FWIW.....This particular PH uses his ordinary carry rifle (.500 Jeffery) on all follow ups whether for cats or otherwise and whether night of day...... the reason for my choice is that I know I'm better with the rifle than with a shotgun. One of the PHs who works for us chooses to use a double barrel shotgun with heavy shot.

Last year we did a follow up on a wounded Leopard together. (at night). We both saw the Leopard at the same time and the shots sounded like one - so don't know who shot first. The shotgun buggered the cats teeth big time and broke his jaw on both sides but whether it would have killed him, I don't know. (but my guess is that it would)

The shot from my rifle entered in his face in line (roughly) with his eye & nostril and exited through his opposite haunch. That was definately a killing shot. The bush was very thick and distance between where we took the shots and where the cat fell was 6 yards.

At the end of the day, it's a matter of personal choice and each PH will make his own decision on that. I don't really think that one firearm is always better than another. It's just individual choices for individual situations.

As to which animal is most likely to stuff you up - I reckon they're all bloody dangerous. Sure, some species are more likely to turn from a charge than others but one could also argue that unwounded animals can also charge so the more animals being tracked (or otherwise) the more dangerous the situation one could also say, it's really more a case of individual animals and individual situations rather than generalities....... In other words, one of the great truisms is that in anything African, one should never say never and never say always.........

Here's a link to the Leopard I mentioned and whilst I'm on the subject, take a close look at the Lion at the bottom of the page and check out the extra hole beneath his left eye....

http://www.kuduland.com/hunting-in-tanzania.htm

One thing that is very true, for this PH at least, is that there's very little more satisfying in life than that soggy thud/death bellow/thud/dying growl etc that means the animal has hit the ground and is dying or dead.....

Here's a picture taken from where we took the Leopard shots and I'm kneeling where the cat fell......a distance of 6 yards. Needless to say, the sling wasn't on the rifle during the follow up.