Browsing: Rifles

Having recently completed a free-lance safari for a local hunter/landowner in the Gwaai Valley, I was spending my ‘down time’ with my good friend Stuart Campbell on his Lion Ranch. He asked me to travel to Hwange town to collect some extra groceries, in preparation for the imminent arrival of a small group of South African visitors. Late that afternoon the guests arrived and one of them, an Air Steward with South African Airways expressed his eagerness to ‘shoot something’.

I am often asked what caliber rifle to take on an African plains game hunt. My response is usually, “What do you have in your gun case now”? The reason I ask that is because almost everyone already has a .270 Winchester, .30-06 Springfield, etc.

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This story actually started way back in 1960 with an article by Dr. Wendell G. Swank from Michigan State College which was in the Sports Afield Gun Annual. He and a fellow doctor took their old pre-64 Winchester Model 70 .30-06 Springfield rifles with Sierra bullets to Uganda to harvest game for research.

The basic design for a Dangerous Game Rifle (DGR) was finalized by English gun makers such as Holland and Holland, Rigby, Jeffrey, et al. before the start of WWI. Drawing on the experiences of big game hunters in their African colonies and using the new smokeless propellant, Cordite, these custom gun smiths could now build relatively light weight rifles that surpassed the stopping power of the earlier 4 to 10 gauge black powder rifles.