By Mike Arnold
In my area of science – as a Professor of Genetics – I often encounter people who assume I know details of all areas of my chosen field. It only takes a few questions for the falsifying of that assumption! Though I can wax intelligently about several topics in genetics, there are many of which I’m just flat ignorant. I’m ok with that. I always tell students they could fail me easily on subjects with which they are knowledgeable and I’m not. But and this is a big ‘but’, there is a canonical set of knowledge that I better be on top of. Otherwise, I should not call myself a Professor of Genetics, or teach others about that field.
So, what is my point here? Like my Genetics knowledge, there is a bare minimum of familiarity with rifles and calibers, and their application in the hunting field, necessary before I should allow the application of the moniker ‘hunting writer’ beside my name. That’s how a Professional Hunter of mine referred to me at a recent convention. I didn’t correct him at the time, I chose instead basking in the glow of his encouragement. The problem is that upon reflection I realized that, maybe like some other ‘hunting writers’ out in Blogo-sphere, magazine-sphere etc., I’m given way too much credit of knowing things the readers do, and I should, but don’t.
This article is a case-in-point. In sending this out into the public gaze, I feel like someone caught holding a paper bag containing a half-full bottle of rotgut whiskey, or a pornographic magazine, or maybe a copy of President Biden’s gun control plans, signed by him ‘To My Best Buddy, Mike’. The title of this piece says a lot, but not enough. I’ve read for years that the .375 H&H magnum is a perfect, maybe ‘the’ perfect, single rifle battery for African safaris. Big breath. I’ve always rolled my eyes at that, regardless of the knowledge/notoriety of the writer. I never intended that my latest safari to remote, northern Cameroon would result in a ‘field-test’ of any caliber, let alone one that I assumed kicked too hard for consistent accuracy, had bullets flying on a rainbow trajectory, and couldn’t honestly be expected to perform equally well on all the sizes of animals coveted by folks like me when on a first, second, or tenth trip to Africa.
So, when I arrived in Mayo Oldiri Safaris’ Djibao camp, imagine my surprise when met by my Professional Hunter, Hervé Houdebine, holding a ‘camp’ rifle chambered in .375 H&H. A bit worse for wear cosmetically, it was mechanically great. But, when I sat down at the shooting bench from which my PH judged how his clients performed with the rifles – not just how accurate they were, but how safe, how aware they were of their surroundings – I was a bit nervous. I knew I wasn’t an expert marksman, so how would I stand up to the recoil, the unfamiliarity of a strange rifle, trying all the time to hit the cardboard targets.
Hervé handed me a Sako Model 75 Synthetic/Stainless with a #5, Magnum action, in .375 H&H. He asked that I fire three types of ammunition. I was happy to. It gave me more time to practice trigger pull, sight placement, balance, feeding cartridges from the magazine, all things I needed experience with before I pursued game. Ten rounds later, the most accurate loads proved to be Norma cartridges topped with 300-grain, controlled expansion bullets. Two holes in the small black square at 32 and 126 yards encouraged me, but then again, the cardboard was not trying to get away, or worse yet, trying to stomp me into goo for being a pest.
I could check off accuracy at any reasonable distance for the animals of most interest; these included, in order of decreasing size, a West African Savannah buffalo, a Kob antelope, a Nigerian Bohor Reedbuck and a Red-flanked Duiker. I could also discount my fear of flinching from too heavy of recoil. After 10 shots from the bench, recoil was not scary. In fact, I was happy for a continuing of the testing, but Hervé needed cartridges, not fired brass, for me as well as other clients.
The goal for every hunter should be that the prey expires as close to instantaneously as possible. Shot placement into vitals is, of course, critical. But caliber and bullet construction go together with accurate shooting. In a consideration of the appropriateness of a caliber for hunting game, there is no better data than field observations. With poor shot placement, no useful information comes concerning how well the caliber-bullet combination might perform on animal X. When impacts in vital organs occur, the observations made go much further in helping a diagnosis of sufficiency or lack thereof for a particular species.
The stars aligned on my recent safari to Cameroon. As I stated already, this so-called ‘field-test’ was accidental at best. But because I used a caliber new for me, on animals unique for me, the data collected (remember, I think like a research scientist…) were useful. For example, we can consider the size range of animals taken with the Norma ammunition with the 300-grain, expanding bullet. Looking in the scientific literature this is what I found as average (science nerds use mean and median values of things like weights of animals, but that is way beyond anything we need for this discussion) for males of these different species: West African Savannah Buffalo = 1000 lbs; Western Kob = 200 lbs; Nigerian Bohor Reedbuck = 120 lbs; and Red-Flanked Duiker = 25 lbs. What we have then is a 40X difference between the smallest and largest. That this does not simply equate to more ‘generic stuff’ for the bullet to penetrate is important to note. A Buffalo compared to a Duiker has an incredible increase in bullet-path-altering muscle + bone + organ mass. To keep path deflection from preventing the bullet reaching the vital heart-lung etc. area, the projectile must not disintegrate from contact with the tougher muscle and bone material, and the path must not deflect from that pictured by a competent field shot when the trigger breaks.
OK, enough already about data, rationales, and philosophy! What did the animals do after the shot? Here is the score, 1) the buffalo was hit at 150 yards frontally just at the junction of the neck and chest and he went a total of 80 yards after the first shot, 2) the Kob was slightly quartering away at 80-yards and the bullet ranged up through the lungs and he went no more than 40-yards before dropping, 3) the Reedbuck is a great example of a hunter shooting at a perceived angle, and finding that the animal was standing at a completely different aspect (simply put, the Kob was sharply angling toward me and I thought he was nearly side on), ending up with a perfect, and completely accidental, shot angle with the animal going no more than 10 yards, and 4) the Red-flanked Duiker took the heavy bullet at 20 yards and dropped to the shot.
So, what have I learned? Well, number 1, listen to your betters. When Craig Boddington, and others recommend the .375 as a fantastic all-round safari cartridge, take their word for it. If they were recommending ‘Uncle Henry’s rifle’ as the best, yep, maybe skepticism cries out. But, after decades of field experience, if they say this is a great one-rifle safari battery, listen to them. The venerable .375 has so captured this hunter, I’ve asked Blaser if they would consider lending one for my next Cameroon Safari to include some more little guys, but also Western Roan and Giant Eland. I understand if they tell me “Heck no we’ve done enough for this old guy, Mike Arnold.†But I’ll find some way of taking my own .375 H&H on that safari and many more.
Mike Arnold is a Professor of Genetics at the University of Georgia and author of the 2022 book, BRINGING BACK THE LIONS: International Hunters, Local Tribespeople, and the Miraculous Rescue of a Doomed Ecosystem in Mozambique. Mike’s book is available for purchase now at bringingbackthelions.com.
