Big Game Hunting in North-Eastern Rhodesia

by Owen Letcher

The author recounts his experiences hunting buffalos, elephants, lions, leopards, and rhinos, and describes the people and countryside of Zimbabwe, known then as Rhodesia

Genres: Africa

266 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1986

Reviews

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was published by St. Martins Press
with Peter Capstick as Series Editor

in the Masterpieces of Africana Set of Four Vintage books
and other reprints

and later distributed through Wolfe Publishing in the 90s

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Masterpieces of Africana

Big Game Hunting and Collecting in East Africa, 1903-1926 - Kittenberger
Big Game Hunting in North Eastern Rhodesia - Letcher
After Big Game in Central Africa - Foa
Lion Hunting in Somaliland - Mellis

with the modern book

Last Horizons, Hunting Fishing and Shooting on Five Continents - Peter Hathaway Capstick

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Today you would be shooting with some of the rifles of the 1910s like
the 375 Holland and Holland from 1912
and the 416 Rigby from 1911

but you'd also have the 375 Blaser and 416 Remington and 416 Weatherby

I'd probably think that those lower level Elephant Guns would be far more workable these days than the somewhat more powerful beasts like the 500 Nitro Express, 500 Jeffrey (aka 12.7x70 Schuler), or the 460 Weatherby of the 1950s or the 458 Lott of the 70s or the 450 Rigby of the 2000s.

I'd think that any 375 will take things down, or a 416
and you don't need anything else...

though in some dangerous situations you might want more firepower, mostly for a quick kill, over a slower kill, so you don't get stomped on.... but sometimes that's more about bullet placement and luck than anything else...

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Probably the ideal is using a 375 H&H or 375 Blaser and having backup shooters with 416 Rigby/Remington/Weatherby

The wonderful thing about reading about the African hunters is when the always get mauled, like when you had the German 9.3x64 Brenneke which was like 1924 equal to the 375 Holland and Holland, but some German big game hunters would be killed by faulty bullet designs of the era (now you have fairly good things like the RWS TUG bullets for things like that now)....

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The 375 H&H is probably the ideal rifle for a one shot bear rifle
though it'll hit your shoulder with about 45 lbs of force

much easier then the 460 Weatherby with about 98 lbs

again, a lot depends on how heavy your rifle, and if you get a recoil reducer in your butt stock to reduce the recoil about 20% to 35%, and what bullet weight you're choosing for how much much firepower you need

[Craig Schlossin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another good African hunting book.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presents an interesting view of a culture and value system fortunately long gone -- the killing of African elephants and rhinos for their tusks and horns then letting the rest rot. But this is what British big game hunters did back at the turn of the century, so the journal is from that perspective. Lots of anecdotes of lions, wildebeast, leopards, and other wildlife. It is too bad that throughout Letcher's hunting adventures he was not a better shot.