African Pro hunter on 'survival' weapons.

[newman]

From Coda at survival.com

Had a interesting conversation with an old acquaintance of mine. This gentleman is a PH ( Professional Hunter) in Africa since the early 1950. We were talking about the perfect survival gun and caliber . I was always leaning to a 20 ga single shot shotgun or a 22 lr rifle and a handgun. However this LONG conversation may have changed my mind. My friend pointed out that:
A handgun while easy to conceal is hard to shoot in the field over 10 to 15 yr for small game, so he is not interested to lug around a 22lr. He finds that the 9mm he carries does it all ( as far a handgun is concerned). With FMJ not to destructive at small game, good enough as a defense round, can take bigger game, ammo is light and easy to come by.
As a rifle he used a CZ in 375H&H in his profession, however he also used a 22 lr for a while on small game , for practice and fun. He has quite a bit experience with different guns but believes that a medium caliber bolt action ( 303, 308,…) rifle with quality open sights would be the only way to go as a true survival, no matter what , rifle. He has a sporterized Enfield 303 he say’s would be the rifle of his choice. Never had it fail, the sights are sturdy and soldered on, so the don’t change. In his opinion it is easily accurate enough with open sight to 200 yr for big game and humans and again with solids he can shoot small game at least out to 100 yr. He saw to many guns with scopes were the point of impact shifted when people traveled or the gun got knocked around. And a gun which doesn’t shoot to point of impact ALL the time is no good in his humble opinion. Also tired of trying to harvest a to large animal with a to small a caliber. And the trajectory is also better in center fires. On the subject of semi or select fire weapons : His answer: If a bolt action can’t do it, you as a single man are already lost - I never felt under gunned with a bolt action rifle and a 9mm pistol a against a few poachers with AK 47. And if there where more than a “few” make sure they don’t know that you are around.
Addressing the weight of ammo : In his opinion 60 rd of ammo would last a long, long time and be easy carried on a military style ammo pouch on stripper clips)
As far as shotguns are concerned he has no interest in them. According to his experience, the ammo is heavy ( compared to the 303) and by carrying just a simple gun ( no extra barrels ) he feels it is nor fish or fowl . He experienced it as o.k. as a poor man’s big game rifle with sights and slugs. However in his experience it is no good over 75 yr with open sights and cylinder bore and not much better with a rifled barrel ( maybe to 120 yr) but with the rifled barrel useless when shooting shot. He feels the trajectory is hard to compensate for in the field . As for shot, he hates to shoot small animal because of the shot pellets ( eating) if the are hit with to many of them and then over 35 to 40 yr fairly useless. If you carry a shotgun barrel with interchangeable chokes you have to be careful of not having a full choke in it and shoot a slug by accident and if you change the chokes you still have no sights. If you have sights on the smooth bore barrel the point of impact is completely different then your slugs.
He also pointed out that in the field he feels that open sight are adequate and he actually doesn’t like scopes over 6 power period, because most ( nobody) can really hold them steady enough and it just makes shooting harder. However he also preaches to practice and then practice some more- not from the bench but under real conditions, shooting at unknown distances, prone, kneeing , standing, after a short run or 20 pushups, at animal or human silhouette. And the see if your FIRST shot was effective.
Looks to me he is quite set on his rifle! Did he change my mind? I don’t know jet…..