Need someone who knows about guns! Please help!

Nephthis, the "when" is going to matter. (Time period)

The old Buffalo hunters, some of them, used a Sharps Big 50 -- .50 caliber. Big ol' rifle, made a lot of noise. Echoes quite a distance.

Youtube short

Might want to check the Story Research section: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=66 There's always gun threads available and plenty of people who will answer all your questions.

Yeah, this needs a boot over there. Thanks, Linda. Stand by for heavy rolls.

Nephthis said:

Along with the rifle model, I'd like to know about the cartridges/bullets, how many shots are possible (I'd like as many as possible), how heavy, how quiet/loud.... all those important things.

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Your time frame would help. Many of the old buffalo hunters of the post Civil War era used a .45-70 Government cartridge in a single shot Sharps rifle. However, there were lots of other cartridges and rifles used. I can think of a few repeaters in that era, as well.

The last buffalo I saw shot was on a licensed hunt by the Gros Ventre and Assinaboine tribes on Fort Belknap Reservation in 2000. It was with a Browning single shot replica in .45-70. Not a lot of change in a century and a half.

How much money does the hunter have? Here in B.C. there are restrictions on the amount of energy at range which essentially means anything from a 7mm magnum (with the correct load) on up is legal for hunting buffalo. It doesn't take a very powerful rifle, but if the rifle isn't very powerful you need a very heavy round (for the 7mm mag there are only a few commercially available loads which meet the standard).

If I were hunting Buffalo, I'd probably choose a .338 Federal a .338 Lapua or a .338 win-mag (note that these ARE different calibres, even though they're the same size).

Here is a good place to start looking at hunting rifles. I'd need to know the nationality of the hunter and his habits to be able to make a guess at the make. An American would probably have a Browning or a Remmington 700, but a non-American might be more likely to have a European rifle like a Tikka or Sako.

Oh, and to answer some of your other questions.
Very loud.
3-5 shots for a hunting rifle (but look up the specific model).

Information to supply answers being pulled like so many firmly-rooted teeth, I can only give general information:

In Montana (where buffalo still roam) it's legal to hunt big game with any rifle, even a .22 handgun (the liberal law has its roots in traditions of hunting and trapping). However, the American bison (misnamed buffalo by early settlers who misnamed plenty of stuff) is no longer legal to hunt, except on native reservations, as already said.

But at times, bison wandering out of Yellowstone Park must be shot due to dangers of bovine diseases to cattle. This task now falls to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks wardens.

Here comes the general part: They've used every high-power rifle from .223 Remington (5.56mm NATO) through .308 Winchester (7.62mm NATO) to private hunting rifles, such as the 7mm Remington Magnum DJ mentioned and on up. You can feel safe taking your pick of cartridges and magazine capacities.

Edit: It's a good plan to visit a gun shop for fiction facts. Most are used to strange requests from writers, ha ha ha. Any of the military cartridges mentioned above are used in weapons which have sound suppressors. Also, just about any machinist can turn out a fairly good "silencer" from plans available on the Internet. Your bison hunt sound like fun.

If you are talking about bison, or cape buffalo, it would not be uncommon to see calibers such as. 375 H&H or .416 Rigby.

If you are looking for a great rifle in these calibers, do some research on a Blaser R93. It's. A straight pull bolt action that can accept multiple calibers (from 22-250, /.500 Nitro Express) on the same platform. It is also used by snipers as well as big game hunters.

http://www.tikka.fi/cartridges.php

Download the PDF, this is one manufacturer and their recommended calibres for different types of game etc. but it should give you a pretty good idea of what a serious hunter would use for the different sizes of game.

If money is no object to this hunter he MIGHT go with a black rifle (like the blazer mentioned above or another kind of sniper rifle, my choice would be for an AW or the SAKO TRG). They tend to be more expensive, but most hunters wouldn't use them because they're too heavy and they're really not designed for hunting, they're SNIPER rifles.

I should add those are mostly Euro-centric cartridges on that page, it was more to give an idea of 'recommended' calibres, as no reputable hunter would go out as Chase suggests with a .223 assault rifle.

Drachen -

I believe you are thinking of a R93 Tactical, and yes it would be exceptionally heavy for anything but stationary shooting.

The R93 Safari is more along the lines of what I was thinking of:



Same action, only with a much smaller, lighter stock. Here's a link:

http://www.blaser-usa.com/R-93-Safari.128.0.html?&L=myrtlbkgeapc

The Blaser is the Cadillac of such a gun, a more common rifle would be a Remington 700, Ruger M77, or even a Savage or less common Weatherby. All of these are very common and can be found even in a local Walmart in calibers up to 7MM (.300 caliber) Remington Magnum.

When hunting elk I shoot a .300 Winchester Magnum. It's a fairly flat trajectory round with enough punch to put down a very large animal. A bison is even larger than an elk, and my guess is it has a much thicker hide. A .300 would probably have enough penetration to put down a bison, but even with a heavy bullet would have to have good shot placement. The amount of energy delivered by a round such as a .300 or .338 is significantly higher than a old black powder 45-70 at range. that might be something to keep in mind - the range at which you are shooting. a big slow round like a 45-70 is effective at short ranges, where something like a 338 Lapua (or 338 Weatherby - more common in the US) would be effective out to something like 500 yards/meters for such a large animal with a very well placed shot.

Hope that helps.

Naeg

Drachen Jager said:

I should add those are mostly Euro-centric cartridges on that page, it was more to give an idea of 'recommended' calibres, as no reputable hunter would go out as Chase suggests with a .223 assault rifle.

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Haha, and you are very correct sir; a .223 (5.56 NATO) would just piss the bison off. I doubt it would even penetrate it's hide where it's the thickest. Maybe a well placed shot to the spinal column -maybe- would put it down, but it would not be humane for the animal.

I have a friend from Alaska who said the natives there, who are not subject to bullet size limitations, would shoot moose with .22 rimfires. He said at times it would take almost a hundred rounds to finally put the moose down. I guess what I'm saying is that while it can be done with almost any modern firearm, it's not optimal or humane. You'll find that hunters in general take great care to not have their query suffer.

Naegling said:

All of these are very common and can be found even in a local Walmart in calibers up to 7MM (.300 caliber) Remington Magnum.

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.30 calibre is 7.62 mm Naeg, 7 mm is .284".

Elk and moose are not much harder to take down than deer (as far as required calibres), but bison are an entirely different game. They're known as tough buggers to drop, especially in one shot and any conscientious hunter does his best to kill quickly and cleanly.

By the way Nephthis, on that bullet table, the game markings at the top for recommended calibres the far right column is for big African game, the one with the bear icon is for the largest of North American game.

Drachen- you are correct, the circles I run in still consider the 7MM (perhaps incorrectly?) a .30 caliber round because of the similar ballistics to other .30 cal rounds.

Technically it's not a .30 calibre round, but if you were going to lump different calibres into groups, I guess it would make sense to put 7mm and .30 calibre together. Many (I think most) 7mm rounds use necked-down .30 calibre brass.

So would a Barrett M82 .50 BMG be too much gun for a buffalo?

Just wondering because I think it's the King of sniper rifles...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_M82

Lots of videos on YouTube.

Mark G said:

So would a Barrett M82 .50 BMG be too much gun for a buffalo?

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It would certainly take care of the "too little gun" school of thought. God, I love "what if" and campfire ballistics. Otherwise, we'd have to argue baseball stats or bring more to drink after dark.

The Barrett is junk as a sniper rifle.

Longest range sniper kill 2475 metres with an AI .338 Lapua Magnum, next two previous holders are 2430 and 2310 with the McMillan Tac 50. The previous holder of that title did it in Vietnam in 1967 with a modified .50 calibre machine gun.

Go to demigodllc.com if you want to learn about long range shooting by the way. They are the masters.

I forgot about Chuck Hawk, he has lots of articles on this sort of stuff (although I don't always agree with him).

http://www.chuckhawks.com/bison_cartridges.htm

Drachen Jager said:

The Barrett is junk as a sniper rifle.

Longest range sniper kill 2475 metres with an AI .338 Lapua Magnum, next two previous holders are 2430 and 2310 with the McMillan Tac 50. The previous holder of that title did it in Vietnam in 1967 with a modified .50 calibre machine gun.

Go to demigodllc.com if you want to learn about long range shooting by the way. They are the masters.

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Them's strong words lambasting the big boy M82. Considering it's semi-auto, it holds its own nicely in the top 10 list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_recorded_sniper_kills

2 of the top ten are from Barrett M82's.

Mark G said:

Them's strong words lambasting the big boy M82. Considering it's semi-auto, it holds its own nicely in the top 10 list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_recorded_sniper_kills

2 of the top ten are from Barrett M82's.

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Considering it's semi-auto is like saying the Yugo was a pretty good car, considering it was made in Yugoslavia. Even the recent American military tests for long range sniper rifles didn't pick it as the best, but they went with it anyhow.

Aside from which, considering how involved American forces have been in conflicts recently compared to all the other forces in the top 10, I'd say they've probably fired 10-100 more shots down range than anyone else. You're bound to get lucky sometimes.

As an additional aside, the Barrett is too heavy and bulky to be effectively deployed from anything but a vehicle, further diminishing it's ability as a sniper rifle. It weighs 32 pounds, compared to the #1 rifle on the list of longest kills, which weighs 14. The Sako TRG 42, which is considered equal to the British AI is only 11 pounds.

It is, and always has been an AMR first. It can be fairly effectively used as a sniper rifle, but face facts, it's really not a very good one.