Is there a reason to go beyond 470NE?

Heck if it was just a matter of what we neeeeeed then Id agree with you; but the more I get into this the more I want to do it "Old School". Id take a 4 Bore, or a hammer gun if I could.

Originally Posted by EDELWEISS

Heck if it was just a matter of what we neeeeeed then Id agree with you; but the more I get into this the more I want to do it "Old School". Id take a 4 Bore, or a hammer gun if I could.

Then make the leap to a .600 and be the envy of all your range friends when you are not hunting.

Originally Posted by big tex

Then make the leap to a .600 and be the envy of all your range friends when you are not hunting.

I thought about a .600; but a .577 just seemed cooler

Edelweiss,

Have you shot your 577 yet?

No it came with ammo; but I don't trust it. The cases are tarnished and a are snug when I load them. They were supposedly custom lloaded with either BP or a substitute; but the dealer won't let me talk to the original owner to get more info. I don't think they were resized. Its just not worth the risk.

Im gonna have to get some factory loads.

Thank you, when you look at what it really costs to buy and shoot a double rifle in a cartridge above 470 NE it gets very very costly. Need and want has little to do with it, like on the 5 of Oct. I got my hunting lic. and my White tail tags for the up coming Rifle deer season that starts Nov 1. for me. Well at 9:30 pm I collected a White Tail Doe with the front end of my car. Talk about 60 lbs of very expensive venison. Not a cheap what to kill a deer. In 40+ years of driving, this was my first. It still is bugging me big time. And I still think a worked over M-70 in 416 Remington is the way to go for a Dangerous Game Rifle, if you think you need more than a 375 H+H or the Ruger Version. The money you spend on that verses a 500 or 577 or even a 470 double will pay for a couple of Buffalo and some other stuff on a nice safari. Sorry about your pending divorce.

I figure there's no need for anything bigger TILL there's a NEED FOR SOMETHING BIGGER. Its also a matter of if I don't buy it now I probably won't buy it later. You are correct about the cost of ammo. It was a shock, especially when I realized it was only 10 rounds of .577 for something like $200---I thought 50BMG was expensive.

Originally Posted by EDELWEISS

I figure there's no need for anything bigger TILL there's a NEED FOR SOMETHING BIGGER. Its also a matter of if I don't buy it now I probably won't buy it later. You are correct about the cost of ammo. It was a shock, especially when I realized it was only 10 rounds of .577 for something like $200---I thought 50BMG was expensive.

First off the quote above will tell you why ammo goes missing from your baggage when traveling through JNB! When Federal 470NE ammo costs you $16 per trigger pull, and sells for almost half again more in Africa it stands to reason it is a target there. Also the Greenies love to separate your ammo from the rest of your gear just to screw up your hunt, when you pass through places like London!

On the choice of chamberings for your double rifle, most of the drawbacks to one or the other have been pretty well discussed here. Between the 450NE 3 1/4inch and the 577NE is quite a spread, and all of it is not just the price of ammo, or your availability to find it if lost!

I've owned them all at one time or another over the years, and now My African pair is a pair of Merkel double rifles! Not fancy, but well made and strong! More accurate than me, and either can be carried all day, without being a determent to being able to shoot them well. My big Merkel is a 470NE, and the little one is a 9.3X74R , but what I wanted was the 500NE Merkel, which by the way actually weighs LESS than the 470NE Merkel, while the recoil is considerably more, but not un manageable! The reason I have the 470NE double rather than the 500NE is because the rifle I have was a bargain I simply couldn't turn down.

The 577NE is certainly an option if elephant is going to be your main target, but I'd personally rather have the 500NE, and I've owned both! The thing you need to think about is which of these chamberings do you think you will shoot the most? The way you get good with your double rifle is by shooting it, and shooting it a lot. I hunt everything these days with my double rifles, and because of that I can shoot them very well. I shoot a lot of wild hogs with my doubles and try to do a double tap every time, taking down two hogs very quickly. Usually the first one is standing and the second running, but I make two hits at least 7 out of 10 times. This is very good practice for handling quick instinctive shooting on Buffalo!

There are two very good reasons for hand-loading for your double rifles. #1 is you get the best from your rifle with carefully loaded ammo that shoots to the regulation built into your rifle! Most double rifle do not regulate as well with factory ammo as your custom hand-loads. #2 is the cost of factory ammo is very expensive, and doesn't lend it's self to a lot of off-season shooting! In most of the chamberings you can use HAWK bullets that are cheap, and work well on most North American game, and there is absolutely no reason you can't hunt whitetail deer with a 500NE double rifle. Believe it or not a 500NE double will kill whitetail deer quite well and destroy less meat than a 30-06.

In you shoes I would look at the 500NE Merkel, and never look back! Buy dies and powder brass and bullets and hand-load!

When you get your double rifle let me know and I'll connect you with people who load for the chambering you choose, people who can get you started with some starting loads!