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Does anyone have a stories they would care to share about hunting in Africa with a 22 long rifle? What rifle did you use? Did you bring your own or use the camp rimfire rifle? What ammo did you use, solids or hollow points? Standard, high or hyper velocity? What did you shoot, francolin, dik-dik. Thanks for sharing.
In RSA the .22 is a Poacher tool and requires a permit to own one or hunt with one. There are plenty around, but I can tell you one fella a neighbor had some .22 shells on the floor of his pickup. He did not have a .22 permit, or own a .22 rifle.

The took him in, pulled all his firearm permits, and he was facing severe financial penalties for this violation, not to mention the loss of all his guns and any future firearm ownership permits. All for having a couple .22 shells that fell out of a box, or pack and were left on the floor of his bakkie.

The .22 rimfire in RSA has rather limited legal use as a hunting rifle.
I could be mistaken on this, but I believe the situation is very similar in Namibia. I'm fairly certain that Namibia does not permit .22 rimfires to be temporarily imported under any conditions. I'm not too sure about its practical uses in Africa, especially for foreign hunters. It might be different if you lived there and hunted for the pot. To me, a shotgun, with appropriate loads, would be a much better choice for wing-shooting (even guinea fowl or francolin) and the small antelope - dik-dik and duikers in thicker bush.
Last year in Namibia our PH lent my son his old BRNO (Model 1 IIRC) .22LR and a box of RWS 40gr. HP

We spent the better part of an afternoon chasing down guinea fowl.

Ironic.... my son spent several days hunting PG and was successful on Kudu, Wildebeest, Gemsbok, etc.... but the afternoon hunting guinea's was by far his most enjoyable part of the entire Safari.

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wow i cant remember how many things i have hunted since childhood with my fathers Bruno model 2. today in own this rifle and it still accompany me often on varmint hunts. my son loves this rifle as much as i did. shot a vervet monkey lots of guinea fowls puff adder ground squirrels and jackal with it. i recently took a couple of jackal with it. there is something special about taking a jackal with a .22. silencers are very legal in s-africa one dont need any permission or paperwork to get one. shooting your .22 with a silencer and sub-sonic ammo you can have hours of fun shooting all kinds of critters. some young jackals i took:

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a couple of spring hare all with ,22 photobucket
The spring hare is an amazing animal.Are thy edible like NA rabbits? Those rear legs would be meaty

Randy
medicman, sorry fore the late reply, been hunting a bit. but the spring hare is actually a rodent, so with all the tasty animals available we dont go for spring hare, but it is a lot of fun to hunt. we do this often on foot as well , it provides us with many laughs.
Originally Posted by FOsteology
Last year in Namibia our PH lent my son his old BRNO (Model 1 IIRC) .22LR and a box of RWS 40gr. HP

We spent the better part of an afternoon chasing down guinea fowl.

Ironic.... my son spent several days hunting PG and was successful on Kudu, Wildebeest, Gemsbok, etc.... but the afternoon hunting guinea's was by far his most enjoyable part of the entire Safari.

[Linked Image]

Go figure: Had success on a few big game animals. Congratulations! But then spend an afternoon shooting 10 guineas and one "oops" - that one looks like an illegal to hunt species. Nevertheless 11 dead animals in one day - and no pressure about any shot. Sure I do understand why it was the highlight of his safari!

Long live young hunters with a .22LR and a box of ammo in hand! I just loved - when I still did such things - using a .22 LR with sound supressor and Eley low velocity (subsonic) hollow points to cull blesbuck. Without a single exception, one bullet in the brain = one very dead blesbuck. I have used mine to shoot literally 1000's of hyrax, some in a research project. Great fun with a .22 LR in Africa, and, I'm sure everywhere else where the use of one is legal.

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

I once took a whole brick of .22s into South Africa. The Customs guy looked at it and said, "That's okay, you can't kill anyone with those." Probably wouldn't work quite that way today.
Andrew, the answer to that "one" is: DENY! DENY!
My wife and I were visiting Graham and Chantel Connear with friends in 1993 just when the Save conservancy was in its infancy.

I had taken over a 4x32 scope and a small Lightforce hunting light for Graham and he took us out culling Impala with a .22lr. Only females and all shot from the S.IIA L/R they had at the time.

I don't know what the ammo was, but the rifle was of european origin. Anschutz or Geco ... somthing like that.

We took three large females and called it a night. All shots had to be between the ear and the eye. Two went down cleanly but the third took more than one shot. Using iron sights at night was a bit different to what I'm used to.

I came home and bought a .218Bee Ruger No.1S which I still have. The perfect rifle for that kind of work.
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