Ok, since there has been so much talk about the need to have factory chamberings in our guns, maybe we should take a poll of everyone in their respective countries. What big bore factory ammo is REALLY available everywhere, in stock, at a store??

In the US, we can mail order ammo in lots of calibers, but the neighborhood store has a more limited selection. In my city, I could buy the following, some with several bullet selections:
375H&H
375 RUM
375 Weatherby
378 Weatherby
416 Rem
416 Rigby
416 Weatherby
458 Win
470 Nitro
460 Weatherby

(Plus the usual .308, 30-06, 300 Mag, etc smaller calibers)
Now, this is a fair-sized town with several large sports stores. I feel there is a great variety of ammo choices here. How will this compare to some small town in Alaska or Siberia or Africa???

Really, what kind of choices would a guy have if he dropped all his ammmo out of the Cessna on the way to the hunting camp? Would it matter if he was shooting a wildcat cartridge like a 416 Taylor, or something factory like a 375 RUM? If I came to Minnesota on a hunting trip shooting a 404 Jeff or 9.3x62, and then lost all my ammo - I could not buy replacements here at all. I might as well be shooting some off the wall wildcat, for which there is no store ammo either. How far would one have to go from a hunting camp in Zimbabwe to buy more ammo for a 470 Nitro?

So, for the sake of expanding our understanding of what is really out there, could some of you that live in Africa, Europe, hunting town USA, etc make a mental note of what you have on the shelves of your local gun store? What kinds of ammo are available? Are we going to find that the 375 H&H, 30-06 and 458 Win are the only things you can get around the world, or are there more choices?

I'd be very interested in seeing exactly how 'global' some of our 'universal' calibers really are. Are we going to find that you had better make sure to bring your own ammo, and take precautions against losing it no matter what you are shooting?

I you like to play super safe.

World wide hunting.

1 - .375 H&H -
2 - 30-06
3 - .416 Rigby

Roland

Since many military and police organizations around the world use .308, there is a chance of picking up .308 FMJ ammo in out of the way spots of 3rd world countries. Perhaps a safari rifle would be a drilling that is .308 x .308 x 7.6x39.

I'm sure one could come up with .308 and 7.62x39 just about anywhere, but 416 Rigby? What if you had a rifle for hunting the world in 416 Rigby and decided to go on a bear hunt in Russia. On the way to the camp, the ammo was lost. Would you be able to find 416 Rigby in the boonies of Siberia? For that matter, would you be able to get any 375 H&H? I *imagine* you could probably find 30-06 or 300 mag, but that's just a guess. Does anyone know for sure what one could find if you needed ammo?

In Africa, I've found .30-06, .300 Win., .375 H&H, .416 Rem., and .458 Win. ammo in camp or at company headquarters. Just as important, I've found .30-06, .300 Win., .375 H&H, and .458 Win. RIFLES in camp. You can lose your rifles just as well as you can the duffle containing your ammunition. This I've found out first-hand.

In Canada and Alaska, stores carry .270 Win., 7mm Rem. Mag., .30-06, .300 Win., .338 Win., and .375 H&H. Guides tend to carry these same calibers themselves.

In Mexico, nothing is available in stores, but outfitters and clients can be counted upon to have .300 Win., .300 WBY., or 7mm Rem. Mag. rifles and ammo.

One things for certain: Wildcat and freakish factory cartridges are almost NEVER available. A prudent man should make every effort to stack the odds in his favor in this department. The height of folly is to go down in flames over a theory...........

AD

Captain, You live in ammo heaven. Since Paris may be a reasonable example of a big European city, I can tell that in the big bore category you can find:

regularly and in reasonable quantites:
.458 WinMag
.375 H&H
9.3 X 62 mm

sometimes and in the "a couple of boxes" quantites:

.470 NE (4 or 5 boxes)
.416 Rigby (a couple of boxes of Federal at 250 Euros each)
.404 Jeffery (maybe 6 boxes in Paris)
10 X 68 mm (4 boxes of 10 rounds in Paris)

Of course Edmond (who posts here on AR) has a ton of .50 BMG and probably .338 Lapua and other marginal calibers but he caters to a select group.

But there is no big dangerous game in France and the African hunters aren't that big a market. There is a big gap from .300 to .375 with almost nothing available (sometimes you can find some .338 WinMag or .35 Whelan).

In the 300's there is WinMag and Weatherby. Below you've got the standards plus the European calibers. They are all expensive except for Sellier & Belot who price agressively and some of Remington loads which aren't too outrageously priced.

One additional comment to my previous post; you can find a variety of the double gun rimmed calibers such as .375 H&H Flanged, the various 9.3 mm rimmed cartridges, a good selection of the 8 X 57 R, 7 X 57 R, and others as a lot of hunting in Europe is with double guns for driven wild boar, European stag and Roe deer.

In Australia you could probably count on getting 375 H&H in a gunshop in each of four of our major cities and perhaps 458. But depending on where you were shooting you might be 2000 or 3000 miles away so could be days by rail or truck.

The Wby agent I think would carry all Wby calibres but again that ammo could be a couple of days coming.

What you tend to find in Australia is brass as I think with the bigger bores or the big case capacity small bore magnums a much higher perentage of Australians reload. Probably because of the much higher volume of shooting.

416 Rem would be a hard one as would 375 RUM and 338 RUM

I would say the biggest calibre you could count on getting close to where you are shooting would be the 308. With 7mm Rem, 300 Win, 338 Win etc you could be better off with the 460 Wby because the Remington agent is hopeless and Winchester Australia is worse but the guns/ammo importer that also handles Wby is very fast and efficient at getting stuff to the gun shops.

Mike

I read an article not long ago that said the .375H&H was the second most widely available rifle ammo worldwide(at least in hunting areas), after the .30-06. I'll second the fact that most outfitters are going to have .375 H&H laying around somewhere. In fact I know PH's that have never had to buy ammo, just use what hunters leave behind.