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A initial time hunter to Africa will have often have chosen his rifle by walking into a gun shop in his hometown and told the man the shop he needs a rifle for African hunting. He’ll in all likelihood walk out with a rifle that may or may not be the idealisti calibre and/or finish but it may well be the rifle that gives the shop proprietor (who could well have never been on an African hunting safari) the most eminent earnings margin. First, let’s look at the basics…
Hunting rifles that are legal in Africa fall into 4 basic categories…. There’s the single shot actions such as the famous “falling block”. These may be discounted straight away as being far from idealisti by dint of their being too slow to reload. Then comes the underlever actions, the bolt actions (including the straight pull bolts such as Blaser make) and then the widely known and esteemed double rifles made by such distinguished companies as Holland & Holland and Westley Richards in the UK and Heym in Germany. Any of these action types are idealisti for Africa. Although most underlever rifles seldom come in suitable calibres for most dangerous game species and will have to consequently be discounted for dangerous game hunting with the exception perhaps of the huge cats.
When choosing any of the larger calibres one element that needs particular attention is recoil. You must never buy a rifle that you can’t learn to shoot confidently and competently. If you flinch at the shot then you need to either think regarding buying a littler calibre or consider a muzzle brake or better still, a mercury tube or tungsten bead recoil arrester fitted into the stock. I personally shoot a short barrelled.500 Jeffrey with a mercury tube in the stock that tames the rifle down from a teeth-rattling demon to a pussycat……well, almost! Most African countries have a good deal of kind of minimum requisite to hunt any dangerous game. Excepting leopard this commonly translates to around 4000 foot pounds and a bullet weight of 300 grains or so. That in turn translates to a minimum calibre of.375 H&H magnum. However, in my opinion, a.416 kills better than a.375 and a.458 better than a.416, and so on. Telescopic sights are a very personal issue and most hunters will tell you to spend more cash on this than on their rifles. I’m not wholly sure that I agree with this. Technology has innovative so much these days that a reasonably priced good quality Tasco scope, for example, will carry out finelooking well on all but the heaviest recoiling rifles. When buying a scope for the long range hunting safaris such as in the Kalahari then something like a 6-10 power scope is a good choice and something like a 3-6 power for the closer bushveldt hunting. If you want a scope on your dangerous game rifle then a 1.5-4 is in regards to right. It seems to be very general to buy scopes with straight tubes for Africa. I don’t agree with this. Sure they look ‘classic Africa’ but they don’t give you any light vantage in early or late light conditions. The scopes we fit on our own.404 Jeffery (company loaner) rifles are Swarovski 1.5 – 6 x 42. The unrelenting march of engineering science has seen recent introductions of a lot of improvements to scopes such as illuminated reticules, if you’re going to go this route, you either need to learn how to get the scope set to the right setting in a great deal of time before the shot, or you need to be competent to set it quickly. If you take too long messing around with all those switches etc, you’ll miss your shooting opportunity. Personally, I prefer to keep it simple and use a conventional scope. Good Quality QD scope mounts on the plains game rifles are a good idea and if you put a scope on your dangerous game rifle, and I commend you do, they ought to be considered as utterly mandatory. Your dangerous game rifle ought to likewise be fitted with your choice of open sights, but do not forget you need to see as much of what’s attempting to stamp on you as possible. My own ‘charge stopper’ is fitted with a shoal vee rear sight and a huge red fibre optic foresight. The sights are set to what I was taught to refer to as ‘six o clock hold, which means the shooter sees as much of what’s attempting to nail him as possible. This set up works like a dream for me, in particular in low light conditions such as are found in the real thick bush that wounded game like to hide in. Those absurd little pop-off scope protectors will have to be averted like the plague as they always make a noise when you open them therefore alerting the game and if your scope can’t cope with the rigours of the African bush without these things then you have the defective scope on your rifle. Open sights must be considered necessary on an African rifle. Plains game rifles ordinarily have a scope, but a scope may go wrong. If you have open sights as well, you may always take the scope off and shoot with open sights. For dangerous game, they’re even more necessary for the apparent reason. As to which style of open sights, I personally like a shoal vee rearsight and a red fibre optic foresight, but there are a great deal of selections out there for you to choose from. If you have a military background, you might like to consider a peep sight. If you’re unsure of how to adjust open sights, the simple rule is to move the rearsight into the error. Therefore, if the rifle shoots to the left of where you’re aiming, slacken off the rearsight and move it more or less to the left. For the intent of this discussion on rifles, African hunting may be split into 3 basic categories:
Whatever rifle and calibre you opt for you must likewise think hard when it comes to your choice of bullet design.
Once you have purchased you African hunting rifle, it’s a good idea to exercise with it as often times as possible before bringing it on safari. Bench rest shooting is a good start, but undertake to likewise exercise shooting it from a assortment of other shooting positions such as standing with shooting sticks, kneeling and dare I say it,freehand. Try also to vary the range at which you practice. The more experience you may gain regarding the bullet drop of your peculiar calibre the less you’ll have to worry regarding for the duration of your hunting safari. You’ll likewise want to consider rifle hygiene. A little compact rifle cleaning kit is a good idea. Although I’m not a believer in overdoing the rifle cleaning whilst on safari, it a good idea to give it the odd going over, in particular if it’s been out in the rain. Just make sure that you don’t overstate the oiling portion of the job. Oil in the barrel, as you probably know, causes a dissimilar point of affect on the basi shot and oil on the outside makes for more shine and acts as a magnet to dust. So if you do feel the need for a each and everyday spring clean undertake to make sure that there is no oil left on the rifle when you’re finished. Last but by no means least, you will have to only fetch rifles on safari that you are prepared to receive the odd scratch and light harm on. If you consider the rifle so cherished to you that you want to keep it wrapped up in a rifle slip whilst on the hunting truck, then you’re bringing the wrong rifle on safari with you. The place for your rifle whilst in the hunting truck is either in the rifle rack or in your hands, and when you’re hunting on foot (as you will be for a big share of the time) it will have to be on your shoulder or in your hands. Just before I close, let me tell you when it comes to a few of the numerous difficultnesses some of my clients have suffered with their rifles over the years. You must note that they all have one thing in mutual – lack of preparation before their safari. Hunter 1, arrived with a brand new rifle he’d never shot. When we checked the zero, the rifle had been fitted with the wrong scope mounts and wouldn’t zero. As the rifle didn’t have open sights, we had to drive to the nearest gun shop to buy new mounts. We got the rifle shooting straight but it cost us a whole days hunting. Hunter 2, arrived with a rifle he’d just has a mercury tube recoil arrestor fitted and hadn’t test fired. When we did, the stock split after the third shot and the rifle was unusable for the rest of the hunt. Fortunately, I had a spare rifle in camp he could use. Hunter 3, hadn’t even fitted the scope to his new rifle by the time he arrived and when we tried to do it in camp the allen screws didn’t fit the threads on the mounts. This one was effortlessly cured though. All it took was a few spare allen screws I had in my kit. I hope this helps you in your selection of a good African hunting rifle and hopefully we’ll get to portion a campfire together someplace down the road. |
Worth each penny! 