Hunter-Habib
AH legend
Even though countless head of dangerous game have been successfully accounted for by employing single shot firearms, I myself am not a fan of single shot firearms for dangerous game hunting. It’s just a personal thing.
Anybody who’s read my autobiography will recall how I faced cartridge extraction problems in my single barreled Pakistani Sikender shotgun after I shot my first two man eating Royal Bengal tigers in 1981 & 1988. Fortunately, in both cases… the first shot proved to eventually be fatal. Now, granted… there’s a huge world of difference between a cheap Pakistani shotgun and say, a John Rigby & Co. falling block rifle. But still, those two incidents left a very sour taste in my mouth for hunting dangerous game with single shot firearms.
Just imagine how I felt, sitting in a rickety wooden enclosure on the ground in the dead of night… desperately struggling to pry out the empty Eley Alphamax LG shell from the breech of the shotgun with my Buck Model 110 folding knife, while my torch bearer & I could constantly keep hearing the pain maddened sounds of a wounded man eating Royal Bengal tiger encircling us in the dark, looking for a way to break into the enclosure & retaliate against us. It’s not an experience I would wish upon my worst enemy.
Even higher quality single shot firearms sometimes might experience extraction issues after extensive use. This is a dear young friend’s BSA Model XII. A fantastically accurate and tightly choked robust weapon built in 1953. But it has recently developed extraction issues. Observe how the extractor has overridden the cartridge rim. This happened while the poor young man was hunting wild boar. It was struggling to get up after he shot it once behind the shoulder, while he was struggling to reload. Fortunately, his tribal guide finished off the huge tusked brute with a spear. Otherwise, it might have charged him.
Anybody who’s read my autobiography will recall how I faced cartridge extraction problems in my single barreled Pakistani Sikender shotgun after I shot my first two man eating Royal Bengal tigers in 1981 & 1988. Fortunately, in both cases… the first shot proved to eventually be fatal. Now, granted… there’s a huge world of difference between a cheap Pakistani shotgun and say, a John Rigby & Co. falling block rifle. But still, those two incidents left a very sour taste in my mouth for hunting dangerous game with single shot firearms.
Just imagine how I felt, sitting in a rickety wooden enclosure on the ground in the dead of night… desperately struggling to pry out the empty Eley Alphamax LG shell from the breech of the shotgun with my Buck Model 110 folding knife, while my torch bearer & I could constantly keep hearing the pain maddened sounds of a wounded man eating Royal Bengal tiger encircling us in the dark, looking for a way to break into the enclosure & retaliate against us. It’s not an experience I would wish upon my worst enemy.
Even higher quality single shot firearms sometimes might experience extraction issues after extensive use. This is a dear young friend’s BSA Model XII. A fantastically accurate and tightly choked robust weapon built in 1953. But it has recently developed extraction issues. Observe how the extractor has overridden the cartridge rim. This happened while the poor young man was hunting wild boar. It was struggling to get up after he shot it once behind the shoulder, while he was struggling to reload. Fortunately, his tribal guide finished off the huge tusked brute with a spear. Otherwise, it might have charged him.
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