The Cannon Myth: Why I'd Rather Hit Than Bruise

Hunter Habib, all the German ammo I have used has been good, although the 7x57 Hirtenberger ammo I had was loaded hot and kicked like a mule, was accurate though. I pulled the projectiles and tipped out the powder and reloaded it to a more sedate speed.
Gumpy

mark-hunter said:

Set up is fine, I would just reccomend to add some type of scope, or red dot on that rifle.

We are not in our twenties, we read with glasses, and situation may require to pass accurate shot between the branches, under a shade of a tree.
That job in our age can be done with glass only

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Marko- good thoughts, my 338 has a Leupold VX 5HD 2-10 CDS on it, zeroed at 200 yards with rings for 300 and 400.
I grew up shooting irons, and have good eyesight with glasses of course 20/20 . Want to use my 470 the old fashioned way. At least for now. I do have a setup for Acro P2 3.5 MOA and mount selected, but I’m old school my friend. Cheers

Hunter-Habib said:

Not at all. I personally think that we old timers should always be encouraging towards you beginners. You are our future, after all. And we all had a first time.

I think that your .470 Nitro Express and .338 Winchester Magnum will make for a most formidable battery in your Safari. Although I would personally go for 250Gr Swift A Frames in the .338 Winchester Magnum. And 500Gr Swift A Frames in the .470 Nitro Express. Still, I can't fault your choices, at all.

DWM unfortunately closed down in 1969. But German factory ammunition is quite possibly the most reliable ammunition in the entire world, in my humble experience. They have abnormally long shelf lives.

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Golam Saheb, I should add that I’ve actually reserved the 250-grain A-Frames for my 9.3x62, along with 286-grain Barnes and A-Frames for big plains game in 2028 and beyond.

My .375 H&H will be next in line, loaded with 300-grain A-Frames for a future dagga boy hunt.

I suppose I’m slowly building a battery for every occasion!

Houston Bill said:

Not that my opinion is worth much, and is probably a bit biased, but I think you made a great choice! For my last 3 DG/PG hunts in Africa I took a double (450/400 on the 1st 2 of the 3 and my 500 NE on the last one a few months back) and my 338 Win Mag. And while 250 grainers have a bit more sectional density, the 225 grainers will be more than sufficient for your PG animals. As @Hunter-Habib indicated, I too prefer the AF's to the Woodleigh's but if the Woodleigh's shoot well in your double and you have confidence with them then go for it. No buffalo will survive a well placed shot from a 470 NE using Woodleigh RNSNs

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Thank you, Houston Bill! And coming from a fellow Houstonian, your opinion is certainly valued!

I appreciate the encouragement, and your experience with both doubles and the .338 Win Mag certainly counts.

I’m glad to hear the 225-grain bullets should be more than adequate for my PG. That’s consistent with what my friend Andrew Nola shared from his last safari.

As for the .470 NE, I’ve devoted considerable time to working up loads with Woodleigh RNSNs, along with 500-grain A-Frames, Barnes TSXs and North Fork SS bullets.

I’ll seriously consider both your and Habib Saheb’s recommendations. Who knows, I might even flip a coin or let the rifle have the final say!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Bill. I appreciate it!

SStomcat said:

Thank you, Houston Bill! And coming from a fellow Houstonian, your opinion is certainly valued!

I appreciate the encouragement, and your experience with both doubles and the .338 Win Mag certainly counts.

I’m glad to hear the 225-grain bullets should be more than adequate for my PG. That’s consistent with what my friend Andrew Nola shared from his last safari.

As for the .470 NE, I’ve devoted considerable time to working up loads with Woodleigh RNSNs, along with 500-grain A-Frames, Barnes TSXs and North Fork SS bullets.

I’ll seriously consider both your and Habib Saheb’s recommendations. Who knows, I might even flip a coin or let the rifle have the final say!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Bill. I appreciate it!

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SS , what part of Houston? You are nothing if not passionate. IDK if you drink, but if you do, I’ll buy you one and we’ll talk African hunting.

Lemme know.

Flipper Dude said:

SS , what part of Houston? You are nothing if not passionate. IDK if you drink, but if you do, I’ll buy you one and we’ll talk African hunting.

Lemme know.

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Thank you, I appreciate that! I’m in the Spring area, just north of Houston. And yes, I’d be happy to meet up and talk African hunting over a drink. Always enjoy meeting a fellow hunter and exchanging stories from the bush.

I may be passionate, but I promise I’m much more civilized in person!

Till we meet Cheers!

Grumpy gumpy said:

As said before, I have several different RWS loaded 404, left over from boxes of factory ammo, all much the same length and rims are all much the same, any failures to reload properly or chamber look like user error more than anything else. I use mostly Bertram brass with either woodleigh or Bertram projectiles now as I got a good deal from an Australian forum member on brass
Gumpy

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My RWS brass are also all the same length ... too short. Take a look for yourself. Standard case length is 2.875". I randomly picked two brass from this box and you can see they are considerably shorter than standard (i.e. Hornady brass). And no I didn't trim them too short. Don't even have a trimmer for 404. Not yet anyway.

And here's three empty brass. Top is Hornady and bottom two are RWS. Note that these two RWS have thicker rims. And thickness varies. A few from the forty cases will snap over but only a few. The rims of those few are slightly thinner.

RWS will feed from magazine okay but, to quote Duane Wiebe, "A dangerous game rifle that won't snap over isn't a dangerous game rifle." I removed probably more metal than I should have from extractor claw trying to make my RWS brass work before discovering the stuff was defective. And of course cases that are forty thousandths too short aren't going to work. Certainly not when mixed in with full length Hornady brass reloads. Same powder and primer RWS brass loads shoot higher than Hornady brass at 100 yards for some strange reason but the bullets won't stay seated in RWS without totally resetting my dies. They need to be crimped. So yeah, I'm not greatly impressed with world famous German ammo components.

Edit: Just checked and RWS rim diameter is standard, identical to Hornady. ALL Hornady loads snap over. Almost all RWS loads will not snap over. Bolt will close but cartridge will not extract from chamber, even after fired.

So the rws brass was incorrectly sized or your dies are faulty or your chamber is out?. Mine work fine
Gumpy

SStomcat said:

I grew up shooting irons, and have good eyesight with glasses of course 20/20 . Want to use my 470 the old fashioned way. At least for now. I do have a setup for Acro P2 3.5 MOA and mount selected, but I’m old school my friend. Cheers

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This is certainly doable, and understandable. But also challenging.

My idea for a short 10-day DG safari is to prepare in advance all I can prepare to my advantage to cover all shooting conditions and scenarios, knowing there will be enough of variables once I get to African hunting grounds.

With scope I had: 3 accurate shots on buffalo (100 meters, minus few steps while approaching between shots), elephant brain shot, 100 meters, and 100% success rate on plains game up to 200 mtrs. No game lost.

Shooting iron sights for all that would make a totally different hunting scenarios, with possible different success rate.

Shooting iron sights with double, will require to approach close, no longish shots to be taken, and shooting in the bush will be difficult, with aiming to pass the bullet properly between branches, leaves and under a shadow, to that smallish dark spot of vital area.

It is of course doable, but also challenging.

To illustrate my philosophy, this is the scenario that I try 'to avoid at all cost (start at 04' 30''), 40 something meters distance.
Then listen to lesson learnt (at 08' 36''):

No problem to scope a .470..plenty of eye distance.. I have taken 4 buffalo with this setup.

It is accurate to at least 80 meters..with Hornady factory ammo.

Grumpy gumpy said:

So the rws brass was incorrectly sized or your dies are faulty or your chamber is out?. Mine work fine
Gumpy

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Sizing die will not change the length of the case. Not without crushing the shoulder. The dies can be changed to work with a short case but then either the crimp will not be in the cannalure or the overall length will be short. And then I have to change the dies again (quite a lot) to load Hornady brass that's the correct length.

The tricky thing about 404 is 1) the case is not belted and 2) it has a gently sloping shoulder. If the claw is fighting to get over the rim, it's easy for the cartridge to get pushed ahead of it into chamber instead of snapping over. And if OAL is forty thousandths short, that's almost certainly going to happen. A sharp shoulder or casing belt would prevent this. Like I said, my RWS brass will load fine from the magazine but problematic trying to snap over. I can't imagine that I'll ever need more than four 400 gr bullets to stop anything but in the unlikely event an armored train incoming still survives I want to have the ability to drop a round in the chamber and fire. And I need the gun to do it reliably and consistently.

Have you checked your RWS brass for length? Perhaps I got a bad batch of brass.

Ontario Hunter said:

Sizing die will not change the length of the case. Not without crushing the shoulder. The dies can be changed to work with a short case but then either the crimp will not be in the cannalure or the overall length will be short. And then I have to change the dies again (quite a lot) to load Hornady brass that's the correct length.

The tricky thing about 404 is 1) the case is not belted and 2) it has a gently sloping shoulder. If the claw is fighting to get over the rim, it's easy for the cartridge to get pushed ahead of it into chamber instead of snapping over. And if OAL is forty thousandths short, that's almost certainly going to happen. A sharp shoulder or casing belt would prevent this. Like I said, my RWS brass will load fine from the magazine but problematic trying to snap over. I can't imagine that I'll ever need more than four 400 gr bullets to stop anything but in the unlikely event an armored train incoming still survives I want to have the ability to drop a round in the chamber and fire. And I need the gun to do it reliably and consistently.

Have you checked your RWS brass for length? Perhaps I got a bad batch of brass.

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Have you used any other RWS brass? Always the exception to the rule. I am sure everyone here who has rolled their own ammo has run into brass from various companies of typically quality products that were less than stellar weather it be brittle brass, un uniform primer pockets, undersized, oversized, and so on. Even great companies have recalls.

mark-hunter said:

This is certainly doable, and understandable. But also challenging.

My idea for a short 10-day DG safari is to prepare in advance all I can prepare to my advantage to cover all shooting conditions and scenarios, knowing there will be enough of variables once I get to African hunting grounds.

With scope I had: 3 accurate shots on buffalo (100 meters, minus few steps while approaching between shots), elephant brain shot, 100 meters, and 100% success rate on plains game up to 200 mtrs. No game lost.

Shooting iron sights for all that would make a totally different hunting scenarios, with possible different success rate.

Shooting iron sights with double, will require to approach close, no longish shots to be taken, and shooting in the bush will be difficult, with aiming to pass the bullet properly between branches, leaves and under a shadow, to that smallish dark spot of vital area.

It is of course doable, but also challenging.

To illustrate my philosophy, this is the scenario that I try 'to avoid at all cost (start at 04' 30''), 40 something meters distance.
Then listen to lesson learnt (at 08' 36''):

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IMHO he should not have taken that shot with iron sights. If you want to be a purist then you need to pass many shot opportunities. And potentially pass the only opportunity you get.

Mine RWS brass was flawless for .404 , it was Norma I had problems with , so much troubles in fact it was two different shellholders to use for reloading . The area never had troubles of any kind with .

mark-hunter said:

This is certainly doable, and understandable. But also challenging.

My idea for a short 10-day DG safari is to prepare in advance all I can prepare to my advantage to cover all shooting conditions and scenarios, knowing there will be enough of variables once I get to African hunting grounds.

With scope I had: 3 accurate shots on buffalo (100 meters, minus few steps while approaching between shots), elephant brain shot, 100 meters, and 100% success rate on plains game up to 200 mtrs. No game lost.

Shooting iron sights for all that would make a totally different hunting scenarios, with possible different success rate.

Shooting iron sights with double, will require to approach close, no longish shots to be taken, and shooting in the bush will be difficult, with aiming to pass the bullet properly between branches, leaves and under a shadow, to that smallish dark spot of vital area.

It is of course doable, but also challenging.

To illustrate my philosophy, this is the scenario that I try 'to avoid at all cost (start at 04' 30''), 40 something meters distance.
Then listen to lesson learnt (at 08' 36''):

Click to expand...

Marko, you certainly make some valid points. Respectfully, though, I see things a little differently when it comes to doubles, scopes, and shooting distance for DG
Given the terrain we’ll be hunting, my agreement with my PH is to keep shots to a maximum of 50 yards, though 30 yards would be my preference.
For me, part of the appeal is hunting buffalo the old-school way, much as we did in Shikar, in the days before scopes were an option. I enjoy the idea of getting in close and making it a more personal, up-close hunt. Challenging

Of course, there’s a chance I may not get a suitable shot, and I’m perfectly fine with that. The challenge is part of the appeal. If I’m not willing to accept those limitations, I might as well stay home or shoot from the top of a vehicle, and to me, that defeats the purpose.
I might consider a red dot someday if my eyesight starts to deteriorate, but I have no plans to put a scope on my double. That’s just my personal preference, of course. We all have our own ideas about what makes a hunt enjoyable, and there’s no right or wrong in that.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Marko. Always good to hear a different perspective. Cheers!
Som

Tdsmith517 said:

Have you used any other RWS brass? Always the exception to the rule. I am sure everyone here who has rolled their own ammo has run into brass from various companies of typically quality products that were less than stellar weather it be brittle brass, un uniform primer pockets, undersized, oversized, and so on. Even great companies have recalls.

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I have used several, only issues I have had is with Federal Nickel coated ones after fire. They have a thicker wall and there is a bulge sometimes while seating.
I went ahead and fired them as well, no issues as such. Other than that I have used, Norma, Barnes, Hornady and the ones that Swift uses -all for 470 ne, no issues.

SStomcat said:

Marko, you certainly make some valid points. Respectfully, though, I see things a little differently when it comes to doubles, scopes, and shooting distance for DG
Given the terrain we’ll be hunting, my agreement with my PH is to keep shots to a maximum of 50 yards, though 30 yards would be my preference.
For me, part of the appeal is hunting buffalo the old-school way, much as we did in Shikar, in the days before scopes were an option. I enjoy the idea of getting in close and making it a more personal, up-close hunt. Challenging

Of course, there’s a chance I may not get a suitable shot, and I’m perfectly fine with that. The challenge is part of the appeal. If I’m not willing to accept those limitations, I might as well stay home or shoot from the top of a vehicle, and to me, that defeats the purpose.
I might consider a red dot someday if my eyesight starts to deteriorate, but I have no plans to put a scope on my double. That’s just my personal preference, of course. We all have our own ideas about what makes a hunt enjoyable, and there’s no right or wrong in that.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Marko. Always good to hear a different perspective. Cheers!
Som

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Take your scoped 375 along too. After three or four days hunting buffalo, not getting a shot, and watching all manner of plains game bounding off out of range, you may decide taking a longer shot at a buffalo might not be such a bad idea. Get it over with and move on. On my second safari I'd had it with chasing buffalo around in thick stuff and not getting a shot. Finally an opportunity to take a running shot at 65 yards. I got off the sticks and made the shot. When he was down I turned to my PH: "I know that's just not done but I was tired of chasing these damn things around. There's other stuff I want to hunt. You didn't say anything when I got off the sticks and put a bead on him." He responded I'm the only client he'd let do that. Actually, the rifle had 3-9x scope, not a "bead."

I have also culled two cows both about ~100 yards. There's no way I'd take those shots with irons. Culling can be very challenging. A particular animal often needs to be harvested and the hunter needs to be ready to take the shot at whatever range presents itself. It's about sending meat to market so no playing around. The outfitter finds me a deal and he is counting on me getting the meat into his cooler so he can market it. Mind you I'm not shooting anything out of the truck and my outfitter and PH don't operate that way in any event.

The point of all this is, and I hope (probably in vain ) you are listening, don't go to Africa with preconceptions carved in stone. It's the best way to have less, or no, fun. Be flexible. Roll with the punches. If it rains like hell, be ready for it and make the best of the situation. When I booked this year's safari back in April the outfitter asked me what I wanted to hunt. "I dunno. I guess I should take an eland at some point but whatever needs to be shot I guess." His response was we would figure it out when I got there. So I arrive and met by my former PH who had just returned to work there after trying to manage the hunting at another big operation that was being badly mismanaged. It was the first time he had seen my 404. "Well, we will have to find something for you to shoot with that!" They found me animals at prices that were impossible to turn down. I wound up taking an eland, buffalo, and giraffe with it. On the way to the salt shed with the buffalo we happened to spot a very fine nyala. Already have a nice skull on the wall but I wanted a backskin. So I switched guns to my 30-06 that was along for the ride and took him (unfortunately the hide was no good). Just around the corner after loading it up we spotted a herd of +60 impala on a ridge with one trailing ram that was absolutely fantastic. At four hundred yards there was no need for glass to tell he was a bowel reliever! I wanted that guy badly but we were already overloaded with a long road in terrible condition ahead of us. "He will be waiting for you next year, Pat". I had already shot a very nice ram my second day on safari ... to go with two other skulls already on the wall. But damn that one was really incredible. Sigh!

Ontario Hunter said:

When he was down I turned to my PH: "I know that's just not done but I was tired of chasing these damn things around. There's other stuff I want to hunt.

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Ontario Hunter said:

On my second safari I'd had it with chasing buffalo around in thick stuff and not getting a shot.

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Well, if all you are interested is shooting stuff I guess RSA game ranches are perfect for you. My last elephant hunt I shot it on day 12 of a 14 day hunt. We approached over a hundred elephants in the "thick stuff".

Ontario Hunter said:

Finally an opportunity to take a running shot at 65 yards

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Well, even with a double a 65 yard shot is not far, though I would prefer it to be closer. I would not take a running shot unless it was a second shot.

Last month I took the longest shot ever on a buffalo in Namibia about 70 yards. Our approach from one tree to the next (about 20 yards) took over 30 minutes. But it was pretty flat there for the most part. The second buffalo was about 30 yards. Those were with the Shikari .500 NE with a 1MOA red dot. I practice out to 85 yards (longest bay at the range) so am confident. Not with iron sights though.

Plains game, I used a scoped .300 RUM at over 200+ yards for Eland and Zebra.

However, I would have been perfectly fine if all we shot were the buffalo, the PG were a bonus as far as I am concerned.

Same in Nyakasanga a few years ago. I shot about 11 species, but my main targets were elephant and a buffalo. We got the elephant on day 2 and buffalo took a few days. I would have been fine with just those two if we did not have time to get to the PG.

Yep. Took a buffalo once on day 7. No other animals taken. Hunted buff once for 7 days. No shot. No other animals taken.

Had a marvelous time, both trips.

@SStomcat
Now, check out this other end of the spectrum. I took this big fellow yesterday.

Rifle used was a magnificent .505 Gibbs built by the late American gunsmith Jim Zahm on a Pattern 14 Winchester-Enfield action with a 22” Douglas Premium barrel, a French walnut stock, wide V backsight and uncovered ivory bead foresight.

Even though the rifle has a four round magazine capacity, the first shot (a 600Gr Northfork copper monometal flat point solid traveling at a velocity of 2150 FPS) did the hippopotamus in VERY VERY fast. He almost gave up immediately.

This marks my 52nd year since I began going on African Safaris in 1974. And out of all the calibers which I’ve been using for hunting hippopotamus so far (mostly .375 Holland & Holland Magnum, a couple with .458 Winchester Magnums, one with a .404 Jeffery, one with a .600 Nitro Express and this one with a .505 Gibbs)… hunting them with the .505 Gibbs has proven to be the most fun (it has always been a dream of mine to hunt hippopotamus on land in the sugarcane fields at night with a .505 Gibbs).

The recoil isn’t for everyone (and on a personal note, the barrel length should have been 24” for more manageable recoil). But if you can handle it, it’s one beast of a tool for stopping hippopotamus on land at close range.

PS: Just imagine. The Enfield action on this rifle is 109 years old !