Safari rifle

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I was watching a Larry Potterfield video last night about his idea of an ideal safari rifle. He said his favorite rifle was the Remington 700 and that it would be the basis of his safari rifle. He started by replacing the factory barrel, squared the front of the action, recut the receiver threads, replaced the trigger, replaced the safety with a model 70 style, cut the bolt handle off and welded on a longer one, replaced the scope mounting screws with larger ones and replaced the stock. As I see it the only thing left of the 700 is the bolt body and receiver tube which is all a Remington receiver is by the way. The cartridge he choose was the .375 H&H. I would have simply bought the model 70 in 375 and been done with it. Maybe he just wanted to make a video. I watched some of his other videos and he does quick, quality work. I watched the one where he made a tang sight and it didn't take him long to turn out a nice replacement sight. It was not adjustable for windage however.

[missionary5155]

Greetings
It's all advertising. All the parts are available from a certain connected retail sales outfit.
Me .. As old Finn stated.." Make mine a Mauser'.
He of course wrote numerous articles for American Rifleman. All his bolt rifles for dangerous game were Mausers or had a positive feed claw extractor. I figure someone who made his living for many years facing nasty, bity critters should have had a good handle on that choice.
Remingtons are well used platforms all over the world but I will stick to the Mausers if I get to make a choice.
The only bolt rifle I have here with me is a CZ built 98 in caliber .308 which is set up to be my "bug out" rifle.
Mike in Peru

[fouronesix]

Yes, I think it's just Larry being Larry. :)

Not disparaging to the company though, as I do shop Midway quite a bit.

I haven't seen it and not much interested, but I wonder what his idea of a "Safari" rifle is?

For regular plains game hunting a Remington 700 unmonkeyed-with in 30-06 would be fine- or any number of accurate bolt guns.

Dangerous game (except water hippo or croc) is a whole different thing.

[MtGun44]

Kinda silly when most safaris today are plains game. Good .30-06 ammo with premium bullets like
Barnes Triple Shock or Nosler Partition will take any of them up to eland without drama.

If your pocketbook is deep enough to go for Cape Buffalo, then the .375 H&H makes sense, for most
of us, an ordinary deer/elk/moose rifle is just fine.

Been there, done that, got the trophies. 7x57 with 160 Noslers for most, .45-70 405 Rem at 1750fps
for zebra and wildebeest, .44 Mag for warthog. One shot for everything.

Bill

[Pb2au]

Here in Ohio, the 375 H&H is the minimum amount of gun required for a ground hog safari hunt.
Whe one of those beasts charge, you need to put it down with authority.

[Crawdaddy]

I just bought an old large ring model 98 Mauser. Made most of my own tools too, the barrel wrench, the jig for drilling and tapping for the scope mount.

I did buy a lot of the parts from Larry though. I put a Bell and Carlson stock, Adams and Bennett barrel and a timney trigger.

I rented the chamber reamer and head space gauges.
Ended up with a .458 win mag that shoots pretty close to MOA.

Now to come up with the money for the safari.

If you were dead set on one of the longer cartridges it becomes a little harder, you would need to cut and extend the rails and that can be dicey.

Larry is just marketing his products. Does a pretty good job too.

[HarryT]

Most African countries have minimum caliber requirements for various game. .375 H&H will cover them all (you can use .223 on warthogs in Zimbabwe, Mozambique has no minimum caliber law).

[MtGun44]

The minimum caliber is for dangerous game. Few of us can afford that, almost any good blue collar job
will let you afford a plains game hunt if you really want it. Anything you want for plains game.
Folks get too caught up in the mystique and forget that the biggest plains animal is the eland about like
a big moose, and the blue wildebeest is about medium moose or large elk size. Sure, if you want to,
you can use a .458 Win mag, but there is no real need. Good marksmanship and good bullets will
do it.

I provided ammo to a friend and his wife. They called her 'Sniper Granny' around the dinner table when
she dropped every animal with one shot from her Ruger 7x57 with my loads of 175 RN Hornady at
2400 fps. The guys with the .338 Win Mags were blowing legs off and spending all day trying to find
the wounded animals, she was dropping them in a pile with one shot each. Pays to shoot a gun you
won't flinch with and hit them properly. We had a guy do that same thing with the same cartridge
when we were there. Wounded an impala (like a 120 lb whitetail) with his .338 and spent half a day
tracking it down so he could get a trophy. Way too much gun for the guy, it seems. The PH said this
was common.

Bill

[Hardcast416taylor]

I loaded all the ammo a friend and his wife took on 2 different safaris to South Africa. They took a .280 Remington for her, a .30-06 and a .338 Win. Mag. for him. The `06 and .280 used Nosler Ballistic tip bullets. She used 150 gr. and he a 180 gr., the .338 used 250 gr. partitions. She dropped 9 head of plains game using only 1 shot each including both colors of wildebeasts. He dropped 10 head using 1 shot each. The .228 was only used on an eland and a kudu, the eland required a follow up shot the kudu was a 1 shot drop. The guide said that he had never seen a woman as deadly with a rifle as my friends wife.Robert

[btroj]

A 270 Win with 130 Barnes X bullets does very well on plains game. Only recovered one, that from a zebra.
The idea that African game is bullet proof is silly. I watched my wife and daughter each cleanly take a head with a 222 Remington. Wife got a blesbok, daughter an impala. Good shot placement is the key. Imagine that, just like American game.

My PH didn't let me take less than ideal shots and knew what I could do.

[Lloyd Smale]

never been to africa and probably never will. that said i sure wouldnt be afraid to to hunt anything on earth with a rem 700 in something like 416 rem mag. I think alot of the hoopla about controled round feed came from back in the day when non control round fed guns like the 700 were new and not trusted. Bottom line is your not going over there and hunting something dangerous without a guide backing you up anyway. All that said and even factoring in that rem 700s are my favorite bolt guns i think if i was going there and was building a new gun to do it would be on a mauser just because mausers and africa just seem to go together. As to his choise of calibers i cant argue it. The 375 probably isnt ideal for the real big stuff and a bit big for the small stuff but if all you could take is one gun theres probably not a better choise and again africa and the 375 just seem to go together like salt and pepper. Ive got a buddy who goes there every year. Sometimes for plains game and sometime for the big dangerous stuff and i asked him what rifle of his he likes best there and he told me its either his rem 700 416 or his ruger in 416 taylor with a good 06 as a backup gun. John Linebaugh is a big fan of the 416 rem and the 416 wby too and so is my buddy Al Anderson who has forgot more about effectiveness of differnt rounds then ill ever know. Lots of game has been killed over there with remingtons and weatherbys and I really dont think to many people have been stomped because of them failing.

[btroj]

Lloyd, unless you are going after buffalo, lion, or other dangerous game the big magnums just aren't needed.
Most guys just can't handle big bores well enough to make the shots that are needed. Nothing irritates the PH and trackers more than bad shots.

Best advice i was given- take whatever deer rifle you have with good ammo.

[WILCO]

Yes, I think it's just Larry being Larry. :)

Yep. Selling parts & supplies, making money. I love it!

[pdawg_shooter]

Greetings
It's all advertising. All the parts are available from a certain connected retail sales outfit.
Me .. As old Finn stated.." Make mine a Mauser'.
He of course wrote numerous articles for American Rifleman. All his bolt rifles for dangerous game were Mausers or had a positive feed claw extractor. I figure someone who made his living for many years facing nasty, bity critters should have had a good handle on that choice.
Remingtons are well used platforms all over the world but I will stick to the Mausers if I get to make a choice.
The only bolt rifle I have here with me is a CZ built 98 in caliber .308 which is set up to be my "bug out" rifle.
Mike in Peru

I am with you Mike. The 98 Mauser is to me the ultimate bolt gun. I have 6 of them, 2 military conversions (by me) and 4 commercial. They are in calibers from 25-06 to .458. The .458 I built to test the limits of paper patch bullets, not because I believe I could go to Africa. To me the 98 has been "improved" by various manufacturers and every "improvement" has been a step backward, done to cut the cost of building the weapon.

[Lefty SRH]

The minimum caliber is for dangerous game. Few of us can afford that, almost any good blue collar job
will let you afford a plains game hunt if you really want it. Anything you want for plains game.
Folks get too caught up in the mystique and forget that the biggest plains animal is the eland about like
a big moose, and the blue wildebeest is about medium moose or large elk size. Sure, if you want to,
you can use a .458 Win mag, but there is no real need. Good marksmanship and good bullets will
do it.

I provided ammo to a friend and his wife. They called her 'Sniper Granny' around the dinner table when
she dropped every animal with one shot from her Ruger 7x57 with my loads of 175 RN Hornady at
2400 fps. The guys with the .338 Win Mags were blowing legs off and spending all day trying to find
the wounded animals, she was dropping them in a pile with one shot each. Pays to shoot a gun you
won't flinch with and hit them properly. We had a guy do that same thing with the same cartridge
when we were there. Wounded an impala (like a 120 lb whitetail) with his .338 and spent half a day
tracking it down so he could get a trophy. Way too much gun for the guy, it seems. The PH said this
was common.

Bill


What powder and how much did you use with the 7mm 175gr RN for the 7x57?

[bob208]

I always thought a good African gun would be a 95 takedown. with a barrel in .405.35winchester and maybe .30-40.

[winchester85]

i have a hankering for a 416 taylor in a model 70 action. i dont need the power, and will probably never go to africa. i would like to kill a brown bear, with a bow.

but a 416 taylor could be a fun cast bullet round.

[Crawdaddy]

What I like about the 458 is that it is versatile at relatively close ranges. (under 100 yards).
The key is the right bullet, the right load (powder type and quantity) for the right animal.
You can load it down to trap door springfield 45-70 rounds or have full house loads with 500 gr bullets.
I have taken feral pigs, white tail deer, mulies and bison with mine. I use boolits ranging from 350 to 463 gr. I have never blown a shoulder off an animal or had to track one.
Shot placement, shot placement, shot placement.

If/when I go to Africa it will be for dangerous game.

[MtGun44]

Left,

Far from home now so can't check, PM me in a week or so. I was using H4381 short cut, I think. I load
over the book values because it is for a Ruger M77. I chronoed the load at some smidge under 2400 in
my Ruger. You can reach this vel pretty easily with any of the slower powders in the long 29" 95 Mauser
barrels staying inside the 45,000 psi limit for 7x57. For modern rifles with shorter barrels, you must
go over 45,000 but you can stay well under the 55,000 that most normal cartridges (60,000 for many)
use in modern rifles. These are not loads for Remington Rolling Blocks, of course. Hodgdon shows
40.0 H4831 under a Nosler Partition 175 gr at 2200 fps and I get more velocity than they do with the
Hornady 175 RN, I think it has less bearing area. I just forget the exact charge, but you should work
up your own anyway, especially in this grey area where they cheat the modern rifle owners by keeping
pressures low for ancient rifles.

A load that I made for the safari company owner that he dearly loved and used on a kudu when I was there
is a medium load of W760 (not max in Barnes book) under a Barnes 140 Triple Shock. The safari company
owner was a HUGE fan of Barnes and I brought him ammo that he really liked. The only problem is that I
can't send him more. This was the most accurate ammo he had ever found for his custom 7x57 on a Mauser
98 WW2 action, and killing was excellent.

Bill

[Lefty SRH]

How does that 4381 compare to IMR 4350? Im getting a feeling (and i hope im wrong) that 4350 is temp sensitive. My rifle is a Ruger No1 in 7x57. It seems to like either a 145gr Speer Hot Core and the Hornady 175gr RN.
Ill PM you after a while.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I think all of you missed the point of my post. I don't care what weapon a man wants to hunt with. If he wants to go after African lion with a willow switch it is ok by me. The point I was making was the fact that the man so loved the Rem 700 that he changed everything about it but the bolt body and the tube that makes the receiver. I also order most of my shooting needs from Midway.

[lylejb]

How does that 4381 compare to IMR 4350? Im getting a feeling (and i hope im wrong) that 4350 is temp sensitive. My rifle is a Ruger No1 in 7x57. It seems to like either a 145gr Speer Hot Core and the Hornady 175gr RN.
Ill PM you after a while.

Imr 4831 is one step slower than Imr4350, but otherwise very much the same. "temp sensitive" is something I think too many people worry too much about. Yes, it varies slightly, but not enough to matter for most practical purposes.

Hodgdon touts their Extreme series powders and yells alot about others being temp sensitive. They have on their web site "the extreme tour" a sales pitch for their powders.

http://hodgdon.com/smokeless/extreme/index.php

In the first graph, they show a IMR4350 30-06 load, with no velocity listed, as having a 67 fps spread between 0 to 125 degrees. Since they don't tell the velocity, I would guess it's somewhere around 2800 - 2900 fps. A change of 67 fps from that velocity likely doesn't change the POI at 100 yds much. It's simply not enough for me to worry about.

While I haven't compared IMR vs H 4350's , I have compared IMR vs H 4831sc. In the rifle / caliber/ load combination I was shooting, the H4831sc fully doubled the group size at 100 yds. I'll stick with the IMR. I'm not saying that Hodgdon is bad powder, just that it didn't work as well for me. Your results may differ.

I shoot what groups best for me. I don't worry about what the ads say.

[1Shirt]

Like MTGun44, been there, done that. First hunt in Namabia I took a 7x57 and a 375 H&H. Took 10 head of plains game with 7x57, never uncased the 375. On second hunt to Zimbabwe for Cape buff, took a 375. To old and cant afford to go again, but if I could would do the same again.
1Shirt!

[MtGun44]

H4831 is one of Hodgdon's non temp sensitive powders,and yes 4350 is temp sensitive.
4831 is slower than 4350, 7x57 does very well with slow powders.
As far as group size, changes in burn rate can change barrel vibrations enough to affect groups, for sure. A bit more or less can make a difference.

Bill

[Lloyd Smale]

hes a salesman first and a hunter second. Im sure much of what he did to that gun was just showing off parts he sold trying to convince you that you need to buy them too.
I think all of you missed the point of my post. I don't care what weapon a man wants to hunt with. If he wants to go after African lion with a willow switch it is ok by me. The point I was making was the fact that the man so loved the Rem 700 that he changed everything about it but the bolt body and the tube that makes the receiver. I also order most of my shooting needs from Midway.

[btroj]

hes a salesman first and a hunter second. Im sure much of what he did to that gun was just showing off parts he sold trying to convince you that you need to buy them too.

Exactly. Showing a Rem 700 and saying it is a great rifle doesn't sell many parts.

[bob208]

it is called selling your products.

[Mal Paso]

Some time ago a fellow showed up at our range to sight his rifle for a Safari. He was using a pistol lane with the target out about 5 yards. We got to talking, more like my buddy and I listened. He had a number of high power rifles but this was going to be close quarters, in brush, hunting elephant. Because they were culling, the elephant he was likely to draw would be one with a bad attitude. His choice was the Gibbs 505 Magnum. He was thick through the shoulders but it still rocked him a good one when he fired it. He left one spent cartridge. That's it next to the 12ga shell. (44 hole in the 12 ga)

[markinalpine]

Here's Part 1 of a six part article where the author built a 700 in 22-250, starting with the receiver and bolt, which he began with lapping the bolt lugs and squaring the receiver face to the receiver center-line, all the way to bedding the works in a custom multi-adjustable stock.
Not a cheap project!
http://www.realguns.com/articles/307.htm
I'll never do this, but the process was interesting.
Mark [smilie=s:

[seaboltm]

I think it is hard to beat the CZ 550 Safari, particularly in 375 H&H, that's why I have one. Recoil is much over stated. The cartridge pushes hard, but is not painful to shoot. And it shoots flat, every bit as flat at a 30-06. And you know, I think it does less damage on game than an 25-06 I used years ago. On deer sized animals it just punches a .375 to .5 inch hole all the way through, regardless of shot angle, with no explosive damage. I use Midway a lot, and I find a lot of the videos helpful, but many are simply advertisement (and it works, after all, we are discussing it).

[fouronesix]

With the nearly unlimited resources and $ available to him, I can't figure why he didn't start with a long mag commercial FN or Mauser action or a Winchester 70 FNH or late CRF action upon which to blueprint and build a "Safari" rifle which could supposedly be pressed into service as a "Dangerous Game" rifle.... in an emergency :). He spent a lot of time justifying exactly that.

Shoot, If I had his money and resources, that's exactly what I would do. Given those circumstances, I don't think I'd start with a Rem 700.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

fouronesix, you got it, my point exactly. You said it much better than I did. I didn't care what cartridge he choose, it was the gun I was talking about, and what he did to it.