A no-holds-barred, Al Biesen custom .270 Winchester, built on an FN Deluxe action, probably in the 1970s.  It was accuracy state-of-the-art then, and as a big-game rifle can hold its own with any product of today.

By Terry Wieland

Everyone has his own definition of accuracy, but on one thing we all agree: Every rifle is a law unto itself.  What shoots well in one rifle may or may not shoot well in another.

Although the average factory rifle today, paired with premium factory ammunition, is vastly more accurate than it was even 20 years ago, for the absolute, very best, gilt-edged accuracy in any rifle, you must develop an accurate handload.

Undoubtedly, manufacturers today have the essential elements of accurate rifles down pat, to the point where they can produce some outstanding factory products at a low price.  Ruger and Savage are good examples.  Even so, they won’t all shoot well with every load, and all of them can be improved with handloads.  Granted, sometimes the factory/factory combination is so good that handloading for improvement is hardly worthwhile, but that’s a personal judgement.

Although the Sierra had the lowest velocity, and its overall group measured 1.4-inches, that .33-inch four-shot cluster suggests that increasing the velocity a little might result in gilt-edged groups.

if Al Biesen fashioned this rifle specifically for the Partition, but apparently not.  At least, not at that velocity.  I will try different powder charges, and different powders, before I give up on them.  There is no reason at all that they shouldn’t shoot like a house afire.

Meanwhile, either of the other two are excellent hunting loads, and a little variation up and down my tighten those groups even further.

Group size aside, this Old Master of a custom rifle behaved to perfection, moving groups up and down like clockwork as the velocity varied, and putting them all in the same relative position on the target.  There was not a hint of vertical stringing, and no discernible changes as the barrel heated up.  In other words, all perfect — except for that maddening three-inch group!

But that’s the accuracy game with hunting rifles.  Each one is a law unto itself, and you can never take anything for granted.

A seriously annoyed bull elephant would be near the top of anyone’s list of dangerous game, but other candidates include insane big-game hunters on desert islands, wounded Cape buffalo, and jealous wives with rifles.  It all depends on the circumstances.  (This elephant is a big old Okavango boy who had reservations about photographers.)

By Terry Wieland

In 1924, Collier’s published one of the most famous short stories of all time.  “The Most Dangerous Game,” by Richard Connell, told of a man marooned on an island who finds himself pitted against a big-game hunter who pursues humans for sport.  Having become bored with hunting animals, he had turned to the “most dangerous” game for entertainment.

Connell’s plot has since been used for several movies, the theme has been adapted for television, and it has even inspired a few real-life crimes.

The idea that man is the most dangerous game is repeated frequently enough that it’s accepted as a truism.  But is it really true?  In some cases, certainly.  In others, frankly, a resounding no.  Really now, which is more dangerous:  an experienced man-eating tiger in its prime, loose in its own jungle, or a flabby, middle-aged, city-boy office clerk?

As with most things, it all depends on who is being hunted, and who is doing the hunting.  Ernest Hemingway quoted something similar but made the distinction about hunting armed men, and that certainly makes a difference.  Richard Connell’s villain gave his intended victim a knife and a head start, but carried a pistol and was himself accompanied by a hulking assistant and savage dogs, which rather tilts the odds.

One time, an ex-soldier who served in Vietnam told me he had little interest in hunting Cape buffalo because, having been in the jungle with an armed enemy, he expected he’d find it too easy.  He also believed this made him an authority on what rifle one should use for buffalo, elephant, and the like.

One factor he ignored was that a man in the jungle hunting a tiger, or in thick brush after Cape buffalo, has quite different aims than a soldier.  The essential difference is that a hunter needs to kill his prey, and if he only wounds it, must follow it up and complete the job.  This is where dangerous game becomes extremely dangerous.  The reverse is true with a soldier, for whom a disabling wound is more than adequate (and sometimes actually preferable).  Soldiers can ambush an enemy, inflict a few wounds, and make themselves scarce, rejoicing in a job well done.  The enemy is scattered, demoralized, weakened, and now burdened with wounded to care for.

Whether the game is Cape buffalo, elephant, hippos (which can be very dangerous), leopards, lions, or one of the big bears, the hunter needs to carry a rifle that will not only kill reliably, but also stop an enraged charge by an adrenalin-laced beast that often out-weighs him as much as a hundred to one.

There is no legal situation I know of, either military or civilian, in which a group of pursuers is sent out to hunt down and kill an armed man.  Even in the case of a serial killer or a madman, the goal is to capture alive if possible.  One should also add that it’s rare indeed to dispatch just one man to hunt down another.  From the old-west posse to the modern manhunt, the hunted is almost always outnumbered and outgunned by the hunters.

In the end, the hero of Connell’s story outwits, and eventually kills, the villain — disposing of his evil henchman, Ivan, and the savage dogs one by one.  According to one literary source, this is the most popular short story of all time, if not the greatest.  That title is usually awarded to Ernest Hemingway’s “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” which, incidentally, is also about hunting and hunters.

In that story, Margot Macomber proves to be the deadliest, shooting her husband in the head at his moment of triumph.  So there we have another candidate for the title “most dangerous.”  It all depends on who, what, when, and why.