Wife walked in with an interesting question tonight. I'm sitting here minding my own business and she comes in to ask "how much practice would somebody need if they were going on safari?"

This is good, at least she is thinking about it. I told her I wanted to use our tax return next year (if it be enough) to book a safari. at the time she seemed to thinking that finishing the yard and other stuff at the house was more important.

I thought about it. I am an honest person, I don't claim 1/4" shooting, but I am not a bad shot. (don't shoot much of late, might have been what started the thought in her head). I told her it would in part depend on what they were shooting at. I told her that I would like to do plains game and buff, so with the big bore probably 200-300 rounds. Pointing out that the initial shot is not the problem but the follow ups.

Does that sound right to all of you? getting comfort with the gun and attaining proficiency in the placement of accurate follow ups in a timely manner.

She is probably also skeptical since I have only ever shot one pig, not for lack of trying or effort, but for lack of luck I would say. perhaps this year I can improve on it.

anyways, thought I would put the question to ya'll, how much practice?

Red

Red
Here is the best advice I can give you.
After your get your rifles sighted in spend as much time in the field shooting offhand, kneeling, and off sticks as possible.

Shoot cactus, rocks, varmints, etc.

Since you are in Calif, go on some pig hunts with your big gun.

Pigs are very good to eat by the way, and they do not have any chemicals pumped into them.

If possible come to a DRSS hunt.

What rifles are you planning on taking on Safari?

Hi Red,

Rather than setting a number of rounds I would like to see someone set goals and work to achieve them.

For buffalo I would say start at a paper plate sized target at 50 yards. See how fast you can shoot while still keeping your shots in the plate. Eventually work out to 100 yards for the same drill with your big gun.

You can do the same practice with your PG gun but I would say to start at 100 yards and work out to 200.

Depending on the equipment, terrain, game and hunting style you may want to work out even further with your PG gun. Personally, I'd rather see someone work to be proficient at 250 yards and keep all of their hunting shots to 100 yards rather than the other way around.

I would suggest practicing with sticks similar (if not exactly the same) to the ones your PH will be using. Some PH's use crude homemade "stick" models, some use machined aluminum, some use 2 legs and some use 3. Practice with the correct style that you will be using on safari.

It also helps to purposely practice with the sticks set up quickly and at the WRONG height. I'm 6'4" and I've found in a hurry the sticks were hardly ever a comfortable height for me. A tracker or PH when rushed or on uneven ground often won't have them set up perfectly. I purposely practiced with them at weird heights so I wouldn't be spending valuable time messing with them rather than shooting when faced with a time critical situation.

Of course it's good to practice off-hand as well.

To empty the magazine of a big buffalo rifle in under 10 or 12 seconds (for example) into a paper plate at 100 yards may be just a 20 round practice session once a month for some people and others may have to shoot hundreds and hundreds of rounds to get there. It depends on your starting point and your individual wiring.

Hope that helps.

Kyler

Kyler
Great advise...
You left out one thing....
You should have advised him to book one pig hunt a month, with you, till he goes to Africa.

You might need to hire me as your public relations/PR Guy.

Seriously Dago, the range is just to get your rifles sighted in. It is the hunting, or even the "plinking" in the field that will prepare you properly.

I shot every, rock, cactus, skunk, armadillo's, etc I could find, then I took them hunting

I hunted with my doubles in Texas, Montana, Idaho, and Canada before I took them to Africa. By then they were old friends.

Kyler gave you good advice. However, if you're talking close-up shots (50 yards or less), you need to learn the '3 second rule'. Because that's about as much time as you have before the wind turns, somebody stands on a twig, or the quarry just decides that it's late for an appointment on the other side of the province. Believe me - experience has confirmed this little truth many times over.

Another invaluable skill is that of placing an accurate OFFHAND shot quickly, at close range. By offhand, I mean no sticks, rests or slings - just poke your barrel at the target, briefly confirm the sight picture and hit it. The reason why I say this, is that you can often find yourself in a 'stalemate' position when the only chance of a shot is offered. Trying to get to the tracker's sticks or vice-versa may be all the buck needs to bolt. Even better, practice this from weird positions, like a half-crouch, on tip-toes, etc.

The fact is that, even if you don't learn these skills, you'll probably get your buck, but the ability to do all this weird stuff will enable you to take the shot confidently when everybody else would have to pass the opportunity up. You will also earn the respect of your PH and his staff.

In my 22 years as a law enforcement officer and a certified firearms instructor, I have worked with many shooters good and not so good. Practice is important, but a good basis to practice on is necessary. If you have bad shooting habits ie target panic, flinching, mounting the rifle improperly etc, continuing to practice bad habits usually only makes them worse. Have someone watch you shoot. They don't need to be an expert instructor, just a competent shooter. Try to correct any problems with form and function. If your form is fine, then practice like you are going to hunt if you can. Become familiar with your rifle to the point that if something big and hairy is about to make pudding out of you, handling your rifle will be almost second nature. Good luck and good hunting.

1115 gives you excellent advice. Let me expand upon it a bit. I too spent over 20 years as I police firearms instrictor as well as more than 10 years teaching IPSC shooting skills and range officer classes. Several Zimbabnwe PHs and National Parks staff also received shooting instructions from me including Ganyana.

The real key to hitting a target with a pistol or rifle is trigger squeeze and follow through and I can not stress that point too stongly. Trying to learn that basic skill while shooting, especialy with heavy recoiling rifles such as DG stopping rifles can be a very frustrating experience. I find that heavy recoiling rifles erode your basic shooting skills until you have the basics down pat and even then you will eventually lose some of those skills. But do not fear there is a way to to test how badly those skills are and to improve them at the same time. The answer is DRY FIRING! You can improve 90% of the skills you will need for hunting african or any game for that matter by a well designed dry firing practice routine.

Here is the technique I use. About tw0 months before hunting season opens or I have a hunt planned I pull out a scoped rifle that I will most likely use on the hunt. I do not use a double for this practice for several reasons. The main one is that I improve quicker with a scope sight as I can see what I am doing wrong easier. If I am going on a DG hunt I use my 458 Lott bolt rifle to help get use to the weight and it is the most likely bolt rifle I will use. My neighbor has a weather vane with a black iron horse on top that if the wind is right sits perpendicular to my office window (90 yds away). I keep my rifle next to my desk and every chance I get I squeeze off 4 or 5 dry fire shots at the horse. I will do this 8 or 10 times a day.

What I am trying to accomplish is to squeeze the shot off when the cross hairs are on the horse. But the most important part is that I do not want the cross hairs to even quiver when the sear breaks. Try this and if you see any movement at all in the cross hairs after the sear breaks you know that you have room to improve. It will be a slow process but the rewards are worth every minute you spend practicing. I actually copied his technique over 30 years ago from the writing of Karamoja Bell. He used the technique and has the greatest reputation as an accurate shot of all the old elephant hunters. I even do these dry fire drills in afari camp if I am there during the day time. It doesn't hurt to top up your trigger skills during your hiunt.

I do very little live firing any more except to sight in, put a lot of rounds through my rfle to assure perfect functioning and practice quick recovery shots.

WARNING! Practice all safety precautions when dry firing at home. Never ever have the rifle you are using for these drills loaded in the home and always check that it is unloaded evey time you pick it up even if you just put it down 2 minutes ago. You don't need to have a big bullet winging through your subdivision!


465H&H

If the most you've shot while hunting is one pig I don't believe you should plan to try a cape buffalo next.

Take yourself deer hunting a few times. Concentrate on your initial shot, don't just throw lead or think too far ahead. If you are already thinking about the follow-ups, I would bet your first shot isn't going to be very good. If you can shoot deer/elk, you can shoot plains game. No big difference.

Personally I started with a .308 Win. but if I was young and starting over I would shoot a 300 WSM at anything that couldn't bite back.

Practice all you can, but make it fun.

Once you are comfortable with your skills on deer size game get you a 375 H&H and get ready to step up. Again don't obsess about getting to your second shot until you've put your first shot dead solid perfect. If it takes you, on average, two shots to kill your game, you are not much of a hunter, unless maybe you're hunting Big 5 only, and the second shot is insurance.

I would say a good hunter/shooter should have seven to eight dead animals for every nine shots fired. The follow-up is not that important when you think about it; if you know how to apply that first shot.

Have the mind-set of an assassin. Do you think an assassin worries about his follow-up shot. That's how serious I try to take my first shot. I know he's dead before I touch it off.

I've only been surprised once in the last ten years. I hurried the shot when I stumbled over a pronghorn at close range. I wasn't ready. I didn't duplicate the mistake by taking a hurried follow-up. He stopped at about 325 yards, about thirty seconds later, which gave me time to quit cursing myself. My follow-up was; boom-dead.

All good advice, but I use a different approach. I fire 50 - 100 rounds a week of 22LR., off hand. I find that this helps me to develope a smooth mount, good trigger control and no flinching. As I near the time for the hunt, I put about 50 rounds through the rifles that I'm taking. So far this has worked for me.
As far as cape buffalo is concerned, the first animal that I shot that didn't have feathers was a cape buffalo. The key is know and shoot your DG rifle well, pay attention to your PH, and don't take a shot that you are not 100% sure of.

TerryR

465H&H gave you some good advice. Besides all the range practice with live ammo you should have, include some dry firing. Also for 6 mos before my last hunt I knew that the response time was going to be quick and the bullet better be on target in the thick jesse. So for practice I picked up the rifle every day and would shoulder it as rapidly as possible and then check my sight picture. As time progressed, I could close my eyes and be on target most of the time. When I did get back to the range my accuracy improved considerably.

Dak