Just read an article in Under Wild Skies that cited three attacks from a PH point of view, one was bull elephant that charged from 30 yards away, PH t old client to shoot the animal, he shot and it did not go down, the PH then dropped the elephant with his DR.
He turned around and saw his client white faced from fright trying to clear his bolt rifle, it was jammed. This was a custom mauser, not an off the shelf bolt gunn.
That is why I like a DR.

gi

Sounds like we have a new member of the DRSS!

Now there is logic for you!

If you don't know where to shoot an elephant it matters not whether it is a magazine or double rifle!

Gotta admire those guys who don't need a quick second shot.

I believe the point here was directed to a quick second shot in the event the first shot misses the intended point of aim. There is no information given regarding where the client aimed or where the shot went.

It seems to me that inside of 30 yards, the third round a bolt rifle offers will probably never make it out of the magazine in a scenario like the one mentioned here.

A mass coming at you at 25mph or so from 90 feet away covers about 36 feet per second. Hope the math is right. That leaves 2.5 seconds to shoot, work a bolt, notice the beast has not stopped, aim at a football sized target 8 feet off the ground, and shoot again. While all hell is breaking loose in front of you.

Hey, at least the guy got off one shot. A PH I know told me most dudes will run for the hills when charged.

But talk is cheap. Who knows what one will do when the shit hits the fan?

What is the point of this post? Not to be unkind, but this isn't much of a rehash of the bolt vs double issue. Posted on the "Double Rifle" forum, it's just preaching to the choir.

This is like a ".270 or .30/06?" question on the "Bolt Action Rifles" forum, or "What caliber for bear protection?" on the Alaska forum.

The client missed brain on first shot, then his rifle jammed, he did not run. The PH killed elephant with brain shot and the tusks stuck in the ground very close to him.
Both client and PH stood their ground. I tend to agree that most clients will run. I am not a PH, just a hunter who has only been to Africa only once but will go back.

quote:

Originally posted by gi:
Just read an article in Under Wild Skies that cited three attacks from a PH point of view, one was bull elephant that charged from 30 yards away, PH t old client to shoot the animal, he shot and it did not go down, the PH then dropped the elephant with his DR.
He turned around and saw his client white faced from fright trying to clear his bolt rifle, it was jammed. This was a custom mauser, not an off the shelf bolt gunn.
That is why I like a DR.

gi as most here will tell you I'm a died in the wool double rifle man, when it comes to close quarters work of the scary kind.

That said, to be fair, the charge of a large animal, bent on doing you great harm, will make the bravest man on Earth crap his pants, on occasion. The fact that a client hunter jammed his rifle in such an encounter, is no suprise to me, regardless of make. The fact that the PH had to stop this Ele is his job, and he was, IMO, armed with the best rifle for that purpose. That doesn't take away from the client's rifle, because anything made by man, can be used wrongly, or broken by man! Some things are simply less likely to break than others.

Here is an opposeing view! PHC, and Gordon Cundell stood a close charge of a lion, that was hit 12 times before he was stopped. In this case the two were armed with PHC's Mauser 375H&H bolt rifle, and Gordon's 500NE double rifle. The double had 3 hang fires, and a dud, and the rest of the hits came from PHC's bolt rifle, in a 50 yd charge. Now, since a lion can cover 100 yds in a little over 4 seconds, that is working a bolt, pritty quickly, with no jam. As Gordon said, every time the lion was hit, he spun, and jumped, which gave them a little more time, but the very disconcerting sound of "CLICK...BOOM, CLICK...BOOM, CLICK....NOTHING, and a CLICK...BOOM, from that big double, would rattle a bolt guy hearing it while trying to stop a yellow bag of teeth, and claw!

The fact that the double had hang fires, and a dud, had nothing to do with the reliability of the double, but was bad ammo, and the fact thet the bolt guy put 8 rounds into that lion without jamming had more to do with the guy working the bolt, and luck than rifle design!

The main thing is to use enough gun for the target you seek, and practice till you do thing without thinking,the rest is up to GOD!

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:
, and the fact thet the bolt guy put 8 rounds into that lion without jamming had more to do with the guy working the bolt, and luck than rifle design!

Yes it's me again. Anyway I'm glad the clients rifle was a crf mauser, or it would have been "proof" that a PF will nearly always fail.
Maybe a good man and a good PF is better than a newbe with a "new" crf??

quote:

Originally posted by gi:

it was jammed. This was a custom mauser,

The problem would appear to be with the gunsmith who built the gun but did not know what he was doing.

Well we'll blame him as he's not here. But maybe it worked perfectly with his factory ammo in his shop, etc. but thoes fine pieces of machinery (crf) may be more critical with a change of ammo, enviroment, circumstance, dust, heat, panic, etc. Hell, I'm sure they're not always perfect, as some would make out.

Any machine, improperly assembled, will fail. That is not a fault of the design, but a fault of the craftsman who assembled it.

after handling a few or ryan breedings rifles by some local owners and ill have one soon my self i will take it over any double rifle i have ever handled.

the only thing matching it was a 500 nitro express heym rifle i held once.

I don't really understand all of this double vs bolt stuff in the first place.

Get the rifle you want. Get as good with it through proper practice that you possibly can.

After some serious training and practice you'll be one hell of a lot better of a rifle handler than 99.99% of the weekend warriors out there.

It doesn't matter what platform you've chosen. It is the man not the machine that really matters. Given the fact that the man is using a reliable stout machine that won't have mechanical failures. The rest is pretty much operator dependant.

Once you get good with your chosen rifle who cares what anybody else thinks? In fact confidence in your ability with your chosen weapon is probably the most important factor in a dangerous situation. More so than caliber or action type.

The next most important thing is to be able to control panic. Cool heads will always prevail over panic. Confidence in your abilities will be a major factor in helping you to remain calm and keep the situation under control.

You are a man not a monkey you have the capability of controlling your fears and all of your other emotions whether you know it or not. You also have the ability to make the conscious effort to learn and prefect the proper techniques that will make you a great shot with your chosen platform.

When I hear this CRAP about doubles that they are only good short range and are disadvantage in general or bolts are to slow to be useful I have to think that the people writing this are either highly inexperienced, ignorant or simply aren't willing to make the investment in time and money to master their chosen rifle type.

quote:

Get the rifle you want. Get as good with it through proper practice that you possibly can.

Geez, What a concept! Well said!

The double rifle was designed to deliver large caliber bullets, at moderate speed and pressures, with ease of extraction/ejection in tropical heat, all of this at a relatively short range.

You don’t have to work anything for the first 2 rounds! Just aim and shoot! Save your own ass!

Any bolt action rifle can drive a bullet faster and usually more accurately at a greater distance than your basic double rifle. There isn’t any good reason to own a double rifle. You have to work with the loads. It’s tough to find quality brass and bullets. You spend time looking for stuff that was used at the turn of, not this century, but the previous one. Most of the older rifles were made at about the same time!

Your MOA becomes MOG (Minute of Grapfruit).
You usually can’t buy one and then spend a bunch of money trick’n it out! They pretty much come RTS (Ready to Shoot).

So, as you can see there really isn’t any good reason to want to own a double rifle!

The only thing nice about double rifle is nothing points or comes to your shoulder such grace and ease as a double rifle that fits you.

It’s just like holding your first love in your arms. It doesn’t require a lot of fiddling around. She knows just what to do!

quote:

Originally posted by 500grains:
Any machine, improperly assembled, will fail. That is not a fault of the design, but a fault of the craftsman who assembled it.

Sure but the more intricate and complicated design is probably more likely to fail.
That is why pouring dirt over the action of a double, SMLE, and Mauser CRF, will probably result in a malfunction in the above, in reverse order.

quote:

Originally posted by JAL:

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:
, and the fact thet the bolt guy put 8 rounds into that lion without jamming had more to do with the guy working the bolt, and luck than rifle design!

Yes it's me again. Anyway I'm glad the clients rifle was a crf mauser, or it would have been "proof" that a PF will nearly always fail.
Maybe a good man and a good PF is better than a newbe with a "new" crf??

JAL, sarchasm ! This is typical of head thinking.

My quote above,about the lion charge, may not have turned out so well for PHC, and Cundell, if he'd been useing a PF bolt rifle! However, still, he had a lot of luck, in not dropping a round trying the reload the magazine of his bolt rifle, which was a MAUSER 375 H&H!

Reliability for standing a charge of dangerous game:

No1 double rifle, with a proper chambering, and in this case good ammo!

No2 CRF bolt rifle, with a proper chambering, put together properly!

No3 PF bolt rifle, with any chambering, and perfectly put together!

AND,.............

No4 IMO, is the hard head makeing any choice of anything below No2 for pulling a trigger on close quarters dangerous game!

The fact is the properly chambered double rifle is far more reliable, and is a far better choice for the sittuation discribed here than any CRF bolt rifle, and the CRF bolt rifle is a far better system then any push feed bolt rifle. The extra operation needed to get off the next shot after the first,in any bolt rifle, is an invitation to a malfunction, but there is an order to the likelyhood of that malfunction, depending your shoice of design of that bolt rifle.

500 is right, the MAUSER most likely would have fed better if it had been left alone by the so-called CUSTOM rifle builder, because, as he said the best designed machine in the world will fail if it is not put together properly.

The fault here can be shared 50-50 by the so-called custom maker,who didn't do his job properly, and the client who had the rifle made, and didn't make sure his rifle worked properly long before he stood in front of an ELEPHANT!

Still no machine is immune from a malfunction,no matter how well made, but there is an order to what one can expect from the three machines, in this case,and the push feed is at the bottom of that list of three!

BYE.........

quote:

Reliability for standing a charge of dangerous game:

No1 double rifle, with a proper chambering, and in this case good ammo!

No2 CRF bolt rifle, with a proper chambering, put together properly!

No3 PF bolt rifle, with any chambering, and perfectly put together!

AND,.............

No4 the hard head makeing any choice of anything below No2 for pulling a trigger on close quarters dangerous game!

What we really need is an actuary to calculate the actual numbers for those statements above. I would bet that the actual quantifiable difference in reliability would not equate to "far better" in any standard definition of the term. MHO is that the real world difference is inconsequential and tantamount to splitting hairs (much like the difference in feeding reliablility between a cartridge with a slight rebate and one without.). But that's what we all do so very well here!!

Cheers,
Canuck

quote:

Originally posted by Canuck:

What we really need is an actuary to calculate the actual numbers for those statements above. I would bet that the actual quantifiable difference in reliability would not equate to "far better" in any standard definition of the term. MHO is that the real world difference is inconsequential and tantamount to splitting hairs (much like the difference in feeding reliablility between a cartridge with a slight rebate and one without.). But that's what we all do so very well here!!

Cheers,
Canuck

You are most likely quite right, but since there is a difference between the three, why choose one that is considered to be inferior, when, in the case of the last two, the cost of buying them is the same, but the ticket for a failure is so costly? That simply doesn't make sense to me, because we all know the Devil is in the details, and the wrong hair being ignored may be the one that gets you!

Sure, all good stuff, and definitly spliting hairs.

Lets face it. There is so much can go wrong, no matter what you are carrying, that the non- hunter intelligent person would probably have as No.1 Don't hunt DG period.
Now that is real safe.

Then let us not forget, the average Hunter could be carrying a DB pop-gun for all the difference it would make, considering you all must have the PH along, and he probably would not allow an unexperenced hunter to follow up on (say) a wounded lion no matter what he was carrying.

So my point is it's all very well saying this is the best, or it's a no-brainer, whatever if the average hunter after DG is only used to his PF, that's what he has, and that's what he want's to use. To get a new CRF, that may or may not work all of the time, and requires different loading and clearing proceedures, could be the thing Not to do.

I think it was Boddington no less that wasn't fussed about the chance of a round popping up infront of the extractor and causing a jam if the bolt didn't close over the rim.

And the opposite effect where a hasty reload can be done by dropping one down the chamber of a PF.

Now, I'm sure you would have to agree, people have been trampled carring DR, CRF, and maybe even PF's , so CRF may be "the best" after a good double with good ammo, but the difference is no guarentee of you comming home.

My aquaintances here have been DG shooting for many years, using Weatherby's. Now THAT's crass.

quote:

You are most likely quite right, but since there is a difference between the three, why choose one that is considered to be inferior, when, in the case of the last two, the cost of buying them is the same, but the ticket for a failure is so costly? That simply doesn't make sense to me, because we all know the Devil is in the details, and the wrong hair being ignored may be the one that gets you!

What you are saying is exactly the point that RIP, 500grains, ALF and Gerard were making when it comes to twist rates.

The real bottom line, however, is that life is always about tradeoffs. There is no single perfect answer for all situations. And, we always knowingly choose things that may have characteristics that are not "the best"...eg. if a 600 NE double is a better stopper than a 9.3x74R double, why does anyone use a 9.3 on cape buffalo?

Thus, one must consider actual practical differences when making decisions and given our average persons limitations (ie. most of us can't even own all of the perfect firearms, let alone have them available at the exact time you need them), the odds of having the exact right tool for the job is pretty low. And, it is likely that other factors may carry a much bigger weight than the miniscule differences in mechanical reliablity.

I think its even possible that the actual differences in mechanical reliability may not even be statistically significant, particularly when the background noise of human error and the millions of circumstantial variables that enter into every single hunting situation are also considered.

Its still fun to talk about though.

Here's a "for instance" with just a couple variables...

Is the effect of stopping power more significant than mechanical reliability? In other words, is a 600 OK bolt gun a better choice for hunting DG than a 9.3x74R double? Are the statistical odds of dangerous situation following a first shot with the 600 OK significantly less than with the 9.3x74?

Canuck

700 nitro - your comments abnout a bolt rifle "feeling better than a double rifle " simply proves you never owned a real good double rifle !

if you ever do, you will gladly retract your words.

quote:

simply proves you never owned a real good double rifle !

Do you mean better than the two Searcy's he has owned?

Just curious. I thought they were pretty good (not necessarily in the H&H category, but pretty darn good nonetheless) based on what I have read here (never had the good fortune to try one out).

Cheers,
Canuck

quote:

Originally posted by Canuck:

quote:

You are most likely quite right, but since there is a difference between the three, why choose one that is considered to be inferior, when, in the case of the last two, the cost of buying them is the same, but the ticket for a failure is so costly? That simply doesn't make sense to me, because we all know the Devil is in the details, and the wrong hair being ignored may be the one that gets you!

What you are saying is exactly the point that RIP, 500grains, ALF and Gerard were making when it comes to twist rates.

The real bottom line, however, is that life is always about tradeoffs. There is no single perfect answer for all situations. And, we always knowingly choose things that may have characteristics that are not "the best"...eg. if a 600 NE double is a better stopper than a 9.3x74R double, why does anyone use a 9.3 on cape buffalo?

Thus, one must consider actual practical differences when making decisions and given our average persons limitations (ie. most of us can't even own all of the perfect firearms, let alone have them available at the exact time you need them), the odds of having the exact right tool for the job is pretty low. And, it is likely that other factors may carry a much bigger weight than the miniscule differences in mechanical reliablity.

I think its even possible that the actual differences in mechanical reliability may not even be statistically significant, particularly when the background noise of human error and the millions of circumstantial variables that enter into every single hunting situation are also considered.

Its still fun to talk about though.

Here's a "for instance" with just a couple variables...

Is the effect of stopping power more significant than mechanical reliability? In other words, is a 600 OK bolt gun a better choice for hunting DG than a 9.3x74R double? Are the statistical odds of dangerous situation following a first shot with the 600 OK significantly less than with the 9.3x74?

Canuck

Talk about splitting hairs!

To answer one of your hypothetics, I'd far rather have a 9.3X74R double rifle than a 600 OK bolt to stop a charge, you figure out why!

canuck - i've owned 3 searcy and the best was the one built on a bss action.

they caannot be at all compared to a proper english double rifle.

they are an -AMERICAN - double rifle with a special stock design, oversize action, etc.
they are built strong to last long, and they do

but they don't have the heft and balance of an english double. nor do they have the price either !

macd 37

re: stopping charges

you forget to mention the venerable single shot that was the standard long before doubles and bolts became popular.

for charging lion, or any other cat -nothing - will beat the 12 bore from hell !! (see posts in big bore forum )

you simply must follw the proven advice of the old hunters and shoot them off the end of your barrel with a cannon like that.

most do not have the balls to stand the charge and let them get so close you cannot miss.they start firing wildly .

how long would it take to put 8 - count 'em 8 shots in the lion ? and was he kind enough to wait for the shooter to reload before resuming his charge ? that story sounds like some fairy tale, doesn't it ?

and with any charging cat coming from 10 yards or more you must drop to your knee so you can hit them head on

these are proven techniques that all the old hunters knew. i am surprised you have forgotten them !

More lions have been eaten by people than people have been eaten by lions.

Don't you guys have anything better to do with your time than argue over how many spirits can dance on the head of a pin?

Just an observation frommsomeone whose only DR is a 45/70, and who has no intentions of shooting an elephant if I ever do get to go to Africa.

In the original post, too much info is left out to really draw any absolute conclusions as to whether a DR is better than a Bolt.

From what I am interpreting, the PH told the client to shoot, I am assuming that this PH was knowledgeable and experienced, so I am assuming that the client was shooting at a standing elephant, not one that was moving.

Now, not knowing if this was that clients first or fiftith trip to Africa and his first or fiftith elephant to be shooting at, I am going under the assumption tyhat when the elephant didn't go down at the "Boom", he panicked. In that case, since he already screwed the first shot, on a standing elephant, he ain't gonna do any better on that second shot irregardless what he was carrying. I am willing to also step out on that limb that someone can saw off behind me, and say that the guy was paniced to the point of immobility. It may have not been that he was ballsy enough to stand his ground, he physically may have been frozen to the spot in sheer terror.

While I know there are many mixed opinipons of the man, Capstick said it best I think on the audio tape that I have. "Clients normally never handle a DR enought to know how to properly use it." On that same tape he also stated that "Clients, normally don't shoot their Big rifles enough to not be afraid of them."

I personnally feel that in a close in situation such as a charge, a DR would be better than a bolt, simply because hitting something with two closely spaced shots from a major caliber, might cause the animal to veer off and give you time to sort things out. JMO on the subject.