Hunting the world with three cartridges-----what will you pick?

Picher said:
I'd probably just take a .30-06 and a plethora of ammo. Why? Because there are lots of critters that I wouldn't want to shoot or eat...whether too tough, too little, or too endangered. The rest could be good to eat, or good to be rid of.
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And too, one can neck-up the 30-06 to .35 caliber to create the .35 Whelen or whatever you wish to load it to match your rifle's capabilities. There's some power, kids.

At the end of the day, with a sufficiently powerful/accurate rifle, it is is the skill of the hunter that matters.

How many tens of thousands of times has that been repeated?! Yet, that's as true as ever. Only "special" critters such as dangerous thick-skinned game require the very heavy bullets to get into the "boiler-works". .... And for whales, one needs harpoons ...

Skill, patience, wisdom, years of experience, ... such are the requisites of the making of a true hunter. Sorry, can't change that. Welcome to Earth.
.....................
 
tark said:
No country in Africa would let you hunt with a Garand, because it is a semi-auto and it holds too many rounds. And a caliber that light is proscribed for hunting heavy game, in most countries.

I once saw an article on a Garand that had been converted to 458 Winchester :what:I'm pretty sure THAT Garand could handle a charging buffalo!
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Probably this article:

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/07/06/oood-mccann-industries-458-win-mag-garand/

I always thought that was one of the coolest rifles
 
Picher said:
My (improved) .270 Winchester rifle isn't a slouch...killing a bull moose at nearly 300 yards with one shot through the lungs, using handloads that I assembled for the task.
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Continuing on the topic of, "It's not the rifle, it's the hunter" theme:


https://www.africahunting.com/threads/hunting-elephant.220/page-3

"One of Bell's best-known drawings, showing the angles and point of impact for a brain shot on a tusker going away. Bell dissected elephants and sawed up their skulls until he knew exactly how to reach a vital organ from any perspective. He also knew that a small bullet could kill an elephant just as readily as a big one, if it was put in the right spot."

upload_2023-4-13_19-43-27.png

"'Karamoja' Bell's .275 Rigby"

https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/karamoja-bell-s-275-rigby/

"The year was 1956. Bob Ruark and I were standing at the customs desk in the old Nairobi airport building. He’d just arrived on a flight from London and had brought two rifles, which we were about to clear through customs. His bringing rifles surprised me because he wasn’t planning to hunt, having come out to Kenya on this trip only to collect material for an article about the 'winds of change' blowing across Africa. When the gun cases were opened Bob lifted out a slim little Rigby rifle from one and handed it to me.

"As I looked more closely at the little .275 rifle I noticed some engraving on the magazine box cover. The inscription read: 'WDMB.' Could it stand for 'Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell?' Surely not, I thought. I looked up at Bob, my eyes asking the obvious question.

“ 'That’s right, Haraka,' Bob said. 'You’re holding ‘Karamoja’ Bell’s .275 Rigby. I visited Westley Richards recently to order a .318 rifle, which you’ve always sung the praises of, and Malcolm Lyell, the boss man there, showed me two rifles, which had arrived the previous day—they were from Bell’s estate.' "
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._D._M._Bell

"Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell (8 September 1880 – 30 June 1954), known as Karamojo Bell after the Karamoja sub-region in Uganda, which he travelled extensively, was a Scottish adventurer, big game hunter in East Africa,[3] soldier, decorated fighter pilot, sailor, writer, and painter.

"Famous as one of the most successful ivory hunters of his time, Bell was an advocate of accurate shot placement with smaller calibre rifles, over the heavy large-bore rifles his contemporaries used for big African game.

"He improved his hunting skills by the dissection and study of the skulls of elephants he shot. He perfected a technique of shooting elephants from the extremely difficult position, diagonally behind the target; this became known as the 'Bell Shot'

"Bell shot 1,011[15] elephants during his career; all of them bulls apart from 28 cows. He is noted for using smaller calibre bullets[17][18] rather than the heavy recoiling, larger calibre bullets that were popular with other big game hunters.[19]

"Like many other professional elephant hunters of the time, he started hunting elephant with a sporting .303 Lee Enfield rifle, taking 63 head of elephant on his first safari. Later he outfitted himself for extensive hunting safari's in the Karamojo region of Uganda, preferring the .275 (7x57) chambered in a Rigby-Mauser rifle. Around 800 of his elephant kills were made with Mauser 98 rifles chambered for the 7×57mm Mauser/.275 (using the 1893 pattern standard military 11.2-gram (172.8 gr) grain round-nosed full metal jacket load). Bell preferred smaller calibers because they recoiled less, were lighter to carry and in his estimation killed elephant just as well as the bigger bore cartridges. Bell found that German 7x57 and English .303 military ammunition was the most reliable, which also encouraged him to use the smaller calibers.[20] His favourite rifles were a bespoke Rigby-made 7×57mm Mauser with which he shot the majority of his elephants, a 'wand-like' Mannlicher–Schoenauer 6.5×54mm[11] carbine, which he abandoned due to failure of the available ammunition, a Lee–Enfield sporting rifle in .303 British and Mauser rifles chambered in .318 Westley Richards.[21]

"He disliked the double rifles considered archetypal for the African hunting of his time due to what he considered recoil so heavy as to be detrimental to accuracy, their delicacy in the field, their weight, and the unreliable sporting ammunition of the day.

"He particularly praised a Mannlicher M1893 rifle chambered in 6.5×53mmR from George Gibbs that he used for most of his buck meat hunting in the Karamojo.[22] On one occasion in West Africa in the midst of a famine he killed a herd of 23 forest buffalo using a .22 Savage Hi-Power rifle with lung shots"
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Old Hobo said:
"He improved his hunting skills by the dissection and study of the skulls of elephants he shot. He perfected a technique of shooting elephants from the extremely difficult position, diagonally behind the target; this became known as the 'Bell Shot'
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A privilege most elephant hunters don't have. Hence, they use big bore calibers, just in case the E is charging.
 
troy fairweather said:
We all know the 22short will take down the biggest of bears, so why anything else lol.
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Please share the video, share the documentation. I know lots of folk who've killed hogs with .22s. My dad's dad used the flat side of an axe. Small game, he used his .32 revolver. The man was scary skilled with firearms. He put a .32 revolver round through a knife-wielder's family jewels -- twas a fight-stopper that.

I will say this, the 6.5 Swede with its dynamite sectional density, plus 140gr bullets have killed some very heavy, very nasty critters. The bravery, the stealth, and the marksmanship of the hunter did the trick, will continue to do the trick, given the excellent properties of such "obsolete" "small bore" cartridges.

Poachers kill with .22s; but hey, such folk have no qualms about the animals that run away to suffer and die slowly.

The skilled hunter knows where anatomically to place his shot. The skilled hunter also knows when to NOT to take the shot.

I knew a subsistence hunter who with his 6mm Remington always took cervical spine shots. That fellow fed two families with plenty of meat. He had a cool head and was an expert marksman.
.
 
Shot in the 50s by a native Canadian women, was the largest brown bear on record for many years I belive, I've Hurd it was a short or long 22 seems it changes every time I read about it. She dropped it in its tracks but shot it many times to be sure, from the picture of the skull she was a pretty good shot with that old 22.

upload_2023-4-14_1-55-0.png
 
teerex.otw said:
This!
Exactly this !
My concept of “world” that I would care to visit doesn’t extend past the lower 48.
(sorry Alaska, I don’t do big white bears that hunt back !)
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That's kind of sad. You don't have anywhere you would want to travel too? Lets say you win a prize of 3 months to travel anywhere on earth you want to hunt, as many destinations as you like, all expenses paid. Don't even have to shoot anything if you don't want, you can just wander around and nature watch. You really wouldn't want to leave the lower 48?
 
Truthfully, no…
First; I’m 65, and there are a lot more leaves on the ground than there are on the tree (so to speak), and there’s just way too much stuff here that I haven’t seen yet, but would like to.
Secondly; Americans simply are not that well-liked in most other countries. And if you add in cultural and linguistic differences, it becomes a hassle if not downright dangerous !
But, just for the sake of “what if”, my first choice would be Ireland, if I added one more, Iceland.
 
someguy2800 said:
That's kind of sad. You don't have anywhere you would want to travel too? Let’s say you win a prize of 3 months to travel anywhere on earth you want to hunt, as many destinations as you like, all expenses paid. Don't even have to shoot anything if you don't want, you can just wander around and nature watch. You really wouldn't want to leave the lower 48?
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I wouldn’t leave Alabama!
And to be honest I could narrow that down to about three counties.
It’s not sad, it’s having it all….. right where I’m at.

As for the OP’s question. I’d have a 20 caliber of some sort… thinking 204 Ruger for some reason. A 30 caliber probably a 308, and a 40+ caliber, likely a 450 NE since I like 45’s :)
 
teerex.otw said:
Truthfully, no…
First; I’m 65, and there are a lot more leaves on the ground than there are on the tree (so to speak), and there’s just way too much stuff here that I haven’t seen yet, but would like to.
Secondly; Americans simply are not that well-liked in most other countries. And if you add in cultural and linguistic differences, it becomes a hassle if not downright dangerous !
But, just for the sake of “what if”, my first choice would be Ireland, if I added one more, Iceland.
Click to expand...

Honestly the only country I’ve been to where people didn’t like Americans was France, and that was limited to just being a little rude. You would be surprised how many people worldwide speak at least some English. Language really isn’t much of a problem. Iceland is a gorgeous country and very easy to travel in. I highly recommend it.
 
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