When I am out of college and have the money and time, I plan on a Buffalo/Plains Game combo hunt, probably in RSA. I know that for plains game I will without fail use a Ruger 30-06. For the Buff, however, I was considering a 404 Jeffery, for nostalgia's sake. For me personally, using some belted wonder wildcat 416 or 458 seems, well, sacreligious. Have any of you guys used the 404 on Buff? What kind of performance with 400 grn bullets can I expect? How heavy should the gun be? I plan on having the rifle built; what length barrel should it have and how heavy should it be? I am going to use a peep sight, and yes, I have already read that thread on the board.

I have used the 404 quite a bit, and its still a favorite of mine...I like a 9.5 lb. rifle, naked....I use 94 grs. of IMR-4831 and a 400 gr. GS or Woodleigh solid, I like the GS for Buffalo because of the flat nose..I have used flat nose solids in the 404 and they kill better than the RN, IMHO and they have more than enough penitration.

All my personal 404 have a 26 or the original Jefferys 27" barrels and I love that lenth. It has never bothered me and just adds to the handling ability of the gun, when shooting offhand...It gives them devine pointability...

------------------
Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Ray.....please be more careful with your grammar. The idea of you shooting a 9.5 lb .404, naked is something I don't think the rest of us want to visualize

If you like nostalgia with respect to rifles, you may like the same to hunting. Than be carefully choosing a buffalo hunt in RSA.

------------------

Norbert:

You are the one that convinced me to go to the 458 Lott, for better or worse.

But I think the 404 Jeffery is plenty for buff, since it is the same as the Rigby. Right?

And I don't understand what you are saying in your post. Maybe it's that mountain air. Just kidding.

I agree with Norbert, RSA would not be my first pick if I was going after buffalo.

Regards,

Terry

Norbert, Mr. Carr:

What's the problem in the RSA? Do they bring them to you on a leash?

H.C.

I was offered a lion hunt in SA a few years back with a very low daily rate and a very high trophy fee. They also sent me some photos of happy hunters with some superb lions with big beautiful manes. After some back and forth with e-mails be got down to some details....I would tell them when I could come over to hunt and they would send me photos of the available lions. The basic deal was these lions were kept in separate closures of relatively small area and fed..there weren't any prey animals in the enclosure so they couldn't hunt. When a client cade an "appointment" they transferred the lion to a much larger area and continued to feed him regularly. When the client got there they would make a big deal about "putting out bait", building a blind and setting over the bait. Like they say in The Sopranos, bada bing, bada bang. One MGM-type lion.

Henry C470,

Based on my experience hunting buffalo in RSA in 1999, here are the reasons I think buffalo hunting in RSA is not the best choice.

1. Price. Your are looking at a Trophy Fee of about $8,000 to $8,500 for buffalo and daily rates of about $700 to $800 per day. Compare that to Zimbabwe where the daily rates are about the same, but the Trophy Fee is about $1,750 to $2,000 per buffalo.

2. Availability of buffalo. Let's face it, RSA is not very "wild" anymore. It is a relatively developed country with very little "wild country" left. Most buffalo hunting in RSA is done in Provincial game parks. You are generally not going to see huge herds of buffalo. [I hunted in a game park in Mpumulanga Province which had an unfenced border with Kruger, but the Kruger buffalo weren't moving when I was there and I saw less than 20 buffalo in three days.]

3. Lack of plains game. I hunted on a "buffalo only" concession and we then moved to a private game ranch to hunt plains game. There was implied pressure to "get my buffalo" and move on to the game ranch. We spent less than 3 days hunting buffalo.

4. RSA outfitters' limited access to buffalo concessions. Look at the Trophy Fees section of the websites of RSA outfitters and they will not have the price for buffalo (it will say "price on request"). Why? Because most RSA outfitters do not have permanent rights to a buffalo concession. They have to acquire the rights on an "as needed basis" and can't quote you a price until they go out and acquire the rights. They are not going to be as familiar with the concession (or the amount and quality of the buffalo on that concession) as they would be if they hunted it all the time.

5. Quality of buffalo. Generally, the quality of buffalo in RSA is not very good. [There are exceptions, the year after I hunted buffalo in RSA, my outfitter got a new concession and took the #4 SCI buffalo].

RSA has, in my opinion, excellent plains game hunting at reasonable prices. But, I will spend my "dangerous game" money somewhere else.

Anyway, that is my experience with buffalo hunting in RSA. I would welcome others' views and comments.

Regards,

Terry

P.S.
I must relate this story about my buffalo hunt. The Provincial park we were hunting is primarily a photo safari park. The game ranger had to coordinate with the photo safari people each morning so that we would not "bump into" any of the tourists. I shot my buffalo about 75 yards from the road. As we were standing around looking at the dead buffalo, a load of photo tourists comes driving down the road. The driver stops and all the tourists stare at us. From 75 yards away, I hear one of the women tourists moaning in anguish at the sight of the dead buffalo. The game ranger got on the radio and chewed the driver out in the local native language. Apparently that driver didn't get the message that "the road was closed".

[This message has been edited by T.Carr (edited 06-23-2001).]

Ray,
Glad to see you come back to your old (perfect) self. From some of your recent posts, I thought that you had switched to the .416 bandwagon. You really had me scared, as I thought that you had gone to the other side.
But maybe that was all in sh_ts & giggles, eh?

Dave,
Change of life, hot flashes, prostitas, loss of memory and DB caught me shootin Buffalo naked, a haneious sight to say the least..

I don't see why anyone would hunt Buffalo anywhere but Zambia (when open) and Tanzania..Cost about $7000.00 including tips and everything, give or take a couple of hundred....and you can expect some size to the Bulls.

------------------
Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Will,
factory loads of .404 are much less than .416, not the same. Only a reloaders option. .458 Lott makes a bigger hole, otherwise not superior to .416.

About hunting dangerous game in RSA, DB Bill and T.Carr gave some insight. I don�t want to attract more hate mails, but instead of shooting buffalo in RSA you also can shoot cattle on any ranch at home.

But there is a difference, I am told, with hunters , some are only looking for trophies, even if tame and tied to a tree, - and some are more interested in the hunting adventure-. The latter are always complaining about DG hunting in RSA, if not informed about the procedure there.

------------------

[This message has been edited by Norbert (edited 06-24-2001).]