Rifle/cartridge for Cape Buffalo

Suther said:
Depending what your budget is, Prophet River has a used CZ 550 in 416 Rigby for ~$4k and a new 416 Ruger for ~$2k.

https://store.prophetriver.com/used...4x-plex-reticle-comes-in-flambeauu-hard-case/

From the post on their site:

* 20 Rounds Fired

* 11 Cape Buffalo taken

* Comes with Flambeau Hard Plastic Case
Click to expand...
Man, I remember those rifles being about $1200 new. They were definitely a great rifle for the money. A 416 Rigby in a 550 would be very difficult to beat as a general purpose African rifle. Slightly worse manners than the 375, but not unmanageable.
 
I'm absolutely not an expert on hunting, Buffalo or anything else in Africa, but in my experience since 1992 or so hunting every year, there's a big difference between shooting a big game animal that knows you are there and one that doesn't. You can use a lot less rifle if it doesn't know that you are there.
 
The factory .416 Rigby is an old proven African cartridge... the factory .416 Remington dupicates the performance. That's what I would recommend.
 
I know it probably wouldn’t be allowed but I can’t see a buffalo living through being shot with a 300wm with 180 A frame bullets at 3150 fps.
 
Lots of buffalo culling is done with .30-06's and 180's... we like to over think it. Anything legal in the jurisdiction you are hunting, with a proper bullet will do the trick nicely. The various .375 cartridges are very capable.
 
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hoytcanon said:
Lots of buffalo culling is done with .30-06's and 180's... we like to over think it. Anything legal in the jurisdiction you are hunting, with a proper bullet will do the trick nicely. The various .375 cartridges are very capable.
Click to expand...
my father's biggest cartridge in east Africa ( Mozambique) was a .375H&H and he rarely used it, on the other hand his Brno in 30.06 was is favorite and he carried it daily, and he used that rifle to hunt anything from an ant to the elephant.
You are correct on your assessment of the 30.06 being enough gun for Africa.
Hell more elephants have being harvested (poached) by a 7.62×39 kalachnikov than any other chambering.
 
Nice tough animal!! Damn 5 900gn bullets!! Mind you at least one was in the guts or close too… but still!
 
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The unprofessional look at that video says that he kind of just shot it randomly a half dozen times. If they're so dangerous and you had a rifle that big, wouldn't you do a shoulder or a spine shot to make it fall down and then go kill it if it didn't die already, he just shot it in the body a bunch of times. My unprofessional look says that this dude is extremely lucky over a long period of time.
 
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