I was playing around with snap caps and a push-feed rifle yesterday, to make sure I was used to the controls for hunting in a few days.
For my purposes, PF is fine. I have a very accurate hunting handload worked up for the thing, and I've won an offhand charity sporter match with it, so I am confident that I can hit a deer with the rifle, at a good distance, if I keep my head straight.
I've never been to Africa, and the only "dangerous" game I've shot was with a .45-70 single shot.
But, IMHO a PF is a single-shot rifle with a few shots in reserve, that can be loaded more easily than an actual single shot. It's not equivalent to a CRF bolt action. The mechanism simply requires the user to do things just-so, a bit too much.
1. Rounds can fall out of the action instead of going into the chamber, if the rifle is held at awkward angles.
This is
usually not a big deal for hunting prey animals, though in a treestand I imagine it could be. If you are charged by a predator, though, all bets are off. You may not have the luxury of choosing the rifle's position when you cycle it.
2. If you begin cycling the action, but don't lock the bolt down, the round will sit in the chamber, but it won't follow the bolt back out if you open the action again. It will stay in there, and the action will pick up the next round from the magazine if you try to close it again.
Again, this is usually not that big of a deal. Just fully cycle the action. However, if you are distracted before you close the bolt, then open the action again, you will jam the action and it can take precious seconds to clear. You also lose one round, if you clear it as fast as you can (by dumping a round on the ground and shutting the action again).
With military-style FMJ, AFAIK you can have a more catastrophic situation: slamming the bolt forward with a round in the chamber and a round picked up by the bolt can hit the primer of the chambered round with the tip of the new round. Not good.
A CRF has no such issues. The round goes in and out with the bolt, and it doesn't pick up a second round that way.
3. Finally, a good CRF action doesn't have any slop in it like a PF action does. When you cycle it back and forth, it feels like it's on rails.
Again, this doesn't matter if you're not in a huge hurry. A reasonably smooth PF action like the one I've been playing with will shut no matter what. It might bind slightly when you push it at an angle instead of straight forward, but it will shut with no problem.
A CRF though, will not bind like this. If you're in a hurry, you never feel the least bit of hesitation or resistance. It just slides shut, immediately.
Note that I haven't even
mentioned the claw extractor. I'm just starting with the observeable function of the bolt, not getting into which extractor might be more likely to leave a stuck case in the gun.
What does a PF action do well? You can just drop a round in, close the bolt, and fire. You can eke out a bit more accuracy from the simpler design. The bolt itself is simpler, and may be a tad easier to clean.
For long-range varminting, or pronghorn past 400 yards, where absolute accuracy trumps cycling speed, the PF might even be
preferable. Note that a quality single-shot would work well, too. The same goes for snipers.
But if you need to use the action itself as an important tool, the CRF has the edge in a number of ways. Hence its choice for military rifles in the past, and dangerous game repeaters ("magazine rifles" in British
) today.
