Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Back Up

What did the PHs on your safari use for stopper or back up rifles? Or if you're a PH what rifles do you use for said work?

This particular PH uses a left hand Weatherby actioned .500 Jeffery built by Sabi Rifles in Nelspruit South Africa. The rifle weighs in at about 13 lbs fully loaded (3+1) and is fitted with mercury tube recoil arrestor, 19 inch barrel, shallow vee rearsight and a red fibre optic foresight.

Mine carried a well worn pre64 Winchester Model 70 in .458 Winchester caliber.

PH's whose rifle choice I know:

Rich Tabor - 470NE
Buzz Charlton - 416 Rigby, 450NE
Terri LaBatt - 458 Lott
Peter Wood - 458 Lott
Allan Shearing - 458wm, 416 Rem
Roger Whittall, now retired - 465/500NE
Butch Coaton - 458wm
Terry Fenn - 458wm
(? having a brain cramp ?) - 450 Ackley
Ivan Carter - 450NE

When my brain cramp is finished I'll edit and provide the name of the very nice and fine PH who shoots the Ackley.

JPK

John Sharp:
post-64 (push feed) customized Model 70 458 WM
1920s vintage John Rigby double 470NE

jorge

Florent Matthieu - .470 Heym
.458 Winchester before that

John du Plooy - .458 Winchester

Interesting to note that the 458wm has seven entries vs. twelve for all other cartridges combined. The 470NE has three entries and the 450NE and 458 Lott each have two count that maybe as three because the Ackley can shoot the wm and Lott ammo too.

Wile the 458wm may be pissed on here in the US, it clearly earns the respect it deserves where it counts, in the hands of PH's. Long live the 458wm!

JPK

I use a .450 Rigby Rimless on a Vektor double square bridge magnum Mauser tye action, weighing 10lbs fully loaded, 22 inch barrel. (Build by Gerrie Coetzee in Bloemfontein.)
My other 2 "big bores", that I have used occationally, or let clients use, are both M98 Mauser actioned custom rifles by Gerrie Coetzee, in calibers 9,3x64 and .404 Jefferey.

Is the 458 popular because it is good, or because it is widely available? After all 30-30's are probably still the most popular deer rifles.

Ronnie Blackbeard- FN 98 in 458Win he bought new in 1959.
Hilton Nichols- Rem 1917 in 450 Ackley and a Belgian 470.
Phillip Reed- Brno in 450 Ackley.
Gordon Cundill- 500NE double.

SOS

The .458 is reliable and affordable. Most PH's aren't rolling in the dough, so double rifles are pricey for most.

IF we looked at rifle sales over the passt 15 years, I doubt that the venerable 30-30 would be at the top of the sales list anymore. Who's buying lever action rifles for hunting these days? Not as popular as it once was.

Three PHs I have hunted with used 416 Remington.

One was a re-barreled Weatherby Mk V action in a McMillan stock with a single, fixed express sight.

One was a stock appearing Rem. 700 with a single, fixed express sight.

One was a virtually stock Rem 700.

405wcf

I know many PHs and for the most part they carry stock .375s, 416's and 458's, factory stuff that ammo is easy to come by and much is left in camp by hunters...Some few carry double rifles and most of those were gifts from clients or were picked up when these old guns were cheap and ammo was not available..It is not a particularly lucrative business and many are just leaking out a living doing what they love. To many of them a rifle is nothing more than a necessary tool, but a few are gun nuts, and that usually adds to their success as a PH in that they have that in common with their clients...

Probably the best source of information on this subject is Safari Rifles by Boddington..He did a good study on the subject, with the better PHs in the safari industry.

While most of the PHs out there are excellent in their job, keep in mind that all PHs are not gun or caliber experts, and they may carry any manor of rifle or caliber. Some of these guys are excellent hunters and some are not and a gun is only a tool to them, and they may or may not be good shots or hunters. A lot depends on the country they are in and what is involved in getting a license.

The PH I hunted with had a push feed M70 in .416 Rem and another rifle in .458 Win, although I can't remember what model that one was in. Funny story, thinking about how PH's aren't gun nuts. We were stalking buff one day when all of a sudden the PH turned around and looked like he had seen a ghost. I asked what was wrong and he pointed to the floor plate of his rifle, or at the empty hole where the floor plate should have been. The screw holding it in had come out and the floor plate had fallen out. Why none of us noticed, I don't know, but we found the floor plate just a few steps back, but we couldn't find the screw. He used his 458 from then on. Gun parts are hard to come by in Zim, so I sent him some replacement screws when I got back to the states.
Test

Pushfeed Rem's & Win's..............weird, I thought them never worked on a DGR!

I too find it interesting in the number of 458's used. Easy to find ammo aside, they must "just plain work"!

The smoothness of a Model 70 PF in .458 is like an IQ test.
The more expert your opinion, the more likely a lower score.

JW

Two well-known PH's who used push-feed M70's in .458 for at least part of their careers were Finn Aagaard and Harry Selby.

Of the PHs I hunted with - one had a push-feed M70 458, one had a Mauser 458, another had a Brno 458 and one used a 375 Flanged double (leopard hunt).

Con Van Wyk Krieghoff 500NE

The 458wm now posts 14 of 37 total "entries", for 38% of all "entries". All others account for 23 with the 458Lott/450Ackley accounting for 5, same with the 416Rem. The 470NE has four, the 450NE two and so does the 500NE, all others one each.

Another interesting note is that double rifles account for ten of the 37 entries, or 27%.

Using the Taylor era definition of a big bore, .458" and better, 30 of the 37 entries, or 81%, are big bores while six are "large medium bores", as Taylor called them, and one is a medium bore.

22 of the 37 entries, or just shy of 60%, use .458" bullets.

JPK