I am assuming that 'hornofthehunter' is someone's screen name and not Ruark himself.
I'd say portions of above statement are accurate. A double offers two independent lockworks, where a bolt action doesn't...is completely true. Most of the rest of it is his opinion of how best put each to use. Does that mean that every PH who's stopped a charge with a bolt action rifle did it wrong? No, it simply means that it's what they had (or could afford to have) at the time.
I'd also note that W. D. M. (Karamojo) Bell preferred bolt action rifles (famously, many were smaller caliber) but he also used a 450/400 Jeffery double in the Belgian Congo which isn't far from modern day Cameroon. His reasoning for using a bolt rifle over the double was the cost of ammunition, not maintenance on the Jeffery. And I would certainly consider a W. J. Jeffery rifle a 'fine' double.
I'm more inclined to treat this is click-bait for the author to try to reopen the bolt action vs double debate. I think the author should be more concerned with how he's treating his rifles (regardless of action) on safari rather than worry about which one to use.
I am assuming that 'hornofthehunter' is someone's screen name and not Ruark himself.
I'd say portions of above statement are accurate. A double offers two independent lockworks, where a bolt action doesn't...is completely true. Most of the rest of it is his opinion of how best put each to use. Does that mean that every PH who's stopped a charge with a bolt action rifle did it wrong? No, it simply means that it's what they had (or could afford to have) at the time.
I'd also note that W. D. M. (Karamojo) Bell preferred bolt action rifles (famously, many were smaller caliber) but he also used a 450/400 Jeffery double in the Belgian Congo which isn't far from modern day Cameroon. His reasoning for using a bolt rifle over the double was the cost of ammunition, not maintenance on the Jeffery. And I would certainly consider a W. J. Jeffery rifle a 'fine' double.
I'm more inclined to treat this is click-bait for the author to try to reopen the bolt action vs double debate. I think the author should be more concerned with how he's treating his rifles (regardless of action) on safari rather than worry about which one to use.
And below is that article from author Michael Fell,
The Division of Labour:
The photograph was taken in Tanzania. I am holding the .416 Rigby — my trusted Rigby Big Game single square bridge vintage bolt-action, the rifle I have carried in Tanzania, C.A.R and Cameroon for many seasons. It is not my defensive rifle. That distinction matters, and it is the subject of this piece.
THE OFFENSIVE TOOL
The .416 Rigby was designed in 1911 for exactly this work — heavy, dangerous game at distances beyond arm's reach, in country where a clear shot is earned rather than given. The Rigby Big Game single square bridge action is controlled-round-feed, Mauser-derived, as reliable as anything I have put in the hands of a client or carried myself. The magazine holds four rounds. You can work it fast and accurately. The trigger on a properly fitted Rigby breaks cleanly, and the rifle, despite the caliber, balances and points naturally.
Mine carries express iron sights — a wide V rear and a bold front bead. That is how I prefer it. At the ranges where dangerous game hunting happens, iron sights are sufficient, and in the final seconds of a stalk there is no time to do anything but find the bead and shoot.
These things matter on elephant. Elephant hunting is not about the shot that ends the hunt. It is about the sequence of decisions leading to that shot — position, angle, distance, what is behind the animal, where the backup stands, what happens if the first shot is not ideal. The bolt action participates in that sequence as an active tool. You place the shot. If another is needed, you run the bolt. The rifle stays on the shoulder. The bead does not leave the target.
The bolt action is the rifle you choose the engagement with. The double is the rifle you finish it with.
The .416 Rigby pushing a 400-grain solid at around 2,370 feet per second generates approximately 4,990 foot-pounds of muzzle energy. That is the headline figure. The more relevant importance is the one that determines whether an elephant stops or does not .
WHY THE .416 RIGBY PENETRATES
Penetration on elephant is a function of several variables: bullet construction, sectional density, velocity, and what happens to the bullet's structure under pressure. A 400-grain .416 solid carries a sectional density of 0.330. That is a high figure. It means a long, heavy column of metal relative to its diameter — the geometry favors in-line travel rather than yaw or deflection.
The .416 bore diameter means the bullet is large enough to resist deflection from bone but small enough that it does not shed velocity rapidly in tissue. The 400-grain solid at Rigby's original spec velocity arrives at depth still carrying most of its velocity. It does not need to expand. It does not need to fragment. It needs to go straight, and it does.
Elephant bone is dense and the skull is a compound structure — exterior plate, hollow chambers, and supporting struts before you reach the brain. A bullet that yaws or slows precipitously in the outer layers does not reach the brain or heart. The .416 solid does not yaw. It does not slow precipitously. It punches through the full column and keeps going. Follow-up shots through the same entry channel land where the first one did.
I also own a Rigby Big Game single square bridge in .450 Rigby. The caliber is outstanding on elephant — a heavier bullet, marginally more frontal energy, and a penetration profile that leaves nothing to chance. I shoot the .416 better. That is not a negligible consideration when the animal is moving and the window is seconds wide. The rifle I shoot better is the rifle that will do the work when it must be done without hesitation. The .450 will stay in the cabinet on those days.
THE DEFENSIVE TOOL
There is a different conversation when an elephant or a buffalo is on top of you and the distance is measured in steps rather than yards.
At that range, the bolt action has a fundamental limitation. To fire a second shot from a bolt gun, you must break your grip on the forend, cycle the bolt, and return. That takes time. In a genuine charge — a closed-in, committed, fast charge from an animal that has already covered thirty yards — time does not exist in useful quantities. You have the first shot, and you have what you can do in the half-second after it.
The double rifle addresses that problem structurally. Two triggers, two firing pins, two independent lockworks. If the first barrel fires and the animal is still coming, the second barrel fires from the same position, the same aim, without any mechanical interruption. There is nothing to cycle, nothing to work, nothing to fail in a way that the other barrel is affected by. The double rifle was engineered for this moment and no other.
When the gap closes to fifteen yards and the animal's head is dropping, the question is no longer about caliber. It is about the second shot.
The calibers available in classic double rifles — .450 Nitro Express, .500 Nitro Express, .577 Nitro Express, .600 Nitro Express — are not chosen for range accuracy or magazine capacity. They are chosen because at close quarters, with an animal already hit and still moving, you need a bullet heavy and fast enough to stop forward momentum in the body mass. The .500 NE pushes a 570-grain bullet at 2,150 feet per second. At ten yards, that is a different instrument than the .416 bolt.
One of my favourite double rifle calibers I have seen used on elephant is the .500/416 Nitro Express. It is an underappreciated cartridge. The bore diameter and bullet weight give it penetration characteristics that rival anything in the Nitro Express stable — the same geometry that makes the .416 bore so effective in the bolt gun translates cleanly into the double platform. I have watched it work, and it works extremely well.
The double also has one additional quality that is difficult to quantify but real: it is short. A double rifle is a compact package. In thick brush, in a narrow opening, it comes up faster and swings through vegetation with less resistance than a long-barreled bolt action. At close quarters, compact matters.
As I write this from the Cameroon rainforest, I wish I had my double here — but the humidity destroys the mechanisms of a fine double rifle, and until a manufacturer has the sense to build one in stainless steel, I am forced to use an offensive bolt action in the forest, and hope the moment that calls for it never comes.
BOTH HAVE A PLACE
The professional hunter who carries only a bolt action is working with a fine offensive tool and a compromised defensive one. The professional hunter who carries only a double rifle is working with an excellent close-quarters instrument and a limited offensive one — two shots, no easy reload, a trigger pull that requires practice to use accurately at range.
The battery that works, in my experience, is both. The bolt action may go to work during the approach, during the stalk, during the period when conditions are somewhat controlled and you are choosing the shot. The double rifle lives in the hands of the backup, or in your own hands when the approach is over and the distance has closed.
The Rigby .416 in the photograph represents the first half of that equation. The animal is down. The rifle that put it there did the work it was built to do — precisely, reliably, with enough in reserve for a follow-up if the brain or heart was missed on the first attempt.
The double rifle was behind me when that photograph was taken. It was there for the moment that did not come. That is its job, and a good professional hopes it stays unemployed.
Doesn’t seem like clickbait to me. It’s a logical and well delivered take on the age old double vs bolt discussion. Based on one snapshot of his writing and what appears to be a pretty solid background of experience I’d say he’s a man worthy of consideration of his opinion. Besides, if true, he has some well known followers that give him some serious legitimacy.
Doesn’t seem like clickbait to me. It’s a logical and well delivered take on the age old double vs bolt discussion. Based on one snapshot of his writing and what appears to be a pretty solid background of experience I’d say he’s a man worthy of consideration of his opinion. Besides, if true, he has some well known followers that give him some serious legitimacy.
Each have their place, but saying he couldn't use his double because of the humidity only makes sense because he's living in Cameroon as a PH, not a client hunter. It's a different lens to be looking through.
FYI - Michale Fell was gored by a Cape buffalo not long ago, so this would certainly have an effect on his opinion and how he approaches game. He is also an AH member going by @577greener. AH - PH Michal Fell Gored
Is not using a double rifle common in high humidity areas for this reason?
I remember the older Heym promo with ivan carter while he was still a Ph.
"That's why I use a double"
It's always subjection. No doubt, a PH would perfer a client to use a good bolt with scope and have a well put first shot. And being backed up by him with a double is how I'd prefer too
The author has more bona-fides than most of us combined. Sure it is his very educated opinion and I am sure if he didn't have a double at a charge he is rationally going to use what he has in-hand. BUT the opinion of when to use what weapon in which circumstance is like debating which gold club to use on a particular shot. Two rational men could disagree on this topic.
You might have edited your post on the PH in the Bubye. I know the PH and is a wonderful person and a fmaily man and runs a succesful business in Zim and just doesn't want the attention that the internet offers, the ugly kind.
Am I reading your post correctly to say that the Tsavo rifle will be coming out with a composite stock later this year? I ask because I had been looking very hard for a Tsavo, but if there is going to be a composite stock model I will wait for that.
Saw your post. Nice. Denver too. Genesee area (just off 70) if ever up this way. Alternatively, do you have a membership at GGC? Whatever, you'll have a wonderful time in Africa. Enjoy.
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