quote:

Originally posted by KTSafaris:
What Calibre to Bring on a One-Gun Safari?
Kevin Thomas ©

With heightened security being the order of the day across the globe, and not likely to disappear anytime in the future – in fact with the passage of time, airline security will probably become more stringent – visiting clientele often end up in a bit of a quandary as to what rifle(s) to bring to Africa. My own feeling as a PH is that now more than at any time in the past, it is wiser and far less hassle for an inbound sport hunter to just travel with one calibre, suitable for use on all of the trophy species you’ll want to shoot.

Most safari companies have rifles that can be hired by a visiting sport hunter, however, and I’m sure most will agree, a true dedicated hunter likes to use his own rifle(s) for whatever reason, and there are many. With that in mind and in order to avoid a lot of unnecessary stress, whilst trying to fly internationally with a bunch of guns and ammunition, what then is the ideal calibre for a one rifle safari? It must be understood that the one-gun scenario I am writing about is for an inbound sport hunter to Africa, not a working PH.

Important too, is that the one absolute essential for an all round rifle is that the calibre has a wide variety of bullet types. Using the .375 H&H, solid bullets don’t only work on the biggest game; they do a good job on the small stuff too. A 300gr solid will punch a neat hole through a duiker without doing much damage to the skin, and whilst it will do the same on an impala, with them being herd animals, after exiting the bullet may travel on to wound or kill others, thus when used in a herd or bachelor groupings, caution should prevail. Other bullet weights for the .375 H&H like 235gr and 270gr soft-points allow the calibre to kill everything up to eland, whilst the 300gr premium softs and solids do the job adequately on buffalo, and with the solids, on elephant.

Obviously though the first hunt related issue a visiting hunter should consider, is what is on their “Want List” trophy wise? Does it involve a mix of non-dangerous plains game trophies up to the size of eland only, or are dangerous game species included? If dangerous game is included with plains game up to eland, my calibre recommendation would automatically be the .375 H&H. I have used a .375 H&H for decades now for sport hunting, problem animal control, and culling, and am a firm disciple of this all time great bullet.

When Holland & Holland gave the hunting world the .375 Magnum in 1912, they gave us something very special indeed. At time of launch, the only other calibres that could compete with it and with slight limitations, were the .404 Jeffery and .350 Rigby Magnum as magazine rifles, and the 450/400 doubles. Granted, the .375 H&H might be classified as a “Medium Bore Calibre” however, it offers extremely flat trajectory coupled to adequate bullet weight and performance in the field, which is hard to beat.

Since the .375 H&H was first used in Africa it has proven itself a great success story and continues to retain its excellent reputation as the most popular, if not the best all-round African calibre. Ivory hunter of yore, John ‘Pondoro’ Taylor in his book African Rifles and Cartridges rated it as the best of the medium bores for African hunting (in fact he was so impressed by it he did exaggerate somewhat its penetration & killing abilities), and chose it as the most effective all-round cartridge – he wrote the book way back in 1948 – now in 2013 I don’t think much has changed, aside from us having a far wider range of quality bullet types to choose from. Frank Barnes in his Cartridges of the World says of the .375 H&H, “This cartridge was the basis for H&H’s later .300 H&H Magnum and is therefore the great-grandfather of almost all modern belted magnum chamberings. It can certainly be said that it inspired the entire genre” – a truism if ever.

Respected PH Tony Henley once wrote an enlightening article on his preferred calibres for hunting African big game, it was titled Some Notes on Big Rifles Suitable for Hunting in Africa. He starts off by quite correctly saying that with the introduction of the ultra high velocity rifle, many sport hunters got carried away by the publicity put out about these firearms by the manufacturers. His field observations in Botswana of the outcome of hunter(s) using rifles delivering velocities of 3,000 feet and more per second were that the hunt usually ended in many hours of following a wounded and suffering animal. The tendency of some ultra high velocity bullets is to disintegrate on impact, leaving a large surface wound, or worse still if the bullet strikes a twig or other vegetation before reaching the intended target, it disintegrates or deflects.

During the mid-nineties a now deceased PH colleague and I experienced some of the aforementioned when we had two clients with us on safari in Zimbabwe’s Matetsi. For their buffalo, both were using .450 Watts and each shot a buffalo early in the safari. We then changed areas for the plains game segment of the safari and it was here that both clients produced their plains game rifles; they were identical .340 Weatherby Magnums. To cut a long story short, we ended up with both of our clients having problems whilst trying to kill trophy animals. At times, and after an easy shot the trophy just loped off unscathed – it happened at least three times with good quality sable – unwounded they just showed us their heels after the shot.

Initially we were totally baffled until we looked very carefully at what the clients were shooting “through” – a veil of waist high dry grass & scrawny scrub that is hardly noticeable – unless you look closely. It wasn’t really discernable through the scope of a rifle and more particularly so if total concentration was on the target animal. That grass and scrub however, was obviously causing the .340 bullets of the type they were using to deflect. I have nothing against the .340 Weatherby, it is a popular proven calibre, but with its high velocity bullets it wasn’t suited to the vegetation and terrain we were hunting in. Our suggestion to the clients that they revert to using their .450 Watts changed the equation and animals started going into the salt – although the .450 Watts certainly isn’t your ideal all round plains game calibre!

Getting back to the .375 H&H, if we look at some of the bullet weights and velocities, they also help reinforce the argument for it being the finest all-round calibre for Africa for a visiting sport hunter.
235gr @ 2,800fps
270gr @ 2,650fps
300gr @ 2,500fps
380gr @ 2,200fps (Rhino are a South African manufactured bullet and their 380gr solid shank core bonded .375 H&H bullets are ideal for use on buffalo)
The above bullet weight range allows a hunter to safely shoot an elephant and anything else in between, down to a common duiker and the bullet variations available to the hand loader and factory loads in this day and age are awesome, witness the Barnes-TTSX line, Swift A-Frame, Nosler, Rhino, North Fork, Hornady, and Federal’s Premium Safari Cape Shok to name but a few. Tony Henley finished his written observations on the .375 H&H by stating “I always recommend any sportsman coming on safari to Africa to include a .375 in his battery, or better still, just to bring the one rifle”.

For elephant, one obviously only uses solid bullets and nothing else, and as Mike LaGrange an ex Rhodesian National Parks warden and highly experienced elephant hunter, wrote in his superb treatise Ballistics in Perspective (Professional Hunter Supplies Publishing Division 1990), when using the 300gr Hornady solid, the .375 H&H produces sufficient penetration to kill even the largest elephant instantly using the brain shot. He also points out that the 270gr bullet is sufficiently fast enough to obviate sight adjustment out to 300yds.

LaGrange goes on to point out that throughout the history of the .375 H&H opinions have continued to promote its cause. Back in 1979 the respected South African outdoor and hunting magazine S.A. Magnum ran an article titled “Sporting Rifle Cartridge” and put the .375 H&H as the worlds (my italics) all round hunting cartridge/calibre. Again in S.A. Magnum 1980/81 a similar article puts the .375 H&H as the world all round peer. In the 1982 March edition of the S.A. Man magazine well-known gun writer the late Tudor Howard Davies, wrote a lengthy article on the .375 where he puts forward arguments for the all round title.

The late Wally Johnson, surely the doyen of Southern African PHs whose life was written up by Capstick in his book The Last Ivory Hunter was a dyed in the wool .375 H&H disciple throughout his ivory and safari hunting career. And although he also used a 9.3mm Mauser, In Capstick’s book Wally had this to say about the .375 H&H and I quote, “I still consider and always will consider the .375 Holland & Holland Magnum as ‘the only gun’. In fact, I shot many hundreds of buffalo with the 9.3mm Mauser to save .375 ammo. I had no problems, but I would have preferred the .375 if I could have spared the ammo”. Wally Johnson’s ivory hunting career spanned half a century, certainly enough time to form an opinion of a particular calibre’s field performance.

As an aside, when we were young boys living on colonial Rhodesian (Zimbabwe) farms outside the hamlet of Chipinga, not far from the Mozambique border post of Espungabera, we often saw ‘Uncle Wally’ because he used to periodically pass through Chipinga en-route his home in Umtali, situated further north along Rhodesia’s eastern border with Mozambique. Wally’s safari camp in Mozambique in those days was at Zinave on the Rio Save. When I was about age 7, Wally Johnson was my mentor, and I like a number of others, wanted to be a ‘hunter’ just like ‘Uncle Wally’, one day when were ‘big’!

Another professional ivory hunter turned PH from that era who believed in the .375 H&H was Wally Johnson’s friend and one time ivory hunting partner, the late Harry Manners, author of Kambaku. Manners mentions in his book that when he and Wally both started out in Mozambique as ivory hunters, circa 1937, he was carrying a 10.75 x 68mm Mauser and Wally a 9.3mm Brenecke (interestingly, in The Last Ivory Hunter Wally refers to it as a 9.3mm Mauser). On this, their first elephant hunting excursion, Manner’s was only 17 years old.

In 1945 Manners acquired his first .375 H&H Magnum, a Winchester Model 70, and he wrote I had tried various calibres and makes of firearms throughout the first few years of hunting – American, British and German but, as time passed, my favourite became the .375 H&H Magnum, using the “full-patch” type solid bullet (slightly flattened at the point) which, when striking solid bone in big game, spreads out to almost double its width at the point without disintegration. On another occasion after stopping a determined elephant charge, Manners reflected. Wiping the sweat from my face, I breathed deeply, thankfully, then rubbed the stock of my .375 Winchester, almost affectionately. It had proved itself truly reliable. At a later stage he wrote. Twelve bull elephants had fallen to the .375 during the confusion and pandemonium. During their lengthy ivory hunting and safari guiding careers, Johnson and Manners never used anything bigger than the .375 H&H Magnum, and yet the opportunity was there because they were living the life of the hunt in Africa during the heyday of the large calibres, in both bolt and double.

Rhino Bullets in East London, South Africa, produce an extremely efficient .375 H&H bullet in 380gr which I have used personally and seen used fairly frequently; it has been well tested in the field and is now a popular bullet choice for buffalo and all of our larger soft skinned game. The production of this bullet in fact possibly elevates the .375 H&H even more as the ideal all-round calibre for an African safari.

In many African countries, the .375 H&H is by law the minimum calibre that can be used on dangerous game, with the exception of leopard. Thus, I would recommend that if a visiting hunter is stuck for choice but only wants to bring one rifle to Africa, he think seriously about making it the .375 H&H. I do not believe that it would be the wrong choice because it has too much of a respected and proven pedigree since 1912 for that to be the case, and dressing it with a good quality detachable variable scope, mounted over British Express type iron sites, or a ghost ring, so that the scope can be removed when hunting in the very thick stuff, would also be a wise choice.

As a PH I obviously concur fully with the logic of bullets of not less than 400 grains being used in thick bush for the hunting of elephant and buffalo, but if a visitor to Africa brings his .375 H&H on safari as his only rifle, and he only intends ever shooting one elephant or buffalo in his life, the 400 grain limitation need not worry him too much because his PH will ensure that he is in the correct position to make a killing shot, and if things do inadvertently go ‘pear-shaped’ the PH will be carrying a heavier calibre than the .375 H&H, and it is part of his job to rectify the situation.

Thus, my recommendation of the .375 H&H as the ideal and most suitable calibre is hinged around a suitable single rifle for a “mixed bag” safari which includes dangerous game, and with the bulk of the trophies comprising non-dangerous plains game. Over the years and when using a .375 H&H, I have shot many buffalo and when correctly hit by a 300gr H&H solid they have invariably gone down incredibly hard, eliciting shouts of delight and handclapping from the trackers!

Moving away from the .375 H&H, I’d like to touch on a calibre of old, now enjoying a huge resurge of interest, the .404 Jeffery which undoubtedly became the most popular “general purpose” choice rifle for hunting dangerous and non-dangerous game in Africa after it was first introduced to the hunting fraternity by W.J. Jeffery in 1909. It was only when the .375 H&H came off the production line in 1912, a mere three years after the .404 that this latter calibre was somewhat eclipsed as the ideal “all-round rifle”, by the .375 H&H.

The .404 has however developed a remarkable and enviable reputation as a sound calibre for both dangerous game and large non-dangerous game hunting. Some of the great game wardens of East and Central Africa used it regularly as their weapon of choice for elephant, buffalo, rhino, and lion control, plus for general ration shooting. Again, in East & Central Africa the standard 400gr solid bullet in the .404 was a popular choice for issue to the highly efficient black African game scouts and government employed African hunters doing elephant control and crop protection. Without doubt had the British colonial government of the day thought that game department staff lives may have been in danger by using the .404 as exhaustively as they did, they would have issued them with a heavier calibre.

Like the .416 Rigby, the .404 Jeffery’s popularity has endured over the decades and quite rightly so, for it is well deserved, although we must remember they are classified “large-medium bores”. In this day and age, the dedicated handloader can find all of the flatness they could wish for, thus negating the question about it possibly lacking trajectory and long range potential.

During the early 1970s when I was a young government game ranger in the Rhodesia of old (now Zimbabwe), I served for a number of years in the Zambezi Valley, managing various Controlled Hunting Areas (now referred to as Safari Areas). Many of the old school Rhodesian’s who booked an annual hunt to shoot for meat, trophies and sport, continued to use the .416 Rigby and the .404 Jeffery and this was the correct role for both of those calibres; they were being used by hunters who annually shot elephant and buffalo (including buffalo cows) plus a selection of larger plains game like kudu and zebra. Few international clients hunt elephant and buffalo annually, and tend to mostly hunt non-dangerous game and only occasionally hunt large dangerous game. Thus for the visiting client intent on an occasional large dangerous animal, I’d still go with the .375 H&H.

Other calibres that I like for plains game only, and also make for the ideal one-gun safari if no dangerous game is to be hunted, are the .338 Winchester Magnum, an excellent choice, although I haven’t seen it being used in Africa as a plains game rifle as often as would be expected, then there’s the .300 H&H, a superb flat shooting rifle rated way up the scale by dedicated users and non-users alike, also the .300 Winchester Magnum, a very popular plains game rifle amongst International clients and South African PHs alike, the 30-06 too is an extremely popular calibre seen and used in Africa, and it works well. A regular hunting buddy and client from Denver, Brian Spradling once quipped during safari, “The ‘odd six’ is tried and tested through two World Wars, plus the Korean conflict and on hunting fields scattered across the entire globe”. This year the 30-06 is having its 107th birthday, and with its reputation for reliability, a well deserved one at that. Another popular plains game choice is the proven .308 Winchester, and whilst not the ideal, this bullet in the military ball type 7,62mm NATO killed a lot of game in Zimbabwe – both legally and illegally – during the conflict years. The range of factory and hand loaded .308 soft points are great shooting bullets and give extreme accuracy.

The .270 Winchester is another popular choice seen here in Southern Africa, although I’d hesitate to recommend it for a one gun safari if larger species like eland, kudu, zebra, blue wildebeest and gemsbok etc. are on the want list. It is a little too marginal, although not incapable with say a good brand 150gr bullet and in the hands of a competent shooter. It is a devastating calibre on the likes of springbok, blesbok, impala, warthog etc if using 130gr Nosler Partitions, and during the years I ran Ciskei Safaris, I also put a bunch of culled game including black wildebeest and hartebeest into the meat shed, when using a Ciskei govt issue .270, although I’ve never owned one. Even with 160gr and 180gr bullets, I still don’t feel the .270 is up to being an ‘ideal’ for killing our bigger African soft-skinned species, and I’d put the animal weight limitation for a .270 bullet before it becomes a bit iffy at a max of about 180kg. In other words it is a great calibre for small and medium sized African antelope. I’ve also had a client drop a leopard in its tracks using a .270, it was totally pole-axed from about 95yds, although I cannot recall the bullet used I think it was a Nosler.

Around the campfire I’ve often heard hunters here in South Africa argue comparisons between the .30-06 and the .270. Realistically it is a bit of a silly debate because the two calibres actually slot into two different hunting categories. A .270 comes into its own with lighter 130gr and 150gr bullets at long range on our open plains like are found in the Karoo and other parts of South Africa, including our grassed mountainous areas (think springbok, blesbok, mountain reedbuck, impala, lechwe, black wildebeest, hartebeest, fallow deer etc). The .30-06 shooting 180gr to 220gr bullets is an ideal bushveld calibre, for the kind of close range shooting that goes with that kind of terrain and vegetation (think eland, kudu, zebra, blue wildebeest, impala, warthog etc) and although both calibres can be called upon to do each others work, they are not ideally suited to it.

Another proven bushveld calibre here in Southern Africa, that has also seen a few wars and still endures with a dedicated fan club since when as a military cartridge, it was first developed in 1892 is the venerable 7x57mm Mauser. I’ve been around this calibre since boyhood, and it is still a firm favourite of mine for much of my own recreational hunting and normal plains game guiding. It has excellent killing powers and very moderate recoil, but again, and although over the previous three decades I’ve shot a lot of kudu, gemsbok and wildebeest with the 7x57mm, I wouldn’t recommend that it be the one-gun choice on safari for our bigger plains game species weighing 250 to 300kg.

Ethically the intention of every sport hunter should be to take absolutely no chances that could lead to his trophy suffering a wound. As an example, the 7x57mm works beautifully for side-on lung shots on kudu etc, however, if you are beyond the point of no return on trigger squeeze, and the animal suddenly turns obliquely away with the bullet then entering too far back, it now has to penetrate intestines or a full paunch, and it may not reach and do the needed damage to the vital organs. Your .338 and .30-06 would have a better chance of driving through that mass and into the vitals; the .375 H&H on the other hand will get there. There is nothing wrong with “using enough gun” – in fact ethical sport hunters should automatically aspire to that, and if we all did so, there would be far less wounding, and when it does happen the follow-up wouldn’t be so lengthy.

As a game ranger in my younger days, and when still a young wildlife manager/PH I also shot quite a number of eland using my 7x57mm, however, I wouldn’t recommend it and although they were all clean kills, I firmly believe the minimum calibre for eland, and giraffe for that matter is the .375 H&H or a 9.3x62.

In this brief overview I’ve stayed away from wildcat cartridges and only covered the traditional popular calibres that I see being brought along regularly on safari. Even if dangerous game is not being hunted, first time visiting clientele often arrive with three varying calibres – sure, its all great fun, but they aren’t all needed. As a PH if I’m not guiding on dangerous game I take my .375 H&H and my 7mm Mauser on plains game safaris, and there is a reason for my taking the two rifles. One is always available as a replacement in case of something going wrong with the client’s rifle (or one of my own) because as we all know – sh*t happens.

In wrapping up, I’m going to talk about one wildcat cartridge that does impress me here in Africa as an ideal plains game calibre, provided the correct bullets and loads are used. It is the .330 Dakota, with the design idea having been to offer a factory alternative to the .338 Winchester Magnum but provide .340 Weatherby Magnum performance, and the .330 Dakota functions properly through a 30-06 length action (3.35”). It has about a 15% case capacity over the .338 Winchester Magnum, which is fairly significant and allows it to come close to duplicating the performance of the .340 Weatherby Magnum. In his book mentioned earlier, Frank C. Barnes points out that the .330 Dakota if using the right bullets, can deliver more energy to targets a quarter-mile away than factory .270 ammunition produces at muzzle!

Brian Spradling has brought his .330 Dakota over on all of his African safaris and we’ve hunted South Africa and Zimbabwe a number of times. This is a bullet that impresses me immensely on all of our soft-skin game. Brian’s .330 is custom built on a Ruger 77mk11 action with a 25-inch medium weight, fluted barrel, and a brown/tan laminated stock. He dressed it with a Weaver V-10, 2-10 x 38mm scope. His only load on his first hunt with me was with 275gr Swift A-Frame bullets, loaded to 2680fps with H4831SC powder and carrying 4387ft lbs of energy. This bullet and load put down kudu, zebra, and a host of other stuff with no fuss and awesome terminal ballistics. On his next safari which would include gemsbok in the Karoo and the tough Cape bushbuck in the Eastern Cape forests, he again used H4831SC powder behind a 225gr Swift A-Frame and loaded to 2998fps carrying 4492ft lbs of energy. Despite the .330 Dakota’s devastating terminal velocity on our plains game, Brian stays away from using lightweight bullets due to excessive velocity, coupled to poor sectional density.

On that first safari in Zimbabwe, he brought out a .416 Rigby for his buffalo, and the .330 Dakota for the plains game. He used one round for each of the calibres on the zeroing range in camp, killed his buffalo with a single chest shot using the .416 Rigby, and his 8 plains game animals with one shot each from the .330 Dakota, including his zebra which dropped at 300 paces without moving an inch. As a single rifle on safari for plains game and with the correct load/bullet combination, the .330 Dakota will step up to the plate admirably.

With our gun ownership laws getting more and more stringent here in Africa, for convenience sake and as a working PH, my personal battery has now been whittled down over the years, to a .458 Lott, .375 H&H, 7x57mm Mauser and a pump-action 12ga 3” Magnum with a game barrel. This choice of firearms is more than adequate for anything I may be called upon to do, hunting or guiding wise on this continent.

However, to get back to the ideal all-round calibre for an African safari for those who will probably only hunt Africa once or twice, and not necessarily specialise on say elephant only, in summing up I will stay with the .375 H&H as at this stage of cartridge evolution and development, it has to be the choice. Here in Africa it has been well-written up and recommended by internationally recognised hunter/writer names like Gregor Woods, Don Heath, Koos Barnard to mention a few, and in the US John Barsness and many others. Gregor Woods, respected South African editor, outdoor writer, and author, once wrote that although he has owned the gamut of rifles from .22 to .458 he has through hard learned experience in the field, settled on the .375 H&H, and when he arrives at a kudu or gemsbok hunt carrying his .375 if other hunters scoff at him and ask why he is bringing a rifle more suited to buffalo and elephant on an antelope hunt. His stock reply is, “Because everything I shoot with it falls down” – I fully concur. My good friend Mike Fynn, another veteran Rhodesian and Zimbabwean game warden turned PH once quipped to a potential client who asked what calibre to bring on safari, “Bring anything you want as long as it is a .375 H&H Magnum”.


Jamie Cox and his son Josh with Jamie’s buffalo, a one shot kill using a .375 H&H Rhino 380gr Solid Shank Core Bonded bullet – the buffalo ran about 35m before going down.


The .375 H&H Rhino 380gr bullet’s point of entry on the buffalo’s left shoulder.


A handloaded .375 H&H cartridge using PMP brass and a 380gr Rhino Solid Shank Core Bonded bullet. The recovered 380gr Rhino bullet from Jamie Cox’s buffalo was lodged under the skin on the right shoulder.

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Originally posted by Todd Williams:

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
I would actually go a step further.

There is absolutely no need to use anything but 300 grain bullets in the 375 in Africa.

Of course, if you are after a specific specie and wish to use another bullet weight, that is fine.

But, for all round use, the 300 grain takes a lot out of the guessing.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:


We are using a 375!

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
The thread title says caliber, so what I have said still holds true.

quote:

Originally posted by Frostbit:

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
The thread title says caliber, so what I have said still holds true.

Actually, your wildcat may well be a better performer. The article seemed to be about the .375 H&H in particular unless I miss read it.

....Mac >>>===(x)===> MacD37, ...and DUGABOY1
DRSS Charter member
"If I die today, I've had a life well spent, for I've been to see the Elephant, and smelled the smoke of Africa!"~ME 1982

Hands of Old Elmer Keith

quote:

Originally posted by Frostbit:

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
The thread title says caliber, so what I have said still holds true.

Actually, your wildcat may well be a better performer. The article seemed to be about the .375 H&H in particular unless I miss read it.

quote:

Originally posted by Todd Williams:
For the life of me, I've never understood the fascination with the "one gun" mentality for hunting Africa. The allure of mother Africa is the wide and varied number of species available to hunt, all on the same trip. Hand in hand with that for me is the realistic matching of a wide and varied selection of guns with which to hunt those different species. The cost and hassle of taking two rifles is exactly the same as taking 1 when traveling across the pond so why limit yourself?

Variety is the spice of life!! "One Rifle, One Planet ... Holland's 375!"; pass the coffee I'm about to fall asleep!

Give me a Rigby, a Nitro Express, a Rimmed 9.3, and the occasional .300 (H&H of course ). Give me Bolt's, single shots, and especially doubles!! A drilling you say? Why yes sir, don't mind if I do!! Big guns and bigger guns!! It's all good. No need to justify "A scoped .375 is your best bet" with a long point paper, although it's a common theme, written about often. If that's what you believe, great ... but Your Mileage definitely Varies from Mine!!

Cheers!

quote:

Originally posted by Heym SR20:
Given our firearms laws here in the UK any larger calibre rifle whilst you can get a slot on your certificate to own, getting a slot to possess ammo, especially expanding is pretty difficult. You can get permission a 9.3 or a 375 on deer but takes some doing. For a UK based hunter, it's thus unlikely you are going to be able to shoot a 375 very much and thus become totally familiar with it. Would it be better to save the hassle / expense and just use a PHs rifle instead for the occasional African Safari.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
I have practically all calibers, ranging from the . 17 all the way to a 700.

I do shoot a lot of them here at the range.

But, when I want a rifle that will do anything I can wish for on safari, I pick my pair of 375/404.

I designed them and built them for this specific purpose.

And they have never disappointed any of us.

....Mac >>>===(x)===> MacD37, ...and DUGABOY1
DRSS Charter member
"If I die today, I've had a life well spent, for I've been to see the Elephant, and smelled the smoke of Africa!"~ME 1982

Hands of Old Elmer Keith