Aagaard "Guns and Hunting"
African stopping rifles are usually fitted with the traditional Express-type
shallow “V” open rear sights. They are a third-rate choice, with low-power
scopes and “ghost-ring” aperture sights being preferable on all counts. But
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Rifles for Dangerous Game
stopping rifles are normally used at such close range that it does not matter. Jack
O’Connor described how on one of his African safaris he and his companion
(probably Herb Klein) tested their professional hunter’s heavy double rifle
and found that it was shooting half a foot off at 100 yards. He remarked that
because the professional never used it at ranges over 25 yards, that was good
enough. Actually, most of the time he probably did not use the sights at all, but
just pointed the piece like a shotgun.
A more precise sighting arrangement is definitely to be preferred, as
even professional guides may have occasion to try to stop a wounded beast
at quite long range. Many years ago Soren Lindstrom (who did not yet have a
professional’s license) and I took his father out for buffalo. Finally we got him
a shot at a very good bull that was standing broadside at well over 100 yards. It
was farther than we liked, but we were running out of time—the buffalo were
alerted and about to go, and besides, Erik Lindstrom was a capable shot. He hit
it a touch far back in the lungs with my .375, and it ran into an isolated motte of
thornbrush. Now we had trouble.
Then I noticed that the buffalo was peering out at us through a gap in the
thorn. Only its head was visible. The range looked to be 200 yards or a little
more, but we had nothing to lose. I sat down with the .375, held the cross hair
in the Weaver K2.5 scope on top of the boss of the bull’s horns, and gently
pressed the trigger. The buffalo disappeared, and when Soren and I worked our
way into the thicket we found it dead with my bullet through its brain. There
was a good portion of luck in that shot; nevertheless, I could never have pulled
it off with the iron-sighted .458.
On the other hand, I have used the same .375 to follow up and finish off a
couple of wounded buffalo in thick cover when my .458 was out of action, and
found the scope no hindrance. On another occasion, when we had a wounded
bull standing in dense shade in heavy brush, I could not make it out through the
iron sights of the .458, so I took the scope-sighted .375 from the tracker and solved
that problem. Clients have used the rifle with its 2½X scope to flatten a buffalo at
10 feet, to stop a charging elephant at 14 paces, and to kill a lot of the big stuff quite
neatly both near and far. I am absolutely convinced that a low-power scope sight
of from 1½X to 3X, or a variable-power scope with a 4X maximum, is by far the
best sight for a guided hunter’s dangerous-game rifle.
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Guns and Hunting
The only exceptions I can think of might be leopard hunting, when a little
more magnification could be an advantage, or when one has to hunt in extremely
wet and thick cover. From what little I have seen of Alaska, scopes would seem
to be entirely appropriate for much of the bear hunting there also. All the clients
we had in one Alaska camp used scopes successfully and with no problems. Phil
Shoemaker, the registered guide, had a little Leupold 2½X scope on his .458
stopping rifle and liked it very well. It had survived some pretty rough treatment
and was still moisture-proof. Good lens covers were an essential, though. Wide
bands cut from automobile inner tubes are as good as anything—if you can find
an inner tube! I do think it is good insurance to have standby iron sights on the
rifle and to use a mounting system that allows the scope to be readily removed in
the field if necessary