Hunting in the Cattle Country 



and many of the Dutch elephant hunters had 

 abandoned the huge four and eight bores 

 championed by that doughty hunter, Sir Sam- 

 uel Baker, and had adopted precisely the type 

 of rifle which was in almost universal use 

 among the American buffalo hunters from 1870 

 to 1883 — that is, a rifle of .45 caliber, shooting 

 75 grains of powder and a bullet of 550 grains. 

 The favorite weapon of the American buffalo 

 hunter was a Sharps rifle of .45 caliber, shoot- 

 ing about 550 grains of lead and using or- 

 dinarily 90 to 1 10 grains of powder — which, 

 however, was probably not as strong as the 

 powder used by Mr. Selous; in other words, 

 the types of gun were identically the same. I 

 have elsewhere stated that by actual experi- 

 ence the big double-barreled English eight 

 and ten bores were found inferior to Sharps 

 rifle for bison-hunting on the Western plains. 

 I know nothing about elephant or rhinoceros 

 shooting ; but my own experience with bison, 

 bear, moose and elk has long convinced me 

 that for them and for all similar animals (in- 

 cluding,. I have no doubt, the lion and tiger) 

 the. 45-90 type of repeater is, on the whole, the 

 best of the existing sporting rifles for my own 

 use. I have of late years loaded my car- 



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