Gin-Trapped Buffalo Leads to the Fall of a Zimbabwean Icon

The letter below was copied to me by an Alaskan hunter.

 

What made the letter particularly meaningful is that just this week something terrible happened. When you read the letter below, you will see a reference to gin traps and how terrible they are. And the link you may ask?  It was just this week that a game-farming family inadvertently felt the tragic impact of such a poacher’s gin trap.

 

A tremendous man, from all reports, someone devoted to uplifting communities and wildlife, was killed by a buffalo. The buffalo had fallen victim to one of the impoverished rural poachers’ gin traps. Wounded, suffering, and needing to be put out of its misery, the belligerent beast took out its anger and pain on the very person on a mission to help end its suffering. Digby Bristow was the target of the buffalo’s vengeance as it pummeled him – his wife Vanessa’s words in her heartfelt recount of what happened that fateful day just before Christmas.

 

While the taking of a life, the killing of an animal is hard to understand, and some even display delight in the act, and is what jars with the public in general, it is only a component of the hunt itself. The letter below is a long read, so just keep scrolling if you are busy.

 

Letter to UK Parliament regarding the Ban the Import of African Animals

Dear MP Christopher Chope,

 

After reading the article by Dr. John Ledger in the latest issue of “African Hunting Gazette” I was greatly disturbed to see a Bill by the UK Parliament to Ban the Import of African Animals.

 

It is with great respect to you after reading bios about you from different sources that you are a champion against such a Bill and that you have in the past been a champion against the many “New Age Ideas” that attempt to alter and destroy our natural world.

 

There have been times as a hunter that I have looked upon an animal that I have killed and wonder how I could take the life of such a beautiful creature. But I believe mankind should be overseers of our natural heritage, including the environment of our planet, the husbandry of our ecosystem, and the common-sense use of fossil fuels, utilized for man’s benefit. Until there is a better energy source, fossil fuel should still be our best choice for it is still in great supply!

 

The people of Africa are beneficiaries of those that come to hunt on their soil. The dollars that come to them by way of travel, licenses, permits, taxes, game meat, and trophy fees each help to educate local communities about the natural fauna and flora, and the importance of habitat in which they live within.

Normally these people in rural villages are very poor that have small gardens that will supply them with the food that will carry them through each day and each season. An elephant or herds of antelope that come to feed on their gardens, become an enemy that must be dealt with. Some may be shot with crude weapons, caught in gin traps, or taken with snares. Without education, their value as a renewable game species is unknown to them.

 

When African Countries open blocks to hunters, the benefits to the rural people are tremendous. The funds that are immediately procured become sources of income for game departments that fund species surveys, game counts, boreholes for healthy drinking water in the villages where many have died from disease-ridden water supplies. Those in these villages become part of poaching patrols.  Money is used to build schools that will educate their children about the animals that live around them.

 

A new world that suddenly opens to them, ideas become the creation of dreams to becoming doctors, seeing a world that was never envisioned.

 

Those people that had their gardens raided, will begin to see meat being delivered to their villages, and with this new resource of protein that they can depend on, begin to take an interest in the way animals will be harvested that will not only supply food for their families, but will be a dependable and renewable resource for them in the future.

 

If this Bill to Ban the Import of African Animals is passed, it will destroy the wildlife species like never before. Who will fund the needy when wildlife no longer has a spoken voice, from those that benefited the most?

 

Many of the Wildlife Parks in Africa have been saved from complete habitat destruction by those that come from abroad – to hunt. The hunting blocks, of course, are outside of these parks, but as habitat decreases many species leave to forage where habitat is plentiful. Because Animal Rights organizations will not allow the animals in these parks to be culled, the destruction of these guarded habitats becomes useless to provide life to the species living within them.

 

Without wise management of our natural world that is provided for now by hunters’ dollars and certainly not by those that cry foul yet offer nothing to the poor African people that ought to benefit, the environment and its wildlife will suffer.

 

There are those that come to my home and see animals I have hunted in Africa and elsewhere. There are some that shake their heads, for they do not understand. But when I can explain about the coloration of animal skins, the unique shape of eyes, lips, and horns, some begin to understand from a fresh perspective.

I tell them about a person with a strange name they have never heard before, our tracker who we followed. I tell them about the bent stick he used to point to a hoof-print barely visible in dry and dusty ground among dozens of others, and as I recall my memories I am transported back to that place where warm winds blow and the sweet soft calls from doves are carried in those warm currents of air. A place where the joy I felt was indescribable, where calming peace captivated me in a place like no other.

 

I will recall how wonderfully surprised I was when this man pointed to the direction the animal had suddenly turned, for there was nothing to show in the sand or grass that I could see. But he smiled and nodded.

 

These wonderful trackers became masters of these skills when they were but young boys when they took charge of the village cattle into fields, through jungle and down into river bottoms among ferocious predators, when the rainy season came, with flashes of lightening from thunderstorms of black clouds and racing wind and pounding rain.

I sadly recall that some of these great men I hunted with died at a young age because of HIV/AIDs and other diseases that could not be warded off because their communities were remote and poor. There were no doctors, so none came.

 

Like the animals that have such coloration and form, the indigenous African people are different in color and cultures from our own but are beautiful and unique. They have seen what hunters’ dollars have brought into their lives, and they have learned the importance these game animals now have, and what has been added to their lives and their families that now have schools and health clinics. They have honor. They have very little, but they love their families, as we do ours.

 

They know if they let the game animals propagate, that the oldest males will be harvested, the resource will continue, and the meat and trophy fees will make their villages prosper.

 

We proclaim that our world today is superior to that of the past, but still the horn of the rhino and the tusk of the elephants have no regulated legal trade. Yet poaching has continued, with black markets stealing the lives of these animals, a practice that will continue again and again until those animals are just pictures in a book.

 

There will be no one to count the missing dead, for the game departments will close without funding to maintain the resource.

 

Some nations stopped hunting and brought in people with cameras. But photo safaris travel the same track day after day, giving wild animals no peace to live as people seek their pictures relentlessly, day after day.

 

The habitat loss becomes tremendous with roads and bridges. Non-hunters pay no trophy fees that would fund game departments or poaching patrols. Photo Safaris supply no protein to the villagers who have lost their gardens to animals that no longer are managed or cared for. They receive no funding. They receive no meat.

 

There are those that claim that Kenya is the model African country because it no longer allows organized hunting. But when you talk to those rural people that lived there before 1977, they will tell you a different story.

 

This planet is ours, we can preserve it or let it fall into destruction. True hunters, those that seek our world’s wild places, hunt not just to kill or take away, but come to preserve those things that should be most precious to each of us.

 

How wonderful if we could each hand over to those that come after we have gone, this most incredible natural world gifted to us.

 

Hunters’ dollars fund wildlife!

 

My Best Regards,

Norman Thomas

Alaska

 

 

One for the Road

Elephant in the Okavango.  Botswana has one of the few remaining healthy elephant populations—healthy to the point of threatening their own well-being through habitat destruction.  Proper elephant management is difficult because of international opinion, made all the worse in the age of the Internet.

By Terry Wieland

 

Pachydermia

The fading symbol of Africa

 

To the wide world, the elephant is the symbol of Africa.  Hunters might hold out for the lion, and the greater kudu has it advocates, but ask the average person what animal he thinks of when you mention Africa and the answer will almost always be “the elephant.”

 

This fact is important when you consider the coverage given to game conservation generally by the mainstream media.  The mountain nyala may be seriously endangered, or the eastern bongo, or giant sable, but mention those to the average journalist—or, more to the point, the average editor—and you will likely get nothing more than a strange look.

 

Every couple of years, The Economist, London’s highly respected international news magazine, remembers the elephant and sends someone to take a look at its status.  One expects high quality journalism from The Economist, and usually gets it.  Its most recent articles on elephant are broadly excellent, but with one curious blind spot:  Nowhere that I can find do they mention legal trophy hunting, either as a means of raising revenue or controlling elephant numbers.  And nowhere do they credit hunting organizations such as Safari Club International for their efforts to save wildlife in general, and the elephant in particular.

 

The Economist’s writers, who are anonymous, seem to operate under the same biases that afflict journalists everywhere.  Certain subjects are taboo.  Saying anything good about big-game hunting is one such.  The corruption and venality of African politicians is another, especially if that politician was somehow connected with “freedom fighting.”

 

For example, in the 1970s, Jomo Kenyatta’s wife (one of them, at least) was acknowledged to be one of the biggest traffickers in illegal ivory in East Africa.  Was this ever mentioned in The Times when it wrote about the massive elephant slaughter that occurred back then?  Never, that I know of.  Kenyatta, one of the least admirable of all the immediate post-independence leaders, was given almost saintly status, and this particular wife enjoyed the same untouchable reputation.  I knew foreign correspondents in Nairobi back then who were well aware of the situation and filed stories about it, but these were invariably spiked or all references to Frau Kenyatta removed.

 

Twenty years ago, Gray’s Sporting Journal dispatched me to Africa with instructions to come back with an in-depth story on the status of the African elephant, which was widely believed to be seriously endangered.  Of course, it was not endangered in the least.  At the time, the numbers were estimated at about 750,000 remaining—a far cry from 2.5 million, or even the 1.5 million estimated in the 1970s, but still a long way from endangered.

 

Certainly, in some areas, notably Kenya, numbers were down drastically due to poaching, but in other areas, like Kwando in Botswana, elephant numbers were burgeoning to the point of serious habitat destruction.

 

I spent time with various elephant biologists, and all told the same story:  The major obstacle to any positive action on behalf of elephants was public misconceptions about the actual situation.  No question, the situation was dire, and probably terminal in some areas.  But in others, circumstances were totally different, and totally different actions were required—actions that were blocked by supposedly well-meaning people who thought they knew best.

 

The essential problem, I was told, lay in one fact.  In the mid-1800s, when Europeans began arriving in central Africa, they found islands of people in a sea of elephants.  Today, there are islands of elephants in a sea of people.  That’s fact number one.  Fact number two is that, historically, these vast numbers of elephants moved in continuous migrations, covering thousands of miles.

 

Fact number three is that elephants, all their admirable qualities aside, are intensely destructive animals.  They kill and uproot trees, devour vegetation, and generally devastate their environment.  As long as they were migrating, this was not a problem; quite the opposite, it was an essential part of regeneration, just like periodic veld fires.  Once they could no longer migrate, however, once they were confined to a particular area, the devastation became intense, not only to their detriment but to all the other animals, birds, and reptiles that called it home.

 

This is really an insuperable problem, since the expanding human settlements and infrastructure of Africa block migration routes, and this is almost certainly going to get worse.

 

Some do-gooder conservation groups look at this situation and suggest that the answer is to take elephants from where there are too many and relocate them to areas where there are too few.  This is an attractive proposition, especially when it conjures images presented in movies of a baby elephant in a sling beneath a helicopter, squealing with glee as it is transported to its new home.

 

First of all, where do you put them?  When elephants have been eradicated from an area, it is usually for a reason.  Either they threatened the human population or they were easily vulnerable to poaching.  Will those people want elephants returned?  Unlikely.  Would they be safe from poachers?  Unlikelier still.

 

As for relocating them in the first place, it’s a massive, expensive undertaking fraught with difficulties.  They need to be relocated in family groups.  They need to be transported in a sedated condition, in heavy vehicles, for long distances, over bad roads, with veterinarians in constant attendance, and even then they can only be sedated for short periods.  Intelligent elephants may be, but they don’t seem to accept the explanation that all of this is for their own good.

 

Ask the average person about legal hunting, or even culls, to reduce numbers, versus relocating surplus animals, and everyone will say they should be relocated.  When was the last time you saw an article in The Economist, The Times, or anywhere else, about the realities of relocation?

 

In its most recent article about African elephants, The Economist concluded that the causes of elephant poaching were poverty and bad governance and law enforcement.  No kidding.  Really?

 

In another Economist article several years ago, looking at the plight of elephants and rhinos in the Northern Frontier District of Kenya (the NFD, as it was known years ago), the writers concluded that the animals needed somehow to be given economic value in order to encourage the local tribes, like the Turkana, to protect rather than poach.

 

Nowhere in the article did they even mention legal sport hunting as a possible means of helping to do so.

 

Legal hunting has been a thing of the past in Kenya since 1977.  That is not going to change, and the idea that rich eco-tourists will want to visit the hostile environment of the NFD, and pay enough money to make it worthwhile, is a pipe dream.  Other Economist articles have stressed how dangerous it is to even approach the NFD, and it’s been closed to outsiders because of that, off and on, for years.

 

The advantages of having a legal hunting infrastructure are well known:  You have camps with armed men in them, you have regular patrols as hunting vehicles crisscross the territory, you provide permanent employment and a source of hard currency for the locals, and you give the game department more revenue with which to hire and pay game scouts.

 

The abolition of legal hunting in 1977, with the resulting elimination of all of these benefits in and around protected areas, was a major factor in the explosion of uninhibited poaching of elephants and rhinos in Kenya in the late ‘70s and ‘80s.  There was little to stop them.  Yet the hunting ban was widely applauded as a positive move toward game conservation when, in fact, it was the polar opposite.

 

The other advantage of having such a hunting community is that it gives it hunting a constituency, and a constituency has a voice in government.  No voice in government?  Then no one cares.

 

Would a big-game hunter pay big bucks to hunt elephants in the NFD?  Probably he would, but once you start looking at all the different aspects and difficulties of such an idea, the possibility is extremely remote.

 

In an area where tribes depend on cattle, where grass is scarce and water scarcer, trying to convince herdsmen to value elephants and rhinos over cattle and goats is a waste of time.  To my mind, probably the best use of the mountains of “save the elephant” donations held by the big wildlife funds would be straightforward bribes to the tribesmen, along with giving modern weapons and substantial salaries to the guards, and instituting a shoot-on-sight anti-poaching policy.

 

The alternative is having game scouts and guards who are outgunned by the poachers, who have no qualms about shooting anyone in uniform—or anyone else for that matter.

 

In today’s environment, the surest way to raise an outcry is to have some predominantly white organization try to tell a black government what it should do.  In between the black and the white lies the grey of the elephant, at the mercy of politics, political correctness, and irrevocable change.

Classic and Contemporary African Hunting Literature

Rhino War

Major General (Ret.) Johan Jooste with Tony Park (Ingwe Publishing, 2022, 268 pages)
Reviewed by Ken Bailey

  

 

Rhino War is a fascinating read describing the staggering level and sheer brutality of rhino poaching in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, and one man’s Herculean efforts to stem the losses.

 

In 2012, Johan Jooste, a retired South African general, was hired to lead Kruger’s anti-poaching efforts. He was selected for this role in large measure because of his military experiences, as South African National Parks (SANP), desperate to reduce the overwhelming rhino losses, wanted to introduce a paramilitary-like approach to combatting poaching. Jooste describes in great detail the unanticipated challenges he faced, from opposition within some ranks of the SANP system and a reluctance to change by many of the park rangers, to chronic underfunding, and a largely unsympathetic government in Mozambique, from where the vast majority of poachers originated.

 

Co-written by Tony Park, an established Australian writer of thriller novels and non-fiction biographies, the crisp and clean writing style encourages the reader to continue turning the page – there’s no fluff here.

 

Jooste quickly discovers that protecting Kruger’s rhinos isn’t merely a local operational issue, it’s heavily influenced by national and international politics, and success requires that he become a rhino ambassador, mingling with government officials, royalty, the media and wealthy patrons as he strives to garner the support and funding required to fulfill his vision and, ultimately, save the last great rhino herd on earth.

 

Jooste is clearly a man of many talents. Not only does he prove to be effective in recruiting support at the highest levels, he also shows himself to be a capable boots-on-the-ground leader, describing in fascinating detail many of the thrilling and dangerous anti-poaching operations he took part in, side by side with the unheralded rangers who risked their lives on a daily basis. And make no mistake, as Rhino War teaches us, anti-poaching is, often times, literally a kill or be killed exercise, reflective of the huge money in the rhino horn trade coupled with far too many poor and desperate people willing to do anything to feed their families.

 

Overcoming myriad hurdles along the way, after several years Jooste is not only able to put the brakes on what had been a growing problem, but with the help of technology, generous private funding, a revitalized and recognized ranger team, and the true grit of a military man unwilling to fail, he ultimately succeeds in reversing the tide.

 

Rhino War will interest anybody with a passion for Africa’s great wildlife. It provides an insider’s look at the insidious challenges of poaching, how vast an impact poaching can have on both a local and regional scale, and how significant the personal and financial resource requirements are to conserve our threatened wildlife for future generations.

Karamojo Bell and his Small Bores – Stubborn Resolve or Logical Choice?

This highly ornate Rising Bite double rifle was refitted in Rigby’s London shop for a second barrel set in 9.3x62mm to accompany the original .350 Rigby Magnum barrels. The extension seen at the breech end of the barrels fits very precisely into the action face where a bolt rises into the slot on lock up to form the rising bite. This lock up is very sound, although Bell had mixed feelings for doubles and was cautious of their reliability in harsh conditions where grit may hamper lockup. He often sought out wet areas with tall grass when in pursuit of elephant and preferred a well-made bolt feed that would lock up if covered in silt and grit.

By Doug Manzer

 

It’s near 70 years since Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell left this world, but I do wonder if his opinions on rifle and calibre selection were well reasoned, especially for the time he lived? He certainly wasn’t afraid of voicing an adversarial view, but was there more to it than stubborn Scottish resolve and a desire to make his own path?

 

Bell is a highly regarded if somewhat contrarian figure in the modern history of hunting sportsmen. He is one of the most accomplished hunters of his era and did so with an unorthodox approach in his choice of arms. He also enjoyed poking fun at his contemporaries, especially those in what he termed as the double barrel big bore camp, which he categorized as the “DBBB gang”. He clearly had fun with this, and generally shrugged off the advantages offered from big bores against the disadvantages they imposed for his style of hunting.

Before his name became associated with the .275 Rigby, Bell bought, used, sold, and traded a plethora of rifles and calibres. He went through an early period of trial and error that shaped his views on hunting as well as the rifle and calibre combinations most capable of filling his needs. These early days primed his quest for a reliable and easy shooting arm that would perform as expected when matched with the available ammo.

 

Born in 1880, Bell’s formative years occurred during a period of heightened change in arms development. The patent houses were in a flurry of activity, and many of the lockup and extraction mechanisms that we enjoy today were established during this period before WW1.  Black powder was being phased out, and advances in primers and smokeless propellants made ignition and burn rates more reliable.  Even so, powders were still evolving, and their stability varied across the broad range of temperatures where firearms were being used. Cartridges developed in the temperate areas of Europe were being tested by explorers, hunters, and military regiments in much hotter zones near the equator, often resulting in heightened pressures.

 

One Shot

 

When age 16 and after much persuasion, Bell convinced his guardians to outfit him for East Africa in 1897 where, by sheer pluck, he talked his way into a paid position as hunter for a survey crew on the Kenya-Uganda rail line. He’d left Edinburgh with an elegant Fraser falling block .303 that performed beautifully in the moderate temperatures of Scotland.  His cartridges were filled with nitro-glycerin based smokeless powder commonly known as cordite, that when combined with the precise chambering in the Frazer, led to extraction issues in the heat of the equatorial sun.  Once fired, he often had to ram the spent hull from the chamber with a rod before a second shot could be made. This certainly made him aware of his imposed limitations and helped ignite his inclination toward one shot kills.

 

After continuous extraction issues he traded the Fraser .303 for a less refined gun, but one he thought would extract more reliably in the heat: a single shot Winchester .450 that used a long-tapered case filled with black powder. The transaction included a stash of hollow-point copper bullets which, on the surface, appeared to be a fair deal. This combination worked well enough on lighter plains game, although he soon found that selective shot placement was critical on heavier boned animals. The shortcomings of those soft-core bullets eventually came to a head with an event he describes as his first true run-in with a lion.

 

Bullet Construction

 

Bell took on his first lion just months before the Man Eaters of Tsavo effectively halted construction of the railway in 1897. He took a head shot from 30 yards when, instead of dropping, it turned tail and headed into cover. He hoisted himself into a tree for a look, while at the same moment the big cat lunged forward, missed his dangling feet, and put chase to his companion.  He immediately dropped down and took the lion on the shoulder as it turned to grab his friend. That shoulder shot should have been the coup de grâce, but instead the lion made cover once again. Bell later found that his first bullet entered below the left eye and shattered the lower jaw, while the second broke apart on the front shoulder without penetration. He finished the lion with a third round at very close range, which all told heightened his attention on bullet construction and its importance for penetration. He went back to a .303 soon after this incident, but in a magazine rifle with nickel-jacketed 215gr. solid bullets.

 

Jump forward a year and Bell was in the opposite extreme facing the cold as a market hunter for the Klondike gold rush. He’d acquired another falling block from Fraser while on route to Dawson City, although this time in .360 calibre without concerns for heat affecting pressures.

 

He spent the winter on snowshoes harvesting moose and caribou, while methodically relying on one-shot kills to stretch a stash of 160 rounds through the winter. His partner was making 25-day return trips on dogsled to market the meat but didn’t return for the last run and swindled Bell of the entire poke.  Left with few options, 18-year-old Bell hawked the rifle for cash and headed south to Calgary, where he joined the Canadian Mounted Rifles and soon embarked for South Africa and the Boer war.

 

Bell amassed a small pool of savings from his stint in the army, and from this outfitted his kit for hunting in Uganda. He truncated his initial selection of rifles in 1902 to those with a military pedigree. He’d come to recognize that military arms and loads were being scrutinized for their dependability under prolonged and hard use, and their development advanced by the deep pockets of nations.  He surmised that military calibres were more consistent and less expensive than those designed primarily for hunting and favoured them heavily over the next 10 years.

 

The battery for this first well-organized expedition into Uganda included two 10-shot Lee Enfield sporterized 303s. They had shortened barrels with pistol grips and cost £8 each. In true Bell fashion his initial hunt on elephant left an impression. He came upon several bulls in the mud and, following spurious advice of an acquaintance, carefully placed shots in the upper dome portion of their heads looking for brain shots. He was surprised to see very little response to the noise or bullet placement, so he also shot one behind the shoulder. That bull reacted to the body shot with cries and groans, and even though it was anchored the others fled immediately.

 

Determined to learn why his initial shots hadn’t worked, Bell borrowed a large saw and with his team, opened the scull vertically for a rudimentary post-mortem. This exposed the brain far lower down and to the rear of where he’d assumed, and roughly 3 to 4 times the size of a human brain by comparison.  He made sketches of the brain within the surrounding head, and calculated shooting angles that would take a bullet to the mark from any position around the skull. He soon put this knowledge to the test and at the next opportunity dropped a bull with a single brain shot from the side. He again noted that the bulls nearby were not particularly alarmed, and this provided the origins of his tactical approach for shooting two or more elephants from a group at the same encounter.

 

Recoil and Accuracy

 

Before Daniel Frazer’s untimely death in December of 1901, Bell spent time with him regulating the barrels of big bore doubles at the bench. He found the recoil unpleasant and readily acknowledged that this left a lasting impression. His groups would spread apart through a day of shooting, while in contrast Frazer’s would tightened up as the barrels were regulated. Bell recognized early on that recoil affects people differently and the negative influence it had on his own accuracy.

 

The Uganda Battery

 

His initial time in the Unyaro area of Uganda in 1902 was a financial success. He took 63 bull elephants averaging 53lbs/tusk, which then enabled him to outfit his first safari into the Karamojo region of North East Uganda. He again took a .303, but added his first bespoke .275 Rigby Mauser, as well as a .450/400 double rifle suggesting he remained open minded about big bore doubles even after his experience on the bench.

 

John Rigby & Co. began collaborating with Paul Mauser in 1897 and soon released the .275 Rigby on the Mauser 98 action. The .275 Rigby as many will recognize is also known as the 7x57mm or 7mm. It has a bullet diameter of .285”, but Rigby took a different approach using the distance between the lands (.275”) to rebadge the round in a brilliant marketing strategy that appeals to many anglophiles to this day.

 

The Mauser action and 7x57mm rimless cartridge were first designed by Paul Mauser in 1891, and widely sold as a military arm where it earned an early reputation. The case shape was designed to feed and extract reliably in extreme field conditions from both bolt action rifles and automatic machine guns. The common barrel twist rate was quite high at 1 in 8.7”, which enabled the 7x57mm (.275) to stabilize its long and relatively heavy 173gr. jacketed military bullet. It moved these along at 2300fps, and Bell concluded this moderate pace was associated with enabling these long bullets to penetrate deeply while holding their course without deformation.

 

Over the next seven years and four safaris into the Karamojo, Bell gained a graduate degree in the practical application of dispatching game. He favoured three calibres with each coming from strong military roots while fed a steady diet of solid bullets. It’s no surprise the .303 remained on his list with its 215 gr. solids. The .275 Rigby also gained a spot, and through time excelled to account for 75% of his lifetime harvest of elephant. He favoured the reliability of German DWM cartridges with 173gr. round-nose solids. The .275 burned more efficient Ballistite smokeless powder compared to the cordite in the .303s, which gave the former greater performance. Third, and perhaps used more than the other two for harvesting camp meat, was a .256 Gibbs Mannlicher with long-nosed 156 gr. solids.  Later on, Bell also obtained a light-framed .256 Mannlicher-Shoenauer that had been refined by Frazer, which he suggested had a “snaky feel” that made it a “pleasure to handle” at just over five pounds.

 

Bell preferred light guns that he could carry all day long and for months on end, literally. He estimated that he walked 70,000 miles pursuing game! He also valued a short bolt-throw and accredited this feature as being critical for rapid shots under pressure in close proximity. When encountering a group of elephants, he often took the first two or three within yards of each other, but then pursued the rest at a brisk run, and often for miles. He suggests this base approach favoured a rifle that was both light and shouldered quickly, with shots often taken from the side and behind at an oblique angle. He carried 35 rounds on his belt daily and submitted that large bore ammo with heavier arms simply weighed more for the same desired one-shot kills.

 

Up Close in Tall Grass

 

Rather than heading back to town for the rainy season in 1902, Bell established a camp on a hill that enabled him to frequently glass for bulls in the tall grass below. The low-lying ground was wet with deep water-filled holes that resembled puddles, and occasionally swallowed him “to the armpits” while stalking bulls in the tall grass. Bell and crew would follow the tunnels carved by elephants as they fed through the swamp, which made tracking easy but the going slow. He gave high praise to the Mauser action in these situations, as the Rigby would cycle reliably even when coated in the silt gleaned from blades of tall grass where the elephants had pushed through. In contrast, he criticized a double in these situations where this grit could prevent the action from locking up due to the fine tolerances at the breech face when closed.

 

The tall grass was well above head level, and Bell came to rely on a system of shooting while perched on the shoulders of his gun-bearer. They’d move in close while hidden by cover, and his tall gun bearer Manzema would stand erect with Bell up top for an unobstructed shot. Light recoil helped them both retain balance, and stocks with a short length of pull improved Bell’s range of motion and mount for off-angle presentations. Once a bull or two dropped, he’d run to the fallen animal and climb onto its back to gain more height for additional opportunities. Pursuing elephant in the tall grass and getting in close to multiple bulls became his base tactic and, in my mind at least, textbook Bell.

 

 

Above & below: Bell wasn’t content with the configuration of the first .416 Rigby he received in July 1913 and had another built later that same year. Rigby reused the stock and lengthened it 1/4” by fitting a wood extension. They also removed the original peep sight and fitted it to the new action along with a barrel 1” shorter than the first. The second rifle weighed 10oz less coming in at 9lbs14oz. Rigby shipped the rifle to Bell in October of 1913 in care of Hatton & Cookson, French Congo, along with; one .220 High Power, one 30 loop canvas belt for .416 cartridges, cleaning rod and accessories, turn-screws, leather front-sight protector, 10 tins of rape oil (stock conditioner), and 500 rounds of “Special” .416 solids.

Established in 1775, John Rigby & Co. has detailed sales ledgers that track the orders of Bell and his contemporaries. The ledgers of gunmakers are a fascinating history of sporting heritage.

The lockup on a Rigby double includes a top extension that secures the barrels to the breech face. This is known as the Rigby & Bissell Rising Bite, patented in 1879, and is a highly refined and secure locking system where this third grip is engaged by a bolt that rises into the slot in the extension. The Rising Bite double is still available today as a big bore, or as a shotgun like the vintage 12-bore displayed here.

A .275 Rigby Mauser in the John Rigby & Co. London shop with three-position safety that rotates over the bolt axis as Bell would have used.

The three-leaf rear sight on a .275 Rigby set for 100, 300, and 400 yards. The leaf pack can also be ordered in a traditional 65-, 150-, and 250-yard setting, which seems practical when running the rifle without a scope.

A .275 Rigby Mauser in traditional specification with fold over three-position safety, hooded front sight, and three-leaf rear sight.

Rigby rifles in varying stages of refinement taking shape in the London shop. John Rigby & Co. has finished rifles available but is also very willing to undertake bespoke orders in much the same way they accommodated Bell more than a century ago.

Rigby has a full stable of big bores available today just as it did before WW1.  Bell tried quite a few big bores in his day and was highly impressed by the stopping power of the .416 Rigby, although he preferred a Mauser bolt action.

Short Bolt-throws

 

In 1908, Bell traversed Abyssinia and the Omo River valley moving west toward southern Sudan. He was pursuing elephant once again and had good success. He’d been out for some time and about to move on, when asked to deal with a rhino that had killed a woman from a local village. He’d brought along a long-action .350 Rigby Mauser that hadn’t seen much use to date, so he tackled the rhino with it.  In true Bell fashion, he followed the animal into tall grass and took the first shot head on and just yards away. Bell worked the bolt and took the second shot with the barrel touching the neck as the mammoth rushed in – the striker fell on a spent primer. He’d short-stroked the bolt and re-loaded the spent case! This apparently led to a dicey few moments before a killing shot was made. The man had an ample portion in the kahuna department!

 

Cycling an action is a sub-conscious response in a perilous moment, and the longer bolt stroke of the .350 was outside his normal pattern.  Bell made a point of cycling and dry firing his normal carry-rifles constantly, and recognized what this did for creating calm in a pressurized situation. He didn’t have the same familiarity with the longer action of the .350, but acknowledged that with sufficient practice a longer stroke would be reliable, if a bit slower.

 

Big Bores

 

Bell ordered guns through several leading British gunmakers of the time and often sought new models and calibres as they became available. It would be easy to assume that he forged an unwavering opinion favouring small bores over large very early in his career. Although, his purchase history did not bear this out as he bought and used large bores well into his 30’s, including a .450/400 Frazer double rifle along with at least two renditions of the .416.

 

He purchased the first .416 in July 1913 from John Rigby & Co. on a Mauser magnum action, but shortly thereafter sent it back requesting a different configuration (see sidebar). The second rifle had a new action with the barrel shorter by 1”, with Rigby instructed to fit the original stock and lengthen it by 1/4”.  The second rifle was made a half pound lighter at 9lb 14oz. He closed out the order with 500 rounds of .416 ammo and a 30-loop canvas belt suggesting he intended on using the calibre a fair amount.

 

The new rifle was shipped to the French Congo where Bell was searching for new grounds (see sidebar), and exploring the river system in a small purpose-built steamboat. If you think “African Queen” you wouldn’t be too far off, and he used the craft to great advantage as a mobile camp. He was again focused on elephant, and I wonder if he considered the additional weight of a .416 less of an issue with his water-based transport? This was two years after Rigby launched the .416 in 1911, and only one after Holland & Holland patented the .375, with both offerings on bolt-action frames. Bell was quick to give the former a go.

 

Any time spent reading Bell’s anthology reveals a fastidious nature. He continually sought improvement from his shooting, and refined the balance, handling characteristics, and sighting apparatus of his rifles and weighed their utility through a particularly narrow lens. Bell took elephant with the .256, .275, .303, .318, .350, .450/400, and .416 and compared their virtues.  By all accounts he was a remarkable shot, and described by noted contemporary Colonel Townsend Whelan as the best rifleman in Britain with only one or two peers in the US at that time.

 

In his last known published work from 1954 and only months before his death, Bell gave praise to the .416 as a “grand killer” with serious penetration and considered his Rigby well balanced while “not feeling its weight”. His reservation as with all big bores to be fair, was that it did not suit his fast-paced style of hunting or the affect recoil had on accuracy and delaying the next shot.  He argued that dead is dead regardless of calibre, and the big bores didn’t provide him with enough advantage to make up for the extra weight, recoil, and cost of ammo.

 

Room for the Middle Weights

Bell also regarded the medium bore .318 very highly, noting it as the “deadliest weapon of the push-bolt type” known to him. He preferred 250gr. bullets for their penetration, being especially adept at coursing through hide and tissue on quartering away brain shots. He kept detailed notes and credited the .318 with a slightly better shot-to-kill ratio compared to the .275 when used on oblique brain shots from the rear. He selected the .318 (.330” actual) as the main battery for his water-based adventure on the Bahr Aouk river by canoe in 1918. 

 

He clearly liked the .318 and picked up 6,000 rounds of ammo along the way to support this favour.  Unfortunately, the batch was faulty with many misfires, so he used the ammo for practice as well as taking birds at distance on the wing.

 

A man of his time

 

In later years Bell recognized that his leaning toward small bores was heavily influenced by his early success with their use. He notes that if he had experienced similar results with big bores early on, he may well have found himself in the other camp, extolling their virtues with similar enthusiasm.

 

My own conclusion is that Bell was a pragmatist at heart, and selected his battery based on the evolving supply of reliable ammunition, and early on this brought him to calibres from a military pedigree coupled in light-framed actions. He selected rifles with the intent of getting in close in harsh quarters and taking several animals in quick succession, rather than selecting one individual as occurs among hunters today. He remained willing to adapt and trial different calibres well into his 40’s, although even in his 70’s, he still considered the advantages of a short bolt-throw and low recoil to outweigh the penetration advantages offered by the heavy weights. He was a highly accomplished rifleman and, given his ability to place shots under pressure, his preference for small bores made perfect sense – for him.

BIOGRAPHY

Doug Manzer is a life-long hunter and conservation scientist, and can be found on Instagram @doug.manzer and his website https://www.journeyafield.ca/

Classic and Contemporary African Hunting Literature

Wato

Brian Watson ( 2019, 321 pages)
Reviewed by Ken Bailey

  

Brian Watson’s Wato is purely and simply an enjoyable read. I suspect that’s in part because he’s one of us. Like many of us he took a fancy to guns, shooting and hunting as a child, and he grew up in Australia reading about hunting in Africa and dreaming that one day he, too, could make the pilgrimage. He’s been a working man his whole adult life and had to save his shekels to make those dreams a reality—again, just like most of us.

 

Throughout the book, Wato, as he’s affectionately called by his friends and associates, demonstrates remarkable recall of his many safaris to Africa, in addition to a handful of hunts in other parts of the world. Each chapter describes an individual safari experience or a specific animal he has hunted. Over time he’s taken most of the key species in southern Africa, including the big five, though elephant hunting is clearly his passion and is the subject of several of the chapters. He’s also a bit of a gun nut, and if you enjoy reading about firearms, Wato won’t leave you disappointed. He even serves up a little meat for the wingshooting and angling fraternities.

 

What I really found compelling is that Watson has landed on just the right amount of detail in describing his various adventures. That’s a fine line to walk—too much detail and a reader gets bored before the climactic scene; too little and the stage isn’t set properly, we can’t imagine we’re walking side by side with him. Wato tiptoes along that line perfectly.

 

Watson is clearly a naturalist and conservationist at heart, and his appreciation for wild places and the flora and fauna they support, shines through; it’s evident throughout the book that it’s all about the experience for Watson, he’s not stepping off the plane with a tape measure in hand.

 

For those seeking a little eye candy, Wato is illustrated with 15 pages of colour photographs showing many of the people, places and hunts he describes in his stories.

 

If I have one beef with Wato, it’s that there’s too much passive, rather than active, voice. I find that a little distracting and cumbersome, although it’s not all that unusual in self-published books; a thorough editing would have cleaned that up.

 

Notwithstanding that little nitpick, I encourage everyone who appreciates contemporary African literature to pick up this book. It’s all very relatable and would be a relaxing and enjoyable way to spend those long air hours on the way to your next safari.

Campfire Thoughts & Reminiscences Part 23

Written by Neil Harmse

 

 

 

Chapter 24. A Martini Henry – Resurrecting an ‘Oldie’

 

A number of guns were put up for sale by a retired hunter and among these was a very rusty, badly pitted sporting Martini Henry .577/450 made by Isaac Hollis & Son, an established British gun-maker. At first glance, the gun was in terrible condition and about all it was good for was a ‘wall-hanger’. Apparently the gun had at one stage been wrapped in canvas and buried inside an anthill. The reason for this was unclear, but it might have been during the Boer War when guns were being confiscated, or perhaps during WWI or WWII, for the same reason. At one stage, it had been a beautiful sporting gun made with pride by this prestigious Birmingham gun-maker.

 

On examination, I found that the inner working and barrel were actually in good condition. These must have been well greased and lubricated to protect the firearm from the elements.

 

A friend, Glyn Dennis, mentioned to me that he was looking for an old gun to work on and restore as a project. When I showed him this Martini, he thought I was mad! I said that it was mechanically sound and that once the ‘cosmetics’ had been restored, it would be worthwhile as a shooter. Rather hesitantly, he took my word for it and applied for a licence. We took the gun to Hennie Mulder, a competent gunsmith who I knew could do justice to this project.

 

The first order of business was to dismantle the gun and start removing all surface pitting from the action, barrel and external parts. The gun in its original state was embellished with tasteful engraving in typical ‘English’ style. Removal of the pitting on the surfaces and polishing would also remove a lot of this engraving, so we carefully took clear, close-up photos of the engraving before sanding and polishing began. Hennie had an engraver, Whitey Loggenberg, whose work was excellent and who would be able to re-cut the engraving the same way it had originally been. (Sadly, Whitey passed away a few months after he had worked on this gun – another great loss to the gun industry.)

 

With a lot of careful polishing on the flats of the action, the barrel and other parts were cleaned of all pitting and blemishes, after which all traces of oils and grease were removed.

The Martini action before restoration.

The gun parts were now ready for preparation for the blueing process. Hennie decided to use his special ‘Rust Blue’ process to give the action and barrel an attractive, deep blue finish, similar to the one it had originally had. This is a fairly long procedure, as the parts must be coated with the blueing chemicals and placed in a humidity cabinet for about 12 hours to allow the chemicals to start the rust process. These are then removed and the parts placed in boiling water. The excess oxidation is ‘carded’ or rubbed down and then the process is repeated. This is done over and over for a few days, until the desired deep blue finish is acceptable.

 

Once ready, the parts receive a final polish with very fine steel wool and are then oiled to retain the blue finish. Hennie’s able assistant, Sam, is excellent at this polishing and manages to get the metalwork to a mirror-smooth finish.

 

While the metalwork was being attended to, it was time to tackle the woodwork, stock and fore-end. The stock was not in good condition and required quite a lot of sanding and filling of the grain. The scratches, dents and dings were removed by steaming and more sanding. Once the stock was almost completed, the final rub-down was done with fine water-paper and then fine steel wool to smooth the wood. The gun was then ready for staining. The checkering then had to be carefully re-cut and a final oil finish applied.

 

The fore-end had to be repaired, as there were a few places where wood had been chipped off. To fill these, pieces of matching wood had to be shaped and glued into place, then sanded and smoothed, before staining and oiling. The front of the fore-end had originally had a piece of buffalo horn tip and this had to be remade and fitted. The plates for the wedge pin that held the fore-end to the barrel also had to be fitted flush with the wood.

 

The gun had originally come with a ramrod which fitted under the barrel. This had disappeared and an original one could not be found, so Hennie made one from a hardwood rod which he turned on the lathe. He also made brass fittings for jag and brush attachments and fitted these to the ends of the rod.

 

When Glyn collected his gun, he could hardly believe his eyes. The old Martini Henry had been transformed from a piece of rusty scrap into a gun to be proud of, worthy of a place in any collector’s armoury.

 

Many of these fine sporting Martini Henry guns made their way to Africa and India in the battery of guns of ‘gentlemen adventurers’ who came to hunt in areas of the British occupied colonies. Who knows where this gun had travelled to and what game had fallen to its shots? If only it could talk!

 

It is an immense pleasure to see a gun that left the gun-maker’s bench about 150 years ago being brought back to life and again taking its rightful place on the hunting field.

The Martini rifle after restoration.

To order Campfire Thoughts & Reminiscences – the complete book with illustrations (US $15 excluding S&H), contact Andrew Meyer at andrewisikhova@icloud.com