First and foremost i am there to kill, that said, i'd rather track buffalo with my doubles, but wont lie and say i dont have a heavy medium bore with scope handy if a buff of a lifetime is spotted and cant be closed in on at double rifle ranges, i'd put a vital hit on the animall with the bolt gun, then grab a double, hurry over and get it settled asap, carried a 577 and 400 H&H stoked with 400gr a-frames at 2400 fps in Tanzania fall 2020, didnt need the 400 for buff or hippo as both were shot less than 18 yards on the ground.
Did use the scoped bolt 400 H&H on:
Zebra 277 yards
Waterbuck 238 yards
Hartebeest 232 yards
Warthog 166 yards
Leopard 70 yards
I have no doubt of your abilities with a big double, gunner! If I had my druthers, I'd follow your lead... but I'd need a gun-bearer for my second rifle!
Excellent advice and post, Gunner. This almost exactly what Boddington says as well. Basically, if you hunt buffalo with a double, you ostensibly cut your odds by 50% (sic). What 400 H&H do you have?
Sound advice, I'm afraid.
My first buff, in 2015, was taken at 50 paces, and there was no chance of stalking closer... he was walking in a wide-open field with ankle-deep grass, and the only cover between me and him was a 10-foot mopane sapling about 2" in diameter. The light was fading, about 30 minutes before sundown. As you know, in Africa the light begins to fade much earlier in the afternoon due to the dry-season-long dusty haze, so by 30 minutes prior to sunset it's getting dim. And he was in the shade of the trees we were set up in, as well. My scope, a 1.5-4X Trijicon, has an illuminated triangle at the top of the post, and I can tell you without question that I needed that illuminated aiming point... the black of the post was indiscernible against the black sides of the buff. Because I was able to see exactly where my aiming point was in that lowering light, I was able to put the 300 gr A-frame right through the top of his heart. It literally blew his heart in half, which is why he only ran about 75 yards before he fell and never got up again. Even with a gold bead front sight, I believe it would have been dicey seeing it against the bull's flanks. African light can be very tricky. I'm very glad I had a scoped rifle for that buff.
My second buff, in 2019, was a very different sort of deal. We hunted very hard every day for 8 days without getting a chance at a shootable bull. I already had a respectable 36-incher, and I very much wanted at least 41" this time around. We stalked close enough to several smaller bulls to take a shot, but smaller wasn't in the cards. We finally got onto a group of 4 dugga boys on Day 9, and tracked them for about 2 hours without having a chance at them. One bull was closer to 40", but none of them were huge... still, it was the second-last day of the hunt, and beggars can't be choosers. It got much worse at the end of the stalk... the bulls had crossed a dry river-bed, and the far bank was the boundary of our hunting concession. They had stopped to feed in the lush greenery of the riverbank, but we were 120-130 yards from them, and if they went up and over the top of the bank, we couldn't pursue them further. My PH was feeling positive about the setup, as I had busted a hyena through his shoulders at 200 yards earlier in the morning, and he told me he felt confident I could make the shot if I wanted to. I realized full well that if I didn't kill this bull, I was likely going home to eat tag soup, so even though he wasn't a 41+ incher, I decided to take him. There is no way on earth I would dare that shot with an iron-sighted rifle at that range... but with my scope cranked up to 4X, I had full confidence in taking the shot. So I did, and I killed him with that shot. (I did put 2 more into him as he slowly walked up the bank away from us, but they were insurance shots only... when we opened him up, the first shot had torn his heart in half, the second shot further up and a bit further back took out both lungs, and the final shot broke his pelvis.) Again, this was a shot that would not have been doable with a double gun. No PH would allow it, the risk of creating a disastrous followup on a wounded bull would be too great.
