Still, it’s a matter of mindset and training. If you’ve practiced loading your single-shot, most of the time this will not be a big issue. But the nuances of using a single-shot are not limited to the one-shot capacity. First, you have to get to the cartridge.

There are lots and lots of clever ways to keep one or two cartridges instantly available—and none of them work unless you’ve practiced the technique and have the mindset to instantly implement the option you’ve prepared for.

For instance, I once believed that single-shots weren’t good choices for horseback hunts because they must be unloaded in the scabbard, making it somewhat difficult to take advantage of any quick opportunities, and also because fitting a rifle scabbard under stirrup leather is usually a problem—sometimes an uncomfortable one.

Most people think of something like the Winchester Model 94 as an ideal saddle gun, but the slab-sided Ruger No. 1 fills the bill just as nicely.

A recent kudu hunt in South Africa changed my mind. I was using a No. 1 and discovered that the rifle is slab-sided just like a Model 94 Winchester, the first rifle I carried in a saddle boot. Even with a scope it fit wonderfully well under the abbreviated stirrup leathers of the South African saddles, so I can only imagine how well it would work with American tack.

After several days in the saddle, I hurt all over, but the rifle in the saddle boot had nothing to do with that—and when the time came to jump off and take a kudu, the single-shot action was no hindrance whatsoever. So I retract any reticence whatsoever about recommending a single-shot for a horseback hunt. The flat profile is worth the extra planning required to make sure that first cartridge is there when you need it.

At one time I also believed that a single-shot was a poor choice for dangerous game and said so in print. I was at least half right, but the wrongness came from the fact that, at that point in my hunting career, I hadn’t actually hunted dangerous game with a single-shot rifle—so I was speaking hypothetically and really didn’t have much of a right to an opinion.

In the last few years I have corrected this gap, at least enough to have an opinion. The basic situation isn’t much different than with any other type of hunting. Sometimes a single-shot will do the job instantly—but when you’re talking about really large, tough animals this is not common, let alone certain.

So, once again, sometimes there’s all the time in the world to reload and fire a second shot. Other times things happen too fast and no one could get a follow-up shot, regardless of the rifle carried. Most situations are somewhere between these extremes, meaning that a follow-up shot, whether essential or merely insurance, can be fired if the hunter is ready enough and quick enough.

I’ve spent a lot of time practicing reloading single-shots and I’m pretty darned fast, but there have been very few instances where I’ve been able to reload a single-shot fast enough to get in a follow-up shot on buffalo or elephant. On the other hand, there have been very few situations where I haven’t been able to fire at least a second shot when I’ve been carrying a double rifle or a bolt action.

Of course, hunting dangerous game by yourself with a single-shot would be foolhardy, but 99 percent of the time we are accompanied by guides, so our own inability to back up our first shot isn’t the end of the world. But if you or I have fired our one shot and we’re fumbling for a reload while, say, a potentially wounded brown bear or Cape buffalo is headed for cover, somebody now has to do something.

In most jurisdictions your licensed guide is legally responsible for your safety, and most of these guys don’t want to shoot your animals for you—but they don’t want to follow up wounded dangerous game if they don’t have to. So, when you’re carrying a single-shot, there will be times when your guide will have to shoot, and perhaps he wouldn’t have needed to if you’d been a bit faster.

In the end, big game hunting with a single-shot comes down to the same thing—the fact that you can count on only one shot makes you extremely careful.