I began my skeet shooting career with a Model 12 Winchester pump action shotgun. It soon became clear to me that I could operate the action and reload the gun in the time it took to recover from the recoil of the first shot and bring the gun back on the second target. In fact, some Model 12 shooters disdained automatics because they thought the action operated too slowly.

I started high power rifle competition with a bolt gun and the same thing became apparant. By the time I had recovered from recoil, I had cycled the bolt and was ready for the next shot.

On my trips to Africa, I carried both a double rifle and a bolt gun for dangerous game, but I ended up using the bolt gun almost exclusively. I killed one elephant and one buffalo with the double rifle, but three more elephant and four more buffalo with my bolt gun.

On one occasion, I was able to put four shots in a charging rhino at close range, and on another four shots into a buffalo as he ran past at about 30 yards distance. Three of those shots could have been covered with a playing card and were in the heart lung area. The buffalo stopped so suddenly that his nose plowed up the ground.

Most tellingly, my friend and mentor, John Buhmiller, used his bolt action rifles to kill over 100 elephants and countless buffalo. He tried a double rifle once and rejected it.

Mastering the bolt gun is not something everyone has the time or inclination to do, but it certainly can be done. The Wikipedia article on Townsend Whelen mentions that he is credited with firing six shots standing in ten seconds with a 1903 Springfield and keeping all of the shots inside a man sized target at 200 yards. As an experiment, I once fired five shots in eight seconds with a Lee Enfield at 100 yards prone, and kept all five of the shots in a 6" bullseye.

There are situations where two shots are not enough. I once killed a very old elephant which was accompanied by a younger bull, an "askari". When the old bull went down, the young bull, instead of fleeing, stood his ground and trumpeted and squealed. Had he been able to locate us, he would have charged. There was not time enough to reload a double rifle to take care of him, if he had charged immediately.

Fortunately, he was never able to locate us and eventually departed.