One of the most important considerations when building a safari rifle is just how
much it should weigh based on the caliber of the rifle and on your
physical strength and sensitivity to recoil. Let's take a look at the weight
of a rifle. One can look at weight from two different perspectives. How much
weight you can comfortably carry while hunting and how much arrival has to
weigh to be comfortable to shoot based on the caliber? When thinking about carry
weight remember this is not the average weight of a factory rifle from the
catalog but rather the weight of the rifle complete with scope and ammunition.
While I certainly prefer a lightweight rifle for sheep hunting in the mountains,
like this custom gun from Rifles Inc., hunting in Africa has never been quite
as rigorous. It's important to remember that the heavier the rifle the more
accurately you can shoot it especially offhand, from shooting sticks, or when
using an impromptu rest such as an anthill. Being of average height and build
I've carried a 10-pound bolt gun and a twelve and a half-pound double rifle
many miles through Africa and for me ten pounds is comfortable while twelve and a
half pounds is simply more than I prefer to carry on my shoulder day after day.
Therefore my safari rifle passed away in at ten pounds or less. A rifle is
composed of three parts: the action, the barrel, and the stock.
Each component on a rifle must be carefully considered for weight in
respect to the total desired weight of the gun. Some actions are heavier than
others and within reason, you can choose a heavy or lightweight action. Also the
choice of a blind magazine or a steel or aluminum hinge floorplate will affect
the weight. Shilen in Ennis Texas is one of America's premier barrel makers.
Through years of experience they have settled on an offering of three contours
for 375 H&H barrels as follows: number four, number five, and the number five and
a half. The number four weighs just over three pounds, while the number five
weighs in at three and a half, and the five and a half weighs closer to four
pounds. In our project choosing the number four contour, a Remington 700
action, and English walnut for a stock builds a rifle weighing nine and a half
pounds. We could build a 10-pound gun by
choosing the number five contour. Let's take a look at recoil. This 375 weighs
only seven pounds making recoil almost unmanageable,
while this 375 weighs nearly 10 it is quite comfortable to shoot. Reducing
recoil is simply a matter of increasing the weight of the gun. Most factory
rifles are designed to comfortably shoot a 30-06 cartridge, as this has been one of
the most popular cartridges for a hundred years.
Typical weights of factory 30-06 rifles with scope and ammo is seven and a half
to eight and a half pounds. The 30-06 cartridge generates
approximately 2,900 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle. Stepping up to the
375 H&H we have four thousand foot-pounds of muzzle energy, which begs
for another pound or so of weight to shoot it comfortably. Step up another
level to the 416 Remington Magnum and you for sure need to build another pound
into the rifle. The 416 Weatherby Magnum isn't going to be comfortable to shoot
so you get to 12 or 13 pounds. All things considered the nearly perfect safari
rifle should weigh between nine and a quarter and ten pounds presuming it's
chambered for the 375 H&H.