John, a very good summary and some insight from your experience how it is not always easy to take a cool head and stand and deliver. A bolt action especially would tend to force one to start and shoot early in a charge and then rely on being able to reload quick enough to get more shots in.

My own limited experience on your water buffalo with my Mauser 404 was probably unusual in that it was more of a do it your self hunt with our 'guide' not being a PH in the sense of the word today but was a professional meat shooter only shooting from his vehicle. He certainly was not of a mind to accompany us into the scrub after the buffalo, my friend only carrying a 7mm Mauser. We were pretty green although had a lot of experience hunting and were pretty good shots. Although having no experience on really big and potentially dangerous game I guess we were a bit gung ho about it all but the 404 was certainly deadly medicine. I couldn't claim to be charged but in the mealy sometimes when shooting a few for a load of meat there were some that came in real close in the scrub probably more from confusion but the 404 just didn't falter, I suppose for that matter neither did I, but everything hit just dropped. I'm a lefty too but I don't feel handicapped when reloading quickly on the fly.

MS is sure passionate about his hunting as am I but I tend to be pretty reserved and not into theatrics in fact after a kill i am usually fairly subdued and like a little quiet space, not into the handshake, backslapping sort of stuff. Having watched his video I couldn't deny I would feel safe with Mark and well backed up, but then many other PH's would similarly provide that too I suppose.

Now surely John you would adorn your barrels with NitroX ?