doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com African Bird Shooting

Dig, is it possible to compare the two types of hunting between South America and South Africa? Such as how many rounds per day, how many shotguns would you recommend to bring? Are there 'Camp� shotguns that can be used if everything goes wrong for the traveler?

I know there are a lot more guys on this Board that have been to Africa to bird hunt, where the heck are they?

Never been to South America.

Africa is Africa.

The birds are wild and you have to hunt them.

You can't just stand in the open and expect them to fly overhead, you have to be smart.

Two guys who came this time had just been in South America and really enjoyed the Africa trip.

The key to the trip is the variety of shooting. I'm personally not interested in shooting 1000 doves a day, though the early season pigeon shooting guys were shooting as many shell as they wanted to - typically about 600 a day.

The mixed game bird, waterfowl and pigeon shoots will usually find a shooter using about 2000 shells in a week.

We can supply guns but prefer people to bring their own - whenever I lend someone a gun, they tent to drop it on the floor. Never seems to happen to their own guns! We do have back-ups.

I only ever take one gun - but it is one of those super-reliable 130 year old English things with two hammers, two trigers and no ejectors! Take foreign crap at your own risk!!!

Excellent stuff Dig and thank you for the invitation!!!
I take it this is a doubles only party and I'll bring my super reliable American box-lock, complete with two triggers and no ejectors.

I guess no one else is going to chime in here though.

I have not been to South America but am currently planning a trip there for next summer to shoot Perdiz, quail and duck. From my take on it compared to my South African hunt,it can be way more high volume shooting due to a large percentage of your shooting is dove and duck whereas South Africa can have good dove shooting but not in the volume that a good place in Argentina would have. I enjoy hunting over dogs so that is why I spend very little time hunting doves. Nothing wrong with it, just not where my interests are. I think for strictly uplands Africa has South America beat by a long shot due to the variety of species you can encounter in a given day. I would gladly shoot a few birds of several species in a day than a 1,000 of the same. Much more fun for me to roam the country and see all the other wildlife in addition to shooting a variety of pointed birds. I would and will go back to Africa again, but I want to hunt Perdiz, so I figure I will do it this coming year. Then it is back to Africa and maybe Scotland for a Driven shoot.

Small Bore - you should probably be a little more descreet when talking publicly about gun problems that your "clients" experience. "M21 Ed" is a well known tort lawyer in the area and is going to take a lot of heat at the local gun clubs (not to mention the M21 forum) over your post. Sounds like the makings of a lawsuit to me. As long as you have opened the subject, we would all like to hear your assessment of M21 Ed's shooting skills.

They were not my clients! I had no financial interest in this at all - I was just along for the ride.

Ed not only shoots very well (especially high ducks) but he can actually walk in a straight line.

I have a photo of me with the M21. It will never be seen in public, of course. Unless Vic has other ideas!

What a great trip -- shoot of a lifetime for me in many ways. It's not about volume but good company and wild birds and a great diversity of them -- friends and birds.

My Beretta performed flawlessly -- its owner did not.

M21 Ed lent me his M 21 12-ga one day for pigeon and doves. I shot it a lot better than my my B gun. I liked it.

In all fairness it only acted up once.

I am not used to single-trigger 21s and once when pulling-squeezing the trigger I pushed the selector half-way between settings and it locked up. A simple flick and all was well.

BTW, I do have several photos of Smallbore admiring Ed's 21 and for the right price I can be tempted into posting them ....

I can be had for cheap, maybe a beer ... If Ed doesn't sue me for teaching his gun bad habits I'll do it for free.

Please, please post the pictures

Finding out it was a single trigger Model 21 I can understand the problems. Does anyone really build a good single trigger?

Small Bore - Well said. M21 Ed outshoots us more often than not on clays and rarely has any mechanical issues. He promised to take lots of pictures and we all await his safe return.