Timing Of Second Shot On Dangerous Game With A Double Rifle?

[AimSmall]

Remember after you have gone boom… boom, you just have a piece of steel & wood in your hands until you reload. The number of … between shots loaded & empty.

Lon

...and the target has moved while you are reloading.

Practice loading on the move, keeping eyes on the danger

 

[analog_peninsula]

I hope the tip was truly commensurate with the face saving lie.

Many years ago I watched an american visiting hunter who was suffering from a serious flinch & fear of elephant. Twice he pulled both triggers on his double George Gibbs. He claimed it was the rifle. One day I got a call from a friend he said”dont you know xx” I answered in the positive. He said you have to read this article in such and such magazine. He had missed his elephant at close range. He and his PH decided his rifle doubled and the bullets hitting each other thus deflecting from each other in opposite directions and totally missing the elephant. There is a “miss” story hard to beat.

Lon

 

[Longwalker]

I am of the Boom-Boom & Reload opinion. As with any other game, but especially with dangerous game, I see no good reason to admire my first shot for a while even if I think the first shot is good. Sometimes bad things happen to "good" shots. Bullet failures, deflection by twigs, animal may have been standing differently than it appeared, and yes, even experienced shooters sometimes flinch or just plain miss the exact spot they're aiming at. So that's my opinion, even though I don't have much experience. I've only shot two buffalo with my double, and one buff and one elephant with a bolt action. In each case I shot again just as quickly as possible. I like using a double rifle better than a bolt action for hunting dangerous game because of that quick second shot.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

No experience with buffalo. Just one elephant hunt. But my mind set was to shoot until they told me to stop (or if it was unsafe). I tried a brain shot. Missed. Got another into his shoulder before he could turn. and then reloaded.

PH hipped him. We ran up and I shot twice more.

My mindset is to shoot until the animal is down. Whether it’s plains game or dangerous game.

My mindset is the same as my dad's. He was raised in the Depression when ammo was scarce and meat was precious. He vividly remembered going with his brothers to the railyard to scavenge potatoes that fell out of freight cars (he and I were born in Idaho). He taught me how to recognize when an animal is mortally hit. Don't ruin any more meat than necessary. That, to him (and now to me), is a shameful sin. Haste almost always makes waste. True, I'm not putting that kudu in my freezer, but someone will want to eat it. I take at least as much satisfaction standing in the salt shed and getting a thumbs up from the skinner as I do showing the skull on the wall to taxidermy clients. A job well done on every possible level makes it a trophy to be treasured.

Dangerous game is different of course. But for them especially, shot placement is paramount. Anyone who thinks speed trumps accuracy missed something in hunter education. If the animal is charging things are different. However, even then, unless the situation is point blank, I think speed and accuracy are at least equally important. For a double rifle especially, accuracy probably is more important during a dangerous game charge. We have seen the video of the PH trying to evade the buffalo's horns while running backwards and reloading his double rifle. Doesn't work very well. He did finally manage to drop it with a brain shot ... when the bull was at the end of the barrel and his back was against a tree. Two shots is what you have to use before the gun is empty. Make sure they count. Nothing certain about shooting at a target that's a blur with a heavy recoil gun that's still a blur. That's just throwing lead. If the critter is a few feet away, it won't make any difference. But firing boom-boom at a broadside bull sixty yards away is senseless, possibly wasteful (ammo and meat), and potentially dangerous (empty gun in a charge). There is the cool factor. That's about it. Like playing with black guns and banana clips at the range. Pure role playing, whether Rambo or Stewart Granger.