Most Common PH Rifle

hansol

hansol

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For the guys who have "been there, got the T-shirt", what did the PHs on your Africa hunts carry for rifles? You can certainly read lots on the romanticism of the double-rifle in Africa, but when these things are selling for tens of thousands of dollars, are they commonly found on safaris?

Definitely curious to hear what you guys have to say -Cameron
 
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I have yet to meet a PH that owned, or has ever owned a double rifle, but I haven't met them all. For backup rifles fully half had CZ or Brno rifles, with a few pre-64 M70s, one M70 Classic, a couple Rugers, a couple vintage Mausers, and one lonely Weatherby. Perhaps surprising to some, but at least half were .375s, with .458 Lotts coming in second place. The .416 Rigby is in the running as well. The availability of free ammo from departing clients had as much as anything to do with caliber choice as anything. Many of the rifles were gifts from relatives or clients, and many looked like someone had used them for a canoe paddle. All believed in premium bullets for clients.
Most PHs don't make a lot of money by our standards, and guns and ammo are more expensive there. Most would rather trade their truck off than buy a double.
 
BigUglyMan said:
Neither of my PHs carried any rifle. But that was because we were after PG.

They did have a new Ruger in 458 Lott for Buffalo thought.
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Same for us, he wasn't carrying a rifle at all. When he does DG hunts he uses a Sako in 458 win mag. I tried to talk him into showing me how he practises with it, but shells cost him over 2.00 each. He does the bucket on a rope attached to the truck at 75 yards and says he usually hits it three
times before it's past him.

To him it's not fun, it's work. I think he thought it was a kind of stupid request, recoil and all.
 
Mark Sullivan carried a double Charles Osborne .577 NE, but he was rich before he became a PH, and could carry anything that he liked. He is better known for his Marcel Thyes .600 NE, but the rifle developed a problem with doubling and had been sent overseas for repair the previous year.

My opinion of doubles is that they were a good idea in their day because they were short and handy, and had built in redundancy, in that there were two separate barrels and lock work, essentially two rifles on a single stock. This redundancy would have been a wonderful feature when you were thousands of miles from a competent gunsmith. A powerful bolt gun is a fraction of the price of a double. Should the bolt gun break, many repairs can be made by the man who carries it, something not true of the double. As for the fabled speed of the double's second shot, I would bet that a good man on a bolt gun could fire a second aimed shot as quickly as the man with the powerful double. What takes time is recovering from recoil and reacquiring your sight picture.
 
Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the replies so far. I was always curious about the PH rifles, as when you read Hemingway and Haggard and even lots of the gun rags, you always seem to hear about the double rifle. Even Boddington goes on about it at length at times. But something just didn't add up about bajillion-dollar rifles in the hands of semi-poor South Africians, Ex-Rhodesians, etc. It's nice to hear the realities of these things.
 
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Like BigUglyMan, my hunt was for plains game, and as such the PH didn't carry a rifle. The only exception was when we hunted eland. While he never had occassion to fire a shot, on that particular day he carried a .300 H&H. To say the least, that rifle had been around... While not very pretty to look at, it was clearly a much-loved and trusted companion.
 
Neo said:
Like BigUglyMan, my hunt was for plains game, and as such the PH didn't carry a rifle. The only exception was when we hunted eland. While he never had occassion to fire a shot, on that particular day he carried a .300 H&H. To say the least, that rifle had been around... While not very pretty to look at, it was clearly a much-loved and trusted companion.
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I wish mine had been carrying his big gun when I was hunting eland:(
 
martinbns said:
I wish mine had been carrying his big gun when I was hunting eland:(
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The funny thing was that when that particular day came, the PH asked if I would be offended if he carried a rifle. I just laughed and told him that if he thought it was even remotely appropriate, that I'd be a fool to object...

Funny thing, though, is that he never fired a shot, even though that eland soaked up 5 rounds from my '06 over the course of 15-20 minutes. When asked why after the fact, he simply said "I thought you were doing just fine -- that damn eland just didn't know how to die properly". :eek:
 
Generally all brno/cz in .375, or calibers like 30-06. The odd Sako in 30-06 , 8x57.

The most interesting was the fellow with his beat up mauser obendorf (sp) 6.5 mm - while his 14 year old son carried a brno in .458 Lott when he came along. Maybe that says something about experience vs youth.

The other interesting was the busted up, epoxied on sights, you can see the trigger works through the stock, Remington .416 Rem Mag. To see a Remington was an anomoly. Worked like a charm tho and has killed more game then most of us can dream about. Also put to rest my concerns of crf and high pressure in a hot climate of the compact rounds.

Generally they use what they grew up with and usually that does not include Remington or Winchester or Ruger.
 
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