Have any of you hunted Africa with the old black powder double rifles? I'm interested in looking into this but I don't know quite where to start. Are most of these old rifles safe to shoot?
I've noticed some of these for sale and they are about half price or more than the modern doubles. What calibers would be best?
Terry

Terry

I posted a couple of pictures of two of my 8 Bores and one 10 Bore a bit ago. If you are interested I will post them again (if 2 Bore won't mind )

They all shoot and shoot well. I'm taking the 10 borte pig hunting next month.

if you recive black powder hunting magazine the is a guy by the name of jim geffroh you could ask him any questions you might have hes been to africa many times with black powder

i already in the prosses of lining up a bp plains game hunt but wont get serious about it till after my elephant hunt

I took a hammer double 450 3-1/4" BPE to Zambia in '99, but our rifles were lost in the Johannesburg airport for several days and by the time they got to camp I was pretty much concentrating on buffalo. Very disappointing. I had hoped to use it for kudu-sized antelope and warthog and had every expectation of it being perfect for iron sight distance shots on game up to that size. Wish I had a success story to post...

Terry P:
There are probably more people taking these
old guns to Africa than you might think. The
impetus for this has been a combination of articles in Double Gun J. by Ross Siefried, and a book by Graham Wright called Shooting the British
Double. Both sources publish loads which are
under the pressure limits of black powder, and
provide reasonable velocity. If you read carefully, and have a good, knowledgable gunsmith
make sure the rifle is ok, you needn't be afraid.
I have 3 of these back action, underlever,
hammer guns, and all shoot very well. I took a
Greener .450 3 and 1/4 to Zim and dropped a buffalo with one shot. It was equally effective on everything else. I spent 2 years working
up the Greener, but thats part of the fun.
Good luck