Every guy - just maybe a hyperbole - who takes a 45/70 lever rifle buff hunting is stunt hunting - and practicing "reverse elitism" - 'cause the few who actually do it come back with a "see I did it with my trusty 45/70, and didn't need one of those expensive traditional DG rifles, which we, THE ENLIGHTENED know, aren't up to the supernatural 45/70 performance anyway - didn't everyone read the Linebaugh penetration test bible - more penetration than a 458, more powerful than a locomotive" story.

If your'e stuck, as Allen Day was, with a busted buff gun and you use whatever is available, knowing it will do the job but..., you have no agenda, you're just making do. This is not a stunt hunt, just a field expedient solution to a problem.

A 375H&H may be a medium bore but it is legal and has a long history of being enough gun, made all the better with today's bullets. It has been used by a bunch of DG PH's as their stopper rifle, and according to various polls, it is the PH's choice for a knock about personal rifle, to be used for "whatever comes along" when DG aren't speciffically targeted. This covers alot of ground, IMO, since lots of time in the bush equals more opportunities for trouble and these experienced guys still chose it. Reading the AfricanHunter website article about the low success of non guided hunters stopping very close elephants, really no success, gives me pause to wanting to use it in the theoretical hunt elephants alone scenario though.(BTW, according to the article, it wasn't the elephant being hunted that was the trouble but a companion elephant in almost, all? of the cases)

If a bow hunter wants the stalk and shot on the unknowing buff..., great, but the attitude that some talkers have, that when a "shaft laces the lungs"...the buff will "die just as fast if not faster than a buff shot with a DG rifle...'cause thats what treestand shot whitetails do and other magical powers of the (not so) silent stick and string and shaft"...just begs the question of whether the talker has seen a diagram of the buff's internals or seen his rib cage and shoulder bones. Not that it can't or shouldn't be done by an Africa experienced fellow with the right gear who has been around buff and seen the bush and shooting and stalking conditions, but the guy who has never seen a buff or the brush...thats a stunt hunt.

My thoughts part two,

JPK