zebra management hunt, conducted in South Africa in July of 2023, provided both field and skinning-shed autopsy data to evaluate/prove the wound modeling, gel testing, and terminal performance concepts presented in this eBook. The data obtained, discussions of the results, and terminal performance conclusions based on the hunt data can be found in a complete, comprehensive report contained in this website. There have been no revisions to this eBook since its publication in 2022, as the report’s data and findings validate the terminal performance theory and concepts initially presented.

The personally-derived wound cavity analytical model is called the Guppy and is based on Colonel Fackler’s gel testing and published research. The model can be accessed in schematic form by clicking on the “Guppy” tab. This schematic is the basis for seven, personally-derived metrics used to quantify the modeled wound cavity produced in gel by a bullet. Mathematical metric definitions can be found by clicking on the “Guppy Tech” tab. Both the schematic and the embedded metrics are the basis for ranking the 11 gel-tested bullets, as described in the eBook’s storyline.

The “TOC” tab accesses the eBook’s table of contents with links to the embedded content. This website is configured to allow downloading and printing of the eBook, accessed from the browser’s tool bar.

The “Useful Links” tab accesses a compilation of links to hunting-problem definition resources. No person, manufacturer, or vendor furnished complimentary products, services, equipment, hunting opportunities, or advice for either the presentation of these links or the preparation of this eBook.

A logical question would be: “What specifically is in this eBook and how could that benefit me if I invest the time to read it?” Clicking on Introduction and reading its contents should satisfactorily answer that question.