Interesting thread.

I looked for a long time for a single-shot rifle for big-game use, one that I might take to Africa one day for use on various plains game species. I looked at different calibers and for a while considered the .375 H&H, but I already have a customized BRNO ZKK 602 in that caliber, so I started looking at the various 300 mags.

At some point, I came across a rare, NIB Ruger #1S chambered in 300 H&H (original factory), and stocked with beautiful wood. Since I'm primarily a shooter, not a collector, I had a talented local gunsmith do the usual #1 "accurizing" tricks to it, including installing a Hicks accurizer under the barrel. It's now extremely accurate with Federal's 180gn Nosler Partition load (1" or less @ 100yds), as well as with several handloads I've worked up. I'm still developing loads with it (that's the fun part), and am now testing several using Hornady's 220gn bullets.

Mostly, however, the appeal to me is in the nostalgia that comes from owning and shooting 2 very accurate, beautiful rifles chambered in traditional African-hunting British calibers, which together are fully capable of taking 98% of big-game animals anywhere in the world.

Sure, at the 300 magnum level there are more powerful cartridges out there, but as Gregor Woods argued in his book, Rifles for Africa, most are more than you really need. Loaded with today's premium big-game bullets, the "traditional" calibers work better than they ever did, without the downsides inherent in the later super-magnums for excessive recoil, muzzle blast and shooter-flinch.

Anway, as far as single-shots go, having one chambered for Holland & Holland's "Super 30" - whether from Ruger, Dakota or in an original Farquharson - is probably the ideal in this category of hunting rifle.