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To: AnAmericanMother
I’m a hunter, handgun, rifle and an archery hunter. I’ve taken several hogs over 400#s with a broad head. I’ve also got a couple big bears under my belt. None of them took a shoulder cannon to bring down. If you shoot well and can put the bullet where you want it you don’t need a big magnum and if you can’t hit what you are shooting at the magnum won’t do you any good anyway.
As a competitive long range marksman and a gunsmith I can tell you that most people can not shoot well with the shoulder cannon their inflated ego thinks they need.
I have a 375H&H and it is right at home on the African plains hunting big cats or in Alaska hunting big bear. There is nothing in the lower 48 that needs that kind of firepower.
70 posted on 05/28/2007 1:03:10 PM PDT by oldenuff2no
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To: oldenuff2no
Nope, I play the odds, and you should too. I can't remember if it was "Karamojo" Bell or J.A. Hunter who used to dispatch elephants with a .30 cal. (may even have been the old 6.5 Mannlicher) . . . but both were exceptional shots and cool heads. I'm a pretty serious shooter, but not on that level . . . and I believe in being just a leetle overpowered for whatever I'm going after.

The .348 was the premier brush-busting NA big game gun for a quarter-century. My dad took bear and boar with it, and it'll do for whitetail as well. The recoil is not unmanageable if you practice with it. .308 is a bit underpowered for dangerous game. And any boar hog is dangerous game . . . I am quite familiar with them because they infest my parents' island in coastal GA. They usually run, but the occasional big boar will stand his ground. A number of folks on the island have had dogs killed - big dogs, not yappers. I do not walk out on the island in the dusk without my .41 Mag . . . just in case. (I don't have a .44 Mag because that's my definition of a "useless cannon". I put a couple of cylinders full through a friend's S&W, the cylinder release came loose and cut a nasty gash in my thumb.)

And I'd like a .375 just because . . . mom and dad were planning to hunt Kodiak bear in Alaska - dad bought the .348 for mom, and he was shopping for a .375 when mom turned up pregnant with me. Every so often he looks at me with a wistful sigh and asks, "Why couldn't you wait until I'd bought the .375?" Neither the .348 nor a 7mm Rem Mag with full house loads bothers me particularly, and I can always download the .375 . . . (can't own a firearm without owning the dies, right?)

71 posted on 05/28/2007 1:32:29 PM PDT by AnAmericanMother ((Ministrix of Ye Chase, TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary (recess appointment)))
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