Glory awaits hunters trampled by elephants, mauled by lions and gored by buffaloes. But a bruising under the frothy nose of a wildebeest? Not on my epitaph, please.

In a purple African dusk I’d struck the wildebeest too high with my first bullet and followed up with better aim. The bull stayed on his feet, but I walked up to him fully confident that he was finished. This animal, however, was not done living. He lowered his head and charged. The thought that he’d be on top of me in a couple of seconds no doubt trimmed my reaction time. I sighted down the barrel and killed him with the last cartridge in my rifle.

“Tough, aren’t they?” My professional hunter came up from behind far too late to help. “They die quicker if you hit them right the first go.”

Indeed. The first shot matters most. It’s almost always the easiest shot you’ll get, the closest one, the shot that gives you the most time. Fireworks after that initial blast usually signal a salvage operation. This isn’t to say that follow-up hits aren’t wise. It’s good policy to keep shooting elk until the belly turns topside. But poor first hits happen most often when there’s a full magazine to cover the mistake.

Last fall, 21 years after I’d embarrassed myself with a scoped bolt rifle, I hunted blue wildebeest again. This time I carried a Ruger Number One with open sights, a 7x57 that many hunters consider inadequate for Africa’s heavy plains game.

On the fifth day, just after dawn, we found them. The handful of animals sifted through thin thorn as we put an egg-yolk sun to our left and a light breeze to our right. We hunched, the tracker and I. Then we crawled.

“Can you shoot here?” he whispered. We’d closed to within 100 yards.

“No.”

He rolled his eyes the way trackers do when you can’t see a print that looks as obvious to them as a hubcap on the trail, or when you miss a shot with a rifle that costs 20 times as much as the single-barrel shotguns they pack on poaching patrols. Meekly I pointed to the rear sight.

We crawled some more.

Wildebeest may look as if they spend all their energies being homely, but in truth they’re wary animals with sharp senses. When we got to the termite mound, 70 yards from the herd, I felt lucky. But unusually heavy rains had pushed the grass above the top of the mound. I took the sticks instead and steadied the rifle standing.

“That one.” The tracker pointed.

I waited. The animal moved slowly, head down. I glimpsed pieces of others. The alley would have to be clear, my target still.

The wildebeest stopped. The 139-grain Hornady skimmed the tops of the grass.

“Hit high,” said the tracker, as the animals thundered off.

That was bad news. The little 7mm had far less punch than the .300 Holland I’d used two decades before. I dropped another round into the Number One. Easing forward, we looked in vain for blood and hair. I’d called a lethal hit. But my companion had seen a different picture. We’d come 50 yards. Now 60.

Then we saw the carcass. My bullet had stitched both lungs. Right through their middle. The tracker smiled and shrugged. “Good.”

Good is what you need when you only have one shot.

Many, many Octobers back, when I was a lad, I recall hunting pheasants in brush fields now subdivisions. Bird hunting was good then—much better than my shooting—and one Saturday morning I’d used all but one of the dozen shotshells I’d stuffed in my vest. It was equally empty of roosters. Trudging back to the farm house, I booted a cock from an overgrown fenceline. He got up fast, flew flat instead of towering and streaked behind a row of ash. It was by far the most difficult shot I’d had all morning, too tough for a shotgunner with my record. But I swung hard and fired the only shell in my 870 Remington. The bird came unhinged somewhere behind the trees, hurtling through the gaps in a cloud of feathers and bouncing to a stop in the corn stubble beyond. I conceded, as I pondered my good fortune, that on this last rise I had truly focused. Down to my last wad of sixes, I’d not leaned on a full magazine to indulge in quick and careless shooting. Such profligacy had caused me to miss earlier and easier shots. Almost always we perform best when there’s just one chance to make good.           

Back when hunters used muzzleloading rifles, fast follow-up shots didn’t happen. Breech-loading cartridge rifles like the British Farquharson, Winchester’s High Wall, Remington’s Rolling Block and the Sharps (all single-shots) gave practiced marksmen quick access to another animal, or a chance to make good on a poor hit. Repeating mechanisms added much more firepower. It could be argued that they also made hunters lazy. No longer was the first shot the only shot. Magazines gave shooters many tries to land a bullet in the vitals.

Some hunters maintain that it’s unethical to hunt with a single-shot rifle. “You’ll eventually lose game you could have killed with a quick second hit.” I disagree. Repeater or single-shot, it’s your option to fire—you alone trigger the rifle. If you shoot at running game or through brush or from great distance or at steeply quartering animals, yes, sooner or later you’ll land a bullet in the wrong place. If you’re determined to make the first shot lethal every time, you’ll take great care with it. You’ll pass up shots that you’d make most of the time and take only those you’re sure to make all of the time. You’ll lose shots at game you might have killed, but you’ll not lose game. 

Now, elk are tough. Often I’ve shot them again after a well-placed bullet. But a lethal hit is, after all, lethal. Hunting with a single-shot does not necessarily make you less effective. Nor does it mean you can’t follow the first hit. You need only practice to reload a dropping-block or hinged-breed rifle almost as fast as you can work a bolt, given the delay imposed by recoil. Regardless of your rifle, the policy of shooting until an elk is down has much to recommend it. The goal shouldn’t be low bullet/trophy ratios, but faultless shot judgment and marksmanship.

If you wanted to ensure that every animal dropped where it stood and died before you got there, you’d shoot only for the brain. But brain shots make no sense, except with the biggest African game. An elk’s brain is a smaller target than most hunters can hit from hunting positions farther than they can throw a rock.

Better, of course, to pick a bigger target. The lungs are my favorite. Bullets there always kill but destroy little if any meat. As with a heart shot, though, animals struck in the lungs typically run or stagger a short distance before collapsing. They may live some minutes. You must then decide whether or not to shoot again. I always do. Animals still afoot get a follow-up shot if I can reasonably expect to hit vitals. Elk that are down but still breathing deserve a finisher, fired from a few yards away into the heart or upper neck. Shoot carefully, but shoot. Holding your fire can leave you empty-handed if that first bullet didn’t hit where you thought. Approaching too close for the clincher, you may trigger an adrenaline surge that brings the animal to its feet.

Most hunters can learn to shoot better than they do. At least, they can miss less often than they do. Rifle practice from hunting positions is the surest way to boost your average afield. You can also decline tough shots.

Guiding elk hunters a decade ago, I was often amazed at their willingness to take difficult shots. My notes showed that those who held out for can’t-miss opportunities rarely got fewer chances. They just had fewer misses. More importantly, they didn’t cripple game.

Getting within sure-kill range of elk should be easy, given the cover and terrain they call home and the wonderful optical sights and tremendous power of modern rifle cartridges. I’d hunted elk for some time before I shot one at over 150 yards. If memory serves, I’ve taken only a couple at over 200. The notion that you need 400-yard reach to fill an elk tag is akin to the assumption that you need 300 horsepower to pass safely on the freeway. Equally absurd is the idea that more cartridges make you a deadlier hunter.

Hunting with a .30-30 a couple of seasons back, I killed five big game animals without missing or losing any. Both elk dropped within 30 steps of the first hit. The short 2½x Leupold scope matched the reach of my Marlin carbine. I never felt undergunned. Nor did I in Africa with the 7x57 Number One. I could have carried a more potent rifle and fired from a safari car at distant game, but I didn’t want to shoot from a safari car or at distant game. The trackers, accustomed to skull counts and horn lengths as measures of a hunt, urged me to change rifles and get in the high seat. I did not.

An essential part of hunting, in my view, is testing field skills against the senses and instincts of the game. Another essential component is marksmanship. If my bullet is not on the mark, it’s a bad shot, whether or not the animal dies right away.

Getting close to an animal and betting all on a single round comprise the essence of the chase for many experienced hunters who’ve taken game on easier terms. A bonus, at least for me, is the pleasure of carrying a single-shot rifle. Ruger’s Number One is by any measure among one of the best-looking rifles of recent times. Developed to mimic the elegant Farquharson, and shaped with the help of ace stockmaker Leonard Brownell, it’s a delight to carry. So is the lovely Dakota Model 10 (mine is a .280). The modestly priced Thompson/ Center Contender and Encore rifles, with their multiple barrel options, offer equally enduring lock-up and the short overall length engendered by a standing breech.

Custom-built single-shots can bring a rifle sophisticate to his knees. Recently, at a Wyoming range, I ran into a young man who’d grown up in the Cowboy State, then hied off to England to study gunmaking. He returned for a stint at the prestigious U.S. firm of Griffin & Howe on the East Coast, then bought a Laramie, Wyoming, bank to renovate and turn into a gunshop. Nate Heineke (nlheineke.com) had three rifles on the bench that day: two G&H-style Mausers and a Farquharson. The single-shot stole my heart. No slight to those bolt guns—they were truly elegant. But I drooled over the dropping-block. Nate had stocked it with fine walnut. Trim and classic in line, it balanced perfectly and brought my eye to the sight effortlessly. I still pine for that rifle, a .450/400. Shooting it spoiled me for other rifles on the line.
 
Most shooters know about the Sharps rifle’s history and the fine reproductions from Shiloh Sharps in Montana. A mountain man might have traded his best mule and a trip to Green River for one of these strong, accurate and beautifully fitted modern rifles. The same can be said for single-shots fashioned just across the border in Cody, Wyoming. That’s where you’ll find Bill and Louise Northrup and the Ballard Rifle and Cartridge Company (ballardrifles.com). The shop turns out faithful reproductions of the Browning-designed Winchester 1885 High Wall and Low Wall, and the 1875 Ballard. In all respects, they’re better than the originals, with milled receivers hand-filed and fitted to top-grade walnut (.002 tolerance at the seams!). Match-quality barrels come in more than 100 chamberings, from .17 HMR to .577 Nitro Express. Folding tang sights? Of course!
 
Limitations are what make sport sport. Basketball hoops would be easier to reach if they were lower, touchdowns easier to score if football fields were shorter, golf greens easier to hit if they were bigger. A magazine doesn’t make a rifle more effective, but shooters who rely on follow-up rounds to fix initial mistakes are likely to make more of them.
      
Usually, we perform to the level of the challenge. As substituting iron sights for a scope, or a .30-30 or 7x57 for a .30 magnum imposes new strictures on your behavior, so hunting with a single cartridge presumes a level of discipline many hunters don’t show. But it can also hone your hunting skills and boost the satisfaction you get when that first bullet goes just where you want it—after a stalk that took you closer than the guide or tracker thought you’d get.