Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa 8 bore muzzleloader

Yall are seeing all my Africa questions,obviously im trying to go to Africa. As a safari gun, i was considering having an 8 bore double rifle blk powder muzzleloader built new by an expert.shoots a 1250 grain conical with a 400 grain powder charge max.1500-1900 fps.TKO between 200-300! They used them before nitro to kill all that DG. Any African hunters/PH's have any opinions on them?Any of you big gun owners that might have shot one or read about them online, like the fellows that have been to Africa,the Wby Mag/big bore owners,etc. Id like to hear what you have to say.

Thank you in advance.

lol talk to gunner....his aint a double but his pipe bomb speed loaders are impressive







video(click picture) of gunner loading and bea175 shooting a light load out of it:

LOL Rattler.

OP, you will earn your name [realitycheck] when you touch off 400 grains inder a big 8 Bore conical bullet.

Gunner

I don't have any experience with the MZ, but I will relay an issue a fellow hunter had last year when I was there. He brought his MZ over with the intent to hunt with it and relied on the owner/PH to get the correct powder (since it can't be brought into country). After several tries, several wounded animals, he gave up and went with a camp rifle.

A man ought to earn his name i think. i probably wont use that much to hunt with, depending on the gun, but i will probably shoot it at max load at least once! ill hit the bench extra hard that week to get a good pump for some cushion when i touch off that one!

A double 8 bore fresh built sure is pricey,but i feel sure with that much lead it should stop a cape buffalo. As long as your proficient with the rifle as you should be. A 416 sure is cheaper,but its not an 8 bore. If i might ask,you ever shoot anything with yours yet?

i hear you about the blackpowder import problem,thats a big deal.

But do you reckon the wounded animals was due to the shooter or some problems with the substitute powder or the climate or expecting the gun to shoot distances past its limits or something?

Ive never hunted Africa,but a .50 caliber muzzleloader with black powder and a 385 grain bullet will kill a deer or bear here in USA same as a rifle but not at long distance.

As a person thats been there of course i value your opinion and what im getting from your answer is that in Africa MZ's may not function like you want them to. ahartman96, im talking about a gun thats the only thing between me and a buffalo,so i need to know its going to work! thanks for your input!

Fine looking gun, looks like a Stolzer and Sons gun.They make bada** big bore muzzleloaders!

thanks for responding!

keep in mind to the old timers a 8 bore would be the equivalent to todays 375H&H.....its on the very low end of what they though acceptable for dangerous game and not the gun they used if they thought a charge was likely....when you get to the dense bone and muscle of cape buffalo and rhinos and such those big lead balls didnt penetrate as well as you would think which is why they had and used 4 and 2 bores.....they considered the 8 bore a hell of a lion gun though

true, the 4 bore was supposed to be the standard for elephant and rhino i read.I thought it was interesting this guy named Greener did some research and found out a heavy 8 bore conical outpenetrated a 4 bore ball,but the 4 bore was still better.it had a heck of a conical huh. i guess because none of them went through an elephant skull effeciently, the nitro express changed everything! check this out if you havent already :
http://www.shakariconnection.com/giant-bores.html

id hate to have to carry a double 4 all day in Afica, i dont think ill have any zulu gunbearers like they did in the old days...

I shoot a soft ball [pure lead] in my 8 bore with 300 gr FFg black powder, a hard ball [more tin] with 400 gr FFG is a penetrating SOB, IIRC the conicals for my rifle weigh in excess on 1500 gr.

I have only shot one 10 pt buck and one marauding pig from a neighbors farm with my 8 bore, no round ball recoveries, complete penetration and both dropped at the shot with massive bleeding when I got up to 'em.

Gunner

There is also a nice 8 Bore double rifle out at Champlins in Enid Oklahoma, a cartridge rifle no doubt, but that doesn't mean you couldn't load the hulls with Black Powder and go kill African game.

Gunner

My rifle was built by Steve Zihn, Mr. Stolzer actually apprenticed under Mr. Zihn.

Gunner

i imagine with the conicals it would stop a cape buffalo no problems.Even witjh prb's. id think the 1500 grain conical might even stop more. If we went by TKO alone,this would be the gun for everything.
Have you seen that guys SMOKELESS 4 bore? Its a single shot,some kind of breech block action..guys getting 2600 fps with 1250 grain bullets.

great! thats a fine looking gun.

its actually pretty interesting to hold.....gunner says it weights around 10 pounds, feels like 7 in the hands its so perfectly balanced, atleast with my long arms but im not much shorter than gunner.....the guy that built it knew more than a few things bout putting together a nice gun....

i actually prefer black powder,thatd be great. they probably want 25k for it or something though,and i cant afford to spend that. but if it was priced good itd be worth a trip...nope that ones kinda high but they have a lot of other cool blk powder guns..

I'm not a wealthy man. More and more I'm coming to the conclusion that a person can easily have more guns that he can regularly shoot, and I'm starting to choose to use what I have (if appropriate) and spend my money on hunting.

IIRC the 8 Bore at Champlins is around 35K, granted Gents, that amount of $$$$$ is a lot of hunting trips stateside.

Gunner

RC - I would put the blame on the powder. The hunter seemed confident enough and showed me pictures of nice game taken locally. The first powder they tried was for hand guns - apparently not a very good mix. At the target range of 100 yards, he couldn't get anything closer than 20". The next day instead of hunting, they drove back to town for him to pick out his own powder, but I guess the selection was pretty poor. The groupings did get tighter. He wounded a Gemsbok, Eland and Warthog (maybe another too). Missed on an Impala and Blue Wildebeest. He then changed to the PH's rifle and that's when he was dropping animals left and right. Fortunately for him, they came across the same Eland and he didn't have to pay for two of them!

A year before the hunt, he was told the exact powder was available and that there would be no issues bringing his MZ in country.

Good luck!! And, make sure you have fun no matter what....

Dear Mr. RealityCheck,
Young fella I do hope you ENJOY recoil!! The 8 bore w/ MID-RANGE loads pushed Gunner around like he wuz a punk kid!! I watched that and pussssied out and shot a 577 Nitro Express instead!
Yours Truly,
EvilTwin