The honest version of this list is short. The marketing version is much longer, and it gets written every spring in a hundred sporting magazines, and I'm not adding to that pile. So:
| Rifle | Caliber | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Mauser M03 | .375 H&H Magnum | Plains game and brown hyena. The all-rounder. |
| Rigby Highland Stalker | .275 Rigby (7×57) | Lighter plains game, springbok and the like. Sentimental. |
| Rigby Big Game | .416 Rigby | When permits put me anywhere near buffalo or lion. Too much rifle for hyena, but the only one in the safe legal for those species in some of the places I hunt. |
The .375 H&H, almost always. There is a long tradition of arguing about whether the .375 is enough rifle, too much rifle, or exactly the right rifle, and after eight trips I still can't tell you which it is. What I can tell you is that it has not let me down, the ammunition is available everywhere from Windhoek to Dar, and a confident shot at moderate range with a good 300-grain bullet does what's needed on anything short of buffalo.
The .416 only goes when the licence requires it, which has been twice. It is more rifle than I shoot well, and I freely admit that. I practise harder before those trips than I do for any other.
The 7×57 is the one I would take if I were going purely for plains game and the outfitter would let me. They mostly won't, on the basis that they don't know me and don't want a wounded eland on the conscience because their client showed up with a deer rifle.
Schmidt & Bender 1.5–6×42 Zenith on the Mauser, fixed 6× Zeiss on the .416, and a vintage Pecar 4× on the Highland Stalker because that's what was on it when my grandfather bought it. Two of three have illuminated reticles; I have used the illumination exactly once, on a leopard bait in Zambia at the very last grey of dusk, and that one occasion makes the other ninety-nine days I carried the weight of the battery worth it.
For the .375, Swift A-Frame 300-grain. It works. I've stopped trying alternatives.
For the .416, Hornady DGX in solids and softs, paired one and one in the magazine. I've never needed the second round but I have never not had it loaded.
For the 7×57, Norma Oryx 156-grain, which is what my grandfather shot through it for forty years.
Suppressed bolt rifles. They're wonderful at home. In Africa the suppressors mostly stayed in the case, because two outfitters in a row asked me politely to leave them off — clients before me had spooked game by getting close enough to use them and then missing. If the rifle is steady and you know your distances, the noise reduction does not earn its weight on safari.
Variable-magnification scopes above 12×. Not useful at the ranges I shoot. Bigger objective lenses, more weight, more reflection on the glass when there's any side light. Stuck with 6×.
Semi-automatic rifles. I've never used one in Africa and don't intend to. Plenty of countries don't allow them; in the rest, a bolt is more than enough.