Large Bore For Africa Hunt

[Christiaan]

Idi Amin claimed Leopard tasted like human.

:rotf: :rotf: And he would know. He has now been surpassed as the all time worst leader and thief in Africa. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has beaten him. :bull:

I hope you get a barrel. Keep us updated :hatsoff:

 

[rabjr]

Talk to Alan Adolphsen. He's the guy that built my Jaeger. He built a flint double for a guy to take on safari for dangerous game. Apparently the guy had a successful hunt.
Link

Argh they are not doing themselves justice by posting pictures like that. Someone has messed with the Posterize feature or the color depth in a photo shop program.

 

[kgrohs]

First question what caliber are you planning on using? I realizie that ya want to use a a flinter,and round ball, but the next statement will make may of us round baller kringe but if ya can't find or get the right gun why not :hmm: use a powerbelt bullet, the one i'm thinking about is thier dangerous game bullet somthing like a 500 grainer or better, saw the guy kill the manure out of a elephant with one shot to the brain box, and it droped in its tracks, this thing was on black powde guns and hunting, tv show, also have the same video,on dvd whe working for Bass pro shops still have the demo disk .kjg

 

[more powder]

I build a 73cal flintlock English Sporting Rifle for elk hunting because i kept seeing Grizz tracks and thought my 54 was not big enough,180 2f it kicking real hard and it will take a lot more.But at 68 i don't like getting the hell kicked out of me anymore. :grin:

 

[paulvallandigham]

I build a 73cal flintlock English Sporting Rifle for elk hunting because i kept seeing Grizz tracks and thought my 54 was not big enough,180 2f it kicking real hard and it will take a lot more.But at 68 i don't like getting the hell kicked out of me anymore. :grin:

WADR, Ron, why don't you lower that powder charge to about 70 grains of FFg and shoot round balls out of the gun. That should be a mild load. That should give about 1000 fps. velocity, and be easy on the shoulder. I don't know your barrel length, but a barrel that diameter will shoot 180 grains of powder if the barrel is about 40 inches long, efficiently, using the Charles Davenport formula. ( 11.5 grains per cubic inch of bore.) I can see NO reason to be using 180 grains of any powder in that gun, certainly not to kill any animal that walks this continent. If you do penetration testing, with your 180 grain load, and, say, 150, or 140 grains, you will find that its the mass, or weight, of the ball that determines how far it penetrates, and not the MV. If you have to worry about a Grizzly bear attacking you while Elk hunting, the shot is probably going to be at less than 50 yards. You don't need the huge powder charge to get the ball to the target at that distance, nor to penetrate the skull or thick hide to get to the lungs and heart for the kill.

I know people have read about Val Forgett's hunt taking large game with his .58 using massive loads of powder, and it seems that everyone wants to prove they have the cohones to shoot those loads.

Well, once is enough. Twice is showing off! :bow: :surrender: :thumbsup:

After that, drop that load down to something more reasonable and save the stock, and the barrel and breechplug, as well as the vent or vent liner, from the abuse they take with such powder loads.Oh, and if you save your shoulder doing this, that's okay, too. Let the young puppies shoot those massive loads and develop a class A flinch that will take years to lose.

Under Member Resources, I have an article on how to handle heavy recoiling guns. If you insist on showing off, try using the technique I describe there. It helps. Trust me on that. But, please don't ask me how I know. :surrender: :hatsoff:

 

[more powder]

Paul I did lower the charge to 130 2f or 120 3f with .71 ball and denim patch and it shoots both loads same point of impact at 100yd but that because of the low front bead site that i made for it.Kicks like my 06 now i think,its a 33 inch Longhammock barrel.I know somebody going to say 3f is not good but it does not blow the patchs and shoots real good with that load. :grin:

 

[tg]

If you have to resort to modern bullets it seems like a big part of the ML experience is gone, a single shot Ruger in .375 or and old large bore Buff gun would be as practical, it just loads from the other end.Kirkland took every thing from Elephant down with the ball as did the early hunters in Africa, it can still be done, and would be considered a true ML experience and count as big coup.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If the pitch on your stock makes you have to lay your nead down on the comb of the stock to see the front sight, you need a different front sight, or different stock. There is no way you can shoot a gun consistently well if its slapping you in the face every time you pull the trigger. Your brain will not allow it.

I had the same problem with of all things, a factory stocked, Win. Model 94 .30-30. The stock was too short, and too straight, and I would go home with a bruise on my cheek bone, and at the bridge of my nose, where my thumb knuckle would hit my eye glasses, and knock them ito my nose. There is no way a .30-30 generates enough recoil to bruise you, provided the stock is somewhere close to fitting you. I fixed the stock.

I still suggest you lower that powder charge, and go to FFg powder. The FFg is more likely to give you a good shove, rather than the sharper crack you feel shooting the FFFg. Do your penetration testing with these loads you shoot, and with the loads I suggest. Shoot back at 50 yards from the box. I think you will find that you don't need the extra powder for either accuracy or penetration. Your chances of having a shot at 100 yards at some animal that requires kind of heavy load, are slim and none. Take your pick. 70-90 grains of FFg would serve you much better.

 

[Dphar]

Paul I did lower the charge to 130 2f or 120 3f with .71 ball and denim patch and it shoots both loads same point of impact at 100yd but that because of the low front bead site that i made for it.Kicks like my 06 now i think,its a 33 inch Longhammock barrel.I know somebody going to say 3f is not good but it does not blow the patchs and shoots real good with that load. :grin:

A ball this heavy, must be about 540 grains, produces a lot of recoil at velocities that produce significant velocity. A rifle of this bore size meant to use hunting loads, 140-170 gr of FFG needs to weight at least 10 pounds and be stocked properly. You are not going to get away from recoil unless you settle for 1200 fps loads.
Rifles over about 58 caliber need to be carefully designed if usable velocity is going to be obtained. To get a flat trajectory to 120-130 yards you need 1550-1650 fps.
High trajectories produced you 1200 fps are not really useful past 50-70 yards.
I have yet to try FFFG in my 16 bore and may not, FFG Swiss gives good velocity, I am still working on patch thickness and ball size after a rebarrel right now.
A rifle of this bore size need to weigh at least 10 pounds to be fun too shoot. Then it will require some getting used to. I built a English Sporter too circa 1815 and settled on 16 bore (.66). Its still plenty for bear. We had "problem" Gbear in the drainage I hunt last fall, found it out AFTER the season was over.
If the 72 is too much see if you can get a 66 barrel to replace it with. Ball still weighs about and ounce. Forsythe thought it was minimum for dangerous game.

Dan

 

[Dphar]

If the pitch on your stock makes you have to lay your nead down on the comb of the stock to see the front sight, you need a different front sight, or different stock. There is no way you can shoot a gun consistently well if its slapping you in the face every time you pull the trigger. Your brain will not allow it.

I had the same problem with of all things, a factory stocked, Win. Model 94 .30-30. The stock was too short, and too straight, and I would go home with a bruise on my cheek bone, and at the bridge of my nose, where my thumb knuckle would hit my eye glasses, and knock them ito my nose. There is no way a .30-30 generates enough recoil to bruise you, provided the stock is somewhere close to fitting you. I fixed the stock.

I still suggest you lower that powder charge, and go to FFg powder. The FFg is more likely to give you a good shove, rather than the sharper crack you feel shooting the FFFg. Do your penetration testing with these loads you shoot, and with the loads I suggest. Shoot back at 50 yards from the box. I think you will find that you don't need the extra powder for either accuracy or penetration. Your chances of having a shot at 100 yards at some animal that requires kind of heavy load, are slim and none. Take your pick. 70-90 grains of FFg would serve you much better.

Pitch is the angle of the buttplate to the bore.
0 pitch means if you set the gun buttplate down on a level surface the barrel points 90 degrees to that surface. It is not really important if the rifle has a crescent buttplate.
The drop at the heel, shape of the buttstock the angle of the comb to the bore and the shaping of the cheekpiece effect getting on the sights. Pitch is used to control movement of the buttstock under recoil in repeaters or doubles when shots are fired rapidly. Too much pitch either plus or minus can result in unpleasant recoil characteristics if used in a gun making much recoil energy.

Dan

 

[Twisted_1in66]

Talk to Alan Adolphsen. He's the guy that built my Jaeger. He built a flint double for a guy to take on safari for dangerous game. Apparently the guy had a successful hunt.
Link

Argh they are not doing themselves justice by posting pictures like that. Someone has messed with the Posterize feature or the color depth in a photo shop program.

Nope, they're using gifs instead of jpegs. That's why they look so bad. gifs are good for flat colors but never do photo's justice because the maximum number of colors they can represent are 256. Jpegs can use millions of colors and show color "tonality" much better. gifs tend to turn shades of colors into bands of colors, jpegs don't.

Great work, poor pictures. I'd be happy to fix that for them for the price of one of their rifles :wink:

Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup:

 

[rabjr]

Ahh I didn't think to check the pic's properties but I see that now.

 

[more powder]

Dan I don't remember what the pitch was but it was big thing with me,i remember i had protractor and did a lot of mesureing of the wall.The rifle does not slap my face,going to work on 2f load when it drys up takes about 10 bucks to wash mud of truck now.

 

[faw3]

Everyone has given you good leads tg's idea and the man from S.A. are good, if you'll look back under wedding present or big bore for Africa about a year ago you'll see a really nice 10,000 buck 8 or 4 bore this guys soon to be wife gave him it's in perc section about a year old just ck my post about that far back or a bit farther. Dont know if a flint will have the omphh you need I've had good killing with the 20g Lyman slug out of my 62 on 400 lb hogs, but in your case(or mine) I'd want a good gunner behind me :surrender: Fred :hatsoff:

 

[Zoar]

I think the large bore flintlock idea for Africa is top notch.

I'd have one built for me in a heartbeat if I had the funds.

I think I recall, vaguely, might have been a dream, but weren't flintlocks at one time the ONLY guns in Africa and many thousands of big game animals were taken with these Flintlocks?

...I'm kidding of course... But I guess I just don't understand how a big bore flintlock might get relegated to low status or unacceptable status as a big game tool.

 

[windwalker_au]

y,

Thinking of going to Africa and hunting leopard and Cape Buffalo. I want to do it with a roundball flint rifle. My question is I have a good rifle for the Leopard, but not sure what caliber would be good to go after Cape Buffalo. Second I'm thinking if I go after Cape Buffalo it's going to have to be a HUGE caliber where can one buy a LARGE CALIBER BARREL bigger than .62 to make my flinter? Any advice would be great.


Chris

heres jim gefroh address.
bernie :thumbsup:

JAMES A GEFROH

Address: 2954 SILVERPLUME DR FORT COLLINS, CO 80526 USA
Voice: 1-970-377-9564 Fax:
Email: [email protected]
Keywords: MAKER OF LONGRIFLES, MUZZLELOADING, BLACK POWDER,

 

[windwalker_au]

Good advice on studying Baker. Interesting read. He once killed a wounded buff with a load of sixpence (!)

Actually it was a Water Buffalo in "Ceylon" and the load of currency, wrapped in his shirt tail, on its forehead only allowed him to escape. The details are in "With Rifle and Hound in Ceylon" and its one of the highlights of the book.
His experiences trying to kill these animals with what was likely a 16 bore+- (could be determined by some coin collector knowing the coins he used I suppose) fouling piece contrast widely with the effect of the "2 ounce" (8 bore) rifle on water buffalo an animal while not as vindictive as the Cape buffalo is still a large bovine that can turn a human to hash if "irritated".

Dan

dan i took a aisan water buffalo in the north of australia 27 years ago with a navy arms .58 buffalo hunter carbine and a 625 grn mini one shot kill through the brain the load was given to me by val forgett himself it was a very very stout load of fff powderthat load got me 4011 foot pounds of muzzle energy hers a pic of the horns and the buffalo hunter carbine is the bottom gun.the aisan bufflo is bigger than the cape buff as well that was told to me by a pal who was born and bred in kenya.
bernie :thumbsup:

 

[bingo1952]

Very Nice! I remember when Val Forgett published the articles in G&A magazine about his trip to Africa. If memory serves me he also took a Hippopotamus with the lower gun you have hanging on the wall in your pic.

 

[faw3]

ZOAR ck out Windwalkers pics and what he has to say, Im not against your going after this thing with a flintlock just remember BACK WHEN.. they had back up gunners too! And broke arms was a rule not maybe. My last hunt was going to be for a really big bear to get some claws for a friend useing a flint Hawken in Alk. But my heath laid me in bed for good , I was to slow. (what Im trying to say is carry a back up gun I have a underhammer with 2 62/20 16" barrels I could swap in under 12 seconds if I didnt hit old bear just right or he didnt want to play dead and I didn't feel like it that day too! :rotf: ) DO IT HAVE A FUN, SAFE, GREAT HUNT and dont break nothing.

 

[Dphar]

Good advice on studying Baker. Interesting read. He once killed a wounded buff with a load of sixpence (!)

Actually it was a Water Buffalo in "Ceylon" and the load of currency, wrapped in his shirt tail, on its forehead only allowed him to escape. The details are in "With Rifle and Hound in Ceylon" and its one of the highlights of the book.
His experiences trying to kill these animals with what was likely a 16 bore+- (could be determined by some coin collector knowing the coins he used I suppose) fouling piece contrast widely with the effect of the "2 ounce" (8 bore) rifle on water buffalo an animal while not as vindictive as the Cape buffalo is still a large bovine that can turn a human to hash if "irritated".

Dan

dan i took a aisan water buffalo in the north of australia 27 years ago with a navy arms .58 buffalo hunter carbine and a 625 grn mini one shot kill through the brain the load was given to me by val forgett himself it was a very very stout load of fff powderthat load got me 4011 foot pounds of muzzle energy hers a pic of the horns and the buffalo hunter carbine is the bottom gun.the aisan bufflo is bigger than the cape buff as well that was told to me by a pal who was born and bred in kenya.
bernie :thumbsup:

Most brain shots are one shot kills. They also give little indication of bullet performance unless shooting Elephant.
I suspect that a Water Buffalo could be killed with a head shot using 10mm auto handgun (I have it on excellent authority it actually works good on head shots on American Bison) or a 44 mag with a hard cast bullet.

Val Forgett was trying to sell rifles. The fact that they were far too light for heavy charges, had poorly designed stocks, kicked like hell with heavy loads and shot bullets most people consider too soft for heavy game was not important, getting out the advertising and selling people the idea was. I read all this stuff at the time and thought it was silly then.
All modern hype to the contrary the Minie ball (expansive bullet) was known to the people who hunted heavy game with MLs in Africa and Asia from its invention but they didn't use it to any extent that I know of. The writings of the time that exist seem to indicate that their use on game was a bad idea.
Unlike Val Forgett with his cut down imported musket or Turner Kirkland shooting elephant with pure lead balls, they had no backup and if the animal decided to get nasty, no experienced hunter to step up with a 458 or 470 to save their lives. This makes a VAST difference.
I watched a TV show the other night where a guy killed an African Elephant with a cross bow. Something I doubt he would try without the rifle armed PH there.

Dan