North America's Do-It-All Workhorse - An Ode To The 12 Gauge!

[Miranda Candice]

Odd that someone who thinks all African countries suck joins a forum on African hunting….

Where in Newfoundland or Labrador are you from?

Yup Gotcha
@Miranda Candice you don’t like African Countries? Tell us more about how you formed that opinion….

Northeast Coast of NL.

All African countries DO suck lol!
Especially when you look at the living conditions, human development index and socio-political upheaval that Continent experiences.

Sudan is in constant conflict.
All of North Africa is in the midst of numerous Islamist insurgencies.
Zimbabwe has been a shithole ever since it became Zimbabwe and not Rhodesia.
South Africa is on the verge of being a failed state.
Uganda is a backwater, authoritarian Christian theocracy.
And the Congo Crisis from the 1960s never really ended with constant ethnic feuds still occurring.

I've sailed through the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aden and experienced Somali and Nigerian pirates first hand.

Also spent quite a bit of time in the sea ports of Libya, Nigeria, Namibia, Mozambique and Cape Town. Africa has the WORST coastline for maritime trade of all the World's continents.

Sure, Africa is home to some cool hunting, North America and India are still superior imo.
But outside of that, the whole place is a dump.


My trade as a professional mariner has taken me all over North America, Europe, Japan and India. Africa was BY FAR the worst of all of them.

It was the only place where I carried an AK-47 over my shoulder while working cargo and the only place where we didn't go ashore for some night time fun. The place where barbed wire was strung along the gunwales and gangway.

Some of the best years of my life as a young Watchkeeping Mate were spent in the coastal port cities of Texas and Louisiana while I worked on offshore supply vessels in the Gulf of Mexico.
I'll go back there or to Scotland, Japan and India anytime!
But I couldn't care less if my eyes ever see the Dark Continent again.

 

[Mekaniks]

Northeast Coast of NL.

All African countries DO suck lol!
Especially when you look at the living conditions, human development index and socio-political upheaval that Continent experiences.

Sudan is in constant conflict.
All of North Africa is in the midst of numerous Islamist insurgencies.
Zimbabwe has been a shithole ever since it became Zimbabwe and not Rhodesia.
South Africa is on the verge of being a failed state.
Uganda is a backwater, authoritarian Christian theocracy.
And the Congo Crisis from the 1960s never really ended with constant ethnic feuds still occurring.

I've sailed through the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aden and experienced Somali and Nigerian pirates first hand.

Also spent quite a bit of time in the sea ports of Libya, Nigeria, Namibia, Mozambique and Cape Town. Africa has the WORST coastline for maritime trade of all the World's continents.

Sure, Africa is home to some cool hunting, North America and India are still superior imo.
But outside of that, the whole place is a dump.


My trade as a professional mariner has taken me all over North America, Europe, Japan and India. Africa was BY FAR the worst of all of them.

It was the only place where I carried an AK-47 over my shoulder while working cargo and the only place where we didn't go ashore for some night time fun. The place where barbed wire was strung along the gunwales and gangway.

Some of the best years of my life as a young Watchkeeping Mate were spent in the coastal port cities of Texas and Louisiana while I worked on offshore supply vessels in the Gulf of Mexico.
I'll go back there or to Scotland, Japan and India anytime!
But I couldn't care less if my eyes ever see the Dark Continent again.

Fair enough. We are all a sum of our experiences.
Welcome again to AH and I hope that someday you decide to go enjoy some of the good things that Africa has to offer.
Cheers

 

[clintonius]

Oh please, this person is so obviously a troll. Someone joins a forum entirely devoted to hunting in Africa, using the photo of an attractive young lady as a profile picture, and demeans the entire continent based on supposed experiences at a handful of port cities. They then claim to earnestly believe that .303 British ball ammo (appreciably smaller than the .30-06, which is itself appreciably smaller than the minimum legal cartridge for lions in most countries, and for which I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be using military FMJ rounds) would "literally cause lions to do back flips if they were hit at full charge." Then they call the hyena a "spotted wannabe grey wolf."

This is not someone here in good faith.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

You're kindly welcome 318AE!

I'm not intimately familiar with African game, but I would put Cape Buffalo in the same class as a rhino, hippo and elephant.
That might just be a reason for me to buy that .404 Jeffrey that I've always wanted lol.

The fact that lions and leopards are considered part of the Big Five is silly.

A lion maxes out at 400lbs and a leopard and hyena are even smaller. The average interior Alaskan grizzly is much larger than a lion and our North American black bears are twice the size of leopards and hyenas.

According to the literature I've read from the early 1900s, British soldiers and rail rode workers had nothing but praise for the fast-handling Lee Enfield .303 rifles when it came to dealing with lions and leopards around their campsites.
The .303 174gr Mk VII Ball ammo would literally cause lions to do back flips if they were hit at full charge.
Naturally, larger rifles chambered in things like the .375 H&H, 9.3x62 and the massive Nitro Express doubles were kept for the larger stuff like Cape Buffalo, Rhino, etc.

I'd have no qualms about toting any 12 gauge with slugs or a light rifle in .308, .30-30, .30-06, 7x57, .270 Winchester, etc. around the African bush if I planned on dealing with cats or a spotted wannabe grey wolf at danger close ranges.

Miranda

GRAPHIC CONTENT BELOW


Miss,

You seem young & enthusiastic about your budding hunting adventures. And that’s a very good thing, which I strongly encourage. But it’s very important to never let a certain amount of experience create a pre-conceived notion in your mind that you have the A-Z of hunting dangerous game figured out (especially when you yourself have admitted to having never hunted African game at all) . Doing so prevents you from keeping your mind open to taking in more knowledge… which is a recipe for disaster. I myself turn 72 next month and have been hunting in Africa (along with North America, South America, Asia & Europe) since 1974. And I still consider myself very much a novice.

I don’t consider myself to be an expert on the great cats, but I have shot 3 Royal Bengal tigers (all man eaters), 7 African lions & 10 African leopards over the years till now.

Under the most opportune set of circumstances, they are not very dangerous. There are documented cases of African lion & leopard being dropped with a single shot from a .243 Winchester. But the aspect of dangerous game hunting presents a great deal of unforeseen factors as well. I have shot 2 Royal Bengal tigers with a 12 gauge (loaded with “L.G” or what you might call “0.0.0 Buckshot”) and the last one with a 7x57mm Mauser (loaded with 175Gr soft points). All 3 of the animals eventually dropped to one shot each. But the hunts could hardly be termed “Clean”. The first tiger survived for 7 hours after I shot him and spent the better part of the night trying to attack me. The second tiger survived for 4 hours after I shot him. The final tiger survived for three hours after I shot him. I did not use these inadequate weapons against the tigers by choice. I did it out of compulsion, because nothing better was available to me.

Tigers, lions & leopards may be considered soft framed game but the chest muscles of these great cats when tensed up with adrenaline (such as during a charge or when fleeing) can best be described as tyre rubber in terms of hardness. Combine this with the fact that following up any of these wounded animals often entails going into thick vegetation with poor visibility. The mere idea of using a .30-30 Winchester against any of these great cats is criminally foolish and irresponsible.

I hate to show the photos below to a young person, but this is what a Royal Bengal tiger can do.

This is what an African leopard can do, even after getting shot multiple times in the vital regions with a caliber much heavier than your .30-30 Winchester or .270 Winchester (and whatever else you have listed).

Weight or size alone should not be an indication of how dangerous an animal is. Aggression, speed, intelligence and methods of attacking must also be taken into consideration.

This Asian Sloth Bear weighed much lighter than one of your American grizzly or Kodiak bears. But he killed two of my men and permanently disfigured one more, when he ambushed our unit during the Indo-Pak war in 1971. He took 18 rounds from a .308 Winchester FN FAL (147Gr FMJ military ball) and 4 rounds from .303 British Lee Enfields (loaded with 174Gr FMJ military ball) before he succumbed to his injuries.

You mention African literature about British soldiers and railroad workers regularly killing lions with the .303 British Lee Enfield and 174Gr FMJ military ball ammunition. Perhaps you would find the “Man Eaters Of Tsavo” by Col. Patterson to be a very interesting read as to why doing this is/was a very, very bad idea.

I sincerely do welcome you to keep contributing to our forum to your heart’s content. But do keep an open mind.

All the best.

GRAPHIC CONTENT ABOVE

 

[Newboomer]

Miss,

You seem young & enthusiastic about your budding hunting adventures. And that’s a very good thing, which I strongly encourage. But it’s very important to never let a certain amount of experience create a pre-conceived notion in your mind that you have the A-Z of hunting dangerous game figured out (especially when you yourself have admitted to having never hunted African game at all) . Doing so prevents you from keeping your mind open to taking in more knowledge… which is a recipe for disaster. I myself turn 72 next month and have been hunting in Africa (along with North America, South America, Asia & Europe) since 1974. And I still consider myself very much a novice.

I don’t consider myself to be an expert on the great cats, but I have shot 3 Royal Bengal tigers (all man eaters), 7 African lions & 10 African leopards over the years. View attachment 544888
View attachment 544899
View attachment 544895View attachment 544896View attachment 544897View attachment 544898
Under the most opportune set of circumstances, they are not very dangerous. There are documented cases of African lion & leopard being dropped with a single shot from a .243 Winchester. But the aspect of dangerous game hunting presents a great deal of unforeseen factors as well. I have shot 2 Royal Bengal tigers with a 12 gauge (loaded with “L.G” or what you might call “0.0.0 Buckshot”) and the last one with a 7x57mm Mauser (loaded with 175Gr soft points). All 3 of the animals eventually dropped to one shot each. But the hunts could hardly be termed “Clean”. The first tiger survived for 7 hours after I shot him and spent the better part of the night trying to attack me. The second tiger survived for 4 hours after I shot him. The final tiger survived for three hours after I shot him. I did not use these inadequate weapons against the tigers by choice. I did it out of compulsion, because nothing better was available to me.

Tigers, lions & leopards may be considered soft framed game but the chest muscles of these great cats when tensed up with adrenaline (such as during a charge or when fleeing) can best be described as tyre rubber in terms of hardness. Combine this with the fact that following up any of these wounded animals often entails going into thick vegetation with poor visibility. The mere idea of using a .30-30 Winchester against any of these great cats is criminally foolish and irresponsible.

I hate to show the photos below to a young person, but this is what a Royal Bengal tiger can do.
View attachment 544902View attachment 544903View attachment 544904
This is what an African leopard can do, even after getting shot multiple times in the vital regions with a caliber much heavier than your .30-30 Winchester or .270 Winchester (and whatever else you have listed).
View attachment 544905View attachment 544906View attachment 544907

Weight or size alone should not be an indication of how dangerous an animal is. Aggression, speed, intelligence and methods of attacking must also be taken into consideration.

This Asian Sloth Bear weighed much lighter than one of your American grizzly or Kodiak bears. But he killed two of my men and permanently disfigured one more, when he ambushed our unit during the Indo-Pak war in 1971. He took 18 rounds from a .308 Winchester FN FAL (147Gr FMJ military ball) and 4 rounds from .303 British Lee Enfields (loaded with 174Gr FMJ military ball) before he succumbed to his injuries.
View attachment 544908View attachment 544909View attachment 544910

You mention African literature about British soldiers and railroad workers regularly killing lions with the .303 British Lee Enfield and 174Gr FMJ military ball ammunition. Perhaps you would find the “Man Eaters Of Tsavo” by Col. Patterson to be a very interesting read as to why doing this is/was a very, very bad idea.

I sincerely do welcome you to keep contributing to our forum to your heart’s content. But do keep an open mind.

All the best.

Well said, Sir. Mayhaps the "young lady" should do a bit more factual research instead of spouting hearsay and fantasy.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

Well said, Sir. Mayhaps the "young lady" should do a bit more factual research instead of spouting hearsay and fantasy.

You know, now that you mention it… I have seen that photograph of the lady in the cowboy stetson somewhere before online. I simply cannot remember where.

 

[R.M.C.]

Welcome to the forum, quite an entrance lol. I do wholeheartedly agree that the 12 gauge is extremely useful for almost anything.
Most everything else you said I'll take with a grain of salt hahaha

 

[Miranda Candice]

Oh please, this person is so obviously a troll. Someone joins a forum entirely devoted to hunting in Africa, using the photo of an attractive young lady as a profile picture, and demeans the entire continent based on supposed experiences at a handful of port cities. They then claim to earnestly believe that .303 British ball ammo (appreciably smaller than the .30-06, which is itself appreciably smaller than the minimum legal cartridge for lions in most countries, and for which I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be using military FMJ rounds) would "literally cause lions to do back flips if they were hit at full charge." Then they call the hyena a "spotted wannabe grey wolf."

This is not someone here in good faith.

Oh please, this person is so obviously a troll. Someone joins a forum entirely devoted to hunting in Africa, using the photo of an attractive young lady as a profile picture, and demeans the entire continent based on supposed experiences at a handful of port cities. They then claim to earnestly believe that .303 British ball ammo (appreciably smaller than the .30-06, which is itself appreciably smaller than the minimum legal cartridge for lions in most countries, and for which I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be using military FMJ rounds) would "literally cause lions to do back flips if they were hit at full charge." Then they call the hyena a "spotted wannabe grey wolf."

This is not someone here in good faith.

Dude, you've been here since 2021 and have yet to upload a profile picture lol.

You also apparently have an incredibly low reading comprehension level.

I quote:
"According to the literature I've read from the early 1900s, British soldiers and rail rode workers had nothing but praise for the fast-handling Lee Enfield .303 rifles when it came to dealing with lions and leopards around their campsites.
The .303 174gr Mk VII Ball ammo would literally cause lions to do back flips if they were hit at full charge.
Naturally, larger rifles chambered in things like the .375 H&H, 9.3x62 and the massive Nitro Express doubles were kept for the larger stuff like Cape Buffalo, Rhino, etc."

Yes, I'm sure there were rules on killing game and minimum caliber requirements set back in the late 1800s and early 1900s in the African bush, you know, when Europeans were duking it out over territory and the place was an anarchist zone.

You think the soldiers of Empire and early settlers had fancy .458 Win Mags or .375 Rugers with premium ammunition?

They were lucky if they even had a Lee Metford, Lee Speed Sporter or early SMLE variant. Most still used the Martini Henry and Martini Enfield conversion rifles.

Also, military FMJ Ball ammo was used extensively in the old days for hunting just about everything.

African governments implement minimum caliber restrictions today due to the liability of loser trophy hunters who can't shoot well.
But back in the day, the .375 H&H was indeed considered an elephant cartridge, the fact that it's minimum for lions today doesn't mean that the lions are any tougher than the pile that were killed by the .303 and 7x57 years ago.

If the .30-06 can kill a bull moose or polar bear, then it can kill a lion or leopard. It's basic science, period!
I'd confidently lug a .303 or .30-06 after the meanest lion in Africa and the result would be one dead kitty after the hunt was over.

Not that our silly caliber debates on here mean much, as two things are certain:

1) I'll never be in Africa again, so I won't ever have a chance to prove my theory. And, if by some miracle I do ever find myself back there, I'm certainly not stupid enough to waste $55-100K of my money on a silly canned lion hunt.
2) The trophy hunting of most large, African game such as elephant, giraffe, zebra and rhino will come to a complete end in our lifetime as the vast majority of the World's public opinion is vehemently against it, especially younger people.

The days of wealthy, boomer white men shooting animals for trophies in Africa is on its final breath. The writing is already on the wall. Not only are trophy hunters despised by society, some first-world nations won't even allow the importation of African taxidermy. And the number of countries that prohibit its importation and mere possession grow ever year.

Think I'll stick to hunting moose here in North America.
It's cheaper, provides me with a years worth of delicious, tasty meat and my chances of getting kidnapped, hacked up with a machete or contracting Ebola or malaria are reduced significantly.

 

[LivingTheDream]

Think I'll stick to hunting moose here in North America

But apparently your chances of being eaten by a polar bear increase exponentially.

This website provides an opportunity for all hunters to learn about the opportunities and conservation efforts being done today. However, you decided to be a close minded ignorant troll. I hope you had a good laugh.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

@AfricaHunting.com , @BRICKBURN I believe you gentlemen will know best what to do with our young lady here.

 

[Red Leg]

The days of wealthy, boomer white men shooting animals for trophies in Africa is on its final breath. The writing is already on the wall. Not only are trophy hunters despised by society, some first-world nations won't even allow the importation of African taxidermy. And the number of countries that prohibit its importation and mere possession grow ever year.

Why, you are indeed a troll! - even if every word you have said about yourself is true. Sad really. You have no direct experience hunting in Africa, but you have it all figured out - to include what calibers work and do not work. Assuming your bio is what it is, it would be the same as me telling you how to run a crew boat out of Houma or Cameron because I watched them when fishing the jetties or had read "Hole in the Bottom of the Sea." I mean seriously - I have been to the docks and dives in New Orleans and so now I know all I need to know about hunting elk in Colorado?

It is rare when ignorance is so arrogantly displayed.

I actually wish you well. You'll be far happier on twitter.

 

[PerH]

Sounds like hidden ara talks , or ara .

 

[Mekaniks]

Dude, you've been here since 2021 and have yet to upload a profile picture lol.

You also apparently have an incredibly low reading comprehension level.

I quote:
"According to the literature I've read from the early 1900s, British soldiers and rail rode workers had nothing but praise for the fast-handling Lee Enfield .303 rifles when it came to dealing with lions and leopards around their campsites.
The .303 174gr Mk VII Ball ammo would literally cause lions to do back flips if they were hit at full charge.
Naturally, larger rifles chambered in things like the .375 H&H, 9.3x62 and the massive Nitro Express doubles were kept for the larger stuff like Cape Buffalo, Rhino, etc."

Yes, I'm sure there were rules on killing game and minimum caliber requirements set back in the late 1800s and early 1900s in the African bush, you know, when Europeans were duking it out over territory and the place was an anarchist zone.

You think the soldiers of Empire and early settlers had fancy .458 Win Mags or .375 Rugers with premium ammunition?

They were lucky if they even had a Lee Metford, Lee Speed Sporter or early SMLE variant. Most still used the Martini Henry and Martini Enfield conversion rifles.

Also, military FMJ Ball ammo was used extensively in the old days for hunting just about everything.

African governments implement minimum caliber restrictions today due to the liability of loser trophy hunters who can't shoot well.
But back in the day, the .375 H&H was indeed considered an elephant cartridge, the fact that it's minimum for lions today doesn't mean that the lions are any tougher than the pile that were killed by the .303 and 7x57 years ago.

If the .30-06 can kill a bull moose or polar bear, then it can kill a lion or leopard. It's basic science, period!
I'd confidently lug a .303 or .30-06 after the meanest lion in Africa and the result would be one dead kitty after the hunt was over.

Not that our silly caliber debates on here mean much, as two things are certain:

1) I'll never be in Africa again, so I won't ever have a chance to prove my theory. And, if by some miracle I do ever find myself back there, I'm certainly not stupid enough to waste $55-100K of my money on a silly canned lion hunt.
2) The trophy hunting of most large, African game such as elephant, giraffe, zebra and rhino will come to a complete end in our lifetime as the vast majority of the World's public opinion is vehemently against it, especially younger people.

The days of wealthy, boomer white men shooting animals for trophies in Africa is on its final breath. The writing is already on the wall. Not only are trophy hunters despised by society, some first-world nations won't even allow the importation of African taxidermy. And the number of countries that prohibit its importation and mere possession grow ever year.

Think I'll stick to hunting moose here in North America.
It's cheaper, provides me with a years worth of delicious, tasty meat and my chances of getting kidnapped, hacked up with a machete or contracting Ebola or malaria are reduced significantly.

Africahunting.com is clearly not the forum for you.
You apparently have no concept of conservation through hunting and do not seem willing to learn.
You will be much happier in one of the North American forums..

 

[IvW]

Think I'll stick to hunting moose here in North America

Please do we dont need your type in Africa......

 

[R.M.C.]

I officially retract my "welcome to the forum" hahaha
Kinda nice to hear I won't run into her in Africa though.

 

[CoElkHunter]

Wow! I just read this thread. Wow! Ms. Miranda or Candice (I don't trust anyone with two first names LOL) seems like a hunting hypocrite? It's OK to hunt everything in NA but not in Africa due to your rose colored glasses that you put on or take off when you want to see YOUR world view of hunting? How arrogant.

 

[Miranda Candice]

Please do we dont need your type in Africa......

There are provinces in my country that have a higher GDP than your entire nation lol.
Enjoy your failed state bud.

Just to let you know, when South Africa implodes, don't think you're getting asylum here.

 

[R.M.C.]

Go get em Miranda!!! Tell em who's boss!!! Bahahahaha
Tell us the polar bear story again!!!

 

[PerH]

All which posted pictures, water mark them for safety, i think they can easily be copied and stolen .

 

[BRICKBURN]

Always has to be some drama when I go walk my dogs for a couple of days.