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It amazes me when people say the Remington is no good. If this was the case then the US Marines and others would not of used it as the base for their sniper rifles. I personally have never experienced any problems with Remington 700. This may be because I was taught on the SMLE where you had to place the round in the magazine and slide it back into position, not just roll it in with the base already at the rear of the mag. Same method as required for any single stack mag that I am aware of. But each to their own.

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It is down to a number of things, which boil down to the fact that the requirements for a culling rifle are more akin to a bolt action battle rifle than a bolt action sniper rifle. Experience led these guys to favour the controlled round feeding and full size extractor claw for reliability under these circumstances, i.e. when a jam or miss-feed could cost you your life. Another factor was some early experiences with the .416 rem in Remington rifles regarding pressure and extraction problems. And if you think that these are non issues today, you only have to see buzz Charltons video where his bolt freezes up after firing at a departing elephant. These guys didn't then have access to countless different choices and options - often big calibre rifles came on the market infrequently when an older guy retired.nso word quickly got around as to what was best to spend your hard earned money on and which ones were rumoured to be less reliable. the late Ganyana's reports on rifle problems on the PH exams also showed up rifle problems that had to be overcome and which ones caused problems.

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I fully understand what you are saying and I think a lot of people are biased by reporting from days gone by. For the first 30 years of my shooting life there is absolutely no way I would trust my life to a Mauser or similar action. I witnessed too many failing. These failures included fail to feed, double feed, fail to extract, dropping fired cases into the action. Shock horror the god of all rifles has failures that people say wont/can't happen with them, My bloody oath they do. The only control round feed rifle I have never had a problem with or seen, except for people who stack the rounds in incorrectly- is the SMLE. Not saying for one minute there won't have been similar problems and it is certainly not an action for high pressure rounds. I have never had an issue with my Remington's, Win M94, Tikkas yet others have.

I do run a Ruger 77 Mk2 and CZ550 and P14/M17s. Learnt that any rifle made by man can and will fail, so when I buy them I run them hard and any issues I have fixed. I know of an incident when a mate was hunting and ran into a decent dust storm. His CZ550 was bound up with the dust and required stripping to full clean and get rifle functional. His son with a ZV24, pulled the bolt out, opened the magazine, blew the dust out and was right to go. Cleaned the barrel when back in camp.

I have heard people talk about pressure and extraction problems with R700 in 416 Rem in Africa. However I have never heard this from a person that it happened to. The other thing that puzzles me is why is 40C hotter in Africa then any where else in the world. I for one can vouch that 45c in Australia is just as hot as 45C in Zimbabwe.

I have not seen that video of Buzz Charlton. However I would suggest that if the case became stuck in the chamber for what ever reason, then the make of rifle has no bearing as you would still have a stuck case. Yes you might be able to get it out with a claw extractor and a lump of wood but at the time the rifle would still be just a tomato stake.

I have read the late Ganyana's write up on the PH exam. Very noteworthy in the main. However some of the stuff ups were operator error. That is not being familiar and comfortable with their rifle.

What would/have I used after dangerous game, most any rifle in adequate calibre that I had tested over time. I did use and love my CZ550 in 416Rigby for Ele and Buff