I know there are those who think in terms that modern rifles are the only ones that possess power. They need to fire the world's most powerful rifle, a 4 bore, to see their error.
: Fransis Selous used the big Nitro's and also stated the 4 bore was by far the most powerful. It's viscous recoil was it's downfall. For every action, etc, etc.
: You are correct in that the PH will have the 'big gun' as that is his job. Your job will be to put a .375, or whatever you are using, in the right place so he doens't have to shoot at all. His job is to fix it if you fail your job.
: Were I to go to Africa, it would probably be with my present little wildcat .375 or a .375H&H - or maybe a .50 Alaskan on a model 71.
: Those numbers ie: FPE, are meaningless & I've given enough expamples to show that. It is unfortunate that people like Roy Weatherby so expounded of unrealistic killing power attached to high fpe numbers, that many people cling to them as if they were the holy grail of killing power.
: I realized, due to the world-wide use of fpe, many governments use a certain level of fpe as a limiting factor in firearms.
: The .50/90 will certainly make a powerful hunting rifle, with BP or smokeless. It was said that from 300 to 600yds was it's max range for buffalo. As the normal loading was a 473gr. pointed slug, that speaks quite well for the .50. We know for at any range, even point blank, and are dismal failures when it comes to buffalo, as it seems to take a big bullet to kill them even remotely close to the impact location. We've seen this time and time again, right here in B.C. with WILD buffalo, not penned ones. The same bison drop within several steps of impact, when shot with a lowly .61 calibre muzzleloading round ball travelling 1,200fps at impact. That's a 320gr. round ball, doing perhaps 1,200fps or less at impact - about like a heavy .44 mag handgun load, but .61 calibre. Yet a the same shot though the lungs from a .300 Mag with almost 4,000 fpe makes it dash 500 to 1,000yards, and then stand there for 15 minutes before bleeding out. Somehow, FPE just doesn't explain what's going on.