With all due respect to the players in this thread, you have to see the reaction, or lack of reaction to bullet impact on some of these larger, adrenalin filled animals to fully grasp the magnitude of the event.
Although I've been involved with only many dozens of Buffalo hunts, not the big numbers of some of the more "famous" people who have done this 100's of times, It's been frequent enough to click with me mentally and allow me the education to grasp what is involved. Nobody here, or anyplace I have read so far has said that a Buffalo or other dangerous game species cannot be killed with a 45/70.
That is,... not now, nor has it ever been( in my mind) any issue. What has been the issue from the hundreds of posts I have read on this is the mistaken idea that a 45/70 is somehow equal or to some even greater then the performance of other more well accepted DG cartridges, like the 375HH, 416, or 458 win mag.
The misconception for many people involved with these threads is simply that they have never seen or experienced how fast, and confused the situation becomes. How people scatter through the thorn filled bush, yell, scream, and panic.
When you see your client shoot and hit a buffalo dead center in the chest, and it spins around and looks at you, hesitates for that split second while you are yelling to shoot again, but before the words are out of your mouth the bull has closed another 20 yards and now this now becomes very dangerous. Your hunter makes another shot hitting the bull someplace, you make another shot hitting him someplace, he's not stopping and now the gap to contact has closed to only feet away, no longer do you have the comfortable distance of a few yards to make a shot! That is the issue with less then adequate cartridges. Sure that bull will die, but he wants some company for the trip and is going after the closest person he can get to.
Where all this debate comes from is how many guys have done it with a handgun, bow, 45/70 etc. etc. Sure it's been done, and it can work. However,... is this a prudent idea? If that is what you want to use that's fine, heck I'll take anyone that wants to hunt buffalo with a 45/70, I'll book the hunts for them right now. I've got no problem at all with hunters bringing the 45/70.
One thing that would have to be accepted however,....... is the knowledge that if you shoot that bull and it runs off, it's your money in the form of a trophy fee that is running off. If he runs off and the PH shoots, are you comfortable with your trophy being poked with a 45/70 and killed with a 458Lott?
I'm not one to kiss and tell. However you must know that not every hunting photo you see in advertisements, in magazines, and on the Internet with the story being told actually match. Just as an example when I was guiding bear hunts with my hounds I took a lot of archery hunters. At least a dozen hunters shot every arrow they had with them. Yet the bear was still in the tree. Arrows stuck in the branches, the tree itself, or launched rattling through the branches and into the sky landing off in never never land. Yet most of these guys after using my gun to finally shoot the bear took photos with their bow laying across the bears body. I think Fred Bear shot a 1/2 dozen polar bears before he finally killed one that was not followed up with a rifle bullet. People know of his amazing feat with a bow and many now assume a bow is a perfectly functional weapon for polar bear. They never hear the stories about the prior bears that had been follow up shot with a gun. How many folks have the financial capability to make 6 polar bear hunts to get one in P&Y?
Big game shot with sub par cartridges and finished by the PH are no different, it happens. So when you see all the success of these hunts on the Internet and all the magazine articles, remember that they may not actually be matching 100% to the real details and the letter of the true story! Even if some of them do, it certainly does not mean that its a new industry standard for the minimum.
I've seen a few Buffalo shot with a single bullet that fell immobile at the shot, I've done it once myself. However for everyone I have seen fall to the shot, I've seen quite a few disappear into the bush. Once they disappear you have set up the PH with the worry of both his and his staffs safety, as well as yours. Now you're on foot tracking, worried, nervous, stressed. This mental condition does not provide any improved shooting skills for you. If after you follow it up and find it, do you think that a PH anywhere in Africa is going to say
"you shoot, it's your trophy. I don't want to put a bullet in him for you"
Yeah that is not gonna happen with dangerous game animals! First chance to shoot anyone with a gun is going to help bring this to a safe ending. At the point it has left your sight and is in the bush, the PH and maybe even the game scout are going to be shooting. This leaves us with another issue. What happens when you're tracking and another buffalo, maybe a different one, maybe the same one? Is seen right in front of you, 30 yards away, staring and snorting, the PH cannot see it through the bush, but it's in front of you. You gonna risk that next shot on a second bull? Options in this situation start running out. Wanna pay for that second trophy fee if it's not the same one?
Anyone bringing up the early 1900's with what hunters used then are so far out of the scope of reality that it's almost not even worth the discussion. There was no functional game management in much of Africa back then, some PH's may have used government scouts, others did not. Many scouts were paid about 5 times their salary by the hunter and PH, who do you think they worked for, or cared about? A lost animal was simply lost, there would be more along the way. Hunts in this era typically lasted a month or more, not the short 10 to 14 days many of toady's hunters have available. Game quota's were almost unlimited in many areas. There is virtually nothing that was the same in 1900 as there is in 2008 outside of the hunts both being in Africa.
Nobody I know would suggest that the 45/70 cannot kill a Buffalo. Nobody I know that has actually hunted them and had some level of stress during that hunt would suggest it is a good choice as a "stopping round"
That's it, simple as can be!
