I was wondering what calibers are popular with citizen hunters in Africa?

Not biltong hunters but folks who are in the bush hunting the bigger game such as Buff or the bigger PG.

Do they carry one of the bigger calibers since they are hunting where Lion might be around?

Especially what do citizen hunters commonly use for Buff or even Elephant?

Are the .458 and up real popular or what do folks use?

Allen

They seem to be a bit more mindful of ammunition availability as it can be a long ways between gunshops there. In four different countries I've seen the following calibers possessed by PH's and ranch families (not in any particular order)

30-06 (several)
375H&H (several)
416 Rem Mag (one)
303 (one)
240 Weatherby (two)
378 Weatherby (one)
500 A-Square (one)
458 Win Mag (two)
458 Lott (one)
7x64 (one)
6.5x54 (one)

In D-G country I've only seen the 375 and up stuff. The only shotguns I've seen were all 12 gauge.

In any area where you will be hunting buff legal (and sensible) minimum starts at 9,3x62

In Zim, i would guess that the .375 is the most common with the 9,3 and .458 win tagging along and the .416 Rem gaining in popularity

Legal minimum in zim for both lion and Eland is a 7mm Rem mag, so if you grew up ranching where I did - occasional ele, no buff and lots of lion with eland and Zebra being the main plains game, rifles like 9mm Mauser were popular with the old timers, and .300 H&H with the younger folk, although when the ele came raiding you saw the most interesting collection of rifles appear out of the woodwork, from 11mm Mausers to .350 Rigby and a plentiful supply of .404's

I miss read and posted about common PG calibres...for big stuff I don't many folks who regularly hunt DG so .375 far outnumbers any other cartridge for locals who tackle DG in my experience. After that I would say .458WM, I know one guy with a .416RM. I think the .404 has quite a cult following in RSA (still very few in term sof numbers), the same can be said about .500J

In RSA it basically the globally popular cartridges for PG with a mix between Euro's and North American.
.30-06, .308, .243, .223, .270 and .303 are perrenial favourites, probably in about that order too!
After these you'll find .375, 7x57, 7x64, 7mmRM, .300Win Mag, .222, .25-06, .338WM and 9.3x62 perhaps 6x45 the next most popular.

Slightly rarer but still around will be things like 8x57, 6.5x55, .300HH, 6mm/.303 (6mm Musgrave), .458 win/lott, .400+ calibres etc. The rest like the various Weatherby's, wildcats etc are around but few and far between in my experience at least....

While living in namibia i remember citizens having 6.5x55, .303, 30-06, 300 win mag, 7x64, 8x68S, 9.3x62. That is all that stick out in my mind. i moved there in 1998 and lived there 3 years.

Aaron

So the .375 H&H is quite common for an all around gun for general hunting for a lot of folks then.

I have often wondered, if since a citizen hunter would be in DG territory a lot of the time even if actually only hunting PG and
would not have a PH for back up, and since they could possibly have an unexpected and unintended encounter with a Buff, Lion or Elephant
How much of a bearing that would have on their gun choice as in using a 40 cal. or up gun or if the 9.3x62 - .375 H&H class were used more?

Also, when citizen hunters go after Buff primarily is a 9.3x62 or .375 H&H common or do they use something bigger usually?

Now days on the Net the .375 H&H seems to be considered to light for Buff and really not a good idea for Elephant.
The line usually goes something like, "the .375 H&H would be ok since the PH is there to protect you".

I didn't know if it is a little like here in MT or ID for Elk. A lot of folks use the .270 - 30-06 class of guns quite successfully, but when you read about Elk hunting,
an elk gun starts a the .300 mags but a .338 mag is really to be preferred.

I guess since they aren't paying for an expensive hunt with a short time frame they pick their shots.

So I was wondering if it was similar in Africa for the citizen hunters, that they used the 9.3x62 - .375H&H class of guns for Buff but picked their shots and don't hunt in the thick stuff as much as would be done by a visiting hunter with a PH?

Allen

Of the families I have hunted with or are acquainted with in Namibia I have seen them use or they have told me that they have:

.458 Win
.375 H&H
9.3x62
8x57
.300 H&H
.30-06
7x57
.222 Rem

Not to be mentioned are "just-in-case" guns.

Namibiahunter

In the active days of the Zimbabwe citizen hunting (ZHA), .375 was most common rifle used for buff and ele by a long way.

I never ceased to be amaized at how many people would not carry anything suitable for ele or buff when out hunting plainsgame in a big game area. I always carried a few 220grn FMJ's for my .308 for ele encounters and some 220grn softs in case of a beligerent buff, but when actually hunting plainsgame never needed them. A little bit of common sense around the big stuff is usually all that is needed to keep one out of trouble, although as the poaching increased and there were ever more ele's carrying lead. the number of 'close calls' increased.

Once I left Government, I ditched the 7mm and .308 entirely and stuck to shooting everything with my 9,3. But most local folk will have a scoped light rifle for plainsgame and an open sighted .375 or perhaps a 9,3 for ele and buff.

The need for anything over .40 cal is a product of the professional hunting industry. The demand for results "now" cause PH's to take risks in thick bush that no citizen hunter would take. eg- tuskless cows on license in Zim is a relatively new thing. I first put them on quota in 1997 and the citizen hunting areas were all taken by the end of 1998 - so playing tip toe through the jesse looking for ele in a bad mood (where a bigger cal rifle is probably well justified), is a PH driven sport.

Most of my hunting in the big game areas has been in Nyakasanga and started off with the Dandawa Impala camps. The only rifles that we had at the time were a.303 and 7x57 loaded with standard PMP soft nose bullets. Upon scaling up to the bigger game I purchased a .458 which I had reamed out to a .450 Ackley, the only bullets that I use are 450gr copper monolithics with a large flat meplat loaded to 2350fps. This rifle is fantastic and hits very hard - it also gives you a more comfortable feeling in close proximity to big game. When tracking Buffalo we also take a scoped .375 loaded with top quality softs followed again with monlithics. The combination of the two rifles covers just about any situation or shot that may present itself.