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I was thinking of the new Rugers, 375 or 416. You can't pack your ammo with your gun, you could end up with a gun and no ammo.

Is the Ruger .375 ammo available in South Africa?

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Personally think you would very first post on this might be your best option..guesing the .375 H&H and .458 Win would be likely the easiest to come up with if necessary..

Also as 9.3 mentioned---"most" camps have an extra rifle hanging around just in case.

I have not yet experienced my ammo not showing up--I put it in its own locked case and then in my bag with my boots, clothes, etc...have had an issue on a time or two with the guns not showing up at the same time..last year in Zim they showed up 2 days after I got there-come to find out they were just sitting in the Jo'burg airport--no one thought of sending them on to their destination..

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ALL MEN DIE, BUT FEW MEN TRULY LIVE..

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Call me boring, but when I borrow rifles, I invariably miss!

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This is a good point to address. If I borrowed a rifle on a hunt, I would insist the professional allowed me to play with it and run rounds thru it AND shoot it some before hunting with it. I wouldn't let the tyrrany of the urgent prevent me from getting familiar with the gun.

I get to shoot other fellows' guns here on my range when testing bullets, etc, and am pretty comfortable now picking up an unfamiliar rifle and shooting it BUT, I find I am much more confident when I know the quirks of the gun, especially trigger pull. And boy howdy do some guns have quirks...

If a fellow is forced to borrow a rifle, I would strongly suggest he take a deep breath and go thru the same motions he would if he bought a new gun back home; handle it, test it for functioning, dry fire it and definitely shoot it at a reasonable range of something like 100 meters to check zero. And know enough about general ballistic performance to understand shot placement at other ranges.

About the strangest "borrowing" experience I've had was when a friend brought his AR50 .50 BMG single shot over to the house and we shot at 200 and 400 meters. Stock design was limited to shooting off the right shoulder...being a lefty I was glad I practice from the off shoulder from time-to-time! How interesting it would be for the poor lefty to show up at a camp deep in the bundu and be forced to shoot a Winslow with a Tsunami Wave rollover comb and all the controls on the "wrong" side...



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What are the Rosary, the Cross or the Crucifix other than tools to help maintain the fortress of our faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?

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Call me boring, but when I borrow rifles, I invariably miss!

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This is a good point to address. If I borrowed a rifle on a hunt, I would insist the professional allowed me to play with it and run rounds thru it AND shoot it some before hunting with it. I wouldn't let the tyrrany of the urgent prevent me from getting familiar with the gun.

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Quite so.
The most spectacular miss ever I had was at a moose walking past me @ about 20 meters - I was shooting my uncle's rifle and vowed never to shoot a borrowed one again.
Well, this year in Zim that was precisely what I had to do. To add injury to insult, I don't own and have virtually never shot scoped bolt-actions so this was a disaster waiting to happen.
Before the trip I borrowed two similarish bolt guns for practice, and dry fired every evening and went to the range a lot. Additionally, I bought a scoped .22 for practice.
Once there, I did Swedish drill (why is it called so? Because that's the only drill they get, ot having been in was for some three hundred years?) every evening to the extent the the rattle of the bolt and the click of the striker coming from my room became known as "sound of Africa". But: I did perform well, doing one-shot kills only.
Also when sighting in the rifle on the range I burned a lot of ammo irrespective of the highish cost.
I did miss once (well, twice: I fired twice and missed both...) due to looking through the scope wrong. More dry practice cured this ill.
So: practice as much as you can before the trip; and during the trip whether your own gun or a borrowed one. Ammo spent on the range is not ammo wasted!

- Lars/Finland

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A.k.a. Bwana One-Shot

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I think if Your suitcase with the ammo gets lost You have a big problem anyway. You will also miss Your binoculars, hunting clothes and so on.
In some countries like Benin there is no ammo available at all except some spare rounds from the PH. So I just take the risk and use my favourite calibers.

Kalunga

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That is why it is always a good idea to bring the most important stuff with you in your carry-on luggage. Wear your hunting boots/shoes, and carry a pair or hunting pants and shorts, a hunting shirt or two, extra socks and underwear etc.

On two occasions I have had a bag go missing when flying to Africa. Once when my wife and I were on the way to Zim and Botswana, where one of our bags ended up in Iceland (God knows how that was possible???). It took a week to reach us. The other happened just a few weeks ago when I flew to Burkina Faso. The flight stops in Niamey, Niger, and somehow my Zarges case and several other peoples bags got left there when we continued to Ouagadougo. It took 4 days for me to get my case, but it didn't matter since I had all my essentials.

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