Well, first I should note that there was quite a bit of variation. Firearms were being traded to the states of West Africa in the early 1600s, but in interior Central Africa they were still fairly rare and recent introductions in the 1830s. By the same token, use of firearms for hunting varied in different societies.
I'll also note that although the question specifically asks about hunting, firearms were also sought for use in warfare, and many African kings/chiefs were quick to appreciate the military applications. Furthermore, the practice of hunting and specialized hunting fraternities have been seen as having application as training for warfare, even before the introduction of firearms.^1
Though many scholars will point out that the firearms that Europeans traded to Africans in the 18th and 19th centuries were either worn out, outmoded, or otherwise of low quality.
In the Grassfields area along the modern day Cameroon-Nigeria border, flintlock muskets known as Dane guns were traded from the port at Calabar, and were used in warfare and ceremonial functions into the 20th century. Quoting Jan-Pierre Warnier-^2
According to many informants, guns were seldom used in hunting. Instead, traps nets and spears were used. They only exception may have been that of the leopard- the noblest and most valued game. Many oral accounts report leopard-hunting with guns. However, the actual tactics used in such hunts is not clear. It might be the leopard, once sighted, was lured into attacking a group of gunmen. But even this way of hunting would have been highly dangerous because of the risk of misfiring, though the discharge of an 11 or 12 gauge smoothbore at close range must have been quite effective at stopping a leopard in full charge.It may be that hunters were willing to run high risks to win the rewards associated with the killing of a leopard. Often, it was the gift of a wife by the chief- an invaluable reward in a society where titled men monopolized the women and forced many junior men to remain bachelors for life. In Central and Eastern Africa (DRC, Tanzania, Zambia), the introduction of firearms was intimately tied to trade in Slaves and trade in Ivory.
Though on the other hand, Warnier also mentions that percussion guns began to be introduced to the region between WWI and WWII, and that flintlock owners had local blacksmiths turn their guns into percussion guns, making them much more reliable and better hunting weapons.
Among societies in Central Africa like the Luba or the Lozi, access to firearms was a symbol of elite status. Guns were procured by long-distance trade, either from Angola through Ovimbundu traders, or from the Swahili coast through Swahili or Nyamwezi trade caravans. The early-mid 19th century saw an expansion of trading networks from the coast deep to the interior of the continent. As I noted above, in 1830 firearms would have been a recent introduction among the Lozi or the Lunda, and there were initially few, and a chief's prestige would be reflected in the number of firearms or even cannons they could display.
At the same time, firearms were deeply connected to the trades in ivory and the trade in slaves. In this era, Nyamwezi and Swahili trader-adventurers like Mirambo, Msiri and Tippu Tip were establishing what I would call "warlord states" in eastern and southern DRC and in central Tanzania, relying on musket armed followers to enforce their usurpation, but also to collect ivory for trade to the coast, or else enforce tribute from local hunters.
This intrusion of Big Men in mid-nineteenth century Central Africa also had profound effects on societies outside of these warlord states. To quote David Gordon-^3
Ivory became the symbol of the new ruling class, the most prestigious and valued trading item. Warlord chiefs demanded all or a significant portion of ivory from the hunt or employed their own hunters to procure tusks. Indeed, the definition of chieftancy revolved around the ability to impos claims for tribute in ivory....
Guns were used to procure both slaves and ivory. But it was especially with the ascendance of the ivory trade that guns became a necessary factor of production. Guns were increasingly used to hunt elephants. The hunting of elephants had previously been undertaken by brave men organized in guilds with specialized techniques that included trapping, poisons, and specially manufactured spears. But this changed in the second half of the century. Renowned Chikunda and Bisa elephant hunters gained access to or began to manufacture primitive guns and abandoned their old hunting techniques. they had little choice if they were to compete with the gun-wielding followers of coastal caravans. When, for example, Tippu Tip's followers encountered herds of elephants, they could slaughter 'countless numbers' of elephants.
But the use of guns to kill elephants was only one aspect of the connection between guns and ivory. The export of ivory became linked to a violent regional trade in slaves. Although exhausted and famished slaves were not effective porters for ivory, the slave and ivory trades developed together as predominantly male ivory hunters desired slaves, often women, as worker and as concubines. The Lunda-Chokwe in the west of the region, for example, purchased female slaves from the Ovimbundu caravans that reached the interior and previously supplied slaves for the Atlantic trade. In exchange they sold ivory destined for the international markets. Farther north, the Kuba ppurchased slaves for ivory. Chikunda hunters in the east also purchased slave women to expand their lineages.
As guns flowed into the region, the earliest European explorers often remarked about how guns quickly depleted the local game population. For instance, Emil Holub visited the Lozi in 1875 and witnessed a royal hunt where he says perhaps 10,000 shots were fired. By 1886, the next Lozi king Lubosi Lewanika forbade the use of guns during the annual royal hunt.^4
Similarly, while living among the Kololo 1853, David Livingstone wrote in his private diary that their recent adoption of firearms to hunt elephants would mean "very soon, none will appear in this part of the country. They retire before the gun sooner tan any other animal". ^5 His prediction was borne out, since the ivory trade in that region of Malawi was exhausted soon after.
Incidentally, with greater European presence in the colonial era, some hunting safari expeditions were seized upon by missionaries as opportunities for evangelization. These hunting expeditions could take a crude form of humanitarian relief, as food providing expeditions in time of local famine. In such circumstances, missionaries could present a successful hunt as a homily on God's gracious provision of food in time of need.
In other circumstances, missionaries armed with the latest firearms could be called upon to use them for the protection of their mission station or local communities against man-killing predators.^6
In Southern Africa, Griqua and Khoikhoi groups introduced firearms to the highveld in the 1820s and 1830s. Many Tswana and other Ngoni chiefs were quick to appreciate the military application of firearms, reasoning that through the getting of firearms, they would become militarily superior to their neighbors and equal to Griqua and whites. The Tswana were also quick to appreciate the effectiveness of firearms for hunting, which made up an essential part of Tswana food strategy until the 20th century.
As in Central Africa, the ivory trade was deeply tied to the trade in firearms. But, in the specific context of Southern Africa, firearms could come from British or Boer traders. By the 1870s, firearms had so proliferated among the Xhosa, the Sotho and the Tswana that Cape Colony officers fighting in the Ninth Cape-Xhosa war (1877-79) and the Sotho Gun War (1880-81) would complain that their foes had superior rifles than their own troops. Additionally, the Gun War was fought over Cape Colony efforts to disarm the Sotho, ending in a de-facto Sotho victory.
Similar settler unease would lead Cape Colony officials to demand Tswana disarmament in 1895. However, Tswana chiefs supported by London Missionary Society missionaries resisted these demands, arguing that firearms had become 'vital to their customary economic activity of hunting'.^7
All of that was a long-walk to say that firearms became a vital part of Tswana hunting strategy and led to a loss of traditional hunting techniques within 60 years of their introduction in Southern Africa.
Sources!
"The Shirts that Mande Hunters Wore" by Patrick Mcnaughton in African Arts Vol 15, no 3 (May 1982) pp54-91
The Cameroon Grassfields Civilization by Jean-Paul Warnier. pp 65
"Wearing Cloth, Wielding Guns: Consumption, Trade and Politics in the South Central African Interior during the Ninteenth Century" by David M Gordon in the Objects of Life in Central Africa pp 30
The Gun in Central Africa: A History of Technology and Politics by Giacomo Macola pp53-72
5)"Reassessing the Significance of Firearms in Central Africa: the case of North-Western Zambia to the 1920s" by Giacomo Macola in Journal of African History vol 51 no 3 pp 311
"Fishers of Men and Hunters of Lion:British Big Game Hunting in Colonial Africa" by Jason Bruner in A Cultural History of Firearms in the Age of Empire pp 60
"Firearms in South Central Africa" by Anthony Atmore, J. M. Chirenje and S.I. Mudenge in Journal of African History Vol 12 no 4 pp 550