hoppdoc,

The key to fast, reliable bolt manipulation is practice. Back in the days of the Springfield, recruits were made to practice rapid bolt manipulation with the trigger tied back, so that the bolt cocked the striker on every repetition. I find dry firing more useful. Not the slow fire "snapping in" we used in the Marine Corps, but holding the rifle at the "ready" position and shouldering it while concentrating on the object to be aimed at.

Inside, it can be a doorknob or a light switch, but the sight should be pointing on or very close to it as soon as the cheek hits the comb of the stock. Then snap off a shot and cycle the action, using the index finger to open the bolt, pull it all the way to the rear and then close the bolt with the thumb or palm of the hand. Move your head no more than is necessary to avoid the cocking piece and keep your eye on the target at all times.

Using dummy rounds in practice is an option to consider. Not only can you be sure that your technique carries over to getting the round in the chamber, they will also reveal any errors in bolt operation which might affect ejection. It goes without saying that dummy rounds should be kept strictly segregated from live ones. My homemade dummy rounds have no primers and have large holes drilled in the sides, so as to be instantly identifiable as such.

This might be a good time to mention running all the ammunition you plan to take with you on your hunting trip through the magazine and into the chamber, just to see if they feed easily and chamber with no problem. This is especially a factor if you plan to use handloads.

Recoil is not a factor shooting at game. My experience has been that I have never noticed it. Shooting at a target, either standing or off the bench is another matter. For this reason, I practice almost exclusively with reduced loads and save the full powered loads for final sighting in and actual hunting. Shooting hundreds of low velocity lead bullet loads will build the needed skill both in aiming and bolt manipulation to the point that they are totallly unconcious. An added benefit is totally instinctive manipulation of the safety.

I have seen recommendations that a hunter going to Africa should take his favorite deer rifle for plains game and rent a heavy gun when he arrives. In my opinion, nothing is further from the truth. Shoting a heavy rifle should be second nature. Shooting a rifle at plains game is not demanding at all, if you know anything about trajectories and range estimation, and nowadays I imagine laser rangefinders have taken most of the guesswork out of the latter.

I gather from reading other threads that one of the thrills of owning a heavy rifle is simply the satisfaction of being able to stand up against the heaviest of recoil and walk away from it virtually unharmed. I have experienced that thrill myself. My homemade .577 has given me all the recoil I care for, despite its twelve pound weight, but if I were to prepare myself for another African trip with it, it would not be by shooting full loads. I know that when the time comes, I will be concentrating on the target to the point that I will not even be aware of the recoil of the heaviest loads, and instead of being braced against the recoil, my body will be loose enough to absorb it without having to take a step backward or otherwise accomodate myself to it.

I once shot an elephant with my .505 standing on top of a termite mound (I was doing the standing, not the elephant). Not only did the recoil not overbalance me, I immediately fired a followup shot into the heart before climbing down. (The shot was a difficult rear quartering shot at the brain, and I wanted to be more on the same level with the brain when I shot. WDM Bell used to use a ladder for brain shots, but I had none handy. The elephant dropped at the shot.)

The aforementioned four shots at the buffalo were taken standing on a ledge about four inches wide and raised about six inches from the surface behind it. My gun bearer was standing behind me to catch me if I overbalanced. The precaution was unnecessary.

This kind of practice applies to double rifles as well, except the use of snap caps should be mandatory. Practice in reloading is particularly important. For an experienced skeet shooter, with hundreds of hours on the skeet range shooting with an O/U shotgun, shoooting an O/U double rifle is second nature. S/S double rifle users should concentrate on shooting S/S shotguns to perfect their technique. Of course, it's important to have both shotgun and rifle stocked as near identically as possible.

I have an extra set of shotgun barrels for my Krieghoff .458, so I can shoot skeet with the same gun I have used for elephant and buffalo. I have even shot skeet using .410 shotshells in the .458 barrels and with the 2 1/2 power scope sight in place. Shooting from the low gun position, and having the targets thrown with a delay, as in International Skeet, makes the practice even more realistic.