Hunting Modern South Africa with Powder and Ball

Randy D. Smith

HUNTING MODERN SOUTH AFRICA WITH POWDER AND BALL A Discussion of Muzzleloader Hunting Experiences and Tactics

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Other eBooks by Randy D. Smith The Devil's Staircase Bohanin's Last Days Lovell's Prize The Red River Ring Fort Larned Dodge City Scott City Sunday's Colt and Other Stories of the Old West Heroes of the Santa Fe Trail: 1821-1900

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HUNTING MODERN SOUTH AFRICA WITH POWDER AND BALL A Discussion of Muzzleloader Hunting Experiences and Tactics

by Randy D. Smith

BOSON BOOKS Raleigh

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© 2008 by Randy D. Smith All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, including mechanical, electric, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. Published by Boson Books, a division of C & M Online Media, Inc. 3905 Meadow Field Lane, Raleigh, NC 27606-4470 [email protected] http://www.bosonbooks.com ISBN (ebook): 1-932482-60-1 Designed by David McAllister On the Cover: The author and Eon Kok with his gemsbok

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Table of Contents Part I The Theory and the Preparation Chapter 1 – The Dream Becomes the Reality Chapter 2 – The Florida Experience Chapter 3 – Psychology of One-Shot Hunting Chapter 5 – Evaluating the Proper Rifles Chapter 6 – Ethics, Sights, and Other Hunters Chapter 7 – The Right Bullet Chapter 8 – Rifle Selection versus Performance Chapter 9 – Books, Clothing, Finances, and Legalities Photos – Part I Part II The Hunt and the Reality Chapter 10 – Early Success and Adventure Chapter 11 – Kudu and an Afternoon’s Rest Chapter 12 – The Vanishing Blue Chapter 13 – Track of the Gemsbok Chapter 14 – Just a Simple Thing Chapter 15 – A Quick Trip to Etebenne and the Steenbok Chapter 16 – Doc’s Turn Photos- Part II Part III Reflections Chapter 17 – If I Were a Rich Man

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Part I The Theory and the Preparation

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G ive me the life of the pori (East Africa wilderness). I think it would be difficult to find another so full of wild, exhilarating excitement, hair-breath escapes, and devil-may-care risks, and the end is usually swift, perhaps that is better than flickering out slowly on a bed of sickness. If anyone has a desire to live, where living is really full-blooded living, let him go and spend some of his time among wild animal life—far away from the insidious comforts and the petty restraints of life in a civilized community.” Those are the words of Captain James H. Sutherland in his 1912 book, The Adventures of an Elephant Hunter. From 1896 until his death in 1932 Sutherland became, what many believe to be, the greatest professional African ivory hunter who ever lived. Nearly a hundred years after Sutherland wrote those romantic words, I went to the Dark Continent—for the excitement and the passion that he described so well. Modern South Africa has changed much over the last century and the early White hunters of Sutherland’s era would have trouble recognizing much of it today. But, on the open plains and bush of the backcountry—the old Africa can still be found—exhilarating, wild, dangerous, and beautiful. It is a place where modern man can still escape the petty restraints of life in a civilized community and engage in the hunt—the age-old pursuit of the dream—the chance to experience Sutherland’s “full-blooded living”—so far away from home—yet so very near the birthplace of mankind. And, I did it with black powder, muzzleloading rifles.

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Chapter 1 – The Dream Becomes the Reality

T he idea of hunting in Africa for most of us is little more than a dream. We read the

books of Capstick, Ruark, Lyell, Roosevelt, “Pondoro” Taylor, Hunter, even more modern writers such as Boddington, and imagine what it would be like to stalk the Dark Continent for wild and dangerous game. Many have a collection of videos including The Ghost and the Darkness, Mountains of the Moon, I Dreamed of Africa, and the wonderful Out of Africa. We enjoy the stories and wish we were tramping through the forest and plains on a romantic safari adventure, but, in the real work-a-day world of the vast majority, such hunts are simply out of the question. Limited funds, job responsibilities, time constraints, and family commitments make such a notion of adventure on the far side of the globe impractical at best. Africa seems nothing more than a fantasy; a great unattainable dream within the grasp of only the wealthy or extremely fortunate. For the past seventeen years I have been actively involved in professional writing concentrating my efforts on education, Old West history, fiction, and hunting. Most of my outdoor writing has been centered on hunting with a muzzleloader. Although most of my income has been in the field of grant writing and administration my outdoor activities have been an excellent source of extra income and a wonderful outlet for someone who farmed and ranched for several years and thoroughly enjoys the outdoors. When I turned fifty I made a list of hunting trips I wanted to accomplish before I was too old to meet the physical challenges. That list includes an Alaskan brown bear and caribou hunt, a Rocky Mountain record book elk hunt, a New Mexico American pronghorn hunt, and a plains game safari in Africa. All of these goals are expensive and require planning to organize around job and family responsibilities. New Mexico, Wyoming, and Colorado are literally at my back door so I knew I could easily meet those goals. It is currently less expensive to go to Africa on the plains game hunt than to Alaska so I chose that as my first major goal. I had a two-year plan in place to go to Africa and was into serious investigation of locations, guns, loads, and game opportunities. Magazine writing has provided me with several opportunities to have experiences that might otherwise have not been possible. I have managed to form professional and personal attachments with people in the black powder industry. I stay in contact through the Internet and very rarely see them but I often ask for their advice and I enjoy hearing from them. One of those industry friends is Dr. Gary White of White Rifles, Lindon, Utah. Doc is a medical doctor who is also an avid hunter and muzzleloader enthusiast. He is the designer of the White rifle and supporting White Shooting System. I met Doc in the mid-nineties when the in-line muzzleloader rifle was becoming popular. I was assigned to a new and dynamic company, White Shooting Systems, by the editor of Blackpowder Hunting magazine. I have been a field editor for the magazine since its earliest years. Doc was the host on a company sponsored Florida turkey hunt to promote the introduction of White’s Tominator in-line muzzleloading shotgun. I liked him and BOSON BOOKS

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enjoyed that trip. We hunted again in Texas a few weeks later for Rio Grande turkeys and feral hogs. I was introduced to the White system of muzzle loading and from my association with Doc and experience with other products, became convinced that it was one of the best in-lines on the market. I grew to view Doc as something of a mentor and have always valued his opinions. The company went through some rough times before Doc and I began hunting together again after a few years. We went to Florida where I functioned as his backup shooter to take a world record Indian River buffalo. We then went to Texas to hunt feral hogs, turkey, and javelina. I had just completed a manuscript on dangerous game hunting with a muzzleloader that featured some of the experiences I had with Doc on the Florida river buffalo hunt. I sent him a draft for review via the Internet to make certain I hadn’t misrepresented anything. Doc’s reply said simply “Good stuff, let’s go to Africa.” He went on to explain the circumstances and general expenses. There was nothing standing in my way except putting together several thousand dollars for trophy fees and some travel expenses. For the first time in my life, putting together that sum was not impossible. Experiencing the mystery and adventure of Africa was there for the taking and I was in a position to do it. Life is short and there were simply no excuses for not doing it. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, especially for someone who “has only failed in life” as the character Remington states in The Ghost and the Darkness. I was going to South Africa with powder and ball.

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Chapter 2 – The Florida Experience

I

enjoy the history and the experience of hunting with old-time weapons. That is what attracted me to black powder hunting in the first place. Different models of muzzleloaders and historical replicas come and go at regular intervals as I am constantly testing and evaluating them. During my time writing about muzzleloaders for Rifle & Shotgun Sportshooting, I was able to test every muzzleloading in-line hunting rifle on the market. Other than a few elk, feral hog and black bear hunts in neighboring states of Colorado and Texas I have been primarily an upland game, turkey, varmint, and deer hunter. Although I have over twenty-five years of black powder experience and am a field editor for Blackpowder Hunting my hunting scope of reference is not as broad as many in the field. Still, I believe that I’m an expert in muzzleloaders—certainly proficient enough to separate legitimate advances in the sport from industry sales gimmicks. I often found myself hunting with a different gun just about every weekend during hunting season to meet magazine commitments but the game was generally the same and the experiences are similar. The few elk and black bear I’ve shot reacted pretty much the same way as deer. Only while hunting feral hogs did I run into situations that even approximated dangerous game conditions. But, generally, I was not in a financial position to take serious dangerous game hunts. The Florida hunt completely changed my perspective and convinced me of some reservations that I was having about recent directions being taken by the muzzleloading industry. It is important to include those thoughts in this text to give you an idea of my opinions of big game muzzleloader hunting at the time of my invitation. Even in early April the swampy atmosphere of thick tangles bordering Lake Okeechobee made it difficult to keep my shooting glasses from fogging over with even the slightest exercise. Perspiration dripped from my cap band and my shirt was wet under the small backpack I was wearing. Three of us were working our way along a shallow hyacinth choked canal stepping through scattered clusters of myrtle bushes overlooking a low, open marsh carpeted with colorful stands of flags, maiden cane, and switch grass. I was last in line behind our guide, Joe O’Bannon of J & R Outfitters, and Doc White. We were eager to test a new muzzleloader projectile developed by White Rifles on a trophy Asian water buffalo. As is customary when hunting dangerous game with a muzzleloading rifle, I was present as Doc’s backup shooter. I consider it a station of some honor. Chances were that I would never have to pull the trigger and Doc would do all the shooting but one can never be sure with a single shot muzzleloader. If you don’t have the privilege or the resources to be the primary shooter on such a hunt, being the backup shooter is the next best thing. There are simply too many variables when hunting with percussion cap, powder, and ball for anyone to be entirely comfortable with a muzzleloader in a dangerous game situation. The life of a friend could be in my hands if events turned sour and I took the task very seriously. I would have been even more concerned if I had had any idea of how tough and potentially dangerous these beasts turned out to be. BOSON BOOKS

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The black form of a large bull loomed amidst thick clumps of myrtle forty yards before us. Joe and Doc hesitated and waited for the bull to step into the open so they could decide whether he was large enough for an attempt. Joe carried a vintage Rigby double rifle in .470 Nitro Express and Doc was holding his .50 caliber White Elite loaded with 140 grains of Pyrodex P and an experimental 600-grain conical variation of the new SCB (self-cleaning bullet) Power Punch projectile. The SCB was a copper-based bullet that not only loaded easily, protected the sides from gas cutting, evened pressure curves and enhanced accuracy, but also helped clean the barrel with the shot. I waited a few steps back with my Model 91 White Super Safari loaded with the same projectile and a powder charge of 120 grains of Pyrodex Select. I was reluctant to crowd them and be under foot as they made their determination. I heard a sound to my right and looked toward another bull materializing from the brush at forty yards. As I slowly turned and released the secondary safety of my rifle, I sensed a presence behind me. Still another large bull stepped over a canal ridge behind us at fifty yards. He was a four or five year old, watching us closely, nodding and rocking his horns menacingly. O’Bannon had warned us to be careful with this age beast as they were more aggressive and confrontational than older, wiser bulls. I slipped the primary safety off and raised my gun, my back turned toward the other hunters. Chances were that he would not charge—that he would suddenly, impulsively, turn tail and retreat into the thick cover—but you can never be entirely sure. For a few minutes it was an exciting potential confrontation and one of my finest hunting experiences to date. The herd we were pursuing consisted of a couple of hundred bachelor bulls including the Asian swamp, Indian River, and Trinidad island or buffalipso sub-species maintained on the 4,000 acre J & R Outfitter lease near Indiantown, Florida. These bulls are not like some cud chewing, car watching, African buffalos often photographed on Kruger National Park in South Africa or the semi-domestic American bison that wonder off the protected acres of Yellowstone and are easily approached in a pickup truck. These were hunt-wise creatures that react exactly like descriptions I’ve read in journal entries by Capstick, Baker and Taylor describing African buffalo. They were wary and suspicious, even when in a large herd. They consistently maintained a 120-yard or greater gap between us when they knew we were present and like the journals describe, the older more mature bulls gather in the middle allowing younger less experienced bulls to stand exposed at the outside edge. The only times we could get nearer was when we approached from downwind using thick cover to mask our presence. Getting close to any bull was difficult and it was tougher still to stalk within muzzleloader range of a mature trophy bull of six to eight years of age. For animals weighing between 2,000 and 2,600 pounds, I felt we had to be within sixty yards to make a clean kill. Doc, a much more experienced big game black powder hunter, felt that a hundred yards was not unreasonable. He has taken Cape buffalo in Africa weighing in the neighborhood of 1,600 pounds using his rifles. I kept thinking of John “Pondoro” Taylor’s statement concerning taking large, dangerous game in Big Game and Big Game Rifles: “Get as close as possible, then ten yards closer.” And even Doc was surprised at how large and imposing these Florida buffalo were. J & R Outfitters is run by Joe and Liz O’Bannon. Joe is an experienced African guide and usually spends a few months each year on the Dark Continent outfitting safaris. All BOSON BOOKS

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game on the ranch is hunted on foot in a fair chase setting. The place is large enough that game must be located after some effort. The entire setting makes for a challenging and exciting hunt in a natural setting of expansive and unpredictable locales varying from thick swampy forests to open savannah. Our first day of hunting was spent unsuccessfully trying to stalk the wary herd and checking out some individual bulls in the swampy low lands. Doc and Joe passed on the buffalo hidden in the myrtles and after a few moments, his curiosity satisfied, my buffalo slipped back into the canal and out of sight. We worked the rest of the morning trying to spot some trophy bulls. We spotted a couple of exceptional Indian River buffalo bulls in the herd when watching them on open savannah of Argentine Bahia grass cleared from swamp brush. A cold front was moving in and the wind was rising as we returned to the hunt that afternoon. By mid-afternoon the wind was averaging gusts of over twenty miles per hour in an uneven pattern—not the best circumstances for any long-range shot, especially at such large and potentially dangerous game. We found our trophy bulls grazing near a canal and took up a position in a palmetto grove on the far bank, hoping the bulls would drift close enough for a reasonable shot. As time passed they slowly edged within range. Doc finally made the decision to advance twenty yards to a few small saplings lined against the canal and try for a shot if the bulls came closer. There was barely room for Joe and Doc to risk exposure so I held back in the palmettos. As Doc braced his scope-mounted muzzleloader against the small tree and waited, I used my Bushnell range finder to measure a distance of 120 yards to the bulls with Doc twenty yards closer than I. A pair of five-year-old bulls to the east approached the hunters as they stepped from a ditch near the canal. The lead bull, no more than fifty yards away, took a confrontational pose as he stepped slowly forward toward Joe and Doc. I set down my range finder, lifted my rifle, set off the safeties, and placed the front blade sight through my rear peep on his shoulder. Again, I figured he would back off as had the bull earlier but the uncertainty of the situation kept me vigilant. As the trophy bulls slowly closed the distance, the wind gusts increased and intensified. Low rolling clouds darkened and brightened the surrounding landscape as they quickly passed overhead. The bulls held up at 88 yards and seemed to be preparing to drift away. I could tell that Doc was seriously considering taking a shot… a shot that I, frankly, might have passed on. We had no idea of what the soft lead SCB projectile would do on such a large beast at that range and I was uncomfortable with the gusty conditions. It was one thing to try a shot at an elk under those conditions but these buffalo bulls would easily make up three large trophy bull elk, had significantly heavier muscle and bone structure, and were historically much more aggressive. I found myself vicariously tensing to help steady Doc’s shot. The impact of the projectile was unlike anything I had ever heard before—not the familiar thud or whomp—but a sharp cracking sound as of something snapping a pine two-by-four board. The big bull jolted and the entire group broke away at a dead run toward a cluster of myrtles a couple of hundred yards to the south. Joe seemed pleased with Doc’s shot and reported that the bullet had hit about four inches to the right of the BOSON BOOKS

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area considered optimal for a clean kill. He saw significant quantities of blood spurt from the wound as the bull angled away. I felt that it was an excellent shot considering the conditions. When Doc expressed concern that the bull did not go down, Joe stated that he had never seen a big bull go down with one shot from any rifle. They were just too tough for that. Still, he figured that we would find Doc’s bull within a reasonable distance. As he went for the truck Doc and I waited, discussed the shooting conditions and the reaction of the bull. Being totally inexperienced with shooting anything of this bull’s size with a muzzleloading rifle, I had soaked up the animal’s reaction and I visually replayed the experience several times over the following days. Both of us have shot clear through elk lengthwise with this size round and had them collapse where they stood… but this bull reacted to the shot more like a large whitetail or mule deer would to a light round ball load at similar distance. It was disconcerting that such raw power from a well-placed round had such little initial visual effect. This hunt was far from over and until we examined the carcass we had no way of knowing how much tissue damage had actually taken place. For all we knew the massive bone structure of the bull may have totally circumvented the effects of the projectile. We may have accomplished little more than angering him. I found myself second guessing Joe as he started trailing the buffalo. After years of hunting I have habitually gone to the point of impact, located the blood sign, and followed from there in similar situations. I have developed the opinion, rightly or wrongly, that there is a certain way of doing some things and have especially strong beliefs about the best method of trailing wounded game. Joe bypassed that site and went to edge of the myrtles to begin his search. I told myself that he had much more experience hunting these bulls in this area. It was one of those times when I had to keep telling myself to keep my mouth shut and follow directions in spite of some misgivings. It was clear that Joe was uncomfortable with following sign into the thick stands of myrtles. There was virtually no blood trail and he wasn’t surprised by it. The big bulls seem to soak up such chest hits and the wound quickly seals off unlike lighter boned elk or deer. Joe carefully stuck two extra Nitro Express cartridges between the second and third fingers of his forearm hand in case he needed to quickly recharge his rifle. He led the way and somewhat forcefully directed us to follow at a specific distance. I could tell that he was in that uniquely dangerous situation that I had read about other big game guides—a wounded dangerous quarry in unknown condition waiting before him and unfamiliar hunters with loaded guns following closely behind. No matter how much experience Doc and I said we had, he couldn’t be certain, and as with any truly dangerous situation with unfamiliar hunting partners, he had no way of knowing whether he might be charged from any direction by the bull or accidentally shot from behind by his clients. For the next hour, as we worked south following sign, I figured I was in as dangerous a hunting situation as I had ever been. The potential for disaster loomed at every twist and turn of the trail. One could hardly fault Joe for being short spoken and apprehensive. As sunset loomed we reached an especially thick stand of palmettos and brush. Joe instructed us to wait behind stating that it was just too close for three to negotiate together BOSON BOOKS

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through the brambles. I didn’t want him to go in there alone but by the same token it was no time to argue or balk. It is the custom for the professional to take such risks. The best thing I could do was to follow his instructions to the letter. Any other course would be foolish. Night fell with no results and Joe returned stating that we would resume the search in the morning. Early the following day, we set out with an extra man and four cur dogs to sort out the thick stuff. The dogs flushed four bulls from the myrtle swamps and on each occasion the fight was on. None of them was our bull. During one altercation a young bull tested the reverse speed of the tiny Toyota open-topped truck that we were using. After a hundred yards or so he broke off his charge and plunged into a canal with the dogs in hot pursuit. It was great fun but accomplished little other than allowing us to rule out certain thickets where the bull might be located. We even found a large herd of bulls and checked them out in case our bull might have rejoined them, but with no luck. Joe ordered up a swamp crusher, a large, flat decked, four-wheel tractor nearly nine feet in height, to wade into especially thick brush to continue our search. I was reminded of nineteenth century Indian tiger hunts from elephants as we crashed and rambled over woods that were almost impenetrable for a man on foot. We located our buffalo standing alone belly deep in the river around two that afternoon. He had traveled nearly two miles from the original shot. At sixty yards Doc scored a perfect hit just behind the shoulder, noticeably staggering the brute. I did not shoot, feeling that Doc’s round had put the final end to this magnificent beast. We watched him settle into the water. Joe placed a couple of .470s in him for extra insurance before we approached any closer. We drove the swamp buggy forward to retrieve the carcass. We tied him behind the crusher and dragged him to dry land where his carcass could be loaded on a trailer. He weighed over 2,300 pounds and his horns measured 101 inches, easily having the potential of being a world’s record Indian River buffalo taken with a muzzleloader by nearly twenty inches. He should score as the number one buffalo by quite a margin in the Safari Club International record book. Doc’s first bullet had passed through both lungs and lodged against the rig cage on the far side. The big soft lead projectile had mushroomed nicely and held together in good form. The copper base was still firmly in place. Joe’s .470 solid had passed along the shoulder bone and was lodged in the brisket, badly distorted. His other bullet had deflected off the horn. It was obvious to me that he was going for a neck shot and missed his target. We did not recover the other. Doc determined from the experience that even though the Power Punch bullet had performed very well, he needed to begin development of a solid of at least 500 grains housed in a sabot that could be fired from a muzzleloader for similar dangerous game hunts. This is the kind of research that is necessary to produce as good a muzzleloading projectile as is possible. From what I could see in this one instance, Doc’s shot placement being far superior to Joe’s, the .504 muzzleloader was more effective than the .470 Nitro Express.

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This is not a unique experience. I can say the same of close range elk, bears, and feral hogs. Big bore lead conicals are highly effective on game inside of one hundred yards. I’ve witnessed many guides and experienced hunters familiar with large caliber smokeless powder rounds shake their heads and comment on the awesome performance of black powder rounds at close range on large game. As for me, even though it was not my buffalo, I was thrilled by the adventure and felt that I had earned my share of the trophy. It was one of the finest hunting experiences I have ever encountered and only whetted my appetite for more.

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Chapter 3 – Psychology of One-Shot Hunting

For want of a better term I am a single shot rifle enthusiast and do not feel handicapped

if I am using a modern in-line muzzleloader. I am not a proficient marksman with a muzzleloader beyond 120 yards. I have not practiced much beyond that range because I’ve always felt that my close range shooting skills needed enough improvement that considering longer shots was not within my expertise. I have made shots out to 300 yards with modern rifles and a few 200-yard shots with muzzleloaders but I consider them to be largely a matter of luck. I have actually made more long-range shots than I have missed but that is because I don’t attempt them unless conditions are nearly perfect. For my shooting ability, a good muzzleloader is a fine match and possesses the long-range accuracy limits that I have the skill to make. Not all my rifles are single shot muzzleloaders. I enjoy collecting bolt-action rifles. For most of my coyote hunting I use a .223 Remington Weatherby Vanguard or a CZ in 7.62X39. The 7.62X39 is especially effective for short-range Texas varmint hunting which includes coyotes, javelina, and feral hog. I also have a Model 550 CZ chambered in .458 Lott for dangerous game hunting and a Husqvarna in 9.3X62 as a big game medium bore. I have collected a number of Mauser action rifles in 8mm and .30-06. In spite of my enjoyment of modern bolt-action rifles, hunting with single-shot muzzleloaders has remained a passion. Perhaps the first observation to be made regards the effectiveness of a good muzzleloader for open plains hunting. Modern in-lines equipped with either musket cap or 209 primer ignition systems are exceptionally dependable and accurate. When sighted properly an average marksman can enjoy excellent hunting accuracy out to 120 yards and farther with practice and experience. For many hunters who do not have the time to practice this distance is the limit of their responsible shooting proficiency. Experienced hunters know that close range shooting dramatically reduces the risk of losing wounded game.

Most muzzleloaders will rival the range capability of a modern .45-70 or .30-30 rifle on deer size game and modern components allow a shooter to take a second shot within twenty seconds with some practice. The marketplace is full of in-lines that are vastly superior to muzzleloaders that were manufactured as little as five years ago. The only drawback to muzzleloader accuracy is state regulated sight mandates for special seasons. A scope-mounted in-line is a precision shooting instrument. Muzzleloaders are even effective choices for dangerous game as long as a backup shooter is present. Single shot cartridge rifles such as the Mossberg SSi-One, Ruger #1, Thompson/Center Encore, Winchester 1885 and even the economical Harrington & Richardson or New England Arms break actions are capable of outstanding accuracy and are offered in a wide selection of calibers. When hunting conditions allow for precise aiming, single shots are unsurpassed for accurate first shot placement. They are more BOSON BOOKS

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compact and easier to manage in close quarters. Any of these rifles can be reloaded and back on target in three to four seconds. Single shots teach the hunter the patience to work for a solid shot opportunity and black powder limits the range potential but, all it takes is one well-placed shot to bring game down and that shot is not lightly taken. The temptation to rush a hunting situation or press a shot opportunity is reduced when a hunter knows that there is no immediate follow up shot. I like the challenge and discipline demanded by the single shot and once I learned to manage my first shots effectively, I have seldom needed a second. In longrange situations, where game is not immediately aware of the shooter, a second or even third shot is often possible with a muzzleloader or single shot, especially if those shots are not spaced too closely together. Nineteenth Century North American bison hunters learned to pace themselves when establishing a stand with no shot coming too quickly after the last. The hunter needs to learn to take his time and not make any sudden movements to betray his presence. Deer, antelope, or elk are not normally alarmed by the single report of a rifle shot especially if nothing unusual follows to startle them. They are more likely to react to unusual behavior exhibited by a wounded animal than they are to a single loud report. That is why bison hunters aimed for the lungs. They wanted each animal to lie down rather than fall down because the latter was more likely to alarm the rest of the herd. One of the first lessons a cowman learns about working cattle is that things go better if he moves at cow speed rather than people speed. Cattle are much more settled and easily manageable if they are allowed time to recognize and negotiate sorting gates, chutes and ramps. Rushing causes confusion and resistance greatly adding to the stress of the herdsman and the cattle. The same principle applies to hunting. It is not the sound of the rifle that will alarm the quarry but rather sudden or unusual commotion that often accompanies the shot. Too many hunters rush the encounter. An experienced hunter learns to wait out his quarry. He makes his decisions based upon animal observations rather than his own anxiety. As long as the quarry is not alarmed, there is no need for the hunter to be. That is the true discipline of the hunt and the sign of an experienced single shot hunter. Secondly, understanding animal recognition patterns and remaining still during an encounter are important skills. While these skills should be obvious, many hunters do not seem to have either the understanding or the discipline to follow them. On many big game hunts I wear state season mandated blaze orange shirt and hat. That dress hardly fits the image of the camouflage clad stealth hunter we often see advertised. Although a deer, antelope, or elk’s sense of sight, hearing, and smell is excellent, none possesses the complex reasoning ability of man. They cannot count and do not recognize form for its own sake. I have stood fully exposed in the open when confronted by all of these animals and as long as my scent or movement did not betray me none were alarmed. These animals can be curious, even suspicious, but if the hunter does not disrupt his outline or move suddenly it is surprising how close an encounter can become before flight is taken. I do not believe that game animals are able to tell a tree from a man if there is no movement because unlike man they have no language or mental recognition skills to discern one from the other. I know that as long as I remain still, my chance of causing BOSON BOOKS

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alarm is slight. The trick is having the patience to allow nature to work for you. I am usually much more worried about the game picking up my scent and I believe they will purposely position themselves to do just that. Is it intelligence or instinct? I imagine a little bit of the first and a whole lot of the second. Often they cannot make a decision by sight alone so they wait or position themselves for the other senses to give additional information. Sight plus movement or sight plus odor can be enough to make them take flight but sight alone often does not. Of the senses, I believe that the sense of smell is the strongest and most influential for a grazing animal. For sight-based creatures such as man it is difficult to understand another creature’s reasoning patterns. For them to see us does not mean that they recognize us as a danger. The same thing is true of blaze orange. In and of itself, with no other factors present, the color does not initiate a flight response. Lastly, and the most difficult to explain is the curiosity and seeming lack of concern exhibited by all plains game. Many mistake this as a lack of intelligence on the part of mule deer, elk, or even pronghorns but I disagree. It has more to do with their temperament than raw intelligence and is a trait that plains grazing animals have in common. Their zone of apprehension is different from forest creatures and they are not as likely to take flight when confronted by the unknown. I believe it is because of the effect that the open plains environment has had upon their evolution over the millennia. Forest encounters for whitetail deer, for instance, are close and the prey animal that did not take flight upon the slightest provocation did not survive. Subsequently, whitetail deer are skittish. Mule deer, bison, elk, and American pronghorn of the West have always had distance in their favor until the invention of the long-range rifle. Survival demanded vigilance but it was not necessarily in the animal’s best interest to run at every encounter. Just the opposite is true. Effective conservation of energy meant that there was more vigor available when it was truly needed. Predators attack with quick bursts of speed from short distances. The animal that waited while maintaining distance to its advantage was less likely to waste precious resources and the more likely to survive. Plains game behaves normally throughout the day in the presence of all predators as long as those predators remain a certain distance away. Grazing animals try to stay a safe distance away from predators or any unknown being. Therefore, mule deer and pronghorns only retreat a little bit and they will often stop and make a second or even third evaluation of a predator before deciding to abandon the area. If the perceived threat is not acting suspicious, they will often not retreat any further. I have no doubt that African game acts exactly the same way. Hours of viewing wildlife documentaries on African plains game have convinced me that even large predators can pass a grazing herd at close proximity and not create alarm unless the predators act suspicious. The prey remains only vigilant until that zone of apprehension is crossed. The open plains hunter learns that even though he has been sighted a shot may not be immediately taken. I’ve seen hunters blast away at an antelope or mule deer at first sight when, if the hunter had simply sat or bellied down in the grass and waited, an excellent shot opportunity would probably have developed. In many cases curious mule deer and antelope will actually close the distance if they are not alarmed. Here again the experienced single shot hunter learns to outthink his quarry rather than attempt a marginal shot. BOSON BOOKS

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These tactics work better in the early stages of a season before hunting pressure inherently causes increased anxiety among animals. Working with nature and at nature’s speed is the true hallmark of a hunter’s experience and will often result in success. Learning how heavily hunted African plains game reacts would be one of my goals for the South African hunt. The single shot rifle enhances a hunter’s inclination to wait out his quarry and take a carefully considered shot. My own experiences with a pair of Ruger #1s in .30-06 and .338 Winchester Magnum have convinced me that either is capable of taking game far beyond the range of my shooting ability. Both are equipped with 4-12X scopes. Making a disciplined effort to take shots only at elk, for instance, that are within the comfortable sighting capability of 6X power has greatly improved my first shot success. None of my scoped in-lines are normally fired in hunting conditions at ranges beyond the comfortable sighting capability of a 4X scope. Getting closer and working to meet this goal of visual clarity for these magnification powers does far more than increase the hunting challenge. The practice greatly enhances successful shooting and uncomplicated game recovery. Only when making the final preparations to take my shot do I sometimes crank the scope to a higher magnification to pinpoint the target area. Nothing is more discouraging than losing wounded game. Accurate and deadly shot placement has more to do with the management of that first shot than any of the followup rounds. First shot management includes exact recognition of the game, knowledge of game anatomy, informed shot placement decisions, precise aiming at specific points, and meticulous trigger control. Having only one shot greatly increases the likelihood that the hunter will go through all steps of this process before shooting. The discipline of using a single shot rifle can enhance rather than inhibit hunting success. There are exceptions. In heavy cover and dangerous game situations repeaters have significant advantages. But for the majority of the time a single shot is all that is ever needed for sport hunting.

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Chapter 4 – Preconceived Notions Regarding Dangerous Game

T he

Florida experience caused me to consider seriously what dangerous game muzzleloader hunting entailed. Although I planned to hunt only plains game in Africa, I still considered the buffalo hunt to be the perfect learning experience for an African hunt. The potential for a dangerous game confrontation is present no matter what is being hunted in Africa. Hunting potentially dangerous game with a muzzleloader is a benchmark of a truly dedicated black powder hunter and it is not for everyone. Whether pursuing North American bears, African game, or even grazing animals, dangerous game muzzleloading demands mental discipline, strict adherence to safeguards, and a thorough knowledge of the firearm. There is an increased challenge in the deer woods but the magnitude of difficulty significantly increases when pursuing dangerous game. A hunter can make many mental and physical errors with the first scenario and the worst result is lost game. There is little margin for error with the second. The first day of a dangerous game hunt is not the time to be testing a brand new propellant, ignition system, or projectile. A hunter should spend extended time shooting and hunting with his gun in all kinds of situations to make sure that he has developed his skill. If you cannot thoroughly trust your muzzleloader, you have no business going after or backing up another shooter when pursuing dangerous game. Last minute changes or unfamiliar guns can spell disaster.

Because of significant advantages of musket cap and 209 shot shell primer ignition systems, I believe a #11 percussion cap system is inadequate for a dangerous game hunt. However, extreme care should be taken if planning to upgrade a gun from #11 to either one of these ignition systems. Striker travel distance, striker impact force, hammer face size and design, weather resistance characteristics, and accuracy can have dramatic unforeseen effects by what seems to be a simple alteration. Guns that were designed for #11 percussion cap ignition systems may be easily converted but often these systems were not considered when the original piece was designed. Musket caps or primers may slip out of position, be easily lost, not fit properly, or be subject to increased moisture contamination when placed on an older gun. Tests of new alterations should not be limited to the shooting range but in the field using the same support systems for the dangerous game hunt. In other words I would not attempt a simple system conversion of a muzzleloader for a dangerous game hunt without several months advanced preparation. Before making a conversion to a 209 ignition system, trading up to a new gun designed specifically for that system is a better solution. I have tested some inadequate 209 conversions of open breech in-lines and removed them immediately. A gun that excels using #11 percussion caps should not be altered at the last minute. I recommend an older system that works well rather than a last minute conversion that might not. One of my best dangerous game muzzleloaders, a White Super 91, Super Safari, was an open breech in-line mounted with Lyman receiver sights rather than a scope. It was converted to musket cap ignition, and was thoroughly dependable after I installed a heavier striker spring. I normally loaded this rifle with a Pyrodex Select load BOSON BOOKS

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because that propellant has proven to be the best for both accuracy and dependability. Another rifle was purchased after the Florida hunt because I wanted to test a larger caliber top quality muzzleloader in the field. No matter what the ballistic numbers are on paper, I found that field experience is the only way to get an accurate picture of a gun’s potential. This rifle was a heavy, sturdy, .58 caliber sidelock Manton box lock with musket cap ignition, handmade by Greg Worrell. It is specifically designed for hunting bear, elk, moose, and buffalo. It is a plain rifle designed with a wide flat-checkered steel shotgun style butt plate to help manage heavy recoil and has simple, rugged, open sights. It is normally charged with FFg black powder to ensure the best ignition traits from a sidelock configuration. I evaluated several past experiences, read accounts of other hunters, and examined dozens of rifles, both double and single barrel, before purchasing it from Track of the Wolf. However, the box lock had three drawbacks that kept it from being a final answer as a dangerous game muzzleloader. The rifling was designed to shoot a patched round ball; the thirty-inch barrel was awkward in thick foliage and could interfere with fast shooting. Finally, this rifel was a single shot and not a double. Any muzzleloader has to meet specific criteria before it should be considered for dangerous game or exotic hunts. Ignition must be totally reliable. One misfire in a hundred is too many. I’m not talking about one hundred shots on the target range under tightly controlled conditions but under all kinds of hunting field conditions. It naturally follows that to learn a rifle’s true potential it must be used extensively in all kinds of environmental conditions. Check under the nipple for a clear easy flash channel to the main charge. Any burrs may collect fowling, or prevent easy ignition. Oil must be removed from this area, so avoid excess amounts. A pipe cleaner, or a few caps, or both, will insure a clean dry flash channel. Check the fit of the percussion hammer cup, which must be well centered over the big musket nipple. If it rubs the edge of the musket cap, friction can cause unreliable ignition. Be sure the nipple is crowned at top, not flat topped. Inspect each cap, since the factory sometimes fails to place the priming inside the cup. I’ve found a number of faulty #11 and musket caps from several brands. The exception has been RWS caps that seem to be of heavier construction and superior quality. I inspect every single cap before placing it in my capper. Check the mainspring tension of sidelock guns and the striker clearance of in-lines. Hammer blow of both needs to be solid to reliably fire the caps. Caps must fit fully down on the nipple; else the first hammer blow may merely seat the soft copper cap. This is common on Italian made blued steel nipples, which often have too much taper. Spin the nipple in a drill chuck, and polish the taper with emery paper backed with a file, if needed to achieve a perfect fit. Projectiles must not only be suitable for the game, but also they must fit the barrel and bore conformation. Undersize bullets often exhibit poor ignition, compression, energy, and accuracy characteristics. Slightly oversize bullets can be difficult to load and subject to distortion if significant force is needed to start them in the bore with a short starter. A short starter is normally used to start tight fitting projectiles into the bore. Once the soft lead projectile has been imprinted with the rifling, it moves rather easily down the bore to the powder charge with ramrod force alone. A curious fact is that the short starter is found nowhere in North American frontier muzzleloader gun collections. Frontiersmen BOSON BOOKS

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did not have the luxury of pounding on a projectile during loading when an Indian or grizzly was breathing down their necks. Many of these guns were quite accurate. Expert Civil War snipers using easy loading Minie bullets were routinely hitting men many hundreds of yards down range. Projectile fit to the bore is one of the most misunderstood and overlooked elements of muzzleloader shooting. Far too many hunters are using projectiles that fit much too tightly and are gaining absolutely no benefit in accuracy or stopping power. If the projectile cannot be started with push pressure alone and must be struck a sharp blow to get it to engage the rifling that projectile is too large for the bore. Many modern projectile points are far too fragile for muzzleloaders and are deformed when even modest pressure is placed upon them. This distortion affects accuracy and expansion characteristics. Hollow base Minie bullets work well in slow (round ball) twist rifle barrels, because they were intentionally made for slow twists. The center of mass of a hollow base bullet, is forward of the center of the bullet. Thus, the Minie bullet is inherently stable, and travels point forward. Solid base bullets that engrave rifling, will require faster twist, or much higher velocity (to achieve faster RPM rate), to be accurate. However, excessive powder charges will damage the skirt of some projectiles. A properly configured muzzleloader uses a projectile that provides solid performance when mated with the rifle’s rifling and powder charge. Changing propellants can have dramatic effects as well. Changing to pellets, nonsulfur propellants or even grades of Pyrodex (RS to Select, Pyrodex P, or Triple Seven, for instance) can vary ignition time, internal mechanism contamination, fouling traits, recoil characteristics, and group sizes. Black powder remains one of the most dependable ignition propellants because of a lower ignition temperature and shouldn’t be ruled out for dangerous game unless the replacement propellant has been thoroughly tested and proven satisfactory. I believe that it is absolutely mandatory that a fouling load be fired before the game load on any dangerous game muzzleloader whether it have a 209, musket cap or #11 ignition system. A fouling loads needs to be no greater than thirty grains of propellant. Many muzzleloaders shoot far differently from a clean or fouled barrel. A fouled barrel creates a consistency of bullet impact points. Many will argue the same for a clean barrel but this is true only until the shot is taken then the bore environment changes. A fouled barrel generally means that the first, second and even third shots will impact closely together. Go to the field with a fresh load each day of the hunt. Fresh loads greatly reduce the chances of misfires and hang fires in even the most modern muzzle loading systems. Inline guns excel here because it is so much easier to break a gun down to change loads if you are unable to shoot your load at the end of the day. A thorough cleaning of the gun each night provides added insurance against system failure. Firing a squib load of a few grains of powder before loading your hunting load greatly increases confidence in your muzzleloader and identifies any potential failures that might have developed. A dangerous game muzzleloader should always be test fired at the target range after traveling. Scope zeros might change and mechanical sights can be damaged during BOSON BOOKS

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travel. Fiber optic sights, especially the front blade rod, should be carefully examined. Changes in altitude or humidity can also affect the way a muzzleloader performs. I have noticed several dramatic changes in my rifle’s performance and corrosion resistance when I traveled from the arid high plains of western Kansas to the humid lowlands of Florida, high snowy Rockies, or the rainy coastal areas of the Northwest. Extra critical supplies should be taken along for a dangerous game hunt. Lost or broken ramrods, contaminated ignition caps and primers, or scope failure can radically alter a hunt. I recommend having a dangerous game muzzleloader sighted in for both a scope and the rifle’s mechanical sights in case of scope failure. I recommend that backup sights be taken, especially for the somewhat fragile fiber optic versions. Finally, and of vital consideration, a dangerous game muzzleloader should be of the best quality and highest construction standards. This is no undertaking for a gun equipped with cheap plastic sights, weak ramrods, inferior scopes, sloppy trigger performance or fragile stocks. You should get the best available model that you can afford. Load energy is directly relational to the weight of the projectile and the amount of powder used to propel it. However, the biggest load is seldom, if ever, the best load. An effective load is a balance of Accuracy + Killing Power + Personal Rifle Management. What is the most accurate large load you can shoot in your rifle? Are there enough pounds of energy in that load to kill the animal efficiently? What are the penetration characteristics of your projectile? All of these characteristics must be taken into consideration when hunting dangerous game. I am a proponent of big bore, heavy projectile guns for dangerous game over socalled magnum loads that depend upon heavy powder charges and lightweight bullet speed to generate energy. I like 375- to 600-grain conicals shot from .50, .54, or .58 caliber muzzleloading rifles. However, there are some high performance sabots worth looking into. A much harder projectile can be fired with a sabot load. Since penetration is often linked to projectile hardness and mass, these loads should not be ruled out if they are of significant weight. I am not interested in hunting dangerous game with any projectile that weighs less than 400 grains and would much prefer something over 500 grains. I do not believe that velocity comparisons give proper credit to big bore heavy slugs when discussions are centered on muzzleloading guns. Black powder can only generate so much energy and the only way to increase hitting power is to add weight and diameter to the projectile. While these Magnum sabot loads work reasonably well on light boned deer and even elk, they have not exhibited the shock characteristics of heavy projectiles that I like to see. As Jim Carmichel once wrote about dangerous game reaction to a shot: “I like to see the animal go all loose.” From my observations of all sizes of game, heavy conicals do a much better job of creating this effect. October Country of Hayden, Idaho, has experience with big bore traditional sidelock guns of .62 caliber to 4 bore that have proven to be effective against dangerous game including grizzly bear, lion and Cape buffalo. These heavy guns are direct descendants of BOSON BOOKS

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the old school of big game muzzleloaders. Company owner, John Shorb, has some interesting and valid opinions, stated in a conversation with me, regarding dangerous game muzzleloaders: My opinion is that when one is dealing with big, bad animals, one cannot have too much firepower at hand. I constantly refer back to Sir Samuel White Baker's quote on the subject: There is no more fatal policy in hunting dangerous game than contempt of the animal, exhibited by a selection of weapons of inferior caliber. Common sense should be the guide, and surely it requires no extraordinary intelligence to understand that a big animal requires a big bullet, and that a big bullet requires a corresponding charge of powder. [Wild Beasts and Their Ways: Reminiscences of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, London: Macmillan (1891)]. Now, old Baker sounded to be a bit pompous, and he was definitely imperious, but the guy killed more big critters in a year than we will ever see in a lifetime. So, he knew what he was talking about. Bullet weight is a fine thing, but frontal diameter is also important. I do not think that having a .50 caliber bullet that is two to three diameters long is nearly as effective as having a round ball of that same weight. Figure out the Taylor knockout value for yourself, using your own ballistics. Our .72 cal rifle has been chronographed at 2,026 fps using Hodgdon 777. So, the formula goes diameter x weight x velocity divided by 7000. So .715 x 555 x 2026 = 803967.45 divided by 7000 = 114.8. This number tells you how hard the projectile hits. That is a more telling ballistic formula than merely figuring out muzzle energy. As I recall, the above scenario equates out to just short of 5,000 pounds. Pretty potent in its own right. On one African hunt an October Country 8 bore rifle took a 545-pound male lion using an 835-grain round ball and a 300-grain Fg black powder charge. The massive ball went completely though the animal front to back. This is an extremely heavy load and I'm sure it produces significant recoil in a 14-pound muzzleloader. But, again, this is the stuff that was used in nineteenth century Africa and the kind of black powder firepower demanded to produce the energy needed to take down dangerous game. Some common recommended loads for various October Country models are: .62 caliber 200 grains powder charge of Swiss FFg black powder, or Pyrodex Select or Hodgdon Triple-7 FFg 20-gauge cushion wad .015 Ox Yoke Wonder Patch .610 round ball .69/.72 caliber 220 grains Swiss FFg black powder, Pyrodex Select, or Hodgdon 777 FFg 14/12-gauge lubricated cushion wad Special .015 Ox Yoke .70+ caliber Wonder patch BOSON BOOKS

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.678/.715 round ball October Country strongly states that these loads are the maximum for their guns and should not be tried unless the rifle is designed to handle them. Modern smokeless powder loads are no more powerful than the old-time black powder loads. Smokeless powder gives the shooter more velocity and a lower trajectory curve. You can shoot farther, straighter, more often in a lighter rifle and still retain significant bullet energy with smokeless powder. For black powder to accomplish the same level of performance, the shooter must use massive loads that can translate into unacceptable recoil levels and gun weight. For large and dangerous game, the generally accepted way to use black powder loads to their best potential is to get within at least fifty yards of the target. While the average modern big game hunter may consider a shot at 150 or 250 yards, most black powder shooters are not proficient beyond 120 yards. I’ve heard the tales of 400- to 600-yard shots by various black powder and smokeless powder rifles. If you want to argue the capabilities of rifles and effective ranges, please feel free. I’ll sit quietly and allow you to believe whatever makes you happy. I know there are marksmen out there that have made these shots and a few who regularly do it. That is fine. It is wonderful. They are truly marvelous shooters and I stand in awe of their prowess and their stunning firearms. I also know that the devil loves liars and angels rest on the shoulders of truly expert marksmen. Over the years I’ve run into a number of devils and damned few angels. I like to get close with a muzzleloader (eighty yards is good, fifty is better) and do the most damage I can with the most powerful load I can comfortably shoot. I do not want a load that causes me to flinch or does not exhibit dependable shot-to-shot accuracy. I want my heavy load shot from a rifle that can stand up to repeated usage and with a stock design and weight that helps absorb heavy recoil. An overloaded rifle is just as impractical as an under-loaded one if you can't shoot it properly. I prefer a rifle that weighs at least 10 pounds to help manage recoil. October Country offered an 8 bore double rifle that weighed 14 pounds. Their 8 bore single weighs about the same and their 4 bore weighs nearly 18 pounds. My 10-pound Manton box lock rifle transferred the recoil of a 140-grain Pyrodex RS or FFg black powder charge and a 525-grain Buffalo or 600-grain Warren conical quite well. When compared to some of October Country's loads, my rifle was plumb feeble. But, as with any muzzleloader, I have to be careful not to load beyond its capabilities. I was at the limit of my box lock's recommended load parameter. To go beyond that safely, I'd need to move to a heavier rifle that is proofed for these loads, such as one of the October Country models. Before going to Africa, I wanted to test shoot some of these rifles. On the largest North American game, I could get by with my .58 or a properly configured .50. Most modern in-lines are designed for deer hunters and seldom weigh over seven pounds. Still, a well-designed in-line can manage some pretty hefty loads. Look for rifles with stock designs that transfer recoil straight back into the shoulder and with designs that BOSON BOOKS

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do not mount the scope too near the eye. My old White Super 91 had an excellent Bell and Carlson composite stock that easily managed a 140-grain powder charge with a 600grain conical. It also had a double safety system that was quickly and easily managed. My preference is for a musket cap ignition because caps are not as prone to stick in the breech as a 209 shot shell primer and transfer just as much heat to the powder charge. There are some rifles on the market that manage 209 primers quite effectively and the primers are easily extracted. The Knight DISC, DISC Extreme, and Austin & Halleck bolt-action inlines are prime examples. The Thompson/Center Encore and Knight Revolution represent good break open and falling block rifles designed to perform very well with 209 primers. I try not to get caught up in what I call the macho factor of muzzleloading. I don’t care if my rifle is loaded with twenty or thirty less grains of propellant than the other guy's. I load what I shoot best and will provide the best performance in my rifle. What the other guy shoots is his business, unless the load is simply not up to the job. It takes considerable range time and hunting experience to know what works best. Ask an expert and see if you can live with what is recommended. Finally, a dangerous game hunter must be thoroughly familiar with the quirks and potential problems of the muzzleloader. He should be able to repair, fix, disassemble, and reassemble the piece with eyes closed (really with the eyes on the animal and the situation in most cases). The necessary tools for disassembly and assembly should be present at all times and the hunter should know the easily accessed location of all loading and disassembly components. Strive for no more than twenty seconds between aimed shots and if you cannot accomplish this feat within that time span, you should seriously consider changing your system; i.e. loading components, system management, or even a different rifle. A good ramrod of aluminum, steel or unbreakable polymer design is absolutely necessary. A ramrod is often expected to take substantial punishment in a stressful reloading situation and its failure can be catastrophic. I have used some hard loading projectiles and finicky guns that I would not even consider for dangerous game because of slow loading characteristics. A thorough knowledge of the anatomy and disposition of the animal to be hunted is critical. Lethal bullet placement from several angles, particular anatomical strengths and weaknesses, likely herd, pack or pride reaction in a stressed situation and strategies for dealing with emergencies using the gun against that animal. Do you know where you should place your shot in a head-on charge? Is your quarry likely to bound, carry its head level, or jump when charging? Can you load your muzzleloader on the run, at odd angles or in tight quarters with your present reloading equipment? If you have to follow a wounded beast into the thick stuff, do you know how your rifle and components will function in such an environment? Have you practiced for these conditions and potential situations enough to feel competent to react without having to do some on-the-spot improvisation? Having a partner you can trust on a dangerous game muzzleloading hunt is of the highest priority. Whether that person is using a muzzleloading firearm or a conventional BOSON BOOKS

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rifle is an important decision. When your butt is on the line is no time to find that your backup shooter has a rifle that he doesn’t trust or shoot very well. The backup shooter should be willing to offer cover while the primary shooter reloads for a second shot and must be willing to take a calculated, cool-headed shot if need be. The backup shooter should be willing to stand the charge or support the primary shooter in the thick stuff going after wild game. Brainstorm and practice where you want your hunting partner positioned in different situations. For instance, do you want your backup shooter standing behind or beside you in different situations? It is best that your backup shooter be behind when stalking through heavy cover and standing beside, literally shoulder-to-shoulder, in a situation where a charge might be faced. A backup shooter positioned behind can watch the primary shooter and be able to quickly decide if or when he needs to step in. I have functioned as a backup shooter in dangerous game situations. I carry my in-line on double safety and am very mindful of where the gun is pointing. I try to remain no more than five steps behind. In situations where a charge is possible, especially in close quarters, two shooters standing shoulder-to-shoulder can react very quickly without interference, in less danger of accidentally shooting the partner, and without indecision involving who will take the shot no matter from what direction the charge takes place. Often the backup shooter is your guide, but if you want a strict muzzleloader trophy then you may want a muzzleloader as backup. If I were the only backup, I would use my .458 Lott; not that I do not trust my muzzleloader, but rather because my primary responsibility is to the person I am supporting. By their nature muzzleloaders are more prone to system failure than modern cartridge rifles and cannot be reloaded nearly as quickly. The backup shooter is present to save lives and must be equipped with what is most likely to perform that task. There must be a prearranged agreement and thorough understanding of when the backup shooter will and will not take a shot. A shot should not be taken unless it is clearly necessary. If a guide equipped with a modern rifle is unwilling to allow the muzzleloading hunter the chance to take his game properly and completely without interfering with his own shot, perhaps you, as the hunter paying the bill, should consider whether you are comfortable with that guide. This is a matter of judgment, of course, and a reasonable balance should be understood by both of you. Generally, the guide has more experience, is legally obligated to perform certain duties, and his judgment is most important. Still, I wouldn’t want a jumpy guide who doesn’t trust my choice of firearms. Clearly the best muzzleloader guide is one with significant enough experience to understand a muzzleloader’s potential for success and failure. This isn’t always possible but is worth consideration when making a selection of an outfitter. It is a topic I would discuss before booking a hunt. Hunting dangerous game is the ultimate challenge for any sporting firearm user. Hunting dangerous game with a muzzleloading weapon demands a commitment to excellence, responsibility, and courage that many hunters and even professional guides simply do not possess. Think long and hard before making the commitment. Carefully BOSON BOOKS

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evaluate what you have read or heard about such hunts. The rewards are tremendous but the chances for disaster are greatly magnified as well. This is not a step to be taken lightly.

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Chapter 5 – Evaluating the Proper Rifles

A fter much reading and testing I had decided what guns I was going to take while

making my original safari plans. I bought them early so I could take them to the field and be as proficient as possible when the time came for the hunt. I planned to take a .458 Winchester Magnum bolt-action rifle for the big stuff and a .338 Winchester Magnum for everything else. For a plains game only hunt, a combination of .30-06 and .338 would be more than adequate. I found a nice used Ruger Model 77 in .458 Winchester Magnum in Minnesota and bought it for what I considered a bargain price. It is a heavy rifle often called the Alaskan model. I wanted it in case my plans changed to a Cape buffalo rather than plains game hunt in Africa or if a grizzly hunt became available. The primary criticism that I have read about the .458 is that most nonprofessional hunters do not shoot it very well. This is mainly because they fear its recoil. I mounted a long eye relief Burris 4X scope because of the rifle’s recoil.

I was so intimidated by what I had read regarding the .458 that it was three weeks after receiving the rifle before I tried shooting it using 510-grain Winchester loads. I was pleasantly surprised. While the recoil was certainly significant, years of firing some extremely heavy muzzleloader loads had prepared me for the Ruger. Firing the gun in a lightweight summer shirt, I found the first shots were “tolerable” as writer Jack O’Connor once termed it. The Ruger isn’t a gun for a pleasant afternoon of shooting tin cans but it isn’t nearly the punisher I was led to believe. I have developed a flinch when shooting heavy loads that I have to concentrate on controlling. It is most evident after long sessions at the target range and normally is not present when hunting, I suppose because my concentration shifts to the game. This gun recoils heavily enough that I decided to keep my target sessions of short duration. After all, I had a few years to really learn it. I took it deer, elk, bear, and hog hunting to become proficient. It is too much rifle for hunting any of them, but I believe that you must use any gun in the field to become proficient. A few sessions on the target range doesn’t cut it. After quite a bit of shooting I removed the Burris scope in favor of the standard open sights and eventually shifted to a NECG receiver sight (Brownell’s part # 661-040-100) that mounts directly to the receiver’s machined mounting surface and is specifically designed for standard Ruger front sights. I had the advantage of more precise shooting at longer ranges of one hundred yards but retained the speed and flexibility of mechanical sights for close range. It became clear to me that I was primarily taking close shots of less than 120 yards and I liked the flexibility, rugged dependability, and speed that mechanical sights provided under the conditions that I was using the .458. Most of all I really enjoy shooting and handling it in spite of its recoil. My second rifle was a Ruger No. 1 .338 Winchester Magnum single shot mounted with a 3-9X scope. It is a magnificent rifle; smooth handling, accurate, manageable, and rugged. It took a nice cow elk for me at 120 yards and I knew it would be good for most BOSON BOOKS

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of the shooting I planned in Africa. It would be my primary rifle and the .458 would be my heavy backup. My third rifle was a .30-06 Ruger No. 1 equipped with a Bushnell 4-12X scope. It was among the most accurate medium caliber rifle I have ever owned. It would cloverleaf three rounds at one hundred yards for me shooting from a sitting position. I had excellent success with this rifle hunting deer, American pronghorn, and coyotes. On a plains game hunt where the largest game will run 800 or 900 pounds, the .30-06 would work fine for game of 400 pounds or less. If my final hunt plans indicated that I would not need to take the .458, the No. 1s were to be my rifles. As a black powder writer, however, I really wanted to take a muzzleloader along to help pay the bills. Choosing the proper rifle was going to be a difficult decision. I’ve owned a couple of .58 caliber Civil War replicas but their accuracy, sights, and load limitations were inadequate for serious hunting. I field tested a Thompson/Center System 1 in .58 caliber one season and thought it was an excellent rifle, perhaps the best Thompson/Center rifle I’ve tested. The White had the advantage of in-line design, an excellent stock design, better Lyman receiver sights, and the ability to use heavy White 480- and 600-grain conicals to the best advantage. The box lock is a more robust design with a ten-pound weight to help with recoil, just as well made, and of .58 caliber. Both rifles could shoot 600-grain conicals but the .58 caliber projectiles would carry more frontal area. Finding out whether it was enough frontal area to make a significant difference could only be learned in the field. I would have to watch game reactions and examine the wounds carefully. I planned to engage in several informal field autopsies and dig some bullets out of carcasses before making a final decision. The box lock was also designed to be a round ball shooter with 1:48" twist so I did not know how it would function for heavy conicals with heavy powder loads. I purchased some 525-grain Buffalo hollow point, hollow base bullets and Warren 600-grain solid point, solid base bullets. If they proved unsatisfactory I intended to test the rifle using Thompson/Center 555-grain Maxi-balls, a hardened projectile I had good luck with taking a 525-pound Russian sow. White’s massive Power Punch conical is not available in .58 caliber. I did some early target practice using a powder charge of 140 grains of Pyrodex RS with both the Buffalo and Warren projectiles. The Warren produced tighter groups but only by an inch at eighty yards. Generally both seemed to be good so it boiled down to which I would be happier with; the penetration traits of the Warren or the better expansion traits of the Buffalo. At the time of the invitation I was planning a lot of experimentation. The email from Doc White changed everything. On an African muzzleloader hunt I felt I would need a scope-mounted in-line and a heavier short-range backup gun. I figured White would probably have a new design out by that time and the company might ask me to test it. That gun would be a .50 caliber in-line and I would put a scope on it. I still felt that a double barrel should be taken. I can reload a White muzzleloader within twenty seconds. It is the fastest reloading muzzleloader I have ever used due to BOSON BOOKS

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White’s unique slip fit projectiles. Some muzzleloaders using modern tight fitting sabots take a full minute to reload. Even the Whites, however, are not in the same league as my Ruger No. 1s, both of which can be reloaded within three seconds. If we got in a situation in Africa where I was called upon to backup a shooter or defend myself in close quarters, I strongly felt that it was better to have a double barrel and not need it, rather than to need it and not have it. I guess I’ve read too much Capstick, Taylor, and J. A. Hunter about hunting in Africa (if everything they have ever written counts). The one impression I have from this reading is that when hunting in hairy places on the Dark Continent, a person can run into almost anything in the most unexpected places with some terrible consequences. A dangerous encounter can have no relation to what the hunter may or may not have done. Some critter, intent on mashing, biting, or stomping can make a charge for no apparent reason. Parasites, wounds resulting from fights for male dominance, maternal instincts, poor shooting poachers, or just a bad hair day can produce some pretty scary beasts with seriously pissed off attitudes. Chances were that the double might never be used. The South African hunt would probably be pretty tame compared to even Capstick’s time. I would take my game with a single shot and if a really hairy situation developed, the professional hunter would take over with his modern gun. In the back of my mind, however, there was that evening in Florida when we were searching for the wounded buffalo in the myrtle thickets. Events could have been far different. We might have been charged at close quarters. A double might not have made a significant difference and then again it might have been the deciding factor between success and tragedy. I know I am engaging in conjecture. I also remember some of the brush and foliage I’ve had to crawl through looking for wounded game in North America. I wanted to at least test a double in the field even if it was the relatively inexpensive Cabela’s Kodiak Double Express Rifle offered in .50, .54, .58, or .72 caliber. I emailed Joe Arterburn, the media contact person at Cabela’s about testing the Kodiak and perhaps taking it with me to Africa. I’ve written many articles about Cabela’s products over the years and have faith in their judgment and their upper end products. I told Joe I wanted either a .58 or the .72 caliber. Joe immediately emailed me suggesting that I talk to Jerry Bramer, Cabela’s resident black powder expert who felt that I should take a .50 caliber. I called Bramer on the phone and had a nice talk with him. Bramer’s logic was simple. The .50 caliber had better choices of projectiles, better performing projectiles, better accuracy, and better range. In fact he was going to Africa himself to hunt before I would. He was taking a Winchester, 209 ignition, .50 caliber in-line and planning on using a new Power Belt dangerous game bullet. Power Belts are a relatively new projectile design that uses a snap-on plastic base instead of a sabot to engage the rifling when the muzzleloader is fired. I had no experience with them but knew they were the latest industry innovation. The company had developed a 420-grain and 530-grain steel tip dangerous game bullet. After the Florida hunt, the 530-grain projectile sounded interesting. BOSON BOOKS

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I considered Jerry’s arguments through the night. On the one hand, his logic made perfect sense. On the other, my desire to go with a .72 using a 535-grain round ball at short range had equally strong merit. John Shorb’s big bore arguments carried a lot of influence as well. Jerry wanted an all-purpose rifle (his Winchester) and I wanted a special purpose gun as backup to the all-purpose White. By morning I had made my decision but my reasoning was influenced by some politics as well as field experience. I emailed Joe and told him that I would go with a .50. The major reason was that I could possibly use White’s 600-grain Power Punch in it. Another was that the Kodiak .72 caliber was not capable of withstanding the heavy powder charges that John Shorb advocated. I would have the mass of the projectile but not the powder charge to match Shorb’s loads. The Kodiak was simply not capable of meeting that standard of raw power. White did not produce anything for a larger caliber than .50. Since I would be hunting with White products, I felt that it would be judicious to concentrate on their muzzleloading system, and I also have tremendous faith in the 600-grain Power Punch. I knew what the Power Punch could do from several hunting experiences. I also knew that Doc had taken several big game animals with the 600" Africa and Alaska. I had my reservations. The Kodiak has a barrel twist of 1:48", which is not the best for long conical accuracy, especially in .50 caliber. White uses a fast twist rate of 1:24" to stabilize the bullet and the current industry favorite is 1:28". Another challenge is the fact that the Pedersoli’s barrels are regulated to a point of aim at seventy-five yards. The company doesn’t state what the powder charge and projectile weight are for that regulation. My guess was that it was a low powder charge of seventy or eighty grains and probably with a patched round ball of 180 grains or the barrels are simply regulated by lasers with no actual field shooting involved. Either method has no relation to my proposed load of 120 to 140 grains of powder and a 600-grain conical. Long-distance accuracy is really not an issue, however. I planned to use this gun only in special circumstances at ranges of less than eighty yards and probably less than fifty. If I could manage three- or four-inch groups with both barrels of the Kodiak at seventy-five yards using the Power Punch projectile with a powder charge in the neighborhood of 120-140 grains, I could produce more close-range power than a .375 H & H according to John Taylor’s TKO formula for big game rifles. Over the years I have been most influenced by the writings of big bore, heavy bullet advocates. This influence has been strengthened by what I’ve witnessed in the field. For a long time my favorite brush country whitetail rifle was a Marlin lever action Guide Gun in .45-70, a much heavier round than normally associated with deer hunting. It is far superior in my hands to the .30-30, or .243, or even the .308 at the distances I normally encounter whitetails. I much prefer the .338 Winchester Magnum for black bear and elk to the .30-06, or the .270. I’ve seen all of these rounds function in the field on big game and I have witnessed much more impressive performance from the heavier bullets. Heavy bullets put the game down, usually where they are standing if shot placement is correct. BOSON BOOKS

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Under practical hunting circumstances I have always been more impressed with how the game is put down rather than from how far the shot was taken. A big reason for this opinion is that most rifles will shoot more accurately than the person pulling the trigger. Taylor was an African professional hunter and poacher who killed literally thousands of game animals during his professional hunting years. His books are something of a standard on big game rifles of the first half of the twentieth century. Taylor made an attempt to generate a formula that would predict what the performance of a given bullet at a certain velocity might be, attempting to correlate the relative numbers of his formula with observed results in African game. He called it the TKO or Taylor-Knock-Out Formula. Used correctly, the formula will generally predict, in relative terms, how well a load might do. The weakness of the formula is that projectile penetration traits are not considered. The formula takes the bullet weight in pounds, that’s weight in grains divided by 7000, times velocity in feet per second, times caliber in thousandths of an inch. This produces an index value that can be related to other values to reflect killing power. For example, a .375 Magnum, considered the premier all-purpose African hunting round, throwing a 300-grain bullet (divide by 7,000), times velocity of 2,560 feet per second times caliber of .375 produces an index number of 41. The 600-grain Power Punch (divide 600 by 7000, times velocity of 1,400 fps times the caliber of .504) produces an index number of 56. But, this is close range power and of course the .375 H & H has the long-range advantage of trajectory and fast repeat shots. Still, for the conditions I was planning, I could gain significant power from a doublebarreled muzzleloader using the .50 caliber White load, certainly enough to be worthy of dangerous game pursuit. Another major influence was that no matter what projectile I choose for a .58 or any caliber other than a .50, I would be in the field with two different projectiles to manage. By going with the White .50 caliber Power Punch bullets in 460-, 480-, and 600-grain weights, I would have a proven bullet design that would easily work in either rifle on a moment’s notice. There would be much less confusion, the same or similar powder charges, and the faster loading characteristics of the White projectiles even though they were not designed for a Pedersoli gun. White produces one .50 caliber projectile for competitive rifles but it is only 445 grains, not as heavy as I wanted to use. If I could get the 600-grain to work with the Kodiak reasonably well in the field and at the target range, I had a nearly perfect backup rifle for any White. Whether I used the 460- or 480grain projectile in my all-purpose rifle depended on my field tests and could be influenced by any new projectile that White wanted to test. I have carried a Cabela’s double 12-gauge shotgun for many years. It comes to the shoulder and aligns on upland birds very well for me, the best point-and-shoot shotgun that I own. If the Kodiak had similar stock dimensions (I figured they’d be identical in today’s cost saving manufacturing environment) I would have an excellent naturally pointing short-range double gun. The scoped White would provide the accuracy and the BOSON BOOKS

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Kodiak would provide two-shot security for backup. The more I considered the idea, the more I liked it. I chose not to debate the people at Cabela’s. If I hadn’t wanted their advice I wouldn’t have asked for it. I would go to the field and see what the Kodiak would do. I found it humorous that my monster big bore .72 caliber, musket cap ignition, dangerous game thumper had suddenly become a rather mundane off-the-shelf sidelock .50 using plain #11 caps. If I were designing a double-barreled muzzleloader for dangerous game, it would be an in-line using 209 shot shell primer or musket cap ignition and a fast twist barrel. If I were designing the Pedersoli to suit me, I would go to a synthetic stock, a fast twist barrel, and musket cap ignition. But those rifles did not exist as mass production models and I didn’t have the resources to have one custom made I ordered some Knight 1/4 X 28" musket nipples for the Kodiak tests. I believe that Knight's patented Red Hot Nipples are among the best. A double taper design ensures positive firing and prevents caps from sticking unlike many European nipples, which are more straight walled. As I had been advised by Cabela’s the musket cap nipples were totally unsuitable for the Kodiak. Hammer fit and tolerances with the Knight nipples were unworkable and I went back to the #11 nipples. Experience has convinced me that #11 percussion cap systems are notoriously prone to misfires and hang fires no matter how fastidious the management of the gun. Even the so-called magnum caps generate nowhere near the positive ignition traits of the musket cap or the 209 shot shell primer. Certainly, in a situation where I would need a dependable backup gun, I have little faith in a #11 percussion cap system. The #11 cap and nipple system has one advantage in that it has moisture resistance characteristics in wet weather because of the tight fit upon the nipple. But that one feature does not override the musket caps increased fire generation. After 1850 virtually no military or dangerous game muzzleloader was designed with a #11 percussion cap system until the advent of modern muzzleloading replicas in the late 1960s. The early trend then was to recreate the 1820 – 1840 rifle for the buck skinners and the #11 percussion cap system held on for a while in updated models. I believe this was because the industry was learning what the old-timers figured out one hundred years earlier. But it didn’t take long for manufacturers to realize the superiority of the hotter ignition systems and place them in their later models. Except for historically accurate replicas, which use the system for authenticity, I believe that the use of #11 percussion caps will steadily decline for modern big game muzzleloaders. My Cabela’s 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun is equipped with #11 percussion caps and has functioned very well in the field using black powder, but there is a big difference between upland bird hunting and using a gun for dangerous game backup. During my field tests I felt that I was going to have to consider black powder rather than Pyrodex for my propellant if ignition was not dependable. If I were going to have faith in the Kodiak I needed to log many hours in the field.

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Chapter 6 – Ethics, Sights, and Other Hunters

Any other modern book on hunting in Africa is probably not going to discuss the subject

of muzzleloading firearms unless it is a historical review of the early nineteenth century hunters. In spite of this more sport hunters are venturing to the Dark Continent with them each season. Muzzleloading enthusiasts grow in number and a few dedicated advocates see Africa as one of the supreme tests of their competence. I am one of this group but I did not feel it was wise to push myself during my first safari. The largest animal I would consider with a muzzleloader is the Cape buffalo and I have no desire at the moment to hunt a lion or leopard. For one thing, I do not have the resources to consider paying the trophy fees associated with those animals. When we debate muzzleloaders in Africa, we should consider technology and hunter ethics. African game pursuit exemplified by hunting larger, tougher animals is an extremely small market and normally the object of custom guns. Most hunters choose modern cartridge rifles for African game because of the slow loading and uncertain characteristics of a black powder firearm. When muzzleloader enthusiasts begin discussing hunting and shooting, it quickly becomes apparent that each individual’s definition of what are the maximum limits of a rifle differs greatly. Many opinions depend upon what part of the country provides the hunting experience and the game being hunted. Since the vast majority of muzzleloaders are sold to deer hunters east of the Mississippi River, a person could assume that their values would constitute the majority opinion and the bulk of the market. Hunters in the Far West may look at the challenge quite differently. Elk and black bear hunting are realistic goals for the western region. A limited number of enthusiasts have taken grizzly and polar bears in Alaska. My Southern Plains experiences include hunting feral boar, American pronghorn, mule deer, whitetail deer, and coyotes. I am also close enough to the Rocky Mountains that elk are hunted regularly. Muzzleloader advances are market based. Most modern muzzleloader equipment is aimed at the whitetail deer hunting market. There is very little risk in pursuing deer with a muzzleloader so a lot of accepted rules don’t necessarily apply to an African hunt where some of the game can bite back. I was certain that in spite of my familiarity with muzzleloaders, my opinions would be greatly affected by my African experience. To prepare for the hunt all I had to go on were the experiences of those modern day and nineteenth century hunters who had gone before me. Other than an occasional magazine article very few modern resources are available regarding the success or failure of muzzleloaders against African game. And that material is often colored to a large degree by industry influences. There have been some big game loads and rifles that I consider irresponsible. Muzzleloaders are often carried in Africa and on North American dangerous game hunts by people representing muzzleloader companies as a publicity or research exercise as much as for any other reason. Quite plainly, a modern smokeless powder rifle firing BOSON BOOKS

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self-contained cartridges is a vastly superior choice for this kind of game. Only an enthusiast would consider a muzzleloader for exceptionally dangerous game. Even then, and I include myself as a dedicated muzzleloader enthusiast, I have vastly superior cartridge rifles for any of these hunts. Taking a muzzleloader to Africa, while I don’t consider it a stunt, is pressing the limits of practicality. And, to be honest, my original plans included one muzzleloader with the bulk of my hunting to be with modern rifles. Doc White wanted to use muzzleloaders for research and while he didn’t insist upon it, I felt I should use muzzleloaders as well. The early European hunters of Africa were armed with an assortment of percussion guns and rifles. Many also brought old flintlocks as spare guns for themselves or their hired hands. Generally the rifles were relatively small bores, either military muskets (.577 & .720") or civilian 8, 10 and 12 bores. Single-barreled 6 and 4 bore smoothbores were carried for dangerous game. In general the rifles were loaded conical bullets. Smoothbores fired massive round balls. For all game excluding rhino and elephant, the lighter caliber rifles were adequate. For the bigger game the weight of lead was the only alternative to bringing down the animal. The hunter would carry his rifle and then turn to the quicker loading smoothbores for repeat shots. Muzzle loading rifles were too slow to load. Anything over twenty yards was a long shot for smoothbores and beyond forty yards the hunter could not actually be sure of hitting an elephant with a hastily loaded gun. Fredrick Courtney Selous comments that his old 4 bore elephant guns loaded with a 1700-grain hardened lead ball pushed along by a handful of powder had better penetration than most of the early rifles. It was penetration, coupled with a reasonably large wound channel that kept the big smoothbores in use on elephant up till the 1880s. None of the early rifles had sufficient penetration for frontal brain shots on elephant and it was only with the introduction of the 7mm Mauser and Mk II .303 ammunition in 1890 that this feat became possible. The rifles used by the early hunters used conical bullet, since round balls had been replaced by conical bullets in the military in the 1850s and in Africa long before that. Taking over a minute to load, the single-barreled guns were capable of keeping shots within a six-inch group at one hundred yards. The sights on these guns were crude by today's standards with bulbous foresights and narrow rear sights. Very few of the cheaper guns were properly regulated and many shot wide of the point of aim. I’ve shot Civil War replicas with the same characteristics. Although they would group well enough they often shot as much as a foot to the right or left at a hundred yards with no means of sight adjustment. Many of the better quality guns came with blank, oversize leaf sights at the rear and the hunter was expected to file a V in the appropriate place, and to the appropriate depth, on each leaf to suit his load. The slowness of loading though, dictated that most men preferred doubles or they carried several pre-loaded rifles. Getting a muzzleloading BOSON BOOKS

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double rifle to group the shots from both barrels together was even more difficult than regulating a cartridge gun and all required careful loading to group well. Many of the hunters, particularly the Boers, carried Cape guns, with one rifled barrel and one smoothbore. For normal hunting the shotgun barrel was loaded with loopers which are nothing more than three or four tightly fitting balls. This load was used by the Voortrekkers for most of their hunting up until the 1880s. At twenty to thirty yards ultra heavy buckshot was effective and hunting was often conducted by using a horse to gallop close to the quarry. Buckshot was used first, with the rifled barrel reserved for a follow up shot. The success of the hunters in the muzzleloading era relied upon getting close to the target. Except for the odd exceptional marksman armed with a top grade rifle, anything over fifty yards stood a significant chance of being a wounding rather than killing shot. The arrival of the breechloader in the 1870s radically altered hunting methods. The Snider and Martini-Henry rifles could fire ten rounds shots per minute and the Cape guns faded from popular use. They were, however, terribly prone to barrel contamination and poor accuracy after sustained shooting. Both models were also equipped with inferior sights. One of the first modern hunters to test the muzzleloader in Africa was Val Forgett of Navy Arms. Val was a pioneer in the modern black powder replica arms field. Val made this hunt to introduce the idea of a black powder muzzleloader as a credible hunting tool to a largely ignorant public. I did business with Val for many years as a writer but never really got to know him personally except to say with certainty that his word was good and he always treated me honestly and fairly. Val and I had a buffalo hunt scheduled but circumstances forced us to cancel. I have always regretted that I was unable to hunt with this pioneer of modern muzzleloading. In 1985 Val was recognized by Safari Club International as the first man in a hundred years to take the Big Five of African game with a muzzleloader. Val carried two basic styles of muzzleloaders and took game up to elephant size. His game reports are candid and offer no hint of exaggeration. One gun was a heavy .58 caliber Hawken style rifle with a 180-grain charge of FFFg black powder shooting a 610-grain Minie bullet. The gun had a 26" barrel and weighed 9 1/2 pounds. The other rifle was a 23" carbine similar to the Hawken. It was a .58 caliber rifle loaded with an FFFg black powder charge of 125 grains and the same bullet. He also took a .50 caliber for lighter game. The guns performed well for Val with all of his big game being taken inside of eighty yards. All of these rifles were European manufactured replicas with sidelock percussion ignition systems and open sights. A recent Zimbabwe Cape Buffalo hunt by Jim Gefroh in the 2003 Winter Issue of Blackpowder Hunting describes what must be withering recoil associated with old-time black powder big game loads. He explains his rifle and recoil: My flintlock heavy rifle is of similar design, full stocked, and like [James Forsyth's], 8 bore, or .83 caliber. The barrel is twisted 1 in 120 and rifled for round ball in the manner of James Forsyth. The standard load for the 8 bore rifle BOSON BOOKS

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is 10 drams, 270 grains of FFg powder. My hardened ball is actually a short conical weighing a massive 1,360 grains rather than the 860-grain round ball. Recoil, to say the least, is pronounced and not for the recoil shy. For comparison, the mighty .577 nitro express measures 87 foot-pounds of recoil and the 8 bore with the conical measures 210 foot pounds. Certainly one of the heaviest recoil rifles to be shouldered, but it also generates close to 6,300 foot-pounds of energy as a result. Gefroh took a 1,800-pound bull at twenty-five yards and relates that the impact literally lifted the bull off his feet. Even then the bull got back to his feet and took off. They found him nearly a hundred yards away. This is an interesting story reminiscent of old-time big game hunting. But just a bit of reflection indicates the extreme challenge of this kind of hunting. Gefroh was proud that the bull had traveled less than a hundred yards after regaining his footing. I would be as well but the shot was taken at only twenty-five yards. The 860-grain slug traveled through both lungs, through the shoulder and was lodged in the skin from a range of twenty-five yards. The 600-grain Power Punch SCB using 140 grains of Pyrodex P traveled through both lungs and lodged against the far rib cage from a range of eighty-nine yards on our buffalo hunt. Considering the point of diminishing returns involving recoil and rifle weight, I'd just as soon carry the modern in-line for no more performance difference than was related by Gefroh. Compared to fifteen years ago, muzzleloading technology today is far superior and allows us some advantages that were not available until recently, certainly not when Val Forgett made his safari. Not only is the development of in-line rifles a factor but also advanced work with saboted bullets, conicals, ignition systems, propellants, trigger and barrel design. A hunter can venture into the field with a quite modern and sophisticated shooting instrument. Great strides have been taken in the areas of accuracy, dependability, and range extension. But, none of these advances have overcome the basic limiting factor of all black powder firearms, the energy that is generated by the propellant. Nor can any muzzleloading firearm supply repeat shots at anywhere near the rate of even a cartridge firing single shot. A modern muzzleloader may look as good as a smokeless powder rifle but it isn’t and it won’t ever be. With the advent of Pyrodex Pellets someone got the idea that he could load three fifty-grain pellets very easily and increase velocity enough to use the concept as a means of selling more muzzleloaders. Never mind that the rifles weren’t nearly as accurate; that barrels clogged up with powder debris so much that you needed to swab after every shot to load it; that many very good muzzleloader projectiles didn’t stand up to the charge, or that the recoil was enough to shake teeth fillings loose. There were enough claims of near miracle performance that such things were conveniently overlooked. Sort of a gentlemen’s agreement, I guess. A few of the liars and the lucky made some 200-yard shots and the race was on to convince buyers that their company had the most up-to-date muzzleloaders with the hottest ignition systems and the highest velocities.

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The whole scam worked so well and sales were so good that some other company got the idea that if a high velocity .50 sold so well what about a high velocity .45? By using a lighter bullet in a smaller caliber you could claim even greater velocity, greater penetration, less recoil, and even better trajectory curves. The old-time bison hunters went from .50 to .45's and enjoyed superior performance. It all looked so good on paper that these companies began convincing themselves of how wonderful the new high velocity .45's were. There’s only one problem with the whole notion. It looks good on paper but it doesn’t work so well in the deer woods. Cheap high velocity projectiles that are little more than tin plated lead don’t penetrate nearly was well as a heavier, slower projectile. A polymer tipped soft lead, so-called extended range bullet of 180 or 215 grains housed in a .45 caliber sabot will kill a deer but it won’t do it nearly as well as a .45 caliber extended length conical at nearly a third less velocity. Funny things begin happening with highvelocity, light weight bullets. Erratic groups, poor penetration, bullet fragmentation, and more wounded game at long range are the results of using too light a projectile with too great a powder charge. What will work? What can you do if you already have a .45 caliber muzzleloader and are not happy with the performance? My advice is to go with heavier, slower loads and to get closer. Try a 285-grain Hornady Great Plains conical with 80 grains of Pyrodex RS, Select, or Triple Seven. Try a 255-grain T/C Maxi-Hunter or, a 315- or 360-grain Cabela’s X-tended Range Polymer Tip Conical with similar powder charges. If you want a real thumper try a Precision Rifle Ultimate I in anything from 300 to 530 grains. I prefer a 320-grain PowerStar sabot or a 380-, 430-, or 460-grain White Power Punch conical in a White Thunder Bolt .451 rifle. A shooter will achieve and appreciate is the concept of a balanced load. Without getting into a lot of numbers a balanced load is the proper relative relationship between projectile weight, projectile design, projectile velocity, and load manageability. It translates into a load that is accurate, does not have unusual recoil tendencies, and is an effective killer at extended range. It is also a load that is truly similar to those .45 caliber loads of the early bison hunters that won out over the .50 caliber bullets; that is, long conicals with similar powder charges that were lethal at long range and accurate. A balanced load uses the weight of the projectile to increase penetration rather than just velocity. The stress on a long-for-caliber, heavy lead projectile is not nearly as great, so bullet performance is much more consistent on the target range and in game. A limiting factor for big game hunting with a muzzleloader has been the projectile itself. Only recently has anyone developed a steel tipped dangerous game projectile. Before that the only means of obtaining much penetration was through an undersized hardened lead bullet that had to use a plastic sabot to engage the rifling or a long, heavy soft lead conical like the White Power Punch that used brute force inertia to carry it through a carcass. The Power Belt 530-grain steel-coated bullet uses a patented snap-on base that creates a gas seal to provide accuracy and to control pressure. Unlike sabots, Power Belt bullets are full caliber sized and fairly easy to load, which they must be. Any deformation of the bullet tip during the loading process will destroy the aerodynamic BOSON BOOKS

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integrity of the bullet. Since the damage is done after the projectile is in the barrel, many shooters never figure out why their hollow or polymer points are producing inconsistent groups. As I mentioned earlier many tight fitting projectiles, especially sabots, must be virtually hammered down the bore—deforming the bullet. A Power Belt uses a pliable soft plastic base that is slightly overbore so the bullet/base assembly loads easily, with the base retaining the bullet securely over the powder charge. This allows a steel tipped bullet to be used in a muzzleloading firearm without ruining the rifling or being slow to reload. But, these projectiles are currently in limited production and cost nearly six dollars apiece. That price makes my .458 Lott look like a cost-per-round bargain. If an enthusiast is honestly going after dangerous game with a muzzleloader, estimating the true value of a life-saving projectile is difficult. I got hold of the company and ordered a couple of boxes. The Power Belt loaded and shot very well in White and competition guns during my early tests. It functioned so well that I decided the bullet addressed most of my concerns about a .50 caliber double. The other limiting factor of a muzzleloader is range. My personal definition of maximum muzzleloader range is 150 yards and frankly I don't believe I am capable of consistent, effective harvesting of big game at that range. I might consider a 120-yard shot if I have the proper equipment, all the conditions in my favor, and no chance of getting any closer. Otherwise, I normally let the shot pass and look forward to another day of hunting rather than making a risky effort. No hunting experience is more disconcerting for me than losing wounded game. Most of my whitetail deer have been taken in heavy cover that runs along rivers and streams with shots averaging from thirty to seventy yards. I assume this is probably roughly equal to the experiences of most Eastern hunters. Even at those distances a scope is a tremendous aid in low light, shady conditions. When scampering over open western Kansas plains or tall grass prairie, a hundred yards is nothing. It is common to be able to glass antelope, deer, and even coyotes on the plains at great distances. It often takes a considerable stalking effort to get within muzzleloader range. When I hunt coyotes in sand hill country, I usually try to call from positions where the far hills are only sixty or seventy yards distant so I can draw the dogs into muzzleloading range quickly before they suspect something is wrong. Once in a while an old mule deer buck will come over one of those hilltops and he usually looks pretty darned small. Most of the mule deer that I have taken have been shot at whitetail ranges. My point is that once I have a true reckoning of measured distances, deer at 150 yards are extremely difficult targets for most hunters to reasonably expect to hit with a muzzleloader. We are trying to make a chest cavity shot that is approximately the size of a pie plate. I can barely make out a pie plate at one 150 yards with open sights. How many of you can honestly claim that you can hit a pie plate, three for three, at 150 yards with an open-sighted or even scope-mounted muzzleloader? So, for most of us, an examination of the best way to make a seventy- to one hundredyard deer shot with a muzzleloading rifle is probably most reasonable. What techniques can we use to get the maximum performance out of our rifles and more importantly, ourselves? What are your alternatives when a scope sight is not an option and conventional post and V sights are not providing good enough performance? The alternatives not only BOSON BOOKS

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allowed me to continue to shoot effectively with mechanical sights but also are preferable to scopes under certain conditions; so much so that every hunting rifle I have that is not wearing a scope is equipped either with peep or Ghost Ring sights. I feel that I am shooting better than I ever have and these sights are the reason. In fact, if someone were to ask me what the single most important improvement to a rifle should be, I would advise that they should improve the sights, no matter what their age or the condition of their eyesight. Those who want a simple explanation of why aperture or Ghost Ring sights are superior need to understand the concept of a focal plane. When you sight a rifle equipped with typical open sights on a target your eyes are required to align a rear sight with a front post and then place that alignment on your target. If you do it right, and most good marksmen do so without much concentration, something has to go fuzzy and your eyes make quick adjustments to balance the effect. The old saying “aim small, miss small” comes into play here and the better your vision is the smaller the definition that can be drawn with this sighting system. For instance, I owned a .45 caliber Ohio replica muzzleloading rifle with a custom 36" Bill Large barrel for nearly twenty years. Buckhorn rear sights and a very closely filed brass front blade sight worked very well for me when I first purchased the rifle. Using seventy grains of black powder and a patched round ball, this rifle is a marvel of accuracy at one hundred yards. If you place the front sight deep in the rear V of the Buckhorn to where it is barely visible and use the set trigger it does as well as any muzzleloader I have ever seen shot by anyone. All you have to do is to be able to align the sights properly. Making those two points about thirty-two inches apart stay in focus became increasingly difficult as my eyes aged. Not only is the target fuzzy but the front sight is as well. Precise alignment is no longer possible and a gun that once grouped inside an inch will now barely group inside of five inches. It isn’t the gun, it’s the shooter. “Aim small, miss small” is no longer a credible option because I am no longer able to maintain the same focal plane definition that I once did. Fiber optic sights offer some improvement over black iron sights in low light situations. In spite of the increased brightness of the sight dots, I find the dots fuzzy and the green dots of the back sights tend to blend into the red dot in the center. These sights tend to shimmer in snowy conditions. This characteristic slows the aiming process. For still hunting whitetails in heavy brush and timber the extra time it takes to find the target and align the sights can be the difference in having a shot or not. A scope is a grand improvement. Instead of having to maintain a focal plane of three points, the shooter only has to worry about two. The shooter simply puts the crosshairs on the magnified target. Electronic red dot sights perform a similar function without magnification. Either of these alternatives is vastly superior to plain iron or fiber optic sights. But in my state and neighboring Colorado these options are prohibited for muzzleloader only seasons and neither is as rugged as I’d like for certain harsh conditions such as back country horseback elk hunts. Scopes do not provide the broad field of view that I need at short ranges when hunting thick timber. I need something fast as my whitetail shot opportunities are often only a few seconds.

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I’ve found that two types of sights offer significant improvement over black iron sights and fiber optic sights. They also challenge the electronic red dot sight in most situations and even the optical scope in some. A properly configured receiver sight and the Ghost Ring sight are excellent alternatives—so much so that one or the other is mounted on nearly every hunting rifle I have that is not equipped with a scope. I have found that either will tighten my hundred-yard sight-in groups by several inches over conventional sights. In certain hunting conditions I find them to be faster and more dependable than a scope. The Ghost Ring sight on my Marlin Guide Gun was superior to any scope system. I have never experienced any long gun that gets on target so quickly with such sure fire accuracy in short-range brush hunting situations as the Ghost Ring equipped .45-70 carbine. In-line rifles that I once converted to scope use for the regular Kansas firearms deer season are not changed because the Lyman or Williams peep sight is so effective. An Austin & Halleck in-line, newly equipped with XS Ghost Ring sights, will challenge my scoped in-lines for shooting nearly identical groups on the hundred-yard target range and surpass the scopes for fast target acquisition in the woods. Anyone who is struggling with standard V and post open sights should seriously consider either of these sighting systems. Peep sights have been around for some time. Lyman and Williams make popular models. Each brand features a small peephole in the rear that is aligned with a front blade sight, usually equipped with some kind of bead to act as a point of reference. I have used a Model 57 SME Lyman rear peep sight mounted on a number of White rifles. I had a Williams WGRS sight mounted on my Super 91 Super Safari. I also had a Model 57 SML Lyman rear peep sight mounted on a .54 Lyman Deerstalker sidelock rifle with a Lyman ivory bead. Features on all Lyman sights include 1/4-minute audible-click micrometer adjustments for elevation and windage, quick-release slide, coin-slotted knobs, and two interchangeable aperture discs for different shooting conditions, such as a larger aperture for hunting and a smaller aperture for target shooting. I use the small target apertures on the in-lines because I normally use them for long-range hunting and the large hunting aperture on the Deerstalker for short-range still hunting. If I am in low light situations in the field with either of the in-lines, I’ll remove the small aperture and use the aperture ring as my rear peephole. The system works beautifully and I have no desire to mount a scope on any of these rifles even when regulations allow me to do so. The same is true of my .458 Winchester Magnum I believe it functions much better with the NECG receiver sight than any scope I could mount on it and is much superior to this rifle’s standard open sights. The only disadvantages I have experienced with the Lyman receiver sights are that many guns must also be drilled and tapped to accommodate mounting the sights although the Whites and the Deerstalker are pre-drilled for receiver sight mounting. Receiver sights can also snag in heavy brushy conditions and can be bent out of alignment more easily than standard open sights. Both of these traits can happen with scopes, however, and are not significant concerns anymore than scope damage would be. At least it is easy to see if a receiver sight has been bent and it is virtually impossible to tell if a scope has shifted its zero after being dropped. While hunting in a driving rainstorm, I lost my footing and took a fifty-foot slide down the muddy wall of a canyon with my Thunder Bolt. When I cleaned the mud off the gun BOSON BOOKS

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I noticed that the receiver arm had been bent down by the impact. I bent it back straight in the field and my impact point did not change. That same sight is prone to snagging on leaves and twigs in brush because it is set so high above the breech of the rifle and I am careful to monitor it in those conditions. I have not had this problem with the others as the Model 91 sight is set lower to the breech and the Deerstalker sight is mounted on the tang above the wrist of the stock in a more protected position. The Williams WGRS sight is mounted on top of the breech and is much tougher than the side mounted target sights. The advantage to the side mounted receiver sights is that minute adjustments for windage and elevation can be made in the field without special tools but I do not usually do this, choosing rather to use Kentucky estimates of windage and elevation when hunting situations demand it. It takes some practice to know how little it is necessary to alter the sight alignment for long-range shooting but no more so than with most scopes. A hunter equipped with binoculars for game evaluation is at little disadvantage with receiver sights especially within the ranges commonly associated with black powder projectiles. I am especially fond of receiver sights for pronghorn antelope and mule deer muzzleloader hunting seasons. In Kansas, mechanical sights are mandated by regulation for muzzleloader seasons for both species. Receiver sights with target apertures allow for quite precise shooting out to 150 yards after some practice. I can maintain a six-inch spread at that distance from a bench rest. I had virtually no experience with Ghost Ring sights before my Marlin Guide Gun. These fast-acquisition hunting sights feature a contrasting white on black front post for low light conditions. The White Stripe draws immediate focus to the front sight post for faster reference on target. The large Ghost Ring™ aperture is fully adjustable for windage/elevation, and affords great field of view for faster target and front sight acquisition. Sets include both .230" and .191" apertures. They install easily, usually in existing predrilled holes for scope bases or factory sights. The rifle is sighted so that point of impact is at the top of the post. The theory is that the eye of the shooter naturally and unconsciously centers the post in the Ghost Ring during normal sighting on the target. Subsequently, the shooter puts the top of the post on the target and shoots without conscious effort to align the sights. Does it work? From my experience it works beautifully. It is the only sighting system other than my double-barreled shotgun where I take my shots with both eyes open. This is especially notable since I am left eye dominant and shoot right handed. After only a couple of hunting situations where I had to make instant shots at running game I became thoroughly convinced of the excellence of this sighting system for my Guide Gun in close range, fast action hunting conditions. I mentioned them to some other muzzleloading enthusiasts and the standard response was that although they accepted the idea that Ghost Ring sights were excellent for jump shooting, they wanted more precise sighting for long-range encounters. This was a trait that they did not feel Ghost Ring sights could deliver. It looked too easy. I felt that my Guide Gun shot better at eighty to a hundred yards for me with Ghost Ring sights than with standard Marlin sights but I wasn’t going to argue the point until I had more experience of how they would work on a muzzleloading rifle. I decided to BOSON BOOKS

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experiment with a Ghost Ring sight on a new Austin & Halleck rifle. On both of these rifles the Ghost Ring is mounted on the rear holes designed for standard scope bases. This Austin & Halleck in-line muzzleloader is known for shooting tight groups but it is not configured to be a brush rifle. Its action and twenty-six-inch barrel length makes for an in-line more commonly used for long-range shooting conditions than for still hunting or whitetail brush shooting. A scope is usually mounted to gain the most potential of an in-line muzzleloader like the Austin & Halleck. I did not want to mount a scope because I wanted to use this rifle for special muzzleloading season regulations. Using the standard fiber optic sights I managed several five-inch, hundred-yard groups using the Austin & Halleck from the bench which in and of itself is not bad and normal for most of the better open-sight in-line muzzleloaders I have tested. I do better than that with my receiver sight and scope-mounted guns by at least an inch. It took a long time, however, to obtain my sight picture as the dots often blurred when sighting on a small orange target a hundred yards away. The Ghost Ring was much easier to sight on the same target and shots could be taken much quicker. Windage is adjusted by loosening and tightening side screws on the Ghost Ring. Each 180° turn of the threaded aperture will move the bullet impact up or down approximately one inch at a hundred yards. The XS Ghost Ring Aperture Sight provides approximately fourteen inches of total elevation adjustment based on a twenty-four inch sight radius. After some practice I was able to improve my groups by an inch and take my shots in a quarter of the time. The orange dot of the target was clearly visible because I set the front post just under it in a six o’clock position. In spite of the small size of the target my concentration did not compete against the sight and it was much easier to place the white line of the post with the orange target dot resting on it. I felt that the whole affair was vastly superior to standard fiber optic sights on the range. Another crucial factor was that the length of the Austin & Halleck barrel did not work against me using Ghost Ring sights. Other than the fact that the post was smaller on the long-barreled muzzleloader rather than the short-barreled lever-action carbine, they sighted virtually the same. In fact I felt that the smaller post allowed for more precise long-range aiming. In low light conditions it was every bit the equal of the Deerstalker equipped large aperture sight and functioned almost as well as the small aperture sight on the Whites for long shots. The other trait that I liked about the Ghost Ring is that it is a trim design and much less prone to accidental damage. At 150 yards the receiver sight will perform better but as distances close from that point the Ghost Ring consistently closes the performance gap. Below eighty yards the Ghost Ring is much faster and equally as accurate for me. Again, at no distance did I feel that fiber optic sights were the equal of either the Ghost Ring or the receiver sight. I prefer the Ghost Ring to the receiver sight in snowy conditions. Whether the day is bright sunshine over snow or heavy overcast over snow the white line of the front sight on the Ghost Ring sight was clearly defined by the surrounding black outline. In bright snowy conditions I have experienced the poorest performance with fiber optic sights with my eyesight. The shimmering effect is quite strong. The scope sight is superior in snow with Ghost Rings a distant second and receiver sights are slightly less agile because it is a BOSON BOOKS

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bit more difficult to locate the front sight dot in the receiver ring. The Ghost Ring sight was quite effective during a deer hunt in thick stands of snow-covered cedar trees. Both shots were less than forty yards and had to be taken instantly. Later in the year I hunted the same area with a low-powered scope mounted lever action .30-30 and thought the scope was not as effective for those hunting circumstances. Target acquisition was much slower. An African plains game hunt presents several challenges that can be addressed from deer hunting familiarity and the recommendations of experts with African experience. The best sighting system for Africa is the scope. It is common knowledge and recommended by virtually all writers on the subject that scope power should be at the low end of the spectrum for most hunting. This trait would magnify with a short-range muzzleloader. For long-range cartridge rifles the 6X fixed power is a popular recommendation because of the conditions hunters will encounter. The 4X fixed is commonly suggested for medium powder rifles and a zero to 2X scope or express sights are recommended for the big bores. Many sources that I have read suggest and a 2-6X variable is the best practical option in that scope category. For my all-purpose muzzleloader I mounted the best scope that I owned, a Weaver Grand Slam 1.5-5X 40mm variable. In spite of the advantages of peep sights over open sights the scope is superior and there are no regulations against its use in South Africa. I gave serious consideration to mounting a Ghost Ring sight on the Kodiak but found the standard open sights acceptable when testing the double rifle at the ranges and under the conditions I intended to use it. Although not nearly as fast the open sights worked well for snap shooting and the Ghost Ring would have required extra drilling and tapping. A peep sight is not considered practical for a double. I like practicing off-hand thirty- seventy-, and one hundred-yard shots. That seems to cover most of my shot opportunities and I hoped it would in Africa. But just in case I increased my practice to a 120-yard target. I also like to practice some uphill and downhill shooting. I strive to learn the ranges I am capable of shooting accurately and consistently from different off-hand stances and limit my game shots until my shooting skills improve. For most important out-of-state and dangerous game hunts I’ll run a couple of hundred practice shots through my rifles and try to deer hunt with them through an entire season. I have always hated those company sponsored hunts where the writer shows up and is handed an unfamiliar gun that has been sighted in by someone else. And, I have never done very well at them probably more from a lack of confidence rather than a lack of skill or rifle accuracy, but either way my performance has generally been poor under those conditions. If your shooting opportunities seem most common at extended ranges in your area, use bullets and loads that are humanely effective at that range. I am referring to retained energy more than bullet drop. A .50 caliber round ball with a powder charge of 90 grains will strike ten inches low at 150 yards if sighted to zero at a hundred. A 385-grain conical with the same powder charge will hit almost nine inches low at 150 yards. Not much difference. But that ball will only have 284 ft/lbs of retained energy at that distance and BOSON BOOKS

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the conical will have 962 ft/lbs. That is a tremendous difference, the variance between a killing shot and a wounding one on deer sized game. A 260-grain saboted .45 bullet will hit seven inches low and generate 860 ft/lbs of retained energy. The sabot provides better trajectory and a little less energy than the conical. It would seem a nice compromise for deer sized game. I don't have too many concerns when choosing between the conical and the saboted load for most North American hunting. I can't tell two inches at that distance, anyway. But for raw hitting power, the round ball fails at extended ranges and should not be an option. Compare those figures to a modern muzzleloader big game hunting load. In 1994 Doc White went to Africa and took several large game animals using a .50 caliber charge of 120 grains of Pyrodex P matched with 480- and 600-grain conicals. Using a 100-grain charge of Pyrodex P, the 480-grain Power Punch exhibits muzzleloader energy of 2,013 ft/lbs of energy and hundred-yard energy of 1,544 ft/lbs. With a 120-grain charge of Pyrodex P, the 600-grain Power Punch produces a muzzle energy of 2,135 ft/lbs and hundred-yard energy of 1,780 ft/pounds. My .58 caliber box lock can generate 1,900 ft/lbs of energy using a 600-grain conical and 140 grains of FFg black powder. It retains 1,320 ft/lbs of energy at a hundred yards. While these figures seem low to modern high velocity smokeless powder charges, these loads possess huge wound making capabilities and massive knock down power. Rifles must be sighted in using these heavier loads. Forget about dumping in more powder at the site to compensate for animal size or range. Pick your most accurate big game load and stay with it. It is better to allow for a little extra elevation with the same load if you have a reasonable idea of what it will do. Accuracy is far more important than highly questionable increases in power, especially if you haven't tested the load at the range. When you zero your rifle at seventy or a hundred yards, set the sights so the gun will impact approximately two inches above the bull's eye. That will extend accurate shot placement by about twenty to twenty-five yards on game such as deer. Use a muzzleloader that will perform best with saboted and conical loads. My Ohio round ball rifle was a fine shooter, as long as I use patched round balls and moderate loads of around seventy grains of powder. Its 1:66" deep land and groove twist didn't, however, handle conicals or saboted bullets very well. It wasn't designed for that load combination. Therefore, I don't believe it is an ethical gun for shots of more than seventy yards with its most efficient load, even if it will shoot accurately at much greater distances. When equipped with a scope my White .50 caliber Model 91 with a 1:24" twist and 24" barrel would consistently group from the bench a 460-grain Power Punch conical with 120 grains of Pyrodex P into a one-inch group at eighty yards and a six-inch group at 120 yards. That is excellent shooting performance from a gun designed to shoot such a load. I can use that load in that gun with complete confidence of making one-shot kills at that range. Therefore, I have no problem considering taking a seventy- or even a hundredyard shot with that combination of gun, sights, and load at most African plains game up to 1000 pounds. There is also some merit in mentioning another of my muzzleloaders that has consistently surprised me with its field performance. I had a .451 caliber White Thunder Bolt, a later model in-line with 209 primer ignition. This unit weighed just less than eight BOSON BOOKS

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pounds with a twenty-four-inch barrel and was a marvelously rugged, dependable rifle. Using a 460-grain Power Punch projectile and only 90 grains of Pyrodex P it produced muzzle energy levels of 1,663 ft/lbs at the muzzle and 1,365 ft/lbs at a hundred yards. It did this with quite manageable recoil traits and outstanding accuracy. For a strictly plains game hunt this rifle may well have been the best option of them all if mounted with a good scope and using a properly worked up load. The advantage of the .50 over the .45 is that I can use both the 480- and 600-grain projectiles giving that gun much more field flexibility. Shooting sticks have been around for years. Cross-sticks will almost match the efficiency of a bench rest if used properly. They pack easily and can be deployed in seconds. Many African guides carry them and present them for the hunter’s use for nearly all shots. They are critical to the success of the slow loading single shot muzzleloader and I believe should be used in nearly all situations where it is practical. A running shot should be out of the question for any muzzleloading rifle unless it is during a dangerous game charge. I was sent a Stony Point Polecat tripod and I had some trouble managing it properly. It took a while to learn where the rifle sets most comfortably for long-range shots. Although fine for varmint hunting and many long-range open plains shots a bipod exhibits limited versatility. I did not plan to take a bipod to Africa because I would not be attempting the long shots where it provides the most benefit. If I had the opportunity I planned to shoot from a knee-braced sitting position or with the use of shooting sticks. Otherwise, my shots would be quick affairs from a standing position. Once I had my rifles sighted in, all my practice sessions were conducted from the off-hand and sitting positions. Muzzleloaders will not perform with many smokeless cartridge calibers, but the science behind modern muzzleloading designs is advanced and can become highly technical. A muzzleloader is a limited weapon, no matter how it is designed or how well made. Even the best muzzleloader is not a suitable rifle for many types of African game when compared to modern rifles. For plains game animals of moderate size ranging from 120 to 1,000 pounds and inside a maximum range of 120 yards I believed I had the competence for a muzzleloading hunt. Beyond those parameters, the only option for me is a modern rifle design. I was going to South Africa with preconceived notions of animal size, physical structure, and narrowly defined range limitations. Within those parameters I felt I could be ethical and successful. The crucial issue was whether my estimations were correct.

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Chapter 7 – The Right Bullet

Choosing a proper bullet design for South African plains game hunting was not difficult

for me. I knew that I wanted specific characteristics and only a few choices were on the market to fill these needs. With only one shot between me and perdition, as an old-time mountain man was quoted as saying, the proper choice of a projectile can be crucial to a muzzleloading hunter's success and confidence. Humanely putting down and quickly recovering game should be the primary goals when developing any muzzleloading combination of gun, propellant charge and bullet. A muzzleloading bullet has three roles to fulfill. It must follow a reasonably consistent trajectory from the gun so that shot placement is reliable. The bullet must be able to penetrate to do damage to internal bones and organs. The projectile should be designed to expand to create the greatest amount of tissue damage to the system yet be able to retain most of its original weight as it travels through bone and organs. Patched Round Balls Pure lead patched round balls will meet all of these standards within limited ranges. Round balls exhibit excellent characteristics of expansion and accuracy. Round balls do not retain energy well over long distances and are not flexible options for a wide variety of game and shooting conditions. The best round balls are consistent in diameter and weight, without parting lines, sprue marks, or air voids. Brands such as Hornady, Speer, and Buffalo meet high standards of round ball manufacturing. The first muzzleloader hunters in Africa only had the round ball and they got by with it by using massive powder charges in huge calibers. I do not consider the round ball to be credible for today’s African hunts unless the shooter is prepared to face the challenges of massive recoil and limited range common to guns of that era. Swaged Conical Bullets Excellent bullet designs are best met by meeting strict standards of uniformity, density, and design. The best projectiles meet high dual standards of expansion and coherence upon impact. On the soft tissue, thin-skinned game inherent to North America the best muzzleloading projectiles are either pure lead swaged bullets or soft lead core metal-jacketed bullets in sabots. Swaged bullets are formed by pressing lead into a shape rather than pouring molten lead into a form. Pure lead and jacketed bullets will meet all critical standards if matched to the weight and size of the animal. Swaged bullets are the result of an expensive manufacturing process where pure lead cores are compressed under pressures in excess of 35,000 pounds per square inch. Under such pressure, solid lead becomes a sort of putty that flows to fill a die cavity with the excess expelled through bleed ports. Swaged lead bullets must be carefully packaged to prevent damage during shipping and handling. Care must also be taken during the loading process of a muzzleloader to prevent distortion of the projectile and loss of accuracy. BOSON BOOKS

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The main advantage of a heavy lead conical over any other type of muzzleloading bullet is that it retains substantial energy over longer distances and will deliver superior expansion at the lower velocities typical of muzzleloading rifles. At 1,000 feet per second, for instance, a heavy conical can still deliver substantial energy and expand properly. Many jacketed bullets will not properly expand at low velocities. Whenever possible a hunter should closely observe the animal's reaction to the shot, examine the bullet, and investigate the path of the bullet through the body. Did the animal noticeably stagger or even collapse from the projectile's impact? Did the bullet expand and properly shed its energy? How did the projectile react to contact with heavy bone structure and, just as importantly, soft internal organs? I believe that a muzzleloading hunter will be most consistently pleased with the performance of swaged lead conicals and heavy lead sabots on deer or larger sized game. You may have read or heard rhetoric about the advantages of certain projectiles passing completely through big game animals. For years I wanted my bullet to expend its energy within the animal and not be wasting any retained energy sawing down brush or punching holes in the dirt on the other side. I was happiest when I found my expanded muzzleloading projectile lodged against the skin on the far side from the entry wound. In recent years I’ve changed my thinking on this issue. Penetration is critical to bullet performance and if a hunter can find a load that creates extensive internal damage and still shoots through the animal he has the best of both worlds. The problem is that this is difficult to accomplish with the velocities commonly associated with muzzleloading. I can gain significant velocity from a muzzleloader with a light bullet and heavy powder charge. But this load will degenerate very quickly. Although a lighter bullet may be going several hundred feet faster at the muzzle, at 200 yards there is little difference between their velocities and the heavier bullet will have more retained energy/momentum or, if you will, more knock down power. A longer, heavier projectile will retain energy at longer distances and still have enough momentum to accomplish both penetration and tissue damage. This trait is normally referred to as a bullet’s sectional density. Sabots Similar velocities generated by conventional handguns and muzzleloaders led muzzleloading enthusiasts to realize the dramatic potential of jacketed pistol bullets. Jacketed pistol bullets of .44 and .45 caliber when enclosed in .50 or .54 caliber plastic sabots, retain energy almost as well as conicals, do not exhibit nearly the recoil levels of heavy projectiles, and normally produce flatter trajectories. Sabots are also highly forgiving of bore size and variances between rifle brands or individual rifles of the same brand. A good sabot can help an average rifle shoot tighter groups over longer distances. Sabots are also more flexible for hunting everything from rabbits and varmints, to deer, and even elk sized game. A .44 or .45 caliber pistol bullet, however, cannot deliver the kind of shock effect or wound channels associated with heavy conicals. Still, for most muzzleloading situations a sabot provides good performance. BOSON BOOKS

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There are any number of pistol bullets and special projectiles for sabot shooting. Arguments can be made regarding the superiority of certain polymer tipped, steel jacketed and extreme hollow point designs. After years of watching game reactions to a wide variety of muzzleloader shots, I consider the weight of the projectile to be far more important than tip design. I would not consider any projectile of less than 300 grains for most South African game. I am a big fan of long, heavy, swaged lead conical bullets that transmit a tremendous amount of energy with moderate powder charges. Fifty caliber offerings range from 400 to massive 600-grain weights. Swaged lead conicals are among my first picks for big game hunting. One of the leaders in the manufacture and design of swaged pre-lubricated muzzleloading bullets is Buffalo Bullet Company. Industry insiders will tell you that all Buffalo products consistently meet the highest standards of uniformity, excellence, and packaging. Offering a wide range of products in caliber options from .36 to .58 caliber, Buffalo Bullets have provided solid dependability since the company was founded in 1981. Try Buffalo's Ball-et for deer hunting in .50 through .58 caliber. The Ball-et is a light conical that exhibits more energy characteristics than a round ball, is easier to load than a sabot, and can meet higher velocities than conicals. It is perfect for close range deer hunting where sabots may not be legal and a hunter wants better performance than a round ball provides without the recoil of extremely heavy conicals. I have had several guns produce their best fifty- to seventy-yard groups using Ball-ets. I have also experienced excellent field performance from Buffalo's heavy weight hollow point, hollow base conicals in .50, .54, and .58 caliber. My favorites are the .50 caliber 385-grain, .54 caliber 425-grain, and .58 caliber 525-grain offerings. A fairly recent market entry for high quality swaged projectiles is Precision Rifle (PR) Custom Muzzleloader Bullets. Precision Rifle will custom make a swaged bullet of almost any configuration. Precision Rifle's innovative approaches to bullet design should change the minds of a lot of hunters who use jacketed hollow point bullets. Of special note is a new .54 caliber Keith Nose that performed magnificently on a recent Canadian bear hunting trek. The company markets an Ultimate Semi-Spitzer Conical in 300- to 450grain weights. These bullets come in a Semi-Spitzer Hollow Point, Hollow Point, and Polymer Hollow Point, Hollow Base several weights.

variety of .50 and .54 caliber sabots including a Boattail Boattail Keith Nose, Boattail Hollow Point, Keith Nose Tipped Boattail. The company also markets an excellent Conical, and conventional Sabot with Jacketed Bullet in

Hornady's swaged Great Plains Bullet is a conical that has enjoyed an excellent reputation over the years for dependability and accuracy. It is available in six weights BOSON BOOKS

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from a 385-grain, .50 caliber hollow point to a 460-grain, .54 caliber flat point. The Great Plains is also available in .45 caliber and a 525-grain, .58 caliber conical. The Great Plains Bullet is well known for a bearing surface design that matches well in a wide variety of muzzleloaders and a smaller base diameter design to ease starting and alignment of the bullet with the barrel during loading. Thompson/Center's cast conicals, Maxi-Ball for penetration and Maxi-Hunter for expansion, have proven to be excellent for hunting throughout North America. I have consistently gained my best Thompson/Center gun testing results using Thompson/Center projectiles. For exceptionally large and potentially dangerous game I have experienced superior performance from the 555-grain, .58 caliber Maxi-Ball. Both projectiles are pretreated with Natural Lube 1000 Bore Butter, one of the best muzzleloading bullet lubricants on the market. Solid performance can be gained from Hornady's XTP (Extreme Terminal Performance) bullet in a wide variety of guns for a number of roles. I have used XTPs in 180-grain configuration for coyotes and long-range varminting, 220- and 240-grain for American pronghorn hunting, 260- and 300-grain for whitetail and mule deer. The 300grain XTP is accurate, possesses superior expansion and penetration characteristics, and is highly versatile in a variety of guns. When Thompson/Center had to develop a new sabot to stand up under the pressures created by the Magnum muzzleloader loads of 150 grains of propellant it chose the XTP as the bullet for its new Magnum Express Sabots. Magnum Express Sabots have longer petals and a deeper cup than standard to help meet the increased pressures generated by Magnum loads. The XTP is also marketed in T/C's Break-O-Way sabots. Break-O-Way sabots have a three piece design encompassing two sabot halves locked in place by a woven wool doughnut pre-lubed with Natural Lube 1000 + Bore Butter, inducing an almost instantaneous separation of the sabot from the bullet for superior accuracy. Swift Bullet Company is packaging its highly regarded A-frame bullet in new AFrame Black Powder Sabots for .50 and .54 caliber muzzleloaders. Super Glide sabots are featured in 240- and 300-grain, .44 caliber hollow point A-Frame bullets for .50 caliber and 265- and 325-grain hollow points for .54 caliber muzzleloaders. Swift bullets are famous for deep penetration, reliable expansion, and superior weight retention. The Nosler Partition is considered one of the bullets of choice for big game hunting around the world. It features a soft lead core divided into two sections surrounded by a thin fully tapered metal jacket for controlled expansion, superior mushrooming, and weight retention. A 240-grain Nosler Partition provided superior accuracy in tests of an Austin & Halleck rifle producing 1 3/4-inch groups at a hundred yards from a bench rest. Several firms market the Barnes X-Bullet. The X-Bullet is an all copper hollow point offering superior penetration and excellent shock/energy transfer at velocities as low as 1000 fps. It is available in 250 and 300 grains for .50 caliber and 275 and 325 grains for .54 caliber rifles. Many hunters believe the Barnes bullet to be a good sabot round for deer, elk, and bear hunting. BOSON BOOKS

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Newer rounds to enter the sabot market are the Polycarbonate Tipped bullets such as the Thompson/Center PTX Bullet and the Traditions Silver Lightning. The Polycarbonate tip improves ballistic coefficient and prevents deformation during loading. A tapered jacket with 8 serrations vents bullet deformation for fast expansion on initial contact. The Polycarbonate post continues expansion in the lead core as the bullet drives deeper. The core and jacket are interlocked to prevent separation. This bullet is also recommended for Magnum muzzleloading loads for penetration and controlled expansion at higher velocities. One of the best projectiles on the market is the Parker Hydrocon, which is also marketed as the Traditions T-Shock muzzleloading bullet. T-Shock bullets contain a patented, sealed hydraulic expansion chamber in the nose. Upon impact with the target the force compresses the nose in turn compressing the hydraulic chamber. The compound housed in the chamber must find a way to escape therefore producing massive expansion and residual energy. I have used the 300-grain T-Shock and witnessed truly superior performance. Muzzleloading with black powder or Pyrodex is a low velocity undertaking because of the relatively low energy generated by these propellants. Muzzleloading enthusiasts should always be wary of ultra-high velocity loads or penetration bullet claims. A summary of performance expectations for all of these projectiles is that for most large game muzzleloading situations at ranges out to 150 yards, a hunter can expect the best overall bullet expansion performance and energy retention from swaged lead conicals and sabots. Jacketed pistol sabots (240 to 300 grains) will serve for lighter game up to mule deer and elk size at ranges out to 120 yards. Round balls in .50 and .54 caliber are good deer sized game performers out to 70 or 80 yards. For larger game consider .58 caliber or larger round balls out to 70 yards. For potentially dangerous game, go for heavy conicals in weights above 385 grains. Bullet Failure The problem of judging what projectile would be less likely to fail was based upon the combination of range, penetration, and accuracy. I have not experienced a significant amount of failures of any of these bullets on medium sized game. I class whitetail deer to be medium sized rather than the more popular categorization of large game. Whitetail deer are generally easy to take down with a muzzleloader. Their bone structure is light, their hide is soft, and they are generally not an especially tough animal. I’ve taken deer easily with bullets ranging in weight from 240 grains up to 600. I have been most satisfied with bullet performance in the 300- to 400- grain category. I like the long-range performance of these weights because they tend to have a higher ballistic coefficient than light projectiles and a somewhat shallower trajectory than larger bullets at muzzleloading velocities. On larger feral hogs and elk I have not experienced many bullet failures because I have always been conservative and tended toward big conicals. BOSON BOOKS

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I did not consider A-frames, Noslers, XTPs, or polymer tipped rounds because I could not get them in the weight that I wanted. Jacketed bullets are not generally designed for muzzleloading and while they work well on animals weighing from 100 to 400 pounds I’m more comfortable with heavier bullets for heavier game. The .50 caliber sabot that I’ve had the most success with over the years is the 375 and 435-grain Buffalo SSB a soft lead, boat tailed bullet which not only has fine penetration characteristics but also has proven to be very accurate with a wide variety of rifles, twist rates and powder charges. Both load easily in most rifles. I’ve had more experience with the 375 because it has plenty of weight for feral hogs and deer. But for the weight of animal I intended to hunt I felt that the 435-grain SSB would work better. If the game was too tough for the 435 SSB I also chose some 460-grain Power Punch conicals to take their place.

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Chapter 8 – Rifle Selection versus Performance

I had two Whites that would work as my primary hunting rifle for African plains. The

choice still came down to the .451 caliber Thunder Bolt or a .504 caliber Thunder Bolt Super Safari both of which can easily manage a 460-grain conical. I purchased the Thunder Bolt when the model first came out as a test rifle in .451 caliber because I had never used a White System rifle of that caliber in the field. The 209 ignition and the boltaction design of the gun are quite excellent. I like the heft of the Thunder Bolt for managing recoil. I also enjoy hunting with the smaller caliber because I get a lot of knock down punch and long-range accuracy with relatively low powder charges. The .451 Thunder Bolt was normally the first rifle I reached for during big game muzzleloader—only hunting seasons. But all things considered, I ordered a new set of Warne scope bases and rings for the Thunderbolt Super Safari because of its capability to handle both the 530-grain Power Belt and the 600-grain Power Punch conical. The rifle had been proven in the field a number of times. It has a virtually indestructible full-length Bell & Carlson composite stock that manages heavy recoil better than any rifle or shotgun I have ever used. It remains the most accurate muzzleloading rifle I have ever shot. I have made my best and longest big game shots with it. It weighs in at eight pounds including the scope and has excellent balance. Carrying it over long distances is pleasant yet it still has a nice barrel heavy balance for aiming. It matched the caliber of the Kodiak so any projectile I have on the hunt would work. Most of all, I trusted it. I felt that I could take on any animal in North America with that rifle and not fear an ignition failure if it was properly maintained. Confidence is paramount and having a good idea of how a rifle will function in the field is the single most important consideration for evaluation of any muzzleloader. I wanted to get it set up with a scope early to work on my field loads. More than anything else I needed to improve my long-range shooting and run several hundred rounds through the rifle at distances beyond 120 yards. When the Kodiak arrived I was impressed with the overall fit and finish of the rifle. It is a handsome, compact, double trigger, sidelock unit with decent open sights, a much more substantial European walnut stock than my shotgun, and nice, muzzle heavy balance. It has two percussion hammers that strike a direct line (rather than the more primitive drum and bolster) #11 percussion system. It had two sets of identical fold down Express rear sights placed one in front of the other. Express sights are normally low mount non-adjustable iron sights best used for short-range, fast-sighting situations such as hunting dangerous game. Shooting experience led me to an appreciation of the purpose for the second set of sights. I realized that the sights could be set for each individual barrel. Setting the rear sight for the right barrel and the front sight for the left, I could develop some long-range flexibility with both barrels while still having short-range capability for both barrels using the only rear sight. It isn’t a bad system once you think about it, certainly an innovative concept for an inexpensive double rifle. For a second longer range shot if the right barrel was already discharged, the shooter can fold down the front sight (closest to the shooter’s eye) and bring the rear sight (farther from the shooter’s BOSON BOOKS

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eye) into action. This two-sight system allows both barrels to be employed for fast shortrange shots and still manages fairly precise long-range shooting from the left barrel. The Kodiak had weaknesses that I did not feel made it a first choice as a dangerous game muzzleloading rifle. The first weakness was its wooden ramrod. I immediately purchased a virtually unbreakable CVA fiberglass replacement rod as I had no intention of trusting the original. My second concern was that it was designed for #11 percussion caps. Misfires and hang fires were often enough to be unacceptable for my purposes. After much experimentation I found that the only propellant that would consistently ignite in this gun was FFg black powder. After switching to black powder my ignition problems ceased but I did not want to use black powder in Africa. I wanted a propellant that I could use in all rifles without the worry of keeping them separate in the field. My next concern involved the highly conservative maximum powder loads recommended in the owner’s manuals. I wanted to load the gun with 110 to 120 grains of propellant, nearly forty percent greater than the recommended maximum load. Early examination of the bore and bullet fit also indicated that I would have unacceptable difficulty loading the 600-grain White Power Punch because of a tight bore fit and the extended length of the conical. There was simply too much bullet projecting above the muzzle crown to expect to take the impact of a short starter and still remain properly aligned. Problems could develop with stuck or swelled projectiles, which not only hurt accuracy but also have the potential of rendering the rifle totally useless for backup shots when they are needed most. It also became apparent that the idea of managing one projectile or even one propellant in the field for both the Thunderbolt and the Kodiak was impractical. I would have to manage two sets of quick loaders, probably one set on my right and the other on my left so I wouldn’t become confused in the field. With that in mind it also became obvious that I would have been just as well off with two separate calibers of guns as the effects were the same. The Kodiak’s steel butt plate is attractive but it was too short for my physic, exaggerated recoil and tended to shift the impact into my upper arm. My first load was a 435-grain Buffalo sabot with a 120-grain powder charge. It hurt worse than my Ruger .458 Winchester Magnum shooting factory 510-grain loads. I backed the powder charge off to 100 grains and found recoil to be much more acceptable. Still, I packed some pretty impressive bruises on my upper forearm for several weeks. For the Kodiak to be effective it had to be totally dependable, accurate, and fast loading. I felt I had achieved none of these goals. The Kodiak had some positive traits going for it. Fit and finish were excellent. Hammer engagement was solid and smooth. The double triggers had heavy but acceptable pull with little creep. The gun was compact and well balanced. After carrying a Pedersoli 12-gauge shotgun for twelve seasons I found the double rifle to be quite BOSON BOOKS

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manageable in the field but a shooter inexperienced with double-barreled muzzleloading should be extremely careful and plan on several months of practice before attempting a serious dangerous game hunt with one. The chances of forgetting a powder charge or double charging one barrel are significant, especially under the pressures of the hunt. I have made it a habit of placing my short starter in the barrel I am not loading while charging the other to help reduce the chances of this mistake. I also load one barrel before beginning on the second. It is a slower process but much less likely to cause a mistake. I always load the right barrel first when loading both at the same time. I might add here that a double charge of powder in one barrel gives a painful lesson but is a manageable error. A more crucial error is loading a barrel with a projectile without a powder charge. Once you’ve done that in a closed breech design like the Kodiak, you have a totally useless barrel until you can pull the projectile, a sometimes tedious and frustrating job that is normally conducted back in camp if it cannot be dislodged with a small charge injected into the nipple port with the nipple removed. This is another reason I wanted a double-barreled in-line if I could have found one. Quick tear down for field maintenance with an in-line is vastly superior to a sidelock with a closed breech system. My .58 caliber Manton box lock remained the better choice for a backup muzzleloader in spite of its single shot weakness. It was totally dependable, reasonably accurate at short range, fast loading, powerful, and it absorbed the recoil of heavy charges much better than the Kodiak. The box lock is the same weight as the Kodiak but much less manageable in close conditions because of its length. Still, I’d much rather have a single that I trusted than an inconsistent double. The other advantage of the big single shot was that I could easily manage a 600-grain conical and 140-grain powder charge with it. I had already compromised the Kodiak load down to a 445-grain conical and 100-grain powder charge. Unless I could address the dependability issue and be certain of nearly flawless double-barreled field performance, the Kodiak was destined to stay home. When the Power Belt dangerous game bullets arrived, it took only one trip to the range to realize that this groundbreaking design addressed many concerns I had regarding the Kodiak. The big, black bullet with copper-colored band was easy to load in the Kodiak as well as my White rifles, grouped just as well as the Power Punch bullet, and was designed to penetrate as well as any projectile on the market. The Power Belt gave the Kodiak the potential of being a much better dangerous game rifle. I dug a Cabela’s Kick Killer large size lace-on recoil pad from my box of goodies and tried it on the Kodiak. It fit well and completely changed the length of pull and feel of the double. The rear sights came to the eye much more naturally, the added length enhanced my ability to focus on the sights, and I was able to tolerate much heavier powder charges. The pad greatly improved the gun’s handling and shooting characteristics for me. I was able to work back up to 120-grain charges of FFg with much better recoil management. My other challenge was developing a system for carrying my field loads. I have never liked most modern quick chargers or ready-loads in the field because they generally weren’t all that quick or all that ready. Many of these various containers (usually just BOSON BOOKS

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plastic tubes with lids on one or both ends) allow the powder charge to contaminate the projectile. Others are not well made and often come open or break in the field, spilling the contents in my pockets or my shooting bag. Many of these loading tubes depend on pushing the projectile into the bore with a short starter or the ramrod. It sounds quick but the process is often awkward and time consuming. The old-time powder horn and possibles bag system of the mountain men is almost as quick especially if using patched round balls in a wooden charging block. Generally, I have gained my fastest reloading times by keeping my powder charge separate from my bullet, usually with a pre-measured powder charge in one pocket and the bullets in another. I decided that the cartridge box system of Civil War soldiers looked to be the best and fastest of all systems. I purchased a replica cartridge box, removed its tin cartridge inserts, and installed the bottom half of a twenty round plastic cartridge box. I filled the box with pre-measured charges in powder tubes ordered from Rightnour Manufacturing. I fitted it on a heavy belt along with two common handcuff carrying cases with both snap and Velcro closures. Mounted on the left side of my belt I loaded the front case with 460-grain projectiles and the rear case with 600-grain projectiles. I rounded the system out with a capper slung around my neck by a lanyard and stuck in my shirt pocket. To reload I simply open the cartridge box, draw out a pre-measured powder charge, pour the charge down the barrel, discard my powder container, draw my bullet from its case and slip it down the barrel. One quick swipe with the ramrod drives the slip fit load home. I then place my percussion cap with my capper. All of this can be accomplished in the field only slightly slower than it takes to say it. My powder is protected by the rubber containers and the waterproof leather flap of the cartridge box, my bullets well protected by the padded and fully enclosed handcuff cases. I do not have a bulky shooting bag flopping on my hip or shoulder; and do not need a short starter. It proved to be a most efficient loading management system. At this stage my gun plans took a dramatic turn. I purchased a White prototype .50 caliber double from Doc. Using right-handed version of the White Lightning breech action and left-handed breech action of the Model 97 White Whitetail .50 caliber carbine, Doc made a double rifle with twenty-two-inch barrels. It weighs a little over eleven pounds and is fitted to a handsome Claro walnut stock. The rifle was equipped with double triggers, Williams fiber optic open sights, and #11 percussion nipples. The rifle is experimental and was made from spare parts. Original sight mounting holes on the barrels were plugged but still visible. There was no secondary safety common to all White models (but the sidelock Kodiak has no secondary safety either). In spite of the cosmetic flaws the White immediately eclipsed the Kodiak and all other doubles that I had considered. Here was a practical, heavy load, dangerous game in-line muzzleloader that simply overshadowed the competition. I was impressed with the double from the first but made some changes as I tested it. I ordered a set of musket cap nipples to insure more consistent ignition. I loaded the double barrel with White's 600-grain Power Punch projectile. The gun produced manageable recoil traits from powder charges of 120 to 140 grains. It was BOSON BOOKS

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pleasant to shoot with such heavy loads. It handled the 530-grain Power Belts just as well. Recoil management was superior to any muzzleloader that I tested. Not only was the recoil manageable, the heavy double actually felt good to shoot. I love the bark and shove of that rifle when I shoot it. It feels good like a well-executed football shoulder block. It is a difficult sensation to explain but many shooters know what I mean. Such an experience is the result of a balance between cartridge power, gun weight, and overall balance that all comes together for a unique shooting experience. This put me back on track with the idea of being able to carry two weights of the same slip fit projectile that would easily load in either rifle. Heavy load accuracy was superior to the Kodiak and the White had the additional advantages of musket cap ignition in an in-line design. The White can be field stripped with a breech wrench in case of a loading mistake or ignition failure. The Express was everything I had been looking for in a backup double. I field tested a Ruger 77/50, Austin & Halleck 320, Ruger Old Army percussion revolver, and the Kodiak during the fall deer season for various magazine reviews. During that time I used the Buffalo 435-grain SSB sabot. I took five deer easily and was impressed with the bullet’s performance. I also used Triple Seven, a sulfur-free Hodgdon propellant. Ignition was so good in every gun, no matter which percussion system, that I decided to take it to South Africa rather than Pyrodex P or black powder. The .504 Thunder Bolt is a bolt-action, 209 primer ignition rifle with 1:24" rifling. My Super Safari has a 24" barrel but standard is a 26" version. It works on a slip fit bullet principal like all Whites. A slightly undersized lead conical is loaded. Tolerances are precise and the powder charge expands the bullet into the rifling. It is exactly the same principal that was utilized in hundreds of thousands of Civil War vintage muzzleloading military muskets shooting mini-balls. The company promotes the fact that the rifle can be easily loaded with finger pressure only and no need for a short starter but, to my way of thinking, it is the ability to allow a very long, heavy projectile to be easily loaded that is the real advantage of the system. Many long projectiles will fit too tightly in the bore and the shooter will end up having to hammer the slug down the barrel. The bullet will go out of alignment, become distorted, and may even swell at the bore. Accuracy will not be good and loading time will be impractical for hunting. After some work and practice the Thunder Bolt grouped inside three inches at one hundred yards using 120 grains of Pyrodex RS propellant and the Buffalo. Because it has a 209 ignition system the Thunder Bolt will shoot pellets and sulfur-free powders with virtually no misfires or hang fires. At present there seems to be only three 209 systems on the muzzleloader market that will properly use the 209 shot shell primer; the drop or swing down action, the break action, and the bolt action. It was the bolt action that first utilized the 209 primer to enhance the reliability of Pyrodex Pellets. Several manufacturers of bolt-action rifles used off-the-shelf components for their muzzleloader designs. Remington, Ruger, Savage, and Austin & Halleck are examples of good rifles that use this approach. Knight and White, neither of which manufactures anything but muzzleloaders, designed their own bolt-action rifles. While action length on the BOSON BOOKS

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conversions will range from 2 1/2 to a whopping 3 1/2 inches because of the original cartridge length actions used, the Knight and White rifles are much more compact. The White breech opening is only 1 1/2 inches, long enough to allow easy access of a capper while maintaining the feel of a big game rifle. Some of the bolts on the imports are the size of .22s from which I suspect they were based. Bolt-action in-lines with the heft and feel of a big game rifle are easier to hold on target and handle recoil better. I prefer the White to the Knight for two reasons. The backup striker safety is a slip and lock system, much quicker, less awkward, and just as safe as the Knight screw out system. The White also does not use a plastic collar for containment of the 209 primer. But either the White or the Knight is head and shoulders above the others for convenience and compact muzzleloader design. Both of these bolt guns are much better constructed than the plastic-action drop blocks and break action imports. Some exceptions are the Thompson/Center Encore and Knight Revolution, a solid American made break action muzzleloader and a newly designed drop action. Another is the Traditions Pursuit Pro a recently developed break action with excellent balance and superior handling features. My concerns regarding a .50 caliber double were completely addressed by advances in muzzleloading technology. The Power Belt 530-grain dangerous game bullet and the White 600-grain SCB proved to be accurate, easy loading, and solid killers. I later found some shorter Mountain State muzzleloading musket nipples that were shorter than the Knight nipples and were adaptable to the Kodiak’s hammers, which essentially brought the performance potential to the equal of the White. I initially chose the White over the Kodiak because of the advantages of an in-line design. Everything seemed to be going great. The White was shooting excellent one hundred-yard off-hand groups and handling loads as big as I wanted to shove down it. Then came that day in March when I took the White to the range to test it with some Triple Seven pellets. I watched my groups steadily deteriorate and upon close examination found that the barrels were separating at the welds. I was disappointed but realized that such a situation could easily occur with a prototype. I sent the double back to Utah and waited for the news. If it couldn’t be repaired, I still had the Kodiak to take in its place. The Kodiak remains the only credible, affordable big game double muzzleloader currently on the market. As long as black powder or Triple Seven is used, the Kodiak is a dependable, versatile rifle. Add the accuracy and penetration qualities of the Power Belt and the Kodiak has honest big game potential. But for this hunt it was not as good a match to the Thunder Bolt. The White double matched up much better for bullet versatility, was easier to field strip, could handle much larger powder charges, and was more accurate. I have written far less about the White than the Kodiak because there was simply nothing wrong with it once I added a sight that better fit my vision and changed to musket cap ignition. Frankly, I considered the White to be the best of the three for the environment and the game I intended to hunt and would have been perfectly happy taking it alone. The barrel separation was a disappointment, however. But that is why any muzzleloader picked for safari should be thoroughly tested and evaluated before hand. Much better the failure here at home rather than over there. BOSON BOOKS

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In fairness to Pedersoli, the Kodiak was never designed for such a purpose. But with the changes I made in the recoil pad, some ignition system refinements, and load development, I would have used it as my primary back up had the White not become available. The Kodiak was good enough that I didn’t want to leave it behind and I felt that it should be included to round out my experiences for articles and this book. I decided to take it using loads of 90 grains of Triple Seven and the 445-grain Buck Buster or the Power Belt if need be. I estimated that I had a gun with power similar to a .45-70 Government and would use it for some wart hog or bush pig hunts. The 460-grain Power Punch and 100 grains of Triple Seven in the Thunder Bolt should roughly equal a .405 Winchester load. The White Express with 580-grain Power Belt or 600-grain Power Punch over a Triple Seven charge of 100 grains should surpass a .375 Holland & Holland Magnum at close range. I felt that I had a fairly well balanced muzzleloader battery for South Africa, any load vastly superior to the more popular sabots advocated by several companies. I knew better than that. The Republic of South Africa made my final decision for me when I learned of a tworifle limit for importation into the country. That was the final deathblow to the Kodiak. I went with the repaired White in-line because of its ability to digest the same projectiles as the Thunder Bolt.

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Chapter 9 – Books, Clothing, Finances, and Legalities

As is normal for a grant writer who likes everything organized and in place—we’ll forget

the Type A compulsive/obsessive disorder for the moment—I dramatically increased my consumption of hunting books on Africa. I devoured everything I could get my hands on. Stacks of books on the subject littered my home office, bedroom, and camper. This failure to control my overwhelming appetite for what interested me at the moment is probably why I was never an outstanding student. Later, as a teacher, I recognized this undisciplined trait in other boys—I seldom ran into this particular sort of self-control issue in girls—and tried to steer it constructively by channeling class projects into the student’s current passion for learning. If you want to teach science, mathematics, English, or history to a boy interested in hunting, center your lessons on improving his shooting skills and knowledge of firearms. Even if shooting instruction is frowned upon in our modern politically correct society, aiming lessons toward interest is far more productive than cramming generic lessons down a kid’s throat. Show me a junior high girl who doesn’t respond to a horse in the same way. Nothing Capstick ever wrote escaped me. I realized that he was often sensationalizing for the purposes of entertainment, but I also could read between the lines. He knew enough to justify his opinions with logical reason on several aspects of the African experience—certainly more than I would ever know. He was also generally supported by the writings of others. Capstick didn’t agree with Roosevelt, Hunter, Hemingway, Selous, or Taylor on every issue but the combination of all their writings and others came together to give me a credible general impression of what I could expect in South Africa. I bought a copy of Craig Boddington’s Safari Rifles and was surprised at how similar our opinions were about sights and many other aspects of shooting. Many of his statements regarding doubles, single shots, and magazine rifles had a direct correlation to what I was experiencing with the muzzleloaders. The main difference that I observed was that today’s muzzleloader is aimed primarily for the North American deer hunter market and many refinements for African hunting simply do not exist. Fiber optic sights are a perfect example. Although they may appeal to close range whitetail hunters, I consider them a dreadful choice for Africa. They are too fragile and too large for exact long-range shooting. Only high quality Williams or Marble sights commonly supplied with Knight and White rifles come close to being adequate and given a choice I would choose black sights over fiber optic. The only fiber optic trait that I did like was when the orange front sight was matched with a receiver or peep sight. The orange dot adds some visual clarity. Theodore Roosevelt’s African Game Trails proved to be an excellent read. His insights regarding biology, hunting, shooting, and politics in Africa were most astute. I’d like to meet old Teddy. He has to be one of the most perceptive sportsmen of his time. Even though I was following in his footsteps nearly a hundred years later, I could still see the truths of his observations. Even at my age one can still have a hero that is viewed with almost childlike reverence. Teddy is mine. I was surprised at how candid Roosevelt was regarding missed and misplaced shots on game, however. He makes several references to wounded game that got away, shots too far back, and clean misses. He also attempted BOSON BOOKS

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shots at ranges that I would not consider with a muzzleloader or any other rifle for that matter. I would never consider a 200-yard shot at a lion, for instance, even with my modern scoped Ruger #1 .338 Winchester Magnum, Old Teddy was popping off shots at adult lions with an open sight Springfield .30-03 at that range. Roosevelt lived in a different era, however. I believe that most modern sportsmen have a more humane hunting perspective. Another excellent journal is Big Game Hunting and Collecting in East Africa, 1903-1926 (Peter Capstick's Library) by Kalman Kittenberger. Kittenberger’s narrative of his experiences are written in an easy, natural writing style and his insight into all things related to the African hunting experience is as good as anything I have read. I consider this book to be the most underrated of all. Although it is a fact of life in hunting that wounding shots are largely ignored by modern magazine writers or simply edited out, politically correct versions of the hunt can be highly misleading to the novice. Anyone who ventures into the field should be prepared for the results of a poor shot. Sometimes it can be an unpleasant experience and only strengthens the resolve to do better in the future. Far too many novice and experienced hunters venture afield with inadequate shooting skills often attempting shots that are not within their expertise. I am probably too far the other way and remain a highly conservative hunter who will always try to close the distance whenever possible. I pass up shots that others attempt and sometimes lose game because of it. But, then again, I don’t often miss and seldom lose wounded game. It’s a matter of choice and I sleep better at nights than I would otherwise. I needed to be in good physical condition and wear comfortable, loose-fitting clothing designed for African hunting. I upgraded my exercise program and did more upland game hunting than I had in several seasons. On weekends I normally logged ten to twenty miles from September through the end of January still-hunting deer and upland game. Lifting your feet above thick tangles of Conservation Reserve Program grass is a great method of working leg muscles that don’t normally get used. No walking machine can duplicate it. Kansas has tens of thousands of walk-in public hunting acres and I logged many hours in the field with my muzzleloading and cartridge double-barreled shotguns as well as training a new Springer/Brittany Spaniel cross. Heavy doses of coyote, feral hog, and turkey hunting rounded out the winter and spring. I managed a weight loss of ten pounds and felt good. My only physical drawback was a slightly arthritic right ankle resulting from a horse breaking wreck when I was in the seventh grade. I guess I made some of the medical journals at the time for the treatment and surgery that Doctors Boss and Jarrett of Hutchinson, Kansas, conducted on me. They told me I would never be active in athletics and would probably develop severe arthritis early in life. Being immortal at the time I totally ignored their advice and eventually became captain of the high school football team and the high point man on the track team my junior and senior years. I was an utter failure on the basketball court, however…an embarrassment to my community, my teammates, and my race. But when the coach needed a good blocker on the basketball court, I was his man. I was a farmer and stockman until I was nearly forty amassing BOSON BOOKS

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numerous other fractures and did not experience problems with the ankle until I was fiftyfive years old. My doctor prescribed Ibuprophen as my best remedy, in other words, that I live with it. So, I do. I felt lucky to make it as long as I did with no complications considering the doctors’ early prognosis. And, I was a long way from being out of the game. I could still walk guys half my age into the dirt pheasant hunting. It’s a testosterone thing but it still counts to some of us, especially as we age. I went back to Cabela’s for my clothing, choosing long-sleeve cotton safari shirts, a couple of olive overshirts instead of a sweater, and Expedition pants in various shades of khaki and olive. I bought a tan Remington upland game coat and sweater to wear in cool weather. The traditional safari jacket is a bit too exotic for my taste. I planned to take only three extra outfits to keep my baggage weight limit under control. I also purchased a pair of Cabela’s Dry Plus leather hiking boots for the trip. Several experts advised that my boots be lightweight and thoroughly broken in. These boots felt good the minute I put them on. Still, I wore them for several weeks before the trip. Passport procurement, rifle registration with U. S. Customs, physical examinations, and the normal battery of shots rounded out my preparation. Most of all I practiced at the shooting range. I ran several hundred rounds through the rifles at ranges from fifty to 120 yards. By the end of the winter I felt that I knew and could handle these rifles as well as any I had ever owned. Up to now I have mentioned nothing about the selection of the professional hunter (PH) or the location of the hunt. Because Doc White made arrangements for the hunt through a Safari Club International fundraising auction, I had to take it on faith that this was a viable and reputable service. I’ve hunted with Doc several times and always accepted his advice on faith. Sometimes experiences were good and on a few occasions, I felt that the service was dreadful. I have also booked some hunts on my own with the same results. The majority of these were normally Texas and Florida hunts, mainly for feral hogs, turkeys, and varmints. Although accommodations were an issue on a couple of hunts (not only could I not eat off the floor at one place, I hated to sleep in the bed or eat off the plates at one location). At that particular location I’d have just as soon slept in a tent and cooked my own food. My main problem was with the expertise of the guides. Especially when hunting turkeys, some of these guides were totally inept. I can name any number of Kansans including myself who have far more expertise in locating and calling turkeys. I’ve been on some Texas deer hunts sponsored by gun companies that involved nothing more than being placed in a deer stand and abandoned for the day. I hated it and eventually began asking if the hunt was stand hunting only. If it was, I declined. Texans will say that allowing a hunter to roam at will disrupts the deer and makes it difficult for everyone. I understand their point of view and I politely decline. Some city boy can buy into that and be happy. I’m not. If deer hunting were only stand hunting, I wouldn’t hunt deer.

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There is the issue of what someone wants to gain from a hunt. If trophy success is the primary reason for hunting, goals can be entirely different. Many hunters are perfectly happy on someone’s limited acreage game farm that is little more than an enclosed pasture where semi-domestic stock is taken with little effort or challenge. Trophy success is not the primary reason for my hunting ventures and I find this kind of hunt to be valueless. One of my most satisfying elk hunts involved a horseback pack trip in southern Colorado. We camped in a tent and rode horses; never getting within a mile of an elk throughout the whole trek. Sure, I’d have liked to have taken one that season, but I had a thoroughly enjoyable hunting experience just the same. I’m sure many clients would have been mortified and in point of fact, the guide was apprehensive about our lack of success. But it was the adventure of the high Rockies in the fall that I remember and appreciate. A nice elk would have been icing on the cake but the cake was pretty damned good anyway. I assured him that I was not disappointed. After all, there is a difference between hunting and killing. I knew from other elk chases and pack trips that he was a first class packer and guide. It just didn’t work out that time. South African hunting is highly commercialized and many of these game ranches are probably similar to what I’ve experienced in Texas. Any place that advertises a 100% success whether in the states or anywhere else holds no interest for me. And, of course, after paying to go all the way over there, I wanted some success. It is the experience that interested me most of all and from what I could see on the outfitter’s web site that experience promised to be fulfilling. And, there was Doc to consider. Doc was nearly seventy and had a bad knee. He had extremely limited mobility. But he’s game and makes every effort to do his best. On some recent hunts in Texas and Florida, I recognized the pain and unstable nature of his knee problem. His hunting was limited to flat land and needed to be fairly sedentary. I was sure that he didn’t want nor could he stand a physically strenuous hunt. At fifty-six and in good health, I had a totally different set of priorities. I wanted to get out there and do as much as possible before I was in a similar circumstance. Age related ailments aren’t that far off for me. I wanted to be able to stalk my game and work for it. I was there for the adventure as much as the trophies. But there is another, less attractive side as well. I wanted success for my writing. Like it or not, there was an element of business attached to this hunt. A good set of successful plains game South Africa hunts were like money in the bank for me and the article income would go a long way toward off setting the expense. I kept telling myself that the experience of the hunt was far more important than any financial loss I might have from failing to take the animal. I was going to be able to fulfill one of my dreams and there have been many times in my life when such a dream was simply impossible. God had been good to me of late and I appreciated it no matter what my success would be on this hunt. No matter what happened I would return home to a nice house, a good job and a perfect wife. The place Doc chose was Inafrica Safaris conducted by Professional Hunter Boer Coetzee. Starting as a one-man operation out of Vaalwater in the Northern Province of BOSON BOOKS

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South Africa and operating on various concessions in South Africa, Coetzee claimed to be one of the oldest safari companies in South Africa. During the nineties Coetzee built his first lodge outside of the Vaalwater in the Waterberg Mountains. He had leases and still hunts extensively on concession located on some of the best properties in South Africa. In 1991 his son Kan, daughter Sanja, and son-in-law Christo joined as professional hunters. In 1995 they bought their own ranch. They were joined by a second son Brandt in 1996 as a professional hunter and by Eon Kok and Andries van Wyk in 1999. By 2001 the ranch had expanded to fifteen thousand acres with twenty-one species of game including rhino, giraffe, and buffalo. There is a base camp accommodating twentyone clients in private chalets, which appeared quite lavish on the web site. That’s over twenty-three sections of ground to a Kansas farm boy and plenty for an honest wildlife hunting experience. The group does its own packing, dipping and shipping of client trophies and was in its ninth year. Inafrica also employs a full time taxidermist on site for those who want the work done there. The group advertises on its web site that it specializes in plains game hunting but have all big five available. The Waterberg Mountains have some of the largest leopard in South Africa, it says. It claims that plains game hunters have taken some of the finest trophies in South Africa including top five animals with bow, handgun, and rifle. This all looked fine but, by any realistic evaluation, I had no idea of where I was going or what it would be like. All of the Africa adventure books in the world couldn’t prepare me for a modern day South African hunt. Times and conditions have changed since even Capstick’s day and I could only hope that I’d be able to experience real hunting challenge and adventure. Looking at other web sites, Inafrica’s trophy fees looked high by comparison but from my experiences in Texas, that means little. Bargain basement hunts are often just pasture shoots and I had no interest in that. Still for a hunter with a strict budget, I would have to be careful of what and how many I took. I planned to go for: • Gemsbuck at $1,450 • Impala at $450 • Blesbok at $450 • Red hartebeest at $1,250 • Bushbuck at $990 • Blue Wildebeest at 1,090 • Warthog or bushpig at $300 This totaled up to be $5,980 in fees if I were able to take everything. My lodging and guide fees were free as Doc’s guest. With a $2,000 airline rate the total came to $7,980.00. Tips to guides and staff will run another $1,000. On top of that would be BOSON BOOKS

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taxidermy fees so I’d have to be careful and selective. Still, it looked to be an exciting and reasonably priced hunting package. What I really wanted to hunt was a Cape buffalo but the trophy fee at this location was $10,800. It was simply out of my price range. In spite of the price tag, I didn’t consider it an outrageous sum especially when taking into account some of the Texas or Alaskan rates I’ve been quoted. So it was that I prepared to leave for South Africa. I had juggled and experimented with seven different muzzleloaders and three times as many loads; plotted and schemed a way to get my loads overseas without bankrupting myself or going to prison; scrimped and saved for every penny to cover the actual and projected costs; read as many books on the subject that I could get my hands on; and dreamed of the hunt every day of that year of preparation. I can think of no other venture I’ve undertaken where I had made so many plans or experimented with so many options.

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Photos – Part I

Figure 1: Florida Buffalo

Figure 2: The Hunting Group

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Figure 3: The Author's Guns

Figure 4: The Author and Red Hartebeest

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Figure 5: Doc and Kudu

Figure 6: Eon and Werner

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Part II

The Hunt and the Reality

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Chapter 10 – Early Success and Adventure

I met Doc and his wife, Carole, in Atlanta after a flight from Wichita, Kansas. Because of his concerns with his knee problems Doc was afraid that this would be his last opportunity to go to Africa and he wanted Carole to share the experience. I was able to get to visit with Carole briefly in Atlanta and secretly wished that I had been more insistent on having Debra accompany us as well. After only a few minutes I was sure that she and Carole would have enjoyed each other’s company. After an exhausting eighteen-hour flight from Atlanta through Cape Town and then on to Johannesburg we gathered our equipment for inspection. While waiting for police and customs inspection line of our firearms another American hunter asked what firearms I had brought to South Africa. “Muzzleloaders, huh?” There was an element of distain in his manner. “Well, I figure that if I spend this much money to come over here, I want a rifle that will reach out and take a trophy. I wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to take a world-class animal because I was under gunned. And besides, muzzleloaders are too much work.” I didn’t respond other than a polite recognition of his statements but he certainly got me to thinking. Obviously, our philosophies were totally different. If the only reason that he came to hunt in South Africa was for some kind of macho, point count of horn or body size, he was better off with his choice of rifles. But that was one of the least of my reasons for being there. I couldn’t have cared less if any of my game made some record book. I was there for the experience, the challenge, and the pure adventure of pitting myself and my muzzleloading rifles against the romance and exotic escapades of African plains game hunting. Did his statements mean that if he didn’t take a world class animal that his hunt was a failure? How sad if that was so! Because over the next two weeks I had one hell of a good time and when it was all said and done, never felt that I had handicapped myself or made a bad choice of firearms. We were met by Werner Bothe for another two-hour drive to the Inafrica compound near Vaalwater. Werner functioned as our hunting driver throughout the bulk of our safari. He was a likable single Afrikaner in his mid-twenties who had joined the staff after some ventures as an independent businessman. We ran a gauntlet of black luggage handlers vying for a tip then loaded our equipment in a Volkswagen van. We drove for several hours making our way from the modern airport facilities of Johannesburg, from four lane to two lane highways on to the frontier community of Vaalwater. Throughout our drive I was impressed with how much the country and towns resembled my own stomping grounds of Southwest Kansas and the Southwest region of the United States in general. Small farms and farming communities dot the region. We arrived after dark and were greeted by a line of staff and led to some of InAfrica’s excellent accommodations. BOSON BOOKS

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Kan Coetzee was present to see that we were comfortable and if there were any special needs that we might have. My chalet was a four or five hundred square foot structure with grass roof, tile floor and rock walls. Both bed and bath were practical and well constructed. I considered them to be quite posh and comfortable if a bit shop worn. The compound consisted of seven of these chalets in a circle around a lawn shaded by fever trees with our dining facilities and a meeting room at one end. Another structure for evening campfire activities was located nearby as well as a large taxidermy shop, vehicle maintenance building, and staff boarding facility. Before retiring we ate and were introduced to our professional hunter, Eon Kok, a handsome young Afrikaner with far more experience than his youthful looks would imply. As we discussed our hunting plans, Eon mentioned that there was a rogue lioness that needed to be put down in the area and that the fees were a very reasonable five thousand dollars. I was tempted but opted to go ahead with my original plans and budget. As badly as I wanted to take that lion I needed to hunt a variety of game and gain experience. We were lucky that we drew the professional hunter and driver that we did. They questioned us at the beginning about what we felt our rifles were capable of, what kind of shots we preferred, our shooting expertise, and our goals. I dug out my journal and listed the game that I was interested in hunting. I emphasized that I most interested in taking a nice red hartebeest and gemsbok. As far as the other game was concerned I would be perfectly satisfied with representative trophies of each breed. I also made it clear that I did not want to try a shot at anything beyond 120 yards until I could judge how the animals reacted to my loads. The rule of this kind of hunting is that if you wound an animal you own it even if it is never found. I wanted to be certain of what the rifle and loads could do on African game. Eon did not think that this was a problem. I returned to my chalet and organized my equipment. Naturally I had some difficulty settling down but finally drifted off to sleep after reading a chapter from Selous’ book on his experiences in South Africa. It had been a tiring journey and once I drifted off I slept soundly until morning. I awoke at four to the sounds of native drums and activity. I wondered who would be celebrating at that hour of the morning. I later learned that the inhabitants of a nearby native village worked off the compound during the week and it was always very active there on the weekends. We spent the following morning sighting in rifles. As is usual Doc was field testing a new muzzleloader design, working to improve the performance of the .45 caliber, smokeless powder loads and ignition, as well as overall rifle weight. He carried an experimental .45 caliber smokeless powder rifle with .32 S&W Short ignition system on a bolt-action in-line configuration and a Christiansen Arms carbon fiber wrapped barrel. What came together was a smokeless powder muzzleloader that weighed a bit over five pounds, was virtually blow back contamination free, and was capable of taking game out to a measured range of a 170 yards. The 350-grain, .40 caliber projectile in a .45 caliber sabot driven by thirty grains of 5744 smokeless powder proved to be quite deadly in Doc’s BOSON BOOKS

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hands with most shots being on the long side of a hundred yards. Game ranging in weight from a few pounds to nearly 800, generally went down immediately or within a few yards. Point of impact for both scoped rifles was dramatically different and it took some time and ammunition to settle them in. Even my double’s open sights needed some slight adjustments. We met a group of Afrikaners who were doing some meat hunting and I was introduced to my first CZ rifle, a scoped .375 H&H. We lunched early and prepared for our first day’s hunt. As is typical of most of today’s hunting in South Africa, we used an open top Toyota Land Cruiser hunting car with rifle carriers and steel roll bar shooting frame. We cruised narrow hunting trails until we spotted game that we could either shoot from the car or stalk on foot. The bulk of our shooting was from the car. Many consider shooting from a car as unsporting and I am not comfortable with it. Whenever possible I stalked my game on foot and would have preferred to conduct all my hunting from the ground but we live in a world of convenience. Doc would have probably been unable to hunt very much from the ground and needed the services of the car. I also realize that many who hunt today are not in good physical condition or are of an age that it would be difficult to stalk much game from on foot. While I could say that the limited range of a muzzleloader made even a car hunt far more difficult than with a long-range conventional rifle, I would be drawing an invalid comparison. The simple matter is that as much as we say how much we like to rough it we don’t want it too rough because, frankly, most of us couldn’t stand up to it. Hunting from an open car is the norm. It would be very romantic to list the variety of game and song birds, special small animals, and unusual flora we saw while cruising the hunting concession but the truth of the matter is that there weren’t a lot of birds, reptiles or unusual plants to be seen other than one cobra and three boas. The landscape generally looked like thick West Texas mesquite pasture and there wasn’t a lot of small game to see. We did see too-tame herds of giraffe wondering about in total distain of our hunting car and largely uninterested white rhinos but of a normal routine, we saw mostly plains game. The blesbok were so common that we took them for granted It was early afternoon when we rounded a curve of a narrow trail through heavy jesse and thorn bush. We passed through an open area no more than fifty yards across and were closing in on another shaded patch of thorn when Eon swung around and pointed behind us to the right. “There against the far break! Hartebeest! And, he’s a very good one!” I saw a large bull ten yards into the bush at the far edge of the clearing 110 yards out. I pulled my rifle from its case and braced myself against the roll cage of our Toyota Land Cruiser, screwed my scope setting to 5X and took a sighting on his chest. He was oddly proportioned; different from deer, antelope, elk, or even feral hog and I searched for the point where I should place a chest shot. I had been fooled by the odd build of my first Texas javelina and shot too far back. I didn’t want to make a similar mistake. BOSON BOOKS

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It only takes microseconds to make these decisions but it normally feels like a long time when under the pressures of making a good shot. I placed the crosshairs slightly above the juncture of the shoulder and chest then raised it just a bit more in case of a range error before holding my breath and squeezing the trigger. In spite of the smoke I could still see the back legs fold, the animal dropping to a sitting position, then it rolling over on his side. “You spined him!” Eon shouted. “Reload quickly in case he gets to his feet! He may only be stunned.” I didn’t wait for a reload. I handed my rifle to Doc and drew my double from its case before jumping to the ground. As Eon and I approached the bull I checked to see if my musket caps were in place, slipped the cocking arms from their safety notches, drew the butt of the rifle to my shoulder and aligned my open sights on the bull’s chest. I had spined him. He still had plenty of fight left but he was going nowhere. Eon pointed. “Center of the chest. Go ahead. Put him down.” It was an easy shot and our business was concluded quickly. Eon acted very excited as he shook my hand. When I asked how good a bull he was, Eon quickly answered that he was better than anything he had seen that season. Honestly, I wondered if this were some sort of scam that outfitters play on new hunters. We hadn’t been hunting more than three hours when we found him. I asked Eon if the hartebeest was a good trophy. “No! No!” Eon insisted. “This is a very good bull. He’ll probably make the record books, especially for a muzzleloader.” I studied the bull as we prepared for photos. He looked good and Eon’s explanation of why he was good seemed sound but honestly I didn’t know for sure. At Eon’s recommendation he will be submitted for record book consideration. No, I don’t know the number of inches. Throughout our hunting I never asked how many inches any of my game scored nor did I ever request a measurement. Walt Prothero, in his excellent book Safari: A Dangerous Affair makes a point of saying that professional guides often misjudge the horn size of game in the wild unless you happen upon a world class animal that truly stands out on its own merits. We were on a game farm with an average of 200 hunts scheduled per year. A world-class animal of any sort was highly unlikely, except for the fact that we were using muzzleloaders and the trophy level standard is generally lower than the more common rifle standard. If the animal was judged good by Eon’s standards then it was good by mine. I was not going to screw the experience of the hunt by being obsessed with trophy size. I would be doing myself and the game ranch a disservice. A truck and crew was sent to gather the hartebeest and we watched them haul him away for processing. The first time you see a hartebeest in the African bush you might have the thought that God played a terrible trick on some poor critter. It is strangely misshapen, clumsy in appearance, hump-shouldered, a steeply sloping back, thin legs, and a long narrow face. Its head is topped by an oddly shaped pair of horns that slope BOSON BOOKS

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back at the tips. The horn configuration and long narrow face give it the look of a homely old maid with her hair in a bun; at least that is what some of the women in our hunting party thought. But appearances should not belie the fact that the Afrikaans name of the hartebeest translates into tough ox. Although I would consider the hartebeest to be almost sedentary in its behavior, making it fairly easy to approach for a shot, it has a reputation for being difficult to bring down and is capable of speeds in excess of thirty miles per hour when alarmed. Shot placement must be exact or you can spend many hours tracking a wounded animal. The hartebeest has excellent senses of hearing and smell but is considered to have below average eyesight. When an odd sound or odor is detected the hartebeest tends to mill about in confusion, snorting nervously before running off. They act much the same as mule deer might when surprised except that when they do not hesitate after a short retreat as mule deer often do. The hartebeest is an excellent muzzleloading challenge because it can be approached to within ranges of seventy to 150 yards easier than many other antelopes. They are much larger than impala or blesbok so it takes, in my opinion, at least a comparable muzzleloader elk load to be effective. While hartebeests are creatures of the grasslands they are tolerant of thicker bush and tall grass making them great sport animals for long foot stalks. When I learned that the red hartebeest was fairly common in the Limpopo Valley District where we would be hunting, I placed it near the top of my plains game list. Not only does one make an impressive trophy, I was told that the hartebeest is generally underrepresented in the muzzleloader world record books. We all like to believe that after investing several decades in hunting that we are competent. Most of us also know that taking an exceptional trophy of any species is often a matter of luck. In spite of many years of muzzleloader whitetail and mule deer pursuit, I can only count the number of truly exceptional record book class bucks that I’ve seen on the fingers of one hand and I have never seen one of that status during hunting season. No matter how skilled a hunter you may be it takes a lot of time and effort to locate and pursue a trophy animal, something many of us don’t have the time or the resources for. I was under no illusions about my South African hunt. If I got a chance at a record book animal I’d take advantage of it but by and large I was there for the adventure and would be just as satisfied with average trophies. Little did I know that I would take my best trophy of the safari on my first time out and that it would happen so quickly. I was not nearly as excited about the accomplishment at the time as I am now. A nice trophy red hartebeest may look to some like a homely old maid but I beg to differ. It makes a fine trophy for anyone to remember for the rest of their lives. That is especially true when it is taken with a muzzleloader. BOSON BOOKS

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We had gone no more than a mile or so when we came upon another herd of blesbok. The most common antelope we saw was the blesbok. This makes him a South African conservation success story comparable to our North American wild turkey and whitetail deer achievements. Nearly wiped out during the early European settlement of South Africa the blesbok has rebounded and is commonly hunted. They have beautiful horns and make excellent trophy mounts. This is another of those animals that owes its existence in such numbers to the tireless efforts of the sport hunter. The Afrikaans prefix bles means blaze and is the most outstanding feature of the sturdy little antelope’s face, a prominent white blaze that is divided by a brown band just above the eyes. Although more sturdily built, the blesbok reminds me of our American pronghorn in many habits. It prefers open grassland near reliable sources of shade and water. They, like the pronghorn, are reputed to have good eyesight and they are of similar weight although the blesbok is shorter. There is a larger subspecies to the blesbok in Western and Southern South Africa called the bontebok, which is also resurging from near extinction. Blesbok move in concentrated herds of females controlled by a dominant buck or in bachelor groups. We took two on our safari. Both shots were in excess of 120 yards. Long-range muzzleloader rifle practice is a must for blesbok hunting and I’d recommend that there be extensive practice shooting off of sticks. Although we regularly were in contact with them, they were seldom closer than 150 yards. While this may be an easy mark for most modern rifles, it presents a challenge for the muzzleloader. Although my scope was limited to 5X power I never felt the need for more magnification on any of my plains game hunting. A good tactic for warm weather is to set up in a well-watered and shady area near a herd that is grazing on open grassland and wait for them to come in during the heat of the day. They can be stalked successfully from brushy thorn bush borders, however. The hunter must be mindful of shooting into a heavy concentration of animals and should wait until his target is apart as a high-powered load could pass through more than one animal. Eon glassed the herd and found a very nice buck that he felt was worth taking. I lined up on him with my scope on 5X and waited for them to slow down a bit. My buck hesitated and looked back at us giving me a broad side shot at 120 yards. I settled in and shot. The buck flinched and ran into the thorn bush. Again snapping up my double, Eon and I ran to the area and found him less than twenty yards from where he had been standing. I had put a nice shot through his heart. Again there were congratulations and picture taking and waiting for the game truck to arrive. I turned to Doc and said, “This is too easy. We’re going to run out of money fast if all the hunting is like this.” He did not answer. I wondered if he was thinking the same. BOSON BOOKS

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I envisioned nothing more than a glorified Texas pasture shoot and was suspicious that the entire setup was little more than some canned hunt situations I've witnessed in the past. The term canned hunt is not an appealing concept for someone who gains enjoyment from the hunt itself and not the trophy. Generally, a canned hunt is where animals are so tightly confined or artificially raised that any wildness or sporting challenge of the hunt experience is lost. A hunter is escorted into a small enclosure, often no more than twenty or forty acres, and literally executes the animal of his or her choice. Such an arrangement turns my stomach and I want nothing to do with it. I would rather come home empty handed from a true wilderness experience than gain a world champion class animal from a canned hunt, and I was prepared to end the shooting completely if that were the case. I spoke too quickly. As our safari continued, it became increasingly more difficult and challenging. There was still day light left and it was Doc’s turn to take something. He wanted to take a black wildebeest, a somewhat smaller version of the blue wildebeest that is most commonly depicted on television nature programs. Aside from being darker and smaller than its cousin the blue, the black can be distinguished by its forward thrusting horn pattern. Other than these slight differences, the breeds are similar in behavior; rowdy, skittish and wary, never standing still, shuffling nervously from hoof to hoof, always vigilant, and always on the knife’s edge of stampede. When hunters observe how tough a certain animal may or may not be, I am certain that their opinions are colored by experience. We are told by many that of the African plains game, the zebra and the wildebeest are unusually difficult to bring down. Either is perfectly capable of soaking up solid hits and then disappearing into the bush leaving little evidence of the seriousness of their wounds. I don’t have first-hand experiences regarding zebras as I have reserved them for my next trip to Africa, but I do know about wildebeests. We drove several miles to an area where Eon thought we might find some nice ones. It was late afternoon when our hunting car crossed a narrow stream over a rocky ford splitting the property in half. We left the thick bush and worked our way onto a broad open plain of waist high grass that reminded me of the vast government reserve croplands of my home. We crept along a narrow jeep trail barely wide enough to accommodate the Land Cruiser as it made its way toward the blue horizons of the Waterberg Mountains to the North. We found a mixed herd of wildebeest, hartebeest, and zebras milling about on the open plains, staying several hundred yards away from our hunting car. Doc and Eon Kok busied themselves appraising the quality and number of black wildebeest in the herd. When it was decided that there were several good bulls worth shooting, Eon ordered Werner forward at slow speed to see just how close we could approach the herd for a shot. Whenever we would move forward, the herd would withdraw to keep its distance.

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I would have left the car at that point and tried some stalking but Doc’s knee prevented him from considering it. We made several attempts before a slight window of opportunity opened. While I guessed the distance to be over 200 yards, Eon thought it was more on the order of 170. Still, I was surprised when Doc edged the muzzle of his rifle over the railing of the car and announced his intention of trying a shot. Even though I normally attempt to back up Doc on most shots I did not pull my rifle from its case for this one. He was on his own. It was a range that I would not have attempted in spite of nearly perfect weather conditions. After several minutes the bull they wanted separated far enough from the others for an attempt, Doc leveled his rifle and found his target in the scope. There was a breathless silence on the bush as Doc slipped the safety and prepared for his shot. Even the herd seemed to wait politely as he readied himself. The brief concussion of the .45 rifle driving a 350-grain hollow point was much less obtrusive than my much heavier Pyrodex load would have been from my rifle. The bull bucked and faltered, not quite but almost going down, before he struggled to join the retreating herd. The herd broke into a run to the east then reversed to the west as Werner tried to get the car into position for another shot. Doc’s bull struggled to maintain its place in the herd and keep from going down. A million generations of instinct told the bull that to be left behind was to die; to keep up no matter what the difficulty was its only hope of survival. Doc struggled to get a clear second shot but it was useless. As badly wounded as the black was, he was not so far gone that he couldn’t keep up the pace. The stalemate continued between hunter and hunted for several minutes. The herd leaders broke for the brushy riverine lowland behind us as the sun edged toward the horizon. Eon ordered Werner to drive hard to cut them off before they could retreat into the nearly impossibly heavy thorn bush on the far bank. Werner shouted a warning to hold on through the rough going but he could not get the Land Cruiser much faster than thirty kilometers per hour before he had to slow down to keep from upsetting us over a termite mound, ridge, or hole. This rough going was especially hard on Carole who was riding in the back. I learned later that she had injured her back from a fall on the ice and had to have surgery on some discs in her back. She held on gamely but I could tell that it was a challenge for her. After several near disasters we just managed to beat them to the river. Eon jumped from the car and ran into some thorn trees to turn the herd about. I grabbed my heavy double and followed in case the wounded bull came into range but I was several yards behind before I could retrieve it and climb down to the ground.

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A bushbuck doe flushed in front of Eon and led the way into the trees. The herd wheeled about and broke back toward the plains. For a brief instant Eon might have had a shot if he had thought to grab his rifle as the bull hesitated on the far side of the trees away from my position before following the others. I raised my rifle to my shoulder as Eon announced the opportunity for a shot but did not have one amid the dust and confusion of the herd’s retreat on the far side of the trees. The sun edged the horizon as Eon devised another strategy. He, Doc, and Carole would wait there in the trees while Werner and I took the car back out on the plane. Eon was certain that the herd would try to cross the river at that point. They would wait in the trees and try for a shot when the herd passed. I climbed into the front seat and rested my short-barreled double across my lap. I braced myself for the rough ride ahead. Time was running out and it would soon be too dark to shoot. We made a wide arch to get into position to slowly urge the herd back toward the river. The herd slowed to a walk then strung out over a mile. Not knowing the location of the wounded bull we had to get to the end of the column to turn all of the animals. The last vestiges of the sun slipped away and we, on foot and away from the car, finally turned the leaders toward the river. The plan seemed to be working but it was getting too dark and we were worried that the light would fail completely before Doc could try for a shot. The herd suddenly split and the big half broke within yards of our Land Cruiser. Without warning the wounded bull slipped by. His shoulder was bleeding heavily and his fore leg was all but useless. I drew up the double for a shot but two cows jumped into my field of view. Werner and I scrambled into the car and followed the bull. As he ran away from us I tried for a shot to spine him. The bullet just missed to the left kicking up a cloud of dust. The bull held up, trembling at a standstill, sixty yards in front of us. Werner slowed to a creep and I tried to place the open sights of my double into alignment on the bull’s chest. I did not wait for the car to come to a complete stop as the bull had lots of life left in him and I had no idea how long he would stand there. It was so dark that I simply could not tell how far down to draw the bead and so I pointed the double like a shotgun and discharged my second barrel. The smoke rolled and a white cloud clung to the ground in the chilling winter air. The wildebeest flinched and jumped before retreating into the night. As I scrambled to reload the double I asked Werner what he had witnessed from his position. He was certain that my 600-grain slug had gone through the bull. He saw dust rise behind the bull’s chest but he had no idea of where the bullet hit. He asked where I was aiming and I answered just behind the shoulder but it was so dark I couldn’t be certain of anything. As I re-loaded the double, Werner looked for sign in the light from the car’s headlamps. There was blood and sign of the bull’s jumping but other than that he couldn’t tell. In less than a minute I had the double loaded and we climbed into the Land BOSON BOOKS

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Cruiser to see if we could locate the bull. Werner did not believe that he could have gone far. I had just stood, my right hand clutching the roll bar, my left holding the double, when the right rear wheel of the Land Cruiser dropped into an aardvark hole. Although we were barely moving the force of the drop threw me over the dash onto the folded windscreen and Werner into the steering wheel. By the time we had collected ourselves and extricated the Land Cruiser from the hole, it was far too dark to continue a search. We gathered up Doc and Eon before returning to camp without our wildebeest with only a reasonable estimate of the bull’s condition. We rode back to camp in relative silence. Our first day had ended on a note of uncertainty in spite of a pair of nice trophies being taken. We were fairly certain that the black could not have gone far, especially if my shot had connected.

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Chapter 11 – Kudu and an Afternoon’s Rest I awoke at four o’clock again and forced myself to stay in bed until six thirty. In spite of that I was still the first one up and the kitchen area was empty. I made coffee and caught up on my journal entries until Werner joined me. We talked of South Africa over cigarettes and coffee until the others joined us a short while later. Carole, still sore from the previous evening’s rough going, elected to remain in camp. After a light breakfast we returned to the aardvark hole and began tracking the wildebeest. I carried my double in case we found the animal wounded and had to bring it down. I felt that the heavy loads would do a better job. This became the pattern of my use of the double throughout the safari. Although it was seldom needed, the double was effective in action and a great heavy load back up rifle. It was a beautiful still morning and we could see several hartebeest and zebra grazing on the open savannah. The wildebeest’s spoor was easy to follow as he went directly down a game trail that was unused during the night. We found the bull curled at the base of a thorn tree as though napping. Red ants by the thousands were already working on his hide. As we loaded him in the back of the service truck one of the party reminded me of my earlier statement that the hunting was almost too easy. Put in my place I could only smile and nod. I certainly had underestimated how tough an African plains game hunt could be. We elected to hunt only until noon and take a break. Around eleven we spotted a small group of kudu working through the brush. These were greater kudu, a beautiful and elusive elk-like creature that had eluded Doc on his first safari in central Africa. The greater kudu is considered by many to be the most handsome of the tragelaphine antelopes, which includes the bongo, eland, nyala, bushbuck, and sitatunga. Kudus have stripes and spots on the body, and most have a chevron of white hair on the forehead between the eyes. Greater and lesser kudu males have long, spiral horns; occasionally a female will have small ones. The greater kudu's horns are spectacular and can grow as long as seventy-two inches, making two-and-a-half graceful twists. These beautifully shaped horns have long been prized in Africa for use as musical instruments, honey containers, and symbolic ritual objects. In some cultures the horns are thought to be the dwelling places of powerful spirits, and in others they are a symbol for male potency. The horns are seldom used in defense against predators; nor are they an impediment in wooded habitats—the kudu tilts the chin up and lays the horns against the back much in the fashion of a bull elk, moving easily through dense bush. We found a fine forty-seven-inch bull standing in dense brush with a pair of cows. Although Doc would have preferred something larger, Eon felt that it was as good a BOSON BOOKS

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trophy as could be found in that area. Sometimes they would go for weeks at a time and not see a good bull. Doc decided to go for it and took a shot at a range of ninety yards. The bull flinched and moved off quickly into the bush. Doc and Eon, carrying rifles, went after him while I remained behind with Werner. Several minutes later we heard another shot and the Eon radioed Werner to give him the location. Doc had finished him with a second shot at sixty yards. We called in the service truck and loaded the bull. As we returned we passed the nearby native village of thirty thousand nestled near the compound. Rows of one-room houses, barely better than tin sheds and some of concrete, lined narrow unpaved streets. Since it was the weekend there was much activity as the parents of the children work off the village grounds and grandparents have most of the responsibility of child rearing through the weekdays. On weekends the families gather together and socialize. That socialization often lasts well into the morning hours. A small, unkempt graveyard was nestled at the corner of the village but fresh graves ranged beyond it much as you might imagine Gettysburg would have looked after the hostilities ended. The black population of South Africa is staggering under the weight of an AIDS epidemic with forty percent being HIV positive. We were told that the natives of that village were losing an average of 350 per month. One black woman in the compound had lost seventeen of her near relatives in the preceding two months to HIV. We heard rumors of high crime rates in the larger cities, storefront shotgun guards in Johannesburg, and I have read of farm raids being documented on isolated acreages in the bush. We were told that the President of the Republic of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, had made statements that HIV was a disease invented by whites to help control the blacks and that is was pneumonia that was really killing so many. The Afrikaners described to me how they felt like they were a vanishing people in the face of black dominance and how a significant portion of the white population was immigrating to New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. They said that the entire infrastructure of the country was disintegrating, interest rates were enormous, and the cost of living was overwhelming them. Strict gun control laws were oppressive and made no sense. I thought of how spoiled we are in this country and how Americans might react to such staggering statistics. I make no judgments regarding any of these rumors or the conditions as they were described. As a spoiled American I do not feel I am worthy of an opinion until I know more of the facts. But my mind keeps returning to that motley graveyard and its battlefield appearance. As an American I have no first hand experience with such loss and insecurity. Even in light of the tragedy of 9/11 I have not suffered nor seen my own children and family ravaged by such losses. All I can do is extend my best hopes to the entire black and white population of the Republic of South Africa. It is a sad situation and I fear the worldwide ramifications that might develop if the trend continues in this country and throughout the continent. We all may have a heavy price to pay if something is not done. But, what can we do? We can’t even agree on a strategy to protect our own in the face of terrorism. Factions make outlandish claims and accusations all in the name BOSON BOOKS

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of gaining power, seemingly with little memory of the losses of 9/11. What will we do with the challenge of a whole continent gone mad with fear, disease, and death? It may well be true that we are living in the best of all times. I fear that it could be so. I fear for my children. We returned to camp for a Sunday afternoon’s rest. Later we drove to a nearby trading post run by the Coetzee family. I found a nice ivory bracelet for Debra and did some shopping for some others in my family. We returned to the compound that evening and talked around the campfire until time to eat. We talked of many of the things I have just described. Werner told us of South African history and his perceptions of the Afrikaner’s place in it. A cold front was moving in. It turned brisk and cloudy. It was to be the last warm day of our safari.

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Chapter 12 – The Vanishing Blue

T he next day I got another rude awakening of the resiliency of the wildebeest; in this

case the larger blue wildebeest. It dawned cloudy and so cold that I not only dug out my sweater but my field coat as well. We entered some new ground of one of the larger hunting concessions. We saw the distinctive triangular faces of a pair of gemsbok in heavy bush. We drove past so as not to alarm them then Eon and I tried a stalk but we lost them in the thick thorn jesse. Returning to the car we observed large concentrations of wildebeest, giraffes, and blesbok. The game was wary and difficult to approach. The herd we were after was hanging in the thick brush or at an outright run across open plains. The heavy fog of a cold front hung through the bush making it difficult for me to keep my bearings and directions straight. I felt like we were going in circles, which in fact we were. We gave up on that herd and decided to try another at the opposite end of the property. Around ten Eon and I took a position about eighty-five yards in front of a nice bull that was standing apart from the herd. He was facing us slightly quartering to my left in a narrow opening in heavy brush. While it wasn’t necessarily a difficult shot it was a challenge to make the proper shot placement at that range. Like the hartebeest, the wildebeest is an oddly shaped animal with a thick neck and head overwhelming a sloping thin body. Eon set up his cross-sticks and I took careful aim on the bull’s left shoulder. This is the same angle and location just below the point of the shoulder that I have made several times hunting feral hogs with excellent results. I was uncomfortable with the unsteady nature of Eon’s sticks and wished we had brought my own pair of Stony Point Pole Cats. I took careful aim on the point of its left shoulder, squeezed the trigger, and sent a 435-grain Buffalo SSB on its way. The bull jumped, hunched his back, and broke to his right following the retreating herd. Both Eon and I thought I had a solid hit and we would find him within a hundred yards or so. Such was not the case. We searched the area thoroughly but it was a maze of trails and confusing spoor.

We gave up for lunch and called in the services of Johannes, an excellent native tracker to help with the tracking that afternoon. We spent the rest of the day trying to track down the bull following extremely difficult spoor and a light blood trail over heavily used game trails. I was greatly impressed with the abilities of Johannes. I consider myself to be a pretty fair tracker but the little Zulu native recruited from the skinning shed was a marvel. The blood trail was light but Johannes was able to follow him through his meandering wonderings of the bush. Johannes could even tell that the blood was dripping off the brisket of the animal as the sign would be on one side and then the other. He felt the long hair of the wildebeest’s brisket was flipping the blood from side to side. We gave up near sundown with no encouraging signs of the blue. As we returned to camp Doc was able to bring down a nice red hartebeest. We caught this big bull transitioning from one brush patch to another. We followed him long enough to see him separate from the herd so Doc could get a shot without hitting anything else. BOSON BOOKS

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Doc ended up with a 120-yard shot from a good rest, aimed at and took him on the point of the shoulder, the bullet breaking him down then crossing the chest and lungs into the rear ribs and liver. He stumbled thirty yards after the hit, and was dead when we got to him. The bullet did not exit but the internal destruction was impressive. We returned to the area the next morning to see if he might have rejoined the herd or if Johannes might find him down. My blue had simply vanished into the bush. This was especially disconcerting to me because my shot felt good when I took it and I don’t often miss at that range. It affected me and I became an even more conservative shooter than I normally am. To make matters worse, by the time the wildebeest was found, several days after we had returned to the states, his corpse was in such bad shape that it could not be determined for certain where my bullet had impacted. It will always be a mystery. Coetzee’s taxidermy shop is going to try to fit another cape on the skull and horns of my wildebeest so I may be able to salvage my trophy. One might blame the fact that this happened because I was using a muzzleloader but I challenge that assertion. The bull broke away so quickly that I would not have had a backup shot with any other style of rifle and I have heard and read accounts of hunters experiencing exactly the same situations with rifles in the class of the .375 H & H and .338 Winchester Magnum. No, it was just the hunting challenge of taking the wildebeest. He’s one tough critter. It was during our search for the wildebeest that Doc had an excellent opportunity to take a good nyala bull and passed. He had not thoroughly studied the trophy fees associated with the nyala and thought it was much greater. He later wished that he had taken it. Eon was not encouraging as they were seldom seen and he doubted if we would run into another of such quality. Part of the reason that nyala are so difficult to hunt is that they spend the day in or near cover, emerging at night to feed in grassland. During spring and summer months they spend the hottest hours in deep cover, typically standing motionless and almost invisible beside a tree. During cooler winter days they rest in light shade in the open. The nyala is of the spiral-horned antelope tribe. Male nyala are distinctly larger than the females and will weigh around 130 pounds. The male’s spiral horns twist backwards in the plane of the face, with unpigmented tips that resemble ivory. There is a crest of longish hair down the back of the neck, clear along the back, greatly exaggerated in males, which also have shaggy hair down the throat and under the belly. The nyala is a beautiful trophy antelope and well worth consideration for a muzzleloader hunt. Ranges are normally fairly close and the animal tends to remain motionless so getting a single shot opportunity is greater than some of the other plains game. That is if you can find one. Doc decided that if another opportunity at a good nyala presented itself that he would try for a shot.

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Chapter 13 – Track of the Gemsbok A next morning dawned unusually cold and clear. The grass and trees surrounding the compound of Boer Coetzee’s lodge were coated with frost when we loaded up our Land Cruiser hunting car at dawn. An hour later as the low July sun edged over the thorn trees I was still uncomfortable in spite of the fact that I was wearing several layers of clothing. Werner and Eon were huddled in the front seat watching quietly for game. This was unusual because Eon usually stood as we idled through the bush. Doc sat in the seat next to me in the back, his hands warming in his pockets, his breath flowing out as gray mist. Carole had decided to join us for at least the morning’s hunt but she too huddled in her seat trying to keep warm. Johannes was with us, wearing a sweater over his blue work coveralls, his red stocking hat pulled down over his ears. Our first stop was the area where I had shot the blue wildebeest bull. Eon wanted to see if the animal had rejoined the herd or if there was some evidence of his location. I was not happy with my performance and was perplexed about what exactly had happened with the bull. My load of 120 grains of Pyrodex RS and 435-grain Buffalo Bullet SSB sabot had proven to be an outstanding performer, not only in South Africa but also on a number of big game hunts I’ve taken in the United States. Compared to those efforts with the blesbok and hartebeest, the wildebeest shot attempt should have been relatively easy. But, he had soaked up the hit and disappeared into the bush. I was not happy with myself at all and if you will allow, was a bit rattled by the experience. I am a conservative shooter and refrain from taking risky shots. Over twenty years of experience with muzzleloaders tend to make you that way. There was no sign of the bull so we decided to see if we could locate a bushbuck for Doc or a gemsbok for me. When I had made up my list of animals I wanted to take on our plains game hunt, the gemsbok was at the top. The gemsbok, also known as the oryx, is a large antelope of striking appearance with long, spear like horns. It has a thick, horse like neck with a short mane and a compact, muscular body. A defined pattern of black markings that contrast with the white face and fawn-colored body stand out in the bush and make for a distinct visual pattern. The head is marked with black triangular patches and broad black stripes that extend from the base of the horns over the eyes to the cheeks. A ring of black encircles the throat and runs down the neck to the chest. The ears end in a black tip. A narrow black stripe runs along the spine, and another one separates the lower flank from the white belly area of the body. The white forelegs have a black ring above the knee and a black patch below. The black tail tassel reaches to the hocks. The oryx's ringed horns grow up to thirty inches long, making them credible weapons. The female's horns are often longer and thinner than the male's and can deceive the hunter.

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At one time gemsbok were found in all of Africa's arid regions. One species that occurred on the Arabian Peninsula was exterminated recently but has now been reintroduced into the wild from captive stock. Well adapted to the conditions of their hot, arid habitats, oryx can live as long as twenty years. These were brought into the bush of the Limpopo by Coetzee but they are especially susceptible to ticks and have not done very well. Many died from tick infestation. I had found the hide and bones of a nice specimen while searching for my blue wildebeest. Gemsbok feed in early morning and late afternoon and sometimes on moonlit nights. Their diets consists mainly of coarse grasses and browse from thorny shrubs. They may drink if water is available but can survive days or even weeks without it. After a couple of hours it had warmed enough that I had removed my coat. We turned onto a narrow trail leading toward the high brush choked kopje overlooking the ranch. We hadn’t gone more than 200 yards when Eon (now standing) spotted the distinctive triangular outline of a bull gemsbok’s face as he rested in heavy brush about eighty yards out from the road. I immediately spotted him after Eon pointed the direction. Eon’s only comment was that he was a very nice bull. We did not stop but drove on another hundred yards until we were out of sight. Eon directed Johannes and me to get out of the car and follow him. We were downwind and would try to get in position for a shot before the gemsbok was aware of us. Doc joined us with his camera. We struggled to remain silent as we stepped through heavy brush and the dry fallen leaves carpeting the ground. Each step was carefully chosen to keep from mashing any more of the crackling leaves than was possible. When we were within ninety yards of the bull, Eon directed Doc and Johannes to remain behind a bush while he and I tried to get into position for a shot. We closed the distance by another twenty yards and knelt to judge our prospects. The bull was still lying in the same place, still watching the road. Eon set up his cross-sticks and directed me to see if I could get a shot. I placed the rifle in the slot and studied the gemsbok. I was uncomfortable with the situation. First of all I had lost some confidence from the wildebeest encounter and did not like shooting off of Eon’s sticks. I would have much preferred a sitting shot if the brush had allowed. Secondly, I do not like to take a shot at an animal when it is lying down. Heart and lung location can be deceiving and bullet placement can be too high in the body especially on an animal I had never hunted before. I’ve learned the difficulty of this shot from hunting whitetail and mule deer bucks in tall prairie grass. Finally a wrist-sized branch was positioned in my scope view low on the shoulder, exactly where I wanted to place my bullet. I told Eon that I wasn’t going to take a shot until conditions changed. Doc took a step to try for a photo and his movement was caught by the gemsbok. The bull immediately jumped to his feet and turned to face us. Now I faced exactly the same conditions that I had attempted with the wildebeest the day before; a face-on shot from BOSON BOOKS

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unsteady cross-sticks stuck in loose sandy ground. I had the shot. I refused to take it. I decided to wait until he turned, I believe to the consternation of the others. He did not turn but bounded away with a jump. He trotted through heavy brush making for the more open grassland. Eon smiled. “He’s too good to give up on. Let’s see if we can get another chance at him.” He directed Johannes to begin tracking. We tracked that bull over several miles and for many hours through a twisting and turning maze of thorn bush game trails. We flushed a pair of excellent bush pigs as we negotiated some especially heavy brush. I had a shot at one but did not want to interfere with my chances at the gemsbok. The single antelope I wanted to take above all others was the gemsbok. Eon estimated that there was none better than this one on Coetzee’s concessions. Doc tried to keep up for a while but his bad knee finally did him in. He took a fall after tripping over a root in a game trail. He gave up a little later and was picked up on the road by Werner. Once again Johannes amazed me with his ability to follow the gemsbok’s spoor through heavily trafficked game trails. After several hours Johannes shook his head and explained to Eon what the bull was doing. His hands snaked through the air as he spoke to Eon in Zulu. The gemsbok had developed a pattern of running, turning back against us in the opposite direction, waiting until he heard us catching up, circling, then running, turning back again, and waiting. He could do that all day and we’d never close the distance or even get a look at him. We were wasting our time. Eon nodded and called in the truck to pick us up. We went to the road to wait, soundly beaten by our quarry. We went back to camp, had lunch, and took a short break before returning to the area. We saw the gemsbok at a distance and tried another stalk with much the same results. We were within a hundred yards at one time when a female rhino and her calf broke from cover. The female was confrontational and protective of her calf. Eon and I stepped behind some cover and he instructed me to take no sudden movements that might alarm her. She knew we were there but did not press her concerns choosing to move on slowly. By the time she passed the gemsbok was out of sight. The setting sun was raking against the treetops when Eon and I climbed back into the Land Cruiser. The bull had eluded us for a second time and we were out of options. I settled into the seat, resigned to the fact that I wasn’t going to get a shot at him that day. Still, I was not sorry that I had not tried the shot. It was better to let him go than have a similar situation as the wildebeest encounter. BOSON BOOKS

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We drove out of the heavy thorn bush topping a low hill working toward the road. Werner suddenly stopped the car and turned off the motor. Our gemsbok stood at the base of the flood plain a couple of hundred yards below us just outside an isolated cluster of thorn bush. The sun was exactly behind us and he was staring directly into it. His gray coat glistened in the yellow glow of the light. I grabbed my rifle and scrambled to the ground. Eon and I worked through some nearby cover until we could go no further. The gemsbok was still in the same area, still watching. Clearly he was struggling to identify us against the light. We were lucky. “How far?” I asked as I set the fore stock of the rifle on my hand as it rested on a boulder. “At least one forty, maybe one fifty yards,” Eon said. I placed the crosshairs on the critical triangle of the gemsbok’s chest. When we resighted my rifle after the flight, it was shooting an inch above the bull’s eye at a hundred yards. I knew there would be little impact difference at 120, but decided to allow another couple of inches for the additional thirty yards. I settled in and slowly increased the pressure on the trigger. The rifle bucked, the smoke rolled, and I lost the bull in my scope. “Reload! Reload quickly!” Eon said as he came to his feet and lifted his binoculars to his eyes. “Did I miss?” I asked as I pulled a powder tube from my vest and drew another bullet from my belt pack. “No, you hit him solid. He’s going down now. He’s down for sure.” I breathed a sigh of relief and finished reloading. I did not look at the bull until after I had my rifle recharged. The car came up. I traded rifles for my double barrel and quickly advanced toward him. The last of his energy drained away as Eon and I closed in. His eyes were dull when I touched him with the barrel of the double. The bullet had struck exactly where I was aiming, a bit high. There had been no need for my extra trajectory allowance. I had my gemsbok bull in spite of my refusal to take a risky shot earlier that day and he was good enough to be submitted to Safari Club International for muzzleloader record status. It was a fine piece of luck after a hard day of tracking. But it did not resolve my concerns about the wildebeest. The bush giveth and it also taketh away. This time, even against the odds, I was rewarded. This was one of the best muzzleloader shots I’d ever made with only a few mule deer shots being longer. More than that I had managed to take an excellent representative of the one animal I wanted more than any other. For the rest of my life it will remain one of my greatest hunting accomplishments.

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Chapter 14 – Just a Simple Thing When I made up my muzzleloader wish list of South African plains game the impala was included without much consideration. An Impala is a beautiful little antelope about the size of a Texas whitetail deer, would make a nice inoffensive mount for the family room, and trophy fees are relatively inexpensive. I thought that taking one would be relatively easy. I have read many African hunting accounts where impala are mentioned in passing; something shot for the pot on the way to a real hunt, plentiful, and well—just an easy thing to shoot. I misjudged. Try to imagine a herd of fifty to a hundred whitetail does banding together for protection during the height of breeding season. Not just any whitetail does will do but imagine a group of really hyper, vigilant, and nervous does with one or two alpha bucks keeping them company. Now, try to figure out what it would be like to get a shot at the better of those alpha bucks after stalking them over open dry plains or through impossibly thick thorn bush with a single shot muzzleloader. Add to that the fact that at any given time the alpha buck will stand still for perhaps twenty seconds…. if you are lucky… and is constantly surrounded by the ever watchful and constantly active does. Are you getting the idea? The problem is not putting an impala buck down or even hitting it. A muzzleloader of .45 or .50 caliber can do that with ease. The problem is taking that first shot without killing several or accidentally shooting the wrong animal. I suppose that shooting into a herd for something to fill the pot would be relatively easy but taking one trophy buck out of the herd is a first-rate hunting challenge. Modern African hunting does not involve the long foot treks through the bush with a pair of bwanas leading a long column of native bearers. That is the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movie stuff. Most modern hunting is done with a small crew from a hunting car. The crew includes a driver, the professional hunter, and perhaps a tracker. If you are like me you would probably have a list of game animals you’d like to take that will fit into a budget. There are always, of course, a couple of animals at the top of that list. For me it was a trophy gemsbok and a trophy red hartebeest. As far as the other animals were concerned if I got a crack at a really good specimen that was not on my list I might substitute it for one of the primary choices. The preliminary hunting involves little more than driving around in certain areas where the professional hunter believes there might be some nice representative examples of what the client is after. When an individual or a herd is spotted you might be able to take a shot immediately or attempt a stalk. If you have a muzzleloader with its natural range limitations, the stalk is a more common option than for someone using a modern high-powered rifle. That’s fine with me because I enjoy the stalk. It is one of the reasons that I have enjoyed muzzle loading for so many years.

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I told my professional hunter at the beginning that my self-imposed shooting limit was 120 yards. In the bush of South Africa that range limitation is really not a handicap. In fact, I honestly believe that if a hunter went over there with only a .45-70 lever action rifle mounted with a 0-4X scope, and the proper loads, he could easily take all the African plains game he wanted. The same statement applies to a good .50 caliber muzzleloader with carefully considered loads. At the beginning of the hunt, finding a good example of one of the animals on your list is relatively easy but as the list narrows and specific choices are all that is left, the difficulty magnifies. So it was for me and my impala hunts. I took a blesbok, a red hartebeest, a gemsbok, and a wildebeest before getting serious about taking an impala. I was also interested in shooting a nice warthog or bush pig, and a bushbuck. While warthogs were fairly common we saw nothing I wanted to take. I saw the rear end of one bushbuck for about three seconds as he made his way up a canyon. I accidentally flushed a couple of nice bush pigs while tracking my gemsbok but I wasn’t about to give up on that beauty to shoot a pig. That was the extent of my bushbuck and pig shooting opportunities. Impala were seen often but that was just what it was. We got a glimpse of them as they sprinted through the bush. Explaining the difficulty is kind of like explaining turkey hunting to a person who has never turkey hunted. You’ve heard it, I’m sure. “After all, how tough can it be to take a turkey? I see them all the time while driving down the highway.” It is often problematical to explain that shooting a turkey with a shotgun is manifestly more difficult than seeing one from the highway at sixty-five miles an hour. The same explanation applies to taking an impala. To make matters worse it was breeding season. While there were some bachelor groups and even some individual bucks around, the good trophy bucks were involved in holding their doe herds together and constantly on the move to control them. We tried several approaches to one herd containing a nice alpha buck with a Toyota Land Cruiser shooting car but the herd was far too wary. I’m not too keen on this kind of hunting anyway because any approach we made was either near the limits of my shooting range or through heavy brush. I’ve hunted enough brush to know that there is always that unseen limb dangling somewhere to ruin what appeared to be a reasonable shot. A noisy old Land Cruiser with squeaky brakes and a muffler that keeps coming loose is not the best choice for stealth, anyway. The next morning we tried another place in far thicker thorn and brush thickets where the stalks had to be made on foot. This was much more to my liking. After several hours of searching we finally found an exceptional buck with a small harem of does. Eon and I left the car to see if we could get a shooting opportunity. After a thirty-minute stalk we found our unsuspecting buck standing in heavy thorn brush near the edge of a narrow shooting window. I screwed my Weaver scope up to 5X, set up the shooting sticks, and BOSON BOOKS

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waited for him to step into the clearing. I estimated the range at no more than fifty to sixty yards. After several seconds he finally made a move into the opening and I took my shot. The last thing I saw through my scope after the smoke cleared was all four of his feet kicking in the air. I figured I had nailed him. Eon took his eyes off the buck to tell me to reload. If he had known me better he would not have wasted the effort because I never take a step after a shot until I have reloaded my muzzleloader. It is one of those hard and fast habits I’ve developed over years of muzzleloader hunting. You do not leave your spot with an empty rifle. Eon then rushed ahead. He didn’t have much of a lead because I can reload that particular rifle in less than twenty seconds. When I got to his position, rather than my buck, I found Eon checking the ground for spoor. The tracks plainly told a story. My shot had knocked the buck completely off his feet and nearly two feet back into a thicket. He recovered and retreated to the west into even thicker cover. I immediately knew what had gone wrong. My rifle was sighted nearly two inches high at a hundred yards. In the confusion of the moment I had failed to compensate for bullet rise at that short range and my shot probably impacted too high above the buck’s spine. He was undoubtedly mortally wounded but he was still capable of doing a lot of traveling before going down. I’d have been better off attempting that shot with my shortrange double barrel, but I didn’t know that when we left the Land Cruiser. Trying to guess what if will drive you crazy in Africa or any other hunting situation. We called out the services of the native tracker, Johannes, and a Jack Russell terrier to blood trail but it was two days of intermittent searching through impossibly thick cover before we found my impala buck. He was in bad condition by then. Since my prospects for taking either a warthog or a bushbuck seemed slim, I decided that I wanted another crack at an impala. Taking a nice trophy had become something of a challenge and I had room in my budget for another. We spotted our original herd of two days before at long range moving toward a road to make a crossing into heavy bush. Eon and I sat up on the road and waited for them to pass. After a while, it became evident that they were going to cross several hundred yards farther away than originally expected. We crawled down that sandy road for 200 yards and took a prone position to wait for them to pass. A number of does crossed in front at fifty yards, several milling around and staring right at us without recognizing us. I had a good prone shooting position and anticipated an easy shot. I saw the buck approaching but just as he stepped into the road, one of the does jumped into the air and broke for the brush. This set off the whole herd and they vanished from sight in seconds. Moments later a small band of blesbok came running and bucking across the road. Whatever had startled the blesbok had a residual effect upon my herd of impalas. An excellent plan and potential shot opportunity had slipped through our fingers like so much dry sand. BOSON BOOKS

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I passed up a lone buck that evening because he wasn’t good enough and the next day, after several more failed attempts, found us at the road again waiting for the herd to pass the other way across from brush to savannah. My buck came along at a steady pace slightly apart from the others at eighty yards. I planted the cross hairs on his chest, lowered a bit to allow for bullet rise, judged his speed, and led him by a foot. My shot dropped him instantly. Just after I fired I saw Eon grabbing his ears in pain and dropping to his seat in the Land Cruiser. He was unaware that I planned to shoot and the report of the rifle was deafening at his location. I felt badly about this. I was so concentrated on the impala that I did not say that I was going to shoot. Because I had been so conservative with my other shots, Eon had not expected me to shoot an animal on the move. It was bad judgment on my part and to a certain extent his. My apology was accepted with grace but it was an unfortunate incident that could have been avoided. I will be much more aware of my professional hunter in the future. My lead was a bit long but still good enough to break his neck. He was a very nice specimen although not quite as good as the first. The plan is to use the larger horns and skullcap of the ruined first impala with the cape of this one. It should make for a beautiful trophy. Hunting South Africa’s smaller plains game species is every bit as challenging, if perhaps not quite as glamorous, as going after the bigger stuff. At this writing, game such as impala, blesbok, duiker, steenbok, warthog and bush pig are all priced at or less than 450 dollars per trophy at the location where we hunted. That is a lot of challenging hunting in a reasonably priced package. If someone offered me another muzzleloader safari in South Africa with the condition that all I could hunt would be impala or the smaller game species, that would be just fine with me. The muzzleloader challenge and hunting enjoyment is excellent for what seems to be such a simple thing.

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Chapter 15 – A Quick Trip to Etebenne and the Steenbok

For several days we had the hunting pretty much to ourselves when, literally overnight,

the place was thriving with activity as three large groups arrived. Carole had been more than a good sport throughout all of this but we needed to do something to give her a break. A two-day trip to Etebenne Game Reserve was planned for her benefit. I couldn’t have cared less about this side trip. I was there to hunt and felt I could go to a zoo any time I wanted back home. But I agreed to go in order to be fair and provide Carole with some experiences to remember. Eon was eager to take us because he had not seen the park but the night before we left Boer reassigned him to guide a dentist from Connecticut on his hunts. Elvera Bezuidenhout, an attractive young professional hunter, was pulled off her assignment with the dentist and assigned to us for the trip. Boer felt that since the dentist had no hunting experience it would be better if Eon guided him. Elvera was a more experienced travel guide and Boer thought she should take over with us. Elvera was not pleased because she felt that she was perfectly capable of guiding the dentist but stoically accepted the reassignment. The dentist had been loaned a .308 rifle from Boer’s stock and along with his wife, daughter, and daughter’s fiancé conducted some antelope hunts before Elvera was to guide them to Kruger National Park. I understand that the dentist did quite well with his borrowed rifle on the hunts he undertook. I was also intrigued with the fact that a man with virtually no hunting experience would even want to try an African plains game hunt. While I would consider Doc and me to be quite experienced and of a persuasion that an African trek was a culmination of a lifetime of hunting, it seemed odd to me that someone with virtually no experience would be interested in such an endeavor. I also wondered silently about the number of people that undertook hunts in Africa with so little experience. But I’m sure that all outfitters are in similar circumstances. In spite of what is written about Hemingway’s previous hunting experience he writes several key passages in some of his books that lead me to believe that his hunting skills really weren’t all that advanced. Compared to someone like Theodore Roosevelt, Hemingway was never more than just a greenhorn. It was his superior writing in capturing the moment of the hunt that will forever place him in the annals of African hunting. Even though I had not hunted in Africa, years of experience hunting big game throughout North America gave me a good idea of what I could expect. I fully realized that game farm hunting is an artificial experience. Certainly it was nowhere nearly as challenging or as dangerous as some Rocky Mountain elk and bear hunts I’ve been on. On those horseback hunts into the backcountry, the physical dangers and isolation were far greater than on a South African plains game reserve. Beyond that is the knowledge of the potential for wounding game and the accompanying challenges of confronting cornered animals. Any experienced hunter has had to learn to deal with the ugliness of bringing down wounded game. I would like to believe that most of us do all we can to BOSON BOOKS

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avoid wounding game and certainly understand the dangers we put others in when wounding a dangerous animal. What about someone who has not faced these situations? Guiding a hunter with little of no experience on plains game or even dangerous game hunts must be an unnerving situation at times. But then again perhaps it is not. Perhaps an inexperienced hunter would be easier to guide. But what about hunting dangerous game? Do outfitters have minimum standards for the level of expertise before they will accept a client? I posed the question to some professional hunters and received some interesting responses. One response from a professional hunter named Steve Robinson summed up the general attitude. “I've just completed a hunt with a client who had only ever taken one other animal in his life (just two days before he came to Africa) and in some ways it was easier that way. He had no preconceived ideas of how to hunt in the bush, and although he was pretty slow to take shots, I found that by being patient and always being happy to tell him not to worry, we'll find another one the hunt went extremely well and the client got all he wanted and he went home a very happy man. “As to dangerous game, I've never turned a client away for any reason other than if they wanted a canned hunt. Although I've never taken any totally inexperienced client on a one-on-one dangerous game hunt, I've taken plenty of father and son on two-on-one dangerous game hunts, where the son had very limited hunting experience, but has managed to take a buff or two. “It's these youngsters who are the future of our sport, and in every instance they have been a pleasure to hunt with. Novices are as much a part of a good PH’s job as guiding any expert hunter. “I'll also say that no good PH should ever believe he knows everything. Another professional hunter was kind enough to give me a tip on turning irate elephants without dropping them. I've since used it on three occasions and it works like a charm.” This all makes perfect sense to me and he made several good points. It was the general observation of all that I interviewed. If you’ve got the money, you’ll get the hunt. By and large it is the know-it-all, the fellow who refuses to listen or heed advice that will generally get the PH into trouble. Of course, I’ve always felt that this kind of attitude went along with hunters of limited experience because, as was stated earlier about PHs, no good hunter should ever believe that he knows everything. Our three-hour drive to Etebenne was of interest to me because of the country we traveled through before getting there. Having been raised on a large Kansas cattle and wheat farm and having been a farmer for a number of years, it was fascinating to see what South African farms looked like and to study the farming challenges of the land itself. What farmland there was in the Waterburg district looked less than appealing but a good cow-calf operation was certainly a possibility. Irrigated cropland for raising supplemental feed and extensive pasturage was common. Certainly, the South Africans have the advantage of cheap native labor to help work the places but I saw very few farms BOSON BOOKS

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that appeared as prosperous as many Kansas outfits. Knowing the financial challenges of farming in North America, I can only imagine how tough those tests must be for the South African. The heavily mechanized farm with massive John Deere tractors rolling over vast acreages of irrigated crops was nowhere to be seen. No, it was a great place to visit but I’ll pass on a South African farming career. As we rattled down rough dirt roads in our Volkswagen van, it was nearly impossible to carry on a conversation. I wondered what these people would do with a good Chevy Suburban or Ford Expedition for such duties. The Volkswagen is a very weak competitor. A tire failed and we were faced with the challenge of changing it with a damaged and totally inferior jack. Elvera was valiant and wished to prove her independence but I insisted that I help change the tire. Eventually, we both got the tire changed after some innovation and with the aid of some convenient flat stones to help get the wheel high enough to get the new tire aligned. After studying her smashed finger and my own bloody knuckles, I suggested that if she was going to do this very often, perhaps she should have her own jack and wrenches available for emergencies. I would if I were in her position. I carry a superior jack and tire changing equipment in my hunting trucks all the time and long ago chose never to totally rely on a truck’s standard equipment. Our visit to Etebenne was interesting, the scenery was beautiful, the animals were all pleasant, and the guides were informative. Elvera was a charmingly beautiful guide. The meals were of four-star quality and the accommodations were very good. We made an evening drive through a narrow pass to the plains below the Waterbergs. I took some fine photos of Klipspringers and impala. We came upon a lioness and followed her for nearly a mile. Eventually she called up three nearly mature cubs, two males and a female. We watched their antics until dark before a light lunch of wine, cheese, and crackers. Our trip back in the dark of night proved interesting as we saw bushbuck, hippo, and steenbok. We settled around the campfire in the extreme cold of the night and enjoyed hot tea before retiring to our chalets. The next morning we were greeted by no water for bathing as a water main ruptured during the night. We gathered ourselves as best we could and adjusted. After a lovely breakfast we took another tour into the Waterbergs. We saw rhino, zebra, wildebeest, baboon, and even elephant at a distance before returning for another four-star lunch. It was all very luxurious and glamorous but in spite of it all I could hardly wait to leave and get back to some more hunting. We took another route over a two-lane asphalt highway on our return. We came to a road closed sign and went around it. Eventually we came to a bridge that was obviously in need or repair. Elvera explained that the bridge had been out for the last four years and they didn’t know when it would be repaired. Again, I thought of how spoiled we are in the United States and could just imagine Americans’ outrage of a similar situation. It also reinforced my growing opinion that the Republic of South Africa is a nation that is barely treading water. That is sad because the country has worlds of potential and could be a dynamic economic force. BOSON BOOKS

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We stopped for a while in Vaalwater, which is probably typical of many frontier towns in South Africa. It is a small village of two thousand whites more or less surrounded by thirty thousand blacks. A three-block business district is divided by a four-lane asphalt road with several well-used vehicles for sale lined in the grass divider between the lanes. It has several souvenir shops, a few taverns and restaurants, banks, a small supermarket that would fit into any rural American town of the same size and several service stations. I was impressed with the fact that the gas stations provided full service with blacks cleaning the windshield, checking the air in the tires, pumping the gas, and directing traffic. To my mind it was a certain sign of cheap labor for such customer assistance would be an expensive luxury in our country. Many black vendors lined the avenues selling their wares. Artwork, clothing, and some food products were for sale. Take away the blacks and replace them with native Americans and you would easily find its like in the Four Corners region of the United State Southwest. We returned by mid-afternoon and Doc was eager to hunt. Elvera arranged for a hunting car and it wasn’t long before Werner showed up with an older and rougher version of our Land Cruiser. A quick change of clothing and we were off. Except for a chance encounter with a trophy warthog, I was through being the primary hunter so I did not take my Thunder Bolt. I chose to hunt exclusively with the double to support Doc. We returned to the area where Doc had taken the black wildebeest in the hopes that we might spot a nice waterbuck near some hippo ponds. We had less than an hour of hunting by the time we arrived. A number of Guinea fowl flocked across the trail before us. They are great eating and I momentarily wished that I had brought a shotgun along. We were cruising slowly along the ponds when Elvera ordered Werner to stop and pointed out a steenbok about seventy yards away in the tall grass. His tiny horned head barely showed above the cover. The Steenbok is a graceful little buck, with large ears, long, slender legs, a slim body, and a tiny tuft of a tail. It gets its name from the Afrikaans steen or brick which is a reference to its color. It is often sighted feeding at the side of a newly constructed road, grassland clearing or a firebreak in the early morning or evening. Steenbok are mixed feeders, preferring a rich diet of easily digestible forbs and grasses. When frightened it lies down quietly in the grass, but if disturbed it zigzags through the undergrowth with its head forward. Occasionally it may hide in an aardvark hole. Steenbok establish well-defined but overlapping territories, which both sexes will defend against trespassers, and mark their territory using glands between the hooves on the front and back feet, a gland between the two halves of the lower jaw, and with glands just in front of the eyes. Steenbok are normally solitary, except when a mother is with her young or when a male and female are courting. A single calf is born at any time of year. Doc decided to try a shot and rested his rifle on the frame of the Land Cruiser. When he fired the tiny buck dropped instantly but I was suspicious of its manner. I was certain it was hit but it seemed to have ducked into the grass rather than collapsed. I jumped down and quickly closed in with my double. Elvera walked a bit behind me. I am sure she BOSON BOOKS

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thought I was being overly cautious but I felt something was amiss. At thirty yards the wounded steenbok broke from cover to my left. I swung the double into action as I would have used a shotgun on a covey of quail and fired. The steenbok rolled from the impact of the slug and this time remained down. Two massive wounds emphasized the resiliency of African game no matter what its size. We gathered our diminutive trophy and returned to our waterbuck hunt. The last vestiges of a setting sun were upon us when Elvera directed Werner to take a path along a narrow passage between a hippo pond and riverine bush. Werner had made the same crossing two days earlier in the other Land Cruiser but this older model seemed less well balanced and heavier. It went down to its axles immediately in the spongy ground. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to extricate the car, help was summoned from camp. I took the opportunity to tease Werner about his driving skills and Elvera about her luck with vehicles. Both accepted my attempts at humor with good sportsmanship and snappy comebacks. We shared a sampler of Klipdrift brandy that I had brought from Etebenne Game Reserve. The smooth brandy felt good going down in the cold damp of the winter evening. An hour later Kan showed up with his truck and pulled us out with little difficulty. It was well after dark when we made it back to camp and had our supper.

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Chapter 16 – Doc’s Turn

Except for a chance encounter at a wart hog or bushbuck I was at the end of my budget

so we concentrated on letting Doc take a few more animals. As we pulled out of the compound, it was the coldest morning of the lot. It was so cold that it was almost too uncomfortable to be riding around in an open top hunting car. Doc’s stated goal was that he wanted to take a gemsbok, waterbuck, or nyala if possible but if an exceptional blesbok presented itself he was interested in taking one of them as well. We searched in vain for some time, taking a while to watch some hippos sunning themselves on an island in the center of a large pond near the border of Coetzee’s concession. The huge beasts are accountable for far more fatal dangerous game encounters in Africa than one might imagine. They graze quite a distance from the water during the night and woe to anyone who might accidentally blunder between them and their retreat to the water. An hour later we came upon a herd of blesbok with one very good buck. After several attempts to get within range, Doc managed to get a 125-yard opportunity at him. The bullet hit perfectly and the buck didn’t make it thirty yards before going down. When the game truck was taking the blesbok back to the compound, it blew a ball joint on the right front wheel with a terrific explosion, sending the tire into the fender and badly damaging the little Isuzu truck. Kan defended the truck’s capabilities stating that it had over 300,000 miles on it and such catastrophic failures could be expected. The South African economy and exorbitant vehicle prices mandate that these trucks be maintained to last a long as possible. The Isuzu's body work did not hint that it had logged so many miles but Coetzee is particular about vehicle maintenance and his shop people are constantly busy keeping the trucks in repair. We then tried to locate another gemsbok. We hunted throughout the day with little luck. As evening approached we found a pair of young bucks hanging close to a mixed herd of zebra and wildebeest. After several attempts to get a decent shot through the thick brush, Doc and Eon tried a foot stalk while the driver for that day and I waited near a break in the bush where we might see them cross. I chose not to accompany Eon and Doc because I felt that it would be difficult enough for the two of them to get within range without one more body present to alert the herd. I waited at the edge of the bush with my double in case they got a shot and a wounded animal might pass near enough for me to bring him on down. It was cold and the quickly yellowing leaves of the trees were littering the ground in such a manner that it reminded me of October in Kansas. As darkness crept through the trees we heard a shot. A few minutes later the herd rushed in front of me at sixty yards but I saw no gemsbok. Several more minutes passed and I hoped to myself that we did not have another wounded animal to try to sort out as was the case with my still missing wildebeest. BOSON BOOKS

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Still, the vision of nearly a hundred plains game animals charging past in the dimming light of sunset amid a dark forest thrilled my senses. The rolling dust among the cold still trees threw up hues of gold, red and brown as it reflected off the sunlight. Everything seemed so wild and out of control as mixed species of game charged past. The black and white stripes of the zebra, the black forms of wildebeests, and the dark red of the hartebeest presented a calliope of wonder, sight, and sound. The radio crackled and we were summoned to an open area about a half mile to the north. Doc had his gemsbok with an excellent 120-yard shot through some tall weeds and grass. With both lungs gone the gemsbok still managed a couple of hundred yards before going down. Doc and Eon found them amidst the wildebeest and zebra. There were many eyes in the brush watching for predators and they stalked slowly toward a shot opportunity. After a frustrating stalk through very heavy brush Doc had to thread the shot offhand through a series of tiny openings in the brush at eighty yards. There was nothing to lean on to steady the shot. Doc could only see a small area of the chest with the outline of the bull's head above the heavier brush. The 350-grain bullet flew through all those tree limbs, grass, and brush to hit the gemsbok through the fore-shoulder, angling back through the top of the heart, in and out leaving a heavy blood trail. Despite that, the gemsbok managed a hundred yards before going down. Unfortunately, Doc mistook the smaller of the two for the bigger one, his mistake as much as Eon’s. They were both pretty excited at the time. Still, Doc was happy that he managed to take such an elusive animal. I felt a strong air of depression as we loaded the gemsbok in the car. I figured this was our final hunt and I was not ready for it to end. I needed more time for it to settle in. I had been on a nearly continuous adrenalin rush for two weeks and for the whole experience to be suddenly over was a disappointment. Evidently Doc felt the same way as he stated that he wanted one more crack at a waterbuck before we left to catch our Johannesburg flight the following afternoon. The next day we went out at sunrise to get Doc a waterbuck. I drew the collar of my hunting coat close to my neck to help me cope with the biting chill. Our exhaled breaths formed small gray clouds as the hunting car idled through thick, frost covered foliage. Doc turned to me and said, “Keep your rifle handy. Waterbucks are pretty tough and I may need you to help me bring one down. We don’t have time to do a lot of tracking.” I nodded and tightened my grip on my double. We had just rounded a bend when Eon gasped and exclaimed, “Nyala! Just over there! He’s a big one!” He pointed the direction. Doc wheeled about, judged the situation, and stated, “I want him. Stop the car.” A beautiful bull nyala stood in very thick brush watching us over his shoulder with his rump toward us slightly quartered away at a range of seventy yards. BOSON BOOKS

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Doc labored to find a bullet path through his scope. “It’s too thick. I don’t have a shot.” “Let’s wait,” Eon advised. “He’ll probably move soon.” As if on cue, the bull took several strides forward, clearing his front shoulders from the brush. Doc aimed carefully and fired. I was watching the bull over the open sights of my double. Doc’s bullet hit hard. Frost and dust exploded off the bull’s back, giving the impression that the shot may have been a bit high. Eon thought he had seen the same thing as I but I did not shoot. The bull was in serious trouble and staggered into thick cover and out of sight. Moments later we heard him crash into the brush. It sounded like he had gone down. I jumped from the truck and held my rifle ready to go forward to put another round in him if necessary but we all felt that the shot had been good and that the bull should be down within just a few yards. We waited a bit then advanced into the bush. We found him easily, barely forty yards from first impact. The shot placement had been perfect in spite of our visual accounts. True to form Doc had hunted until the very last moment and was rewarded with an excellent and unusual trophy bull.

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Photos- Part II

Figure 7: Loading Game

Figure 8: The Author and Impala

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Figure 9: Impala Below the Waterbergs

Figure 10: Lion Cubs

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Figure 11: Doc and Nyala

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Part III

Reflections

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Chapter 17 – If I Were a Rich Man

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bviously muzzleloading for African plains game is not for the meek or lazy, but it is also not the handicap that many might think. With the proper equipment, careful planning, sound strategies, and patience a hunter can enjoy a remarkable hunting experience and return with an intense sense of self-satisfaction. Doc and I took fourteen animals. Ranges were anywhere from 80 to 170 yards on game ranging in weight from a few pounds to over 800 and the performance of our rifles was impressive. And, in spite of my lack of interest in record books three of my trophies; a blesbok, a red hartebeest, and a gemsbok, will be submitted for consideration in the Safari Club International muzzleloader category record book. That is another advantage of muzzleloader hunting in Africa. I wonder how many animals the airport critic will be submitting for consideration. As is typical of most of today’s hunting in South Africa, we used an open top Toyota Land Cruiser hunting car with rifle carriers and steel roll bar shooting frame. We cruised narrow hunting trails until we spotted game that we could either shoot from the car or stalk on foot. The bulk of our shooting was from the car. We hunted from sunup to sundown with a brief midday rest. While we were based out of a car on a hunting preserve this was far from a canned hunt. The game was skittish and difficult to approach. Much of the thick brushy shooting conditions were extremely challenging. It was an excellent hunting challenge for muzzleloading firearms. I want to say a brief word about Eon Kok. I’ve had a lot of guides and so-called experts provide service over the years on various types of hunts and treks. Many were competent, some were less than professional, and a few were just plain incompetent. Kok was thoroughly professional, accommodating, and diplomatic. His knowledge and judgment of the animals was excellent. He made every effort to get me within my selfimposed 120-yard range limitation for a shot attempt. On two hunts this meant that he had to spend hours tracking and working to get me into position for a shot that I was comfortable taking. He was patient with my refusals to shoot through heavy brush that I believe others would have tried and worked to put me where I wanted to be. When Eon needed aid from trackers or other hunters, he called support in without hesitation and he worked hard to see to all of our field and camp needs. He is the best PH that I have hunted with in the last ten years and a credit to the company he represents. But then, all of Boer Coetzee’s staff was excellent. We were lucky that we drew the professional hunter and driver that we did. They questioned us at the beginning about what we felt our rifles were capable of, what kind of shots we preferred, our shooting expertise, and our goals. Even though they were unfamiliar with black powder hunting they adapted quickly and we worked well together. Eon is a young man and enjoys the stalk as I do.

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Because of my hometown’s size and location I had to order all my clothing from an outside source with the vast majority of it coming from Cabela’s. It is winter in South Africa in July and we experienced unusually cold conditions throughout most of our hunt. Temperatures ranged from the mid thirties to the high sixties during the day. Early mornings and late evenings in the back of an open hunting car were especially uncomfortable. Another trait of the South African bush is that almost every tree has some kind of thorn or hook to cut you or catch on your clothing. You need to wear your clothing in layers and it needs to be tough stuff. Camouflage clothing is legal for hunting in South Africa but it is not in many Central African countries. I see little benefit in wearing camouflage for this type of hunting except that it is usually designed for hunters with roomier dimensions and more pockets. I chose khaki and olive colored clothing and got along very well. My pants were Cabela’s Outfitter Series Expedition Wear in mushroom color of 67% brushed cotton and 33% nylon. They were roomy, comfortable, and warm. My shirts were long sleeve Cabela’s Serengeti Safari models of 100% cotton canvas. This shirt has a number of flap and zipper pockets and it very handy for carrying muzzle loading equipment. I also bought a Rigby shooting vest, one of the best and most practical pieces of hunting clothing I have ever owned. I took along a sweater of 55% wool, 20% acrylic, and 25% polyester with patch elbows. I often wore it in the morning and evening. Next time I will take a heavier sweater. My coat was upland game model of heavy cotton canvas. It was great for providing warmth, protection from thorns, and pocket access. During much of the colder conditions I was dressed in layers of shirt, sweater, shooting vest and coat to keep warm, shedding them individually at the day warmed. I was the only guy who thought to bring gloves and I was certainly happy I did. I have a pair of leather and elastic heavy handgun shooting gloves with exposed fingers that I threw in at the last minute of my packing. I took them to protect my hands from thorns but like the exposed fingers for handling muzzleloading equipment and for trigger control. The gloves worked great for that but they also kept my hands warm. You can’t do much hunting with your hands stuffed in your pockets. My primary boots were Gore-Tex Hikers of leather with seven-inch uppers. My backup boots were nearly identical. Both pairs worked very well. They were light, comfortable and protected my ankles from thorns and dirt. The non-slip treads were important for climbing in and out of the hunting car safely. Heavy upland hunting boots are too bulky for this style of hunting and greatly add to your baggage weight, an important consideration. Perhaps most surprising was the effectiveness of my choice of socks. While in the Kansas City Cabela’s store I happened upon some Ulti-Max socks that were on sale and advertised as “blister proof.” At eight dollars a pair I probably would not have purchased them but I bought four pair at the sale price. Once in South Africa I dug them out their packages and realized that they also had a mild elastic ankle support sewed in as well. These socks were absolutely wonderful. I put in several five to seven mile days hiking and BOSON BOOKS

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stalking the bush without a single blister or any pain from an arthritic ankle I have. I will gladly pay the eight dollars for more of them in the future. And then, of course, I had to take my lucky cowboy hat. After twenty-five years and many of the best hunts I’ve ever been on, I couldn’t leave it behind in spite of my wife’s objections. Besides how can you pass up wearing a hat that is almost as old as your PH? The use of bipod shooting sticks is necessary for many of the longer shots, especially with a single shot muzzleloader. On any game farm in South Africa once you pull the trigger on an animal, even if you wound it, you own it. Precise shooting is a must. I took along a set of Stony Point Pole Cats but they were never handy when I needed them. Both of my poor shots were taken off of cross-sticks. Before going to Africa you need to practice extensively and become proficient with the use of a bipod. Carry your personal set with you so that you can use something that you are comfortable with. If I could change anything about my hunt it would be that. Binoculars are a must have piece of equipment. I took a pair of compact Pentax 8-16 X 21 UCF Zoom binoculars and used them several times each day. I carried mine in a belt holster rather than having them dangling from my neck. It worked very well. Since most of the hunting takes place in a hunting car, guns are often carried in racks but they get minimum protection. I took along a pair of inexpensive padded gun cases with zipper openings that exposed the entire upper portion of the case. These rifles were placed in the rack with the top of the case open. When game was spotted it was a simple matter to simply lift out the rifle of my choice. These cases more than paid for themselves in rifle security since things got pretty hairy at times and the trails are rough. Airline baggage handlers, the rough conditions of the hunt, and Mr. Murphy can be very hard on riflescopes. Every single scope at camp whether it was an inexpensive Simmons or high end Swarovski had to be significantly re-sighted upon arrival. A second backup scope should be taken. A fixed power 4X, 5X, or 6X scope will do nicely. I had my Simmons 6X Pro Hunter packed for just such an emergency Good field spectacles such as shooting glasses protect the eyes not only from your muzzleloader but also from brush and thorns. I used my yellow tinted upland game glasses with excellent results. A yellow tint lens helps with definition of game in thick bush conditions. My wife bought me a wristwatch/ compass as a gift before I left. I used the compass several times to get my bearings when separated from the rest of the party. I also carried a heavy drop point skinning knife with a three-inch blade on my belt. I used it a number of times even though I didn’t have to skin anything. The Republic of South Africa has many problems. The economy is not good and an AIDS epidemic is ravaging the black population. This AIDS problem in Africa is going to become a worldwide concern and may cause instability throughout the continent. On the other hand South Africa is malaria free, the water where we hunted was good, the BOSON BOOKS

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exchange rate is greatly in our favor, the South Africans are hungry for our business, and the Afrikaners I dealt with were first class outfitters. A muzzleloader is a credible tool for hunting African plains game. Heavy, soft lead projectiles are simply superior to lightweight jacketed projectiles at muzzleloader velocities. On this hunt I did not need the 530-grain PowerBelt dangerous game projectiles but I’d recommend taking some anyway because you do not know what might happen in Africa. If I were going back to South Africa tomorrow for another muzzleloader safari, I’d shoot exactly the same loads that I chose for this hunt. I would not take a .45 with as light a bullet as Doc chose. He is an expert marksman but he also had my .504 double loaded with 600-grain conicals to back him up. My longest shot was 145 yards at the gemsbok and the bullet impacted exactly where I aimed so a 120-yard practice routine worked for me. South Africa only allows two rifles to be brought in with a hunter and they must be of different calibers. A heavily loaded .45 and a .50 will work. I believe a .50 and a .54 will work better. If I were taking a Pedersoli Kodiak double as a short-range, knock down rifle, I’d choose a .58 or .54 with 500+ grain conicals, and I’d convert it to musket cap ignition. It will work. If I were hunting only plains game in the size class we hunted with a conventional cartridge rifle, I’d recommend a .30-06 loaded with 180- or 220-grain soft points. When I go back to South Africa next time for Cape buffalo, lion and zebra I plan to take a CZ 550 Magnum in .458 Lott and use .458 Winchester Magnum ammo in it most of the time. My backup rifle will be a restored 9.3 X 62mm Husqvarna Model 96 Mauser. It is accurate, very hard hitting, and handles beautifully. I’m still debating about where to mount a scope on it. A second rifle in a two-rifle battery could easily be a .30-06 or a .300 Weatherby Magnum. A .338 Winchester Magnum and/or a .375 H&H are excellent rifles for plains game but I believe most hunters can get the job done with the ‘06 with less recoil and more accurate shooting potential—especially if they are recoil sensitive. A lot of professional hunters carry the CZ .375 H&H in South Africa. The most common rifle that I saw was the sporterized Enfield .303 British and there were a lot of them floating around. Go figure. One client arrived with virtually no hunting experience and was handed the outfitter’s .308 loaner. From what I understand, he had excellent luck on the game he took. If they can do it with a .303 Brit and the .308, I feel that most hunters can do very well on plains game with a .30-06 or one of the .300 Magnums. I don’t know whether I will take a muzzleloader next time. If I were a rich man I’d go often and be quite cavalier about my choice of firearms but I’m not and one more safari is probably all I’ll get. Next time it will be a dangerous game hunt, perhaps a Cape buffalo, maybe a lion, and certainly a zebra to round out my plains game trophies. All the advice I’ve heard is that I should concentrate on either buffalo or lion but probably not both in a short time span of a week to fourteen days so I’ll make a cape buffalo my next goal. My BOSON BOOKS

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choice of rifles will probably depend upon economics and whether I believe a muzzleloader hunt will market any better than a conventional hunt. Men of moderate means have to consider how to pay the bills for their adventures. There is the consideration of whether a dangerous game muzzleloader hunt is a “stunt” or not. While I did not consider this plains game hunt to be a stunt and feel that it was a legitimate test of muzzleloader capabilities, an African dangerous game muzzleloader hunt is something that demands serious contemplation. I am certain I can take a Cape buffalo or a lion with my double muzzleloader. The real issue is, should I? Given the modern rounds at the hunter’s disposal and the serious risk of injury to a member of the hunting party if things went badly am I justified in attempting a muzzleloader hunt when a modern rifle provides so many more advantages? Our Florida water buffalo hunt was successful but we had a PH carrying a .470 Nitro double to back us up. The Florida hunt was also a relatively controlled experience and not of the same magnitude as an African safari in isolated areas. When we pursued the wounded buffalo, it was in a fenced area and he was limited to how far he could travel. This would not be the case in Central Africa. Most importantly, the Florida buffalo did not go down immediately in spite of relatively good shot placement. At the time there was no immediate back up shot taken but I would have been out of position even if I had owned the double then and would not have been able to try a shot. When I go back for a Cape buffalo hunt, I’ll consider taking my White double and a .458 Lott. Although I could credibly take my first two shots with the muzzleloader if I am close enough, I will not go after a wounded buffalo with any muzzleloader. Close enough for me to attempt a muzzleloader shot is sixty and no more than seventy-five yards. I will load a 600-grain soft lead conical in the right barrel and a 530-grain solid in the left. Beyond that range the muzzleloader loses a lot of energy and the risk of wounding a Cape buffalo is significant. I am also not as cocky about having a PH that might shoot too quickly as I was before this hunt. I now wish that Eon had been more aggressive in backing up my muzzleloader attempts, especially on the blue wildebeest. Quite frankly, on any future big game and dangerous game hunts I want my PH to be carrying a rifle and I want him to use it at the least provocation. Mind you, I am not saying that I want my game shot for me. I find that entire concept to be repugnant but I do not want to lose it either, especially a potentially dangerous animal. In the future, if I am again called upon to be a backup shooter on a big game hunt, I will not be as conservative as I have been in the past. I will have my gun up and I will shoot at the least provocation to bring the animal down cleanly. While I was in Africa, I became enamored with the CZ 550 Magnum rifle. It is reasonably priced in the United States, has outstanding express sights, is well balanced, has controlled round Mauser feeding, the .458 holds five rounds in the magazine, and these rifles enjoy an excellent reputation among working class PH’s and guides. I sold my Ruger Alaskan and purchased a .550 Magnum in .458 Lott. I will load the CZ with .458 Lott solids for following up wounded game larger than 800 lbs and .458 Winchester Magnum soft points for less. BOSON BOOKS

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The concept of a short-range, knock down double rifle such as the White worked beautifully for me this time. “Use enough gun” to me now means use as big as a gun as I can handle for wounded game and put the game down hard. But, as always, proper first shot placement is everything! Precise accuracy beyond a hundred yards was not necessary for the jobs I asked this rifle to meet. Quickness and agility were far more important. I intend to go with the standard open sights on the .458 since I consider it a 120-yard rifle, much like my muzzleloaders. I will put a lot of rounds through it before I go and learn it the best that I can (which means hunting with too much gun on this continent). But practical field experience with any rifle is paramount for success. I’ll take the ribbing from other guys in order to learn the rifle in the field. As of this writing I’ve put over a hundred rounds through the CZ 550 and can shoot four-inch, hundred-yard, off-hand groups. I’m going to need to invest in a reloading outfit for this rig. Just when you begin to think that African hunting is not difficult, all hell breaks loose. Unless I am involved in a charge I do not intend to ever try a face-on shot over there again. I’ll take a broad side or quartering shot but I did not have good luck with facing shots. I have taken deer and hogs for years with them, but African game is tougher than deer, hogs, or also elk. Be conservative and put your game down with well-placed shots. Go to the practice range, practice a lot, and know your limitations. Own the rifle you intend to use for at least a year and practice with it every chance you get. Don’t let a PH or anyone else talk you into taking a shot you are not comfortable with. Everybody gets excited sometimes including the PH but passing a poor shot saves you, the animal, and your pocketbook. I ran several hundred rounds through both rifles before leaving for South Africa and knew my rifles very well. I set my limit at one 120 yards and did a lot of range work at that distance. When called upon to make a 145-yard shot, that experience paid off with a perfect hit on a trophy gemsbok. But I turned down a shot through thick brush earlier in the day on the same animal. Everyone was disappointed because he was an exceptional trophy. We tracked him for five hours and I did not believe I would get another chance at him. Suddenly, near sundown, we caught him on open ground with the setting sun at our backs and in his eyes. It was a near perfect shooting situation in spite of the range and I made the shot. Did I do the right thing by turning down the first shot? You bet! Patience is a crucial element of successful muzzleloader hunting. Knowing your limitations is a mark of experience. For anything larger than a gemsbok I intend to get close (inside one hundred yards) and use as big a gun as I can manage. For gemsbok on down I’d recommend a .30-06, 7mm Magnum, .338 Winchester Magnum or .35 Whelen and rely on exact shot placement. If the odds aren’t with me, I’d pass on the shots. I honestly believe that a lever action .45-70 with custom loads would go gangbusters on African game. A Marlin Guide Gun with a 0-4X scope could do it all with the right loads. That nonsense about a lever action rifle not fitting African hunting situations belongs with the same horse poop pile as the opinions that nothing less than a .375 H&H Magnum will do or that lever action rifles are inherently inaccurate.

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You will be a long way from medical attention if you get hurt. Serious consideration should be given to an insurance policy that covers emergency flights to hospital. My policy cost only $79 and covered flight cancellations and life insurance, as well as emergency medical procedures. This is very important unless you have $20,000 lying around the house to cover emergency medical services. Make arrangements for your outfitter to secure black powder for you and have it on hand when you arrive. None of my loads were challenged but they could have been, and after returning from Africa I learned that every thing I took was illegal and could have been seized by customs. Mine passed but I was lucky that no one chose to challenge them. If you make a budget and keep to it, resisting the temptation to shoot something you can’t afford, you can enjoy a plains game safari and take six or seven nice trophies for less than $12,000 including flight and mounts. Compare that to current costs for an Alaskan hunt or a trophy Texas Whitetail hunt. I consider an African plains game safari to be a bargain considering the broad range of game available at relatively modest trophy fees. It is not out of the reach of a working class fellow who is willing to do a little saving over a few years. Is it worth it? I’m going back in three, four, or five years if the Lord is willing. The Dark Continent beckons the hunting adventurer like no other place in the world. It attracts with seductive songs of adventure for the first hunt then cries out for another. My first hunt was just a taste; much like a thirsty traveler trying to slacken his desire with only a few ounces of water. To go back means to drink more deeply from the well. I will go farther north on my next hunt, perhaps to Zambia or Tanzania. I am ready to try for game in a less controlled environment and do not believe that I would gain substantially from another game preserve hunt. I believe, however, that a game farm such as Coetzee operates is an excellent first step in hunting Africa. If for no other reason it allows the novice to experience how tough the game and hunting conditions can be. And for that matter, on this hunt, with my previous experience, I am happy that I used muzzleloaders. Muzzleloaders provided the extra challenge that I needed to make it a first class experience. I needed to be tested. I would not have been satisfied with anything less. Walt Prothero in Safari, A Dangerous Experience talks at length about the memories of a lifetime that come from hunting in Africa. I remember Walt’s passage so well because he captured my feelings better than any one else I read. I don’t know what my last memories will be at the end of my life but I can say that right now, if it all ends today, the vision of the South African setting sun reflecting off the white coat of a beautiful gemsbok that I was so fortunate to take, will be among them. In that way and for that memory alone, I am a rich man. END

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