Hunting African buffalo has been on list for more than four decades, ever since the author read tales by Roosevelt, Hemingway, Ruark and other legends who made the early safari trips to the “Dark Continent.” Safaris have changed a lot since those excursions, but the sights, sounds and smells of such an adventure still stirs your soul. We took a Mossberg Patriot rifle, chambered in .375 Ruger and topped with a GPO 1-6x24i optic on the hunt with Phillip Bronkhorst Safaris. That package, fueled by Hornady 300-grain DGX ammunition, was clearly up to the task.

“It’s not a buffalo hunt if they don’t kick your butt.”

So messaged Linda Powell, O.F. Mossberg & Sons Director of Media Relations after I sent her a “Day 3” account of my late June cape buffalo quest in South Africa.

My butt wasn’t exactly whupped, but it was dragging a little. Three consecutive mornings of several-mile excursions, following tracks in the sienna-colored sand, will do that my aging frame. Even though it is the African winter, temperatures routinely climbed 40-plus degrees following daybreak, typically reaching the upper 70s by 11 a.m. and the…READ MORE.