Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Anyone hunt DG with a single shot rifle?

I would sure like to have a double like that in .500 or .577. I like hammers!.
Thanks for the picture/post. Brian

I'd rather have 4 rounds in the rifle and only need 1, than have 1 round and need 4 on DG. They're called dangerous game for a reason. And I don't believe in relying on a guide to save my ass.

Riflehunter, Good post. That is actually a definitive conclusion to the debate on a single shot versus a magazine rifle for dangerous game.

The single shot, big bore will work well for cape buffalo until it doesn't . Brian

I would advise against it.

No, too chicken, i have to use a double barreled rifle ; ]

Put 10 rounds through my 26" barreled V/C 577 Nitro double yesterday evening a dusk Brian, 750gr Barnes banded flat nosed solids and TSX's averaged 2068 fps with H-4350 over the Garmin and regulated beautifully at 25 yards, flipped up the 100 yard sight blade and again slapped the crap out of a rock over in the pond bank 100 yards away off sticks.

I only shoot it that far from hearing a sickening story of a hunter and PH nearly to tears over a 50+ inch Cape Buffalo bull walking away up a Tanzanian river 100 yards away with both of them carrying double rifles, that 'WONT' happen to me!

gunner, Thanks for the post. I would have liked to have been there when you were stretching out your good old VC .577 NE.

You are sure right about the 100 yd thing. A decent shot can kill any walking away animal at 100 yds. with express sights.

I'll bet it was fun whacking that 100 yard rock with a 750 grain bullet in the evening light. That is is as good as it gets!


Now gunner, I don't wanna' say it but am not sure that I can go along with you 100% on that "Trump Won" thing. I'm just sayin'

Cheers, Brian

Yes Sir, fun testing for Africa's challenges, so yes, we best stick to guns and hunting, you see, i am 179 degrees right of Attila The Hun, i routinely offend people when they engage me in politics that thought they were conservative, it's not a matter of extremism, simply a matter of right and wrong.

There is no oh well, or sometimes, Right and Wrong, Truth and Lies, nothing else, very simple way to live! ; ]

I used to have a real soft spot for a Ruger #1! Finally found one and walked away. beautiful rifle though. As I remember Didn't Sundra carry a second shell in a trap around one wrist? Well I don't hunt really dangerous game and if I did I would give some thought to the rifle. I suspect I can reload a round faster in a bolt action that pretty much anyone can with a single shot! Your under attack and could be you only have time for one shot then again maybe, just maybe you have time for a second if needed. ya probably don't but then again, maybe. if your being charged by a truly agitated big game animal, good chance it intends to kill you! If for some reason you find time for that second shot I'd suggest you reload fast as you can! Either that of get a double rifle, even faster that a bolt. Hunting is a game for us of life and death. Most big game animals seldom fight back, they attempt to get away and live. We on the other hand somehow feel superior probably because we carry a gun. If your gonna do that with a single shot gun I'd suggest you spend some time learning to reload really fast! It probably won't be fast enough but get as fast as you can!

Sometimes you win and sometimes lose! Sounds like the cape buffalo won that round! :-)

Something to think about with WV. In most every case he was carrying a fire arm that had back up rounds ready right now. I would not attempt to do what he did, I'm no good with heavy recoil handguns. But if I could handle them, I'd choose one of them over a single shot rifle.

When the average hunter tries to work a bolt fast under pressure he usually jambs it.
Well, I can sure reload my single shot faster than that. chuckle.

I keep 4 rounds on a carrier mounted on the right side of the butt stock. It' surprises people to see how fast I reload my break open .577 single shot. The big .577 cases are very easy to grab and whip into the huge chamber.

Another thing that I should mention is that I have never needed a second shot when I am hunting buffalo with my 577 NE.
If I could afford a double .500 or .577 I would eagerly use it all the time.

This is true.

Have mentioned this before, but I served for two years as the "charging buffalo shooting" instructor at the practical shooting get-together that gunsmith Charlie Sisk held in Texas in January. He held the events due to so many of his clients being very busy businessmen, who rarely got to the range. Consequently they didn't do as well with Charlie's fine rifles as they might have.

The first year fewer people were involved, maybe 15, including several invited customersand some others including gun writers and guides. The shooting involved actual field positions, at paper targets ranges out to 400 yards, along with the "charging" buffalo shoot. This involved shooting buffalo silhouette targets at various ranges out to around 50 yards, offhand, as fast as the shooter could hit everyone. The shooting was timed.

I came out on top, and then explained how I could shoot the buffalo targets faster with a bolt-action than anybody else did with a lever-action. As a result the second shoot, a year later, was MUCH bigger, enough to construct an actual moving, life-size silhouette target of a buffalo that emerged from behind some bushes at about 60 yards, and accelerated toward the shooter on a track. This took four seconds, and only a few could get three shots into the target's "vital zone" before it reached them. (I could, using Finn Aagaard's pre-64 .375 H&H, which his widow Berit brought to the shoot. Her second husband, Bill Pace, also attended, allowing several people to shoot his .500 double rifle.)

The stress involved wasn't due just due to the time and target, but because 1st prize was a Tanzanian safari. Consequently some of the so-called competitors brought along a "ringer" to do the actual shooting. One ringer the 30-something pilot employed by one of the attendees for his private plane. He chose to use a controlled-feed Kimber .308 Winchester--which jammed after the first shot because he short-stroked the action. (Yeah, it can happen even with a "short" action.)

Which is why one of the bolt-techniques I demonstrated was the "open palm" method used by some experienced big game hunters. I learned it from John Wootters, who among other things killed around 25 Cape buffalo in the Okavango Delta with various rifles when the area was opened to safari hunting, during several safaris. One advantage of the "open palm" method is it almost entirely eliminates short-stroking, since the bolt can't be shoved forward until the palm is reversed.

But obviously many experienced hunters can shoot a bolt rapidly while grasping the bolt knob, including many PH's and other dangerous game guides, including Alaska Master Guide Phil Shoemaker, who's used it on charging brown bears for over 50 years.

That said, many of videos I've seen of Cape buffalo clients trying to put another round in the chamber show them grasping the bolt knob while short-stroking. This mostly indicates how little they've actually practiced shooting quickly with their buffalo rifle, but the open-palm can work well--IF it's practiced.

If you read Selous you learn that they used to hunt all these animals with muzzleloaders. How much better off one is with a single shot cartridge rifle!

If you read it and understand it you'd realize muzzleloaders were the best they had then.

So its like the Bible where you have to read it and understand it? Here i thought Selous writings were self evident. I'll be sure to search out the hidden meaning

And a growing number of hunters are using bows for most of their hunting (or all of it), including the dangerous 5 or 6. In all my hunting years (70), I've rarely had to use a second shot for BG - even when using a semi-auto.
It hasn't been mentioned, but any safari today that involves DG, the hunter has an entourage of helpers including a PH with a so-called DG rifle, and often I've seen, on numerous videos, more than a couple of "extra" rifles, so it's not as if we're talking solo hunts. Incidently, of four BG rifles, two of mine are single-shots including a Ruger No.1H in .458 Win, which I'd take to Africa in the blink of an eye. I'm a bear hunter and often use a single-shot rifle - as a solo hunter.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

Moosemike, Good one!
"Like the bible... hidden meaning", Esoteric knowledge. I'm still laughing. Thanks for the fun. Brian

If you're relying on guides and helpers to not only find the animals, not only to determine whether to shoot them or not, not only to get you into position, not only to tell you when to shoot but also to assist you to shoot them when you stuff-up the shot...then you are not "hunting". Everyone else is hunting for you. All you're doing is paying the huge cost of the "hunt" and then deluding yourself and others (when you get home) that you're a successful big game hunter.

Some things I don't understand. But I only shoot animals for meat for the family and friends or that are pests or predators at the farm.

I would love to tour Africa and see and photograph the animals, but why spend a bunch of money to be squired around by a hired entourage and have animals pointed out to you to shoot? For meat that you don't get to bring home?

I travel the western U.S. but don't even care to kill something I would have the problem of transporting 1000 miles back home. We just photograph the wildlife out west and eat the whitetail deer within 10 minutes travel from home.