Longwalker
AH elite
I can relate to being a romantic about all things hunting. And I want to experience it all! I'm blessed that I live in a country with wilderness and game animals in great plenty, and have taken full advantage of the opportunities. Our Canadian hunting traditions are part of me, like family traditions. There's not a lot more for me to learn about local hunting, I just appreciate what I do every year and try to pass it on. But I also have always read about hunting in exotic locations for game we don't have here, and hunting with guns we don't need here.
So I made a decision to buy a .375 bolt rifle like everyone recommends to the beginner for dangerous African game. And used it first for our local moose, and elk, and bear. It was quite practical, useful, but not really an exotic rifle. Just a little bigger than the other rifles I was used to hunting with. I hadn't really experienced anything new.
So when the time came to book a cape buffalo hunt in Namibia, I was determined to carry a traditional double rifle. It cost more, it took some effort to learn to shoot it well, it make my hunting buddies look at me with a combination of concern and perhaps envy. It's been fun. I've used my Merkel 450-400 3" to take only one buffalo ( and one elk) so far, but I plan to use it more. I like how it links me with the past, with traditions that are not yet my own, and I like that it is an object of functional art.
It costs more to build a good double rifle, and I gladly pay that higher price because it's worth more to me.
As an aside, I also have a fine Beretta O/U 9.3x74R that I purchased for much the same reason. Only this time to experience European hunting traditions. I plan to take that rifle for driven wild boar in Turkey next year. It is a very beautiful rifle, in the German / Italian tradition, equally exotic to me and most useful for a type of hunting I don't do at home. I did use it to hunt a couple of bears, just to prove its effectiveness. But I can't wait to roll a few fast stepping wild boars with it.
So I made a decision to buy a .375 bolt rifle like everyone recommends to the beginner for dangerous African game. And used it first for our local moose, and elk, and bear. It was quite practical, useful, but not really an exotic rifle. Just a little bigger than the other rifles I was used to hunting with. I hadn't really experienced anything new.
So when the time came to book a cape buffalo hunt in Namibia, I was determined to carry a traditional double rifle. It cost more, it took some effort to learn to shoot it well, it make my hunting buddies look at me with a combination of concern and perhaps envy. It's been fun. I've used my Merkel 450-400 3" to take only one buffalo ( and one elk) so far, but I plan to use it more. I like how it links me with the past, with traditions that are not yet my own, and I like that it is an object of functional art.
It costs more to build a good double rifle, and I gladly pay that higher price because it's worth more to me.
As an aside, I also have a fine Beretta O/U 9.3x74R that I purchased for much the same reason. Only this time to experience European hunting traditions. I plan to take that rifle for driven wild boar in Turkey next year. It is a very beautiful rifle, in the German / Italian tradition, equally exotic to me and most useful for a type of hunting I don't do at home. I did use it to hunt a couple of bears, just to prove its effectiveness. But I can't wait to roll a few fast stepping wild boars with it.
