thats why I dont like doubles (have one)

I have hunted with Dean twice last two years. That firearm is a .470 though he'd rather have a 500. ;) I saw the video during my last hunt with him. He said he had forgotten to switch from solids to softs and when he missed the brain by a hair it hardly had any effect as the bullet whizzed through.

He said he had time to reload only the right barrel for the last shot.
Solids are useless for buffalo.
 
Maybe not the clients fault. Some guns jam when worked hard. This is why you have to try to break a DG gun while at home so you know.
So what you are saying is that it is entirely the clients fault for not thoroughly testing his rifle before going on a DG hunt. Who else would be at fault in this case?

Fortunately it was of little consequence as the PH was able to sort it out.
 

and a guest with a fix scope-thats dung.
Mount down your scope when you search a wounded buff.
A 4-5 round 416 rigby would have been the ticket there
 
Solids are useless for buffalo.
Phillip, when I shot my Buffalo - and we couldn’t determine the results due to tall grass and the resort of the herd stampeding off, my PH immediately told me to reload with “solids” before we approached the area and looked for the buff. I assumed it was because he wanted me to take any shot — at any angle — if needed? He carried a Remington .416 bolt action and I think it was push feed.
 
I liked this post because I read many points of view. I have hunted only one buff and I had a 458wm bolt and my ph had the same bolt (cz550) but he had a 458 lott. It took 6 shots and escaped from us. The sequence was me, ph, me, ph, me, ph We were looking for him for 5 days at more than 10 km, he was bleeding, we saw the buff perfectly at 200 meters but the PH wouldn't let me shoot at that distance. They found the buff a week later by vultures, he was decomposed and eaten by foxes. I had a Leupold 1.5-6x32 scope and I fired the 3 shots, the first at 18 meters and the second at 25 and the third at 30..... we were lucky that it was moving away..... I sold the cz550 458wm and bought a 470NE

I have a VERY important question for me..... first 2 soft shots and from there the following solid ones???
 
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The reload was the issue in this charge. Moving and trying to load two rounds into the fairly narrow opening of a SxS double can be tricky regardless of experience. One advantage by the way an OU operates is that the wider opening angle makes a somewhat easier target to hit with reloads. And yes, I know that is heresy, so don't belabor it in comments until you have tried both. (Yes I own SxS's and OU doubles).

I am absolutely convinced that if we were honest with ourselves, the advantages of O/U rifles and shotguns are so overwhelming when compared to SxS guns that SxS guns would almost disappear in the field. As much as I love Gene Hill and Mark Sullivan, it's taken me a sporting lifetime to finally come to grips with that conclusion myself. Just the reduced muzzle jump of the U barrel is worth the price of admission (and I'm using both definitions of "admission").
 
I liked this post because I read many points of view. I have hunted only one buff and I had a 458wm bolt and my ph had the same bolt (cz550) but he had a 458 lott. It took 6 shots and escaped from us. The sequence was me, ph, me, ph, me, ph We were looking for him for 5 days at more than 10 km, he was bleeding, we saw the buff perfectly at 200 meters but the PH wouldn't let me shoot at that distance. They found the buff a week later by vultures, he was decomposed and eaten by foxes. I had a Leupold 1.5-6x32 scope and I fired the 3 shots, the first at 18 meters and the second at 25 and the third at 30..... we were lucky that it was moving away..... I sold the cz550 458wm and bought a 470NE

I have a VERY important question for me..... first 2 soft shots and from there the following solid ones???

Unfortunately things like that happen. The first shot placement and an enough deep penetration of the bullet is very important, everyone knows that, but what happens next after a poor shot placement, no matter what kind of bullets are used thereafter, is often very uncertain.

If a game is wounded, any shooting distance is permitted. Certainly the cartridges 458 Win Mag and 458 Lott are not very suitable for longer range shooting, but some big bore cartridges allow this without any problems. A very experienced PH and author wrote that he carried a rifle caliber 375 H&H Magnum for such situations.

By the way, I have to praise you for reporting so honestly about this hunt. Not everyone do something like that.
 
The .416 Taylor I’m taking to Zim came with dummy rounds. I am not an expert with DG rifles.

I found that I could easily shortstroke and double feed my rifle. When simulating rapid fire. 2 days ago while practicing. I was going to shoot one more round from my .505 Gibbs for S&G’s

I threw a round in and slammed it home. I did not load it in the magazine. Like I have done thousands of times with a push feed. Forgetting it’s a CRF and the bolt wouldn’t close. My default memory is obviously push feed. So I need more reps to burn it in.

I have been spending a lot of time aiming, dry firing and cycling the bolt of the .416 Taylor.

I’ve settled on which grip allows me to stay on the gun. Cycle it, get my sight picture back and aim. My hand position on the bolt has changed 3 times and now I have a hybrid of open palm on the bolt knob, and grabbing the bolt between thumb and index finger. In the beginning my hand would occasionally slip off the bolt and I would lose time. I’m getting more consistent, confident and smooth. But still not ready.
But I will be ready to do my job by May.
 
I liked this post because I read many points of view. I have hunted only one buff and I had a 458wm bolt and my ph had the same bolt (cz550) but he had a 458 lott. It took 6 shots and escaped from us. The sequence was me, ph, me, ph, me, ph We were looking for him for 5 days at more than 10 km, he was bleeding, we saw the buff perfectly at 200 meters but the PH wouldn't let me shoot at that distance. They found the buff a week later by vultures, he was decomposed and eaten by foxes. I had a Leupold 1.5-6x32 scope and I fired the 3 shots, the first at 18 meters and the second at 25 and the third at 30..... we were lucky that it was moving away..... I sold the cz550 458wm and bought a 470NE

I have a VERY important question for me..... first 2 soft shots and from there the following solid ones???
For a client with todays premium bullet, all softs. If there is any chance of elephant in the area we are hunting my Gibbs .470 N stays loaded with woodleigh solids.

Lo
 
The .416 Taylor I’m taking to Zim came with dummy rounds. I am not an expert with DG rifles.

I found that I could easily shortstroke and double feed my rifle. When simulating rapid fire. 2 days ago while practicing. I was going to shoot one more round from my .505 Gibbs for S&G’s

I threw a round in and slammed it home. I did not load it in the magazine. Like I have done thousands of times with a push feed. Forgetting it’s a CRF and the bolt wouldn’t close. My default memory is obviously push feed. So I need more reps to burn it in.

I have been spending a lot of time aiming, dry firing and cycling the bolt of the .416 Taylor.

I’ve settled on which grip allows me to stay on the gun. Cycle it, get my sight picture back and aim. My hand position on the bolt has changed 3 times and now I have a hybrid of open palm on the bolt knob, and grabbing the bolt between thumb and index finger. In the beginning my hand would occasionally slip off the bolt and I would lose time. I’m getting more consistent, confident and smooth. But still not ready.
But I will be ready to do my job by May.
It kind of goes back to that old saying, “beware of the man that only owns one rifle”. Out of curiosity why the palm and then the fingers as opposed to palm only?

Lon
 
Where'd the Tracker go? He flat disappeared...
Rubberhead, if you had no rifle, made a few dollars a day and possibly no insurance in a country with sub standard medical, where would you be? I would do my best to be 3 meters up a tree. Thorns are better than horns, rule #1 in survival.
 
For a client with todays premium bullet, all softs. If there is any chance of elephant in the area we are hunting my Gibbs .470 N stays loaded with woodleigh solids.

Lo
Thank's very much for you answer, it's very important for me
 
Lon, I can’t say with 100% confidence that I will not modify my bolt cycling even more.

When using bold actions in the past, I’ve always casually just racked them in at normal speed. never with the practice for an animal being 20 yards from me and closing.

But to your question Lon, every so often using the open palm, which I actually prefer.

when coming all the way back to the bolt stop and then transitioning to forward. Because of the scope I keep my fingers pointed straight up.
The bolt knob would occasionally slip off my palm at the bolt stop.

Without a scope the palm works much better.

The best part is I’m no longer short stroking the bolt when running it fast. I’m trying to burn it in. So at crunch time I’m ready.
 
The reload was the issue in this charge. Moving and trying to load two rounds into the fairly narrow opening of a SxS double can be tricky regardless of experience. One advantage by the way an OU operates is that the wider opening angle makes a somewhat easier target to hit with reloads. And yes, I know that is heresy, so don't belabor it in comments until you have tried both. (Yes I own SxS's and OU doubles).

If the client had been using solids there almost certainly would have been two wounded animals. The first shot was a bit high and too far back. The fact they seem to have closed with the bull rather quickly suggest a rear lung shot.

Other than fighting the bolt toward the end, once things went south the client seems to have done pretty well.

I am frankly not all that surprised that the PH's reload wasn't that clean and automatic. These men are absolute pros, but few these days have ever been part of a dangerous game culling mission that were so common back in East Africa days. They actually have relatively little experience or practice going through a fast reload. It becomes harder to really replicate this sort of event with live rounds due to the prohibitive cost of such ammunition in Southern Africa.

@Foxi is correct. One more second of fumbling and the PH would have had that thing in his lap. The cameraman does indeed deserve to be mentioned in dispatches. Rather like airplane crashes, if you walk away, it was a good landing.
People are correct…until you experience an actual charge, mine was a lion this past year dropping at 7 yards from me everything else is just what people think they would do. I can tell you this, reloading my double without having to look down and keeping an empty loop between every two shells has been what i have spent all winter doing…i feel i can now do it in my sleep. so critical in a charge situation
 
The PH did fine. The client had trouble cycling his bolt rifle. Unfortunately, fairly typical of many clients today. Practice, practice, practice.

A DR in the hands of a good pH in Africa is fine but better make those two quick shots count. Personally, I prefer a properly tuned CZ or BRNO bolt rifle with five or six shots. My AHR CZ 458 Lott holds 5 +1. I have needed all those shots twice in my career, once as a guide and once as a client. I am very fast with a bolt. Most clients, as in this video, are not.
 
Lon, I can’t say with 100% confidence that I will not modify my bolt cycling even more.

When using bold actions in the past, I’ve always casually just racked them in at normal speed. never with the practice for an animal being 20 yards from me and closing.

But to your question Lon, every so often using the open palm, which I actually prefer.

when coming all the way back to the bolt stop and then transitioning to forward. Because of the scope I keep my fingers pointed straight up.
The bolt knob would occasionally slip off my palm at the bolt stop.

Without a scope the palm works much better.

The best part is I’m no longer short stroking the bolt when running it fast. I’m trying to burn it in. So at crunch time I’m ready.
The biggest thing is to practice pulling bolt all the way back. This prevents most problems.
 
Scott, that is what I was doing. When trying to stay on the rifle and keep the rifle up on my shoulder and rack the bolt I was short stroking it.

Bringing the rifle down off my shoulder I’m able to rack it with more confidence.

but for some reason when staying on the rifle and leaving on my shoulder, it was easy for me to short stroke it, so that is why I’m practicing with it on my shoulder
 
I can tell you this, reloading my double without having to look down and keeping an empty loop between every two shells has been what i have spent all winter doing…i feel i can now do it in my sleep. so critical in a charge situation

Exactly!!!
In the military we train to do specific tasks so much that the movements and any thought process is imbedded into one's subconscious.
Then, when shtt hits the fan we can perform those essential tasks without thinking, in the dark, upside down and so on.

We should train for life threatening Africa hunting situations the same as those who carry a sidearm for protection train to draw and put rounds on target. And there are a thousand videos on YouTube pertaining to drawing a everyday carry handgun.

With a big bore rifle, a quick well aimed shot, followed by working the bolt for a fast second and third shot should be practiced weekly if not daily. Add to that fast reloading the rifle from rounds carried on the belt.

All plans are off once the first shot is fired!
 

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