Most of the hard core African hunters will laugh in your face and say you’re lying, or look at you with sad pathetic eyes when you reveal that you’re going to try and shoot that deadly foe, the Tyrant of the African veldt with an 18 inch barrel 45/70 cowboy gun out of the United States!
Cape buffalo are dreaded beasts, they are big and cunning, they are extremely fast, have horns that pierce and gore, iron hooves that trample and mangle and eyes that blaze red and shoot fire into your heart. You cannot kill them unless you have the tyrannosaurus rex of guns, great heavy bullets and a keen eye over the sights.
Cape Buffalo taken with one shot from 45/70 Marlin 1895
Well this year of our lord 2012, around about noontime, I successfully led a client on a buffalo hunt in Mozambique where she took a fine and healthy beast of the savanna with the lowly 45/70 Marlin Guide Gun shooting a hardcast lead bullet that I had forged from plain old wheel weights!
The Bullet, a 475 grain hardcast of my own design, passed right through the buffalo, as a solid should, exactly as any of the so called buffalo calibers should do – with one exception – it made a somewhat ear pleasing whack as it hit the bull, standing about 100 yards off. Of course the beast took off and kept me busy for at least an hour tracking in the slow cautionary manner through heavy grass and brush – before I found it stone dead and stiff!
Carmen had decided not to travel to Africa with firearms, something that made her trip easier and less worrisome, no officials to deal with, no lost baggage and no customary bribes at the airport in Tete, Mozambique.
On offer to her and husband Rod for their 16 day safari, were 2 genuine work guns – a .416 Rigby that was first fired by Noah to clear the animals off his boat and then a .458 Express – both belonging to the attending PH’s on the hunt, myself and Willie Vermaak. THEN there were the guide guns – 2 Marlin 45/70 lever actions which proved to fit and shoot better than the bigger looking relics owned by the PH’s.
Massive Elephant bull – Mozambique 2012
Rod took a very fine Elephant bull on the 6th day of the Safari BUT he did use the .458 Express (which is no different to the newer .458 Lott) while I carried my faithful .416 Rigby loaded with Northfork Cup Nosed Solids. Rod’s Elephant proved both guns and bullets worked well and is another story for another blog although a picture of this great creature is called for. The unbroken tusk weighed in at 62lbs.
This Elephant carcass proved to be a great testing ground for the various bullets I had loaded for my annual hunting season in Africa and I have posted pages for each of the bullets and loads I tested. Without a doubt, the 45/70 in modern form, be it a levergun, a single shot action or a double rifle, will take any and all of Africa’s game – period!
Below is a picture of the 45/70 – 475 grain hardcast lead bullet as used on the buffalo, the one that entered low on the left shoulder and exited without much deformation judging from the small exit wound, on the right shoulder, breaking through bone and flesh without deflection or breaking up!The recovered bullets are all from tests done on Elephant bones – the skull, the heavy thigh bones and the massive femurs.
475 gr Kakuli Bullets
45/70 in Africa 