Well, I think I'll start with most the African dangerous game, other than cats. My pick would be pretty much anything between the 458 Lott and 460 Wby magnums. The big cat's could be 3"/3 ½ inch 12ga to 458 Win Mag. My personal pick would be the .375 H&H magnum; mainly due to its wide performance envelope; good long range, hard hitting up close, very controllable for needed follow ups, last'…, very accurate with all bullet weight and styles. It's kinda like the B-52 bomber of the hunting world…. nothing special, been around forever in the aircraft industry and military… it just keeps getting the job done all over the world.
So now with that said; BEAR'S! Something more of us are likely to run into. I like my Winchester M71 .348 Win using Barnes 250gr originals… it's fast and hard hitting at close range... Not to mention very controllable.
I also like my 12ga pump with heavy slugs.
Just for out and out hunting one; well again the .375 H&H pops into my mind, as does the 340 Wby Mag and the 338 Rem Ultra Mag and any in there performance class.
As a side note; I was watching a program on T.V not long ago, I thinks it was called The Yukon or something like that on the History Channel. Anyway... one of the families's had a grizzly bear coming in very boldly raiding their Salmon smoke house. Well'.., one of the young men... "a teenager"... grabbed his AR15 carbine {along with the film crew} and others in the family, they went outside to address this bear issue; as to who was the rightful owners of the smoked Salmon. I'm not sure, but it looked like it was one or possible two rounds fired from that AR15 CAR into the head and/or neck; an that old bear was as dead as the Salmon he was trying steal, "I mean in his tracks dead"… this was no grizzly cub nor yearling bear, this was a very, very large and mature grizzly bear. So is an AR15 CAR 5.56mm a good bear rifle and cartridge for grizzly? I think not too many veritable could go wrong, but it could do the job in a pinch it would appear.
With that said those are my picks and my .02
Cheers
436
PS: On the African game… I'd also like the PH behind me with his .505 or .600 doubles at the ready. Safety first, one could put an eye out.