Written by Neil Harmse

Facing charges

During my bush life, I have always been very careful when dealing with animals that can hurt me, so it is not too often that I find myself in a sticky situation. Once, on a Botswana hunting concession known as Khurunxaraga bordering to the west of Chief’s Island in the Okavango, I found myself hunting with two friends whom I shall call Chris and Vic. It was a hunt that almost ended in disaster.

Chris was the managing partner of a safari operation in Botswana and Vic was a Johannesburg businessman and gun collector. We had taken a general game licence each and two supplementary licences for buffalo. This was in the good old days, when it cost R50 per buffalo. Vic was carrying a Holland and Holland Royal 500/.465 which he had recently bought and wanted to use on his buffalo. He had some packets of Kynoch ammunition that came with the gun. I had my .450 NE Army and Navy double, and Chris had his .375 H&H. More than enough firepower. Against my better judgement, Vic insisted that a tracker we had employed in Maun, whose abilities we did not know, carry a .404… ‘just in case’! We thus set off on our buffalo hunt.

At about 9am, we found fresh tracks at a waterhole and caught up with a group of five bulls in a small clearing. Vic was to have the first shot, so he lined up his Holland. Click… boom! A hang-fire! A bull was hit high on the shoulder – too high for any real structural damage. The bulls turned and ran into the combretum scrub, the wounded one leaving a light, but visible blood trail. Following him in the soft, sandy soil was fairly easy, but every time we caught up with him, he was in stunted scrub mopane or combretum all about chest- to shoulder-high, so all we could see were his legs or sometimes the top of his horns – his vital targets being obscured by the dense bush. He would stand for a while and then run off to another spot. This carried on for a few hours, until everyone was exhausted and very tense. The two trackers had moved quite far ahead and I was on the point of calling them 24 back when a shot went off and they both came running back, shouting that they had shot the buffalo. The tracker with the .404 had spotted the buffalo standing in a partial clearing and had fired at it.

On examining the tracks, I found that a second animal had moved in and joined up with the wounded bull – and he was watching our approach. The tracker had shot the wrong buffalo! He could not tell where he had hit it, but there were now two distinct blood spoors. What could more go wrong? We decided to follow the second wounded one, as that spoor was fresher. We had gone about 200m when we spotted the buffalo about 30m ahead. Vic fired and the animal went down, but immediately got up again and turned. Vic and Chris both fired again. The buffalo turned in a circle and dropped, but was not dead and while Vic reloaded, Chris fired again. I was holding my rifle pointing at the buffalo, waiting to see the results of their shots, when I heard branches breaking to my right. The second bull was right behind and charging. I don’t remember aiming my double: I just shot where he looked biggest. My first shot hit him in the chest, but he didn’t even stagger and I thought I had missed him completely. My second shot at about 8m took him just under the eye and he dropped, landing about 2-3m away from me. Fortunately, the first bull was now also down and dead. I had a hell of a job keeping my breakfast down where it should be and had the shakes for about half an hour. This was my second charge, having previously been charged by a leopard. I was becoming a veteran. On later examining the bull, we found that my first shot into the chest had hit the top of the heart, severing the artery, but this had not fazed the bull. He had just kept coming.

I did not handle my third charge with my usual Out of Africa, Robert Redford panache, so I will only mention it briefly. A friend and I were hunting bushpig in the Sabie area of the then Eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga). These wily animals only came out of the pine forests and into the banana plantations at night, so we attached a spotlight to a handcarried car battery and went looking for them in the lands bordering the plantations. I was using a borrowed Browning five-shot, auto-loading, 12-bore shotgun loaded with Gevarm aluminium case cartridges in SSG Buckshot.

Our hunt started with Peter, the landowner’s son, and I carrying the guns, one of the farmhands carrying the battery and another the spotlight. Well, the pigs arrived on schedule and the light went on. I fired at a good-sized boar – and then the wheels came off. My shotgun jammed, with the second round halfway in the chamber. The pig adopted a decidedly anti-social attitude and charged – whereupon the battery-bearer dropped his load and headed home as fast as his legs could carry him.

Standing in the dark with a jammed gun and an angry porker rapidly approaching somewhere ahead is not a good feeling. Peter and I did the wisest thing: we fled. I remember running into and through the plantation and then into the pine forest, being slapped in the face by branches, tripping over logs, roots and other unknown obstacles, all the while hearing the angry grunting and snorting of the enraged pig somewhere in the blackness behind us. Not a good feeling at all. We eventually lost the pig, by which time I had also lost Peter. At this stage, I was also totally lost, not knowing where I was in the forest, nor in which direction the farmhouse lay. I spent a very uncomfortable night, freezing and.  thoroughly miserable, waiting for daylight, before I could find my bearings and take the. long walk home. Needless to say, I have never owned another semi-auto shotgun or rifle since, although I still enjoy hunting bushpig when I get the chance. We hunters never learn.

During the mid-1980s I was doing game control on an estate near Malelane, bordering the Kruger National Park. Early one morning I was asked to look for and ‘sort out’ a buffalo 26 which had developed a nasty habit of chasing the workers. Alec van der Post, a nephew of Sir Laurens van der Post and a professional hunter, who was visiting at the time, wanted to share the hunt, so armed with my .375 and his .416 Rigby, we set off to look for the rogue. Petrus, my tracker, found the spoor leading from a banana plantation into a vlei of dense. reeds. The tracks were fresh and we carefully followed the spoor into the reeds. Alec and I kept our eyes on the vegetation, while Petrus tried to determine which way the buffalo was heading. The wind was constantly changing, but we had no choice but to keep on the tracks. Suddenly the bull snorted ahead and broke into a run, deeper into the tangle of reeds.

Petrus then climbed a small tree to try to see what was ahead and indicated that he could see the bull. We slowly inched our way forward for another 10-15m when Petrus again spotted the bull, but we could not make out where he was. Petrus threw a piece of wood towards the buffalo, which again ran off to the left of the faint pathway. We heard him moving and then… silence. The buffalo had stopped and was waiting.

Petrus then moved forward to climb another tree about 10 paces to our left. He was halfway to it when there was a crashing and snorting and the bull charged straight at him. Through a small clearing in the reeds and undergrowth I took a snapshot, and the bull turned and was gone. My hurried shot had hit him in the throat and he ran out of the reeds into a small island of thick (very thick) lantana scrub and assorted nasty undergrowth. We carefully circled this island, but could not see any tracks of the bull leading out. He was waiting inside the tangle. Alec stationed himself on the path the bull had made on entry. I instructed Petrus to stay with Alec and I moved around to a hippo tunnel leading into the lantana. There was simply no room for two people to manoeuvre in the thicket.

For the benefit of those who have not experienced this type of vegetation, these hippo tunnels are only high enough to crawl or waddle along and the lantana leaves and stalks are as rough as coarse sandpaper, tearing and scratching clothes and skin. Great fun! All I could hope for was to spot the bull before he flattened me. I felt decidedly under-gunned with my .375. Boy, was I scared! But I kept my concentration on the vegetation for any movement. After what seemed like half a lifetime, a small clearing opened a few metres ahead. Once I reached it, I could at least stand upright. A slight movement to one side of the clearing caught my eye. In the shadowy gloom, I could just make out the buffalo waiting… Fortunately, he was facing the direction he had entered, which was away from me. He was no more than 4-5m from where I stood. Very slowly I raised the .375 and, taking careful aim, fired for the brain, killing him instantly.

The animal was a young bull and the reason for his bad temper was a nasty wound and abscess behind his front leg, caused by a 5,56mm NATO bullet which had lodged there. It must have been fired by one of the soldiers on patrols who moved through the area from time to time, keeping check on people and insurgents crossing the border from Mozambique.

Why the buffalo turned from his first charge at Petrus, I cannot say. Perhaps he was a young bull and not one of the old ‘dagga boys’ and maybe my shot hitting him from the side caused him to swing away. I don’t know.

As Alec later put it: ‘This was one of the most tense hunts I have ever had to do.’ I felt the same. However, fresh buffalo steaks and a few cold beers for lunch made it all worthwhile.

Written by Neil Harmse

Poor Man’s Double Rifle

It all started when I bought a ‘slightly’ damaged AyA number 2 shotgun from a friend who had burst the one barrel near the muzzle with a bad reload. I paid R100 for it and had the gun sent off to AyA in Spain for a new set of barrels. Somehow, the gun was ‘lost’ in transit and it was only over a year later that it was finally returned – without the new barrels. Instead of going through the whole exercise again, I decided to cut the barrels down to 18” (46cm) and use the gun like that.

After shooting a few guinea fowl and francolin – as well as a warthog and bushpig – with factory slugs, the gun was stored at the back of my safe in favour of other shotguns and rifles.

During 1985, while doing game control work in the Lowveld, I again put the AyA to work as a back-up weapon for lion and leopard, using both buckshot and slug loads.

While employed as a field guide conducting wilderness trails in the Timbavati on behalf of the Wilderness Leadership School, I had a very narrow shave with a lioness and her cubs. It was about midday and I was leading a group of six trailists back to camp after a morning walk. Having seen no game for quite a while, the group had become a bit disinterested and unobservant in the heat of the day. We were all looking forward to getting back to camp and enjoying a late brunch. Our route took us through a patch of fairly thick acacia scrub, where I suddenly noticed a lion cub under a bush about 5m away.

I knew that the mother, and perhaps the rest of the pride, had to be somewhere close by, and I stopped abruptly, causing the rest of the party to literally bump into me. However, I could see no sign of the lions. The cub then ran off and I stared in the direction it was going. Sure enough, there was the lioness asleep under a bush in the long grass, about 25m away. She had her back to me and was so well camouflaged and blended so well in the grass that I would normally not have seen her. I whispered to the people to freeze, which they did.

Mama woke up when the cub reached her and started turning towards us. I could actually see her eyes focus on me. Then, suddenly, she was up and coming with a growl that sounded like a four-letter word! I shouted at her at the top of my voice and she stopped, tail stiff and eyes yellow, growling in a loud, unladylike manner. We stood staring at each other for what seemed like two or three years! I decided to get my party out of there. With my rifle (a .375 H&H, by Whitworth) trained on her, I whispered to the group to back off slowly. This they did, without further encouragement. When they were about 30m away, I decided to move back. I now had a problem: if she charged, she was too close for me to fire a warning shot. I would never be able to reload in time if she still came on. I did not want to shoot a lioness with small cubs.

On about my third or fourth backward step, she decided to encourage me to move faster and began her charge. I shouted, but she had heard that one before and took no notice. In desperation, I flung my hat at her. This did the trick and she swerved at about 5m and ran past, with her cubs in tow.

Then and there, my heart yearned for the Rigby .450/400 double rifle I had recently sold. I needed a double-barrel weapon for that quick second shot which is so essential in these situations.

Out came the AyA again, but I was not too happy with the factory slug loads, so I started experimenting. I bought an RCBS slug mould and modified it to cast a 580-grain lino-type slug. Each slug was annealed to make it harder. I then bought a few Armour Brass 12g cases and experimented with different wads to find the best way of seating the slugs into the cases. I had a friend turn out some loading tools for this cannon and began loading. To the AyA I fitted a set of express sights and after roughly bore-sighting, I zeroed the gun with factory Brenneke slugs.

A friend and fellow PH, Frank Schimper and I then took ourselves off to the range with all the reloading paraphernalia, chronograph, etc. I started by checking the factory loads, which clocked an average of 1 221 fps through the AyA. I began by loading 20 grains of MS200, which averaged 821 fps and slowly worked up to 30 grains, which gave me 1 217 fps, almost duplicating factory ballistics with a heavier slug, giving approximately 1 800 ft/lbs muzzle energy.

The penetration test was amazing. The Brenneke slug went through five water-soaked directories. The 30–grain load went through eight directories and a half-metre into the soft clay bank behind – this from a range of 25m. The slug was un-deformed, apart from a few chips caused by hitting stones. Both Frank and I were impressed by this.

I have since experimented further and have taken loads up to 36 grains, which gave me an average of 1 350 fps and a muzzle energy of about 2 348ft/lbs. Accuracy from these loads was quite acceptable up to 50m.

The AyA became my ‘poor man’s double’ and regularly went with me as a defensive weapon on wilderness trails. At all times I felt safe and comfortable with this ‘cannon’.

Just a word of warning:

I worked carefully with my loads and checked for signs of pressure. Loads that were safe in my AyA may not be suitable in any other gun. Remember, too, that the AyA had no chokes for the slugs to pass through, as these were cut off. Never fire hardened and lino-type slugs through choked barrels.