Okay I understand the part about you have to find the sweet spot of velocity and bullet weight for the rifle to shoot point of aim and by now you have guessed that I'm new to this site and whole concept of doubles. My only experience with large bore heavy bullets is a few years of shooting either a Win 1886.45-70 or a .50-90 Sharps. Brian Pearce had an article in the August 2007 issue of Handloader magazine about using a Marlin 1895 .45-70 in Africa. With a 400gr Cor-Bon solid at 1900 fps he shot through the shoulders of two buffs that were standing about seven yards apart, neither he nor his PH saw the second one, at 100yds and his second shot entered the rump and was found in the brisket. So unless you are planning on hunting elephants, why would you need more energy than that. The buffalo runners of the ole West killed a few million bison with a lot less although those animals didn't have the reputation of hiding and waiting to kill you. Think I would rather have the energy expended inside of my target animal than in a termite mound or tree on the other side. I am not trying to be a wise ass but just asking a question because I don't know the answer. I recently bought a used Searcy .470 and don't know if I will ever get to Africa. So I am shooting 510 Mt.Baldy FNGC with either Trail Boss or AA5744 in it because I like shooting it and those loads are very comfortable. Figure that should make a significant bruise on a whitetail or coyote.

If you use the search function, you will find numerous threads about .45/70's, Garrett loads, etc. Flames and personal insults abound! Perhaps you should gird your loins.

Probably, the best answer to your question, without the hype, is that when smokeless powder became widely available, the guys who were in Africa and whose rifles were both their livelihood and their livesavers, went to guns that had close to 5000 ft. lbs of energy by using approximately 500 grain bullets (sectional density of .300+) at 2150 fps, or so. Lesser energy, velocity, hard lead bullets, were available, but with their butts on the line, they used what worked... and not just in perfect conditions.

In other words, from the 1890's to 1910 or so, folks who, as Elmer Keith could say, "Hell, I was there!", had everything from .22 shorts to .577 N.E., and they didn't pick the .45/70 because the .450 N.E. class of rifles worked best.... and they don't call in dangerous game hunting for nothing! A case for bigger is better

JMHO.

What Judge said but I believe the underlying reason was penetration. You have to cause damage and that is represented by bullet energy (5000 ft-lb) and momentum (John Taylor) but the higher velocity (2100 fps +) gave you penetration.

The old blackpowder cannons had plenty of energy but the bullets wouldn't penetrate and the old stories are full of exploits about shooting pounds of lead bullets at elephants before they either expired or escaped, because the bullets wouldn't penetrate.

There are a lot of folks that try to ignore the 5000 ft-lb RULE, and 4 to 5 hundred grain bullets, and the need for velocity to get penetration to whack elephants.

The simple reason is that it hurts to fire those high velocity rifles!!!

So people try to make excuses for the 45-70, and a host of others that are easy shooting but really can't be relied upon when the chips are down, regardless of what they profess.

You can get by most of the time with little guns, usually by being dependent upon the PH, with his big gun, but then sometimes you just have to butch up, or stay home.

And now you can print this out and paste it to your wall, as this is as close to the gospel as you will ever find.

Buy my book; it's all in there.

It's worth the time to read the stories of the men who hunted in the pre Great War era during the transition from black powder to smokeless.

The short version is very simple: there was universal dis-satisfaction with the penetration of even the largest black powder rounds. Elephant were the standard by which the large bores were measured and the BP guns, even with hardened lead, came up short regularly.

I'm only repeating what I've read, but the theme is very common in the writings of the era. The new smokeless loads and steel jacketed bullets were apparently greeted with a great deal of enthusiasm at the time; most of the professional hunters never looked back.

I think much of the confusion on the issue revolves around the differing natures of American and African hunting, particularly the hunting done in that era. Bison while huge, are not particularly dangerous when treated with reasonable caution and common sense. The giant bears were never particularly common, and while quite dangerous at times, were nevertheless solitary animals for the most part.

African dangerous game, like elephant, the black rhino, lions and cape buffalo, usually travels in herds or prides and individuals frequently show willful malice and a vindictive nature unseen in any American big game other than the giant bears. A wounded bison can be hazardous, but only very rarely can be called genuinely dangerous, and that only after a serious mistake on the part of the hunter. A wounded lion, like a wounded grizzly IS dangerous.

Consider the numerous reports on these pages of injuries involving elephant, hippo, crocs and lions.

The point to be made is this: for non-dangerous game, stopping power is a convenience, not a necessity. For dangerous game, stopping power is a necessity, not a convenience.

My understanding is that the buffalo hunters of the Great Plains started with converted Civil War guns of .50-70 caliber, for the most part. Soon, they discovered the .45/70 and similar cartridges were just as effective as the .50 for their style of hunting. Later still, a number of the professionals dropped down to the .40-77 and similar cartridges as they found it had a similar killing power and more moderate recoil. This same transition never occurred in African hunting. The .450 level cartridges existed from the very beginning of the smokeless era; nevertheless, .50 and .577 and .600 cartridges were developed at the request of the professional elephant hunting market.

I am not a proponent of heavily loaded .45-70s for dangerous game. Neither am I an opponent. It simply needs to be noted that the African hunters of the early smokeless days did not have available Marlin lever guns shooting 400-grain solids at 1900 fps. If they had, they might well have found them very useful for some DG, and this current controversy would not have any basis.
Can anyone cite any spectacular failures against DG (except elephant) with the best available current .45-70 loads?

Thanks for your replies. I was not trying to argue that the .45-70 was a good substitue for larger bores. I have the .470 dbl plus a Ruger #1 in .450/400 and I have read arguments that caliber is too small. If I ever buy, and I am tempted already, to buy another double it would probably be a .500/.416 and/or a Win. 1886 in .475 Turnbull. The .475T can put out eight rounds of 350-500 gr bullets with a schade over 4,000 ft/lbs each. Surely that would be more than enough for buff, eland or anything short of elephant or rhino.I guess my curiousity, of which I have excessive amounts about most everything, was answered by one of your threads saying all things were measured by penetration on an elephant. I understand that but have no desire to shoot the ole Loxodonta africans.

quote:

Originally posted by Magnolia Slim:
Okay I understand the part about you have to find the sweet spot of velocity and bullet weight for the rifle to shoot point of aim and by now you have guessed that I'm new to this site and whole concept of doubles.

Well Mag Slim, welcome to AR’s double rifle forum, and since you say you have just bought a B. Searcy 470NE I would also like to welcome you to the DRSS (Double Rifle Shooters Society) as well! www.doublerifleshooterssociety.com !

You have found the largest group of knowledgeable double rifle folks in the world today so you have come to the right place.

quote:

My only experience with large bore heavy bullets is a few years of shooting either a Win 1886.45-70 or a .50-90 Sharps. Brian Pearce had an article in the August 2007 issue of Handloader magazine about using a Marlin 1895 .45-70 in Africa. With a 400gr Cor-Bon solid at 1900 fps he shot through the shoulders of two buffs that were standing about seven yards apart, neither he nor his PH saw the second one, at 100yds and his second shot entered the rump and was found in the brisket. So unless you are planning on hunting elephants, why would you need more energy than that?

As The Judge told you in his post the close to 5000 FPE is a necessary feature in a cartridge for use to protect one life when dealing with large dangerous game animals. The folks who try to make the little 45-70 into something that it was not designed for are working on Velocity, and SOLID bullet design.

Today this is not the way to go on anything but Elephant. The old so-called buffler shooters of North America, set off at distance as simply snipped the Bison, in open grass land. There was no need to anchor the beasts because they wouldn’t be hard to find dead, even five miles away.

So the hard lead bullets could be shot through the heart/lung area, and then move on the next one. In other words there was no need to stop them in their tracks. This is not the case with real Buffalo, as you say. SO, in the case of the African animals, penetration offered by solids was long ago dumped in favor of the quality controlled, and tough soft points. To use these bullets one needs speed to open them properly.

Though the solids used by Brian Pearse, did a job of penetrating, nobody said how long it took those buffs to go down for the count, nor how far they traveled. You see anything that will penetrate deep enough to reach the heart will “KILL” the buffalo, or in this case two buffalo. That fact, in no way, makes that particular cartridge a good choice for Cape Buffalo.

With a soft or solid, to stop a buffalo in his tracks, the bullet must hit the BRAIN OR SPINE, but the controlled soft in conjunction with the FPE and FPS does far more tissue damage than a solid if the CNS is missed.

Make no mistake, I’m not saying there is no need for solids for hunting Buffalo, there is, and are essential where elephant are on the menu. On the buffalo the drill is the carry the double rifle with w soft in the right barrel, and solid in the left barrel. The first shot is always with a soft, and as the buff either come for you are runs for the nearest cover, all subsequent shots are with solids to reach the vitals on a going away buff, or to reach the brain, and/or spine from any angle to STOP an incoming buff with mayhem on his mind.

quote:

The buffalo runners of the ole West killed a few million bison with a lot less although those animals didn't have the reputation of hiding and waiting to kill you. Think I would rather have the energy expended inside of my target animal than in a termite mound or tree on the other side. I am not trying to be a wise ass but just asking a question because I don't know the answer. I recently bought a used Searcy .470 and don't know if I will ever get to Africa. So I am shooting 510 Mt.Baldy FNGC with either Trail Boss or AA5744 in it because I like shooting it and those loads are very comfortable. Figure that should make a significant bruise on a whitetail or coyote.

First off the bison shooters had no other choice! They had to use what they had, and since this was market hunting, which has little resemblance to dangerous game hunting, they could wait for the animal, in their case many animals to die, so few were lost to the hide shooters, but if one was wounded and traveled too far he was not followed up, but written off as missed.

In Africa the old ELE hunters were little more than poachers themselves, and when the safaris were on foot with 60 or 70 porters, and a couple of gun bearers/loaders, the ivory hunter tried to down as many from a herd as he could before they headed for the hills. The ones that were down, killed. or wounded, would require a lot of work to process, and because they were usually hunting illegally they couldn’t hang around long. Those that were wounded and ran out of sight, were rarely followed up. Like the bison shooters of North American, the elephant hunters of Africa, only talked about the ones they killed and got, but conveniently forgot to mention the ones they lost to die a lingering death.

Though a PH allowed Brian to hunt Cape Buffalo with a 45-70, that doesn’t make it legal, or a wise thing to do. The 45-70 is not legal because it can’t generate the ballistics to meet regulations for that undertaking. These guys get away with this, but if some one gets hurt or killed, and the investigation reveals the fact that an illegal chambering was used, someone is going to loose his license, and someone may end up in an African prison!

The rules for proper ballistics for dangerous game in Africa are in place for a reason! Simply because the woolly mammoth was wiped out with rocks, and being driven over cliffs, doesn’t tell you how many of the hunters didn’t come back to the cave after a hunt!

There is an old saw that folks use to justify the use of under-powered rifles for DGRs, and it goes like this, “Well I’m backed by a PH with a proper rifle if I get in trouble!” That is the dumbest thing one can say! Where is it written that the PH isn’t going to be the one hit first, leaving YOU, to pull his nuts out of the fire? The remedy is USE ENOUGH GUN, and know how to use it properly.

All be it I have zero experience hunting outside of the USA
Take it from the ones who have been there, heed their advice.
You will feel under gunned when that Buff stares you in the eye And you wonder if the 45/70 will do the job.
We don't need another Jack Lott. You may not live to develop a proper load for your rifle.
Personally I wouldn't hunt buff with nothing less then a 470 NE or a 416 Riby I want to use a gun that has enough thump it makes you wonder if the receiving end is any better

Besides all the good reasons above--

Minimum energy requirements- approach 4000Ft/lbs in many DG hunting areas

[Example:Zimbabwe The minimum legal energy is 5000 joules (3688 ft-lbs)]
(there are also calberes exempted in some areas)

So: for a 40cal-

450/400; 400@2150
etc.

quote:

Correction: registered back in 01 but thats what I get for not logging in for six years

this is, just a preference; so don't get too excited. I went to Africa last December and shot a nice Cape Buffalo. I got the skull and two hide halves back a couple weeks ago in good order.
I am looking at those horns right now as I type. Again, this is just a personal opinion: but I would hazard a guess that having one stuck up your ass at about 20mph or a bit faster would complicate any further bodily functions (like breathing) in this life. You got to stop things, not just kill them.

But heck, nobody lives forever... Take that light load to Africa and report back if you make it. Light loads might be the next new fad sweeping the industry.

Rich

I appreciate the info and accept it as experienced wisdom but I really believe that if I can't break down and kill a big, wild cow using a 400 gr solid at 1800 fps, then I figure it is time to depart this planet. Either way, what a rush! Would rather go out like that than in a hospital bed.

quote:

... a big wild cow..

I'll not comment except for the following:

Magnolia:

Just make sure to eat at Chic-fil-A. There, cows are on the patron's side. Heck, I've never heard of a chicken finger flipping some poor fool or kneeling on a guy's chest and making his lungs Jello.

Chic-fil-A has a great soft ice cream, too.

Oh yeah. This ain't Dodge City and a cow ain't a cape buffalo.

Magnolia: Please take the above somewhat tongue-in-cheek. A perfectly placed hot-loaded .45/70 with 400 grain quality bullet will probably kill 95% of buffalo within 30 seconds or so. I'm just worried about what the pissed off sucker is going to do in that half minute.

Let's put it this way: When a auto engine quits, you can coast to the side of the road. When flying a single engine recip aircraft, it is very nice to have dual ignition.

Well there is a difference between killing and stopping an animal intent on punching your ticket.
A good friend of mine is a fan of African big game rifles and has a few good ones to kick around. 300 HnH, 375 HnH, 404 Jeffery, 416 Rigby, and the 505 Gibbs.
He was the one that explained the difference between stopping and animal and killing it.
the 7X57 has taken it's fare share of game animals including ones in Africa. But by no means is that a sound choice. You should have a rifle capable of taking the game you intend to hunt no matter the circumstances. If that lazy looking bull decides to charge Now what?
You need a cartridge capable of knocking that guy down on his ass right now.
If you have doubts Read "Man is the pray" It will give you sound reason to take the biggest gun you can handle

Slim,

there's only one way to make your point to this crowd. Since talking to people here hasn't convinced you to use all the FPME you can muster, start planning that Cape Buffalo hunt.

Rich

There is always a lot of tough talk until faced with death. Then, there seems to be a change of heart.

quote:

Originally posted by Will:
There is always a lot of tough talk until faced with death. Then, there seems to be a change of heart.

I am still in Zim after shooting a tuskless out of herd of about fifteen. They were less than happy with me after shooting their sister. My 470 double felt like a toothpick.
Will, I believe it was Shawn Buffy that asked me to tell you hello.

Thanks for the news. Shaun is a great kid and I always enjoyed his company.