Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2020 i Man Magnum

SOMEWHERE ON THE seemingly endless stretch of per-f straight road between Bloemfontein and Jagersfontein, Ernie remarked that one of the termite mounds dotting the grassla would make a perfect rest for a handgun hunter. The problem with that, I informed him, was finding both a termite mound and a shootable animal within range of it. An hour earlier, at the Bloemfontein airport, I had met Ernie Bishop of Gilette, Wyoming – preacher, handgun hunter and speciality pistol fundi. Our hunting destination was a 33 000 hectare game reserve straddling the Gariep River. On the backseat, in a hard case, lay Ernie’s custom handguns; an XP100 and a Ruger GP100, affectionately known as the Franken-Ruger. The XP100 is a speciality pistol on a Remington XP action with an 18ˡ ˡ barrel…

AFTER THE DEATH of master gun-maker Bruce Highman, I wrote an obituary (Feb 2019 edition) in which I mentioned that he’d once made a to-scale miniature working model of a complex World War II b ch-loading twin-barrelled 4.7-inch naval artillery piece (turret gun) which fired .22 rim-fire cartridges. It was correct down to the smallest detail, including elevation and lateral pivoting, with all the adjustment wheels and crank-handles being operational. It took him five years to make (while he was living in Durban) and he completed it around 1968. You simply cannot put a price on so many hours of skilled work. The barrels measured 8 inches (20cm) in length, and the overall length of the entire structure, including the base on which it swivelled, was about 24 inches (61cm).…

PURSUED BY HOSTILE native Indians, Major Geo Forsyth his command retreated to an island in the valley of the Arikaree River. The sandy strip of earth about 60 yards long and 20 yards wide was covered with low brush and a sing cottonwood tree. Here, Forsyth and his 50 me hastily used tin plates and knives to dig in then braced themselves to receive the attack they knew would come. And it wasn’t long before 600 Cheyenne and Sioux warriors, mounted on their war ponies, thundered down on the small force of cavalrymen. However, the soldiers were all battle-hardened fighting men who, like their leader, had served during the recent Civil War. Ordering his men to hold their fire, Forsyth waited until the warriors were 50 yards away before he…

AROUND 1 5, HOPING to increase sales am African settlers and hunters, Mauser oduced the ‘Original Mauser Magazine Sporting Rifle, Special Afr can Type’. It had a 28-inch barrel (more correctly, 700mm) and its stock’s fore-end d nded three-quarters of the way t the muzzle. Such a long rifle was really unsuited to most African terrain; consequently sales were not brisk and the African model was not made in large numbers – it is, in fact, quite rare. Many examples were modified by their owners who shortened the barrels and stocks. These rifles are especially rare overseas, but fortunately for local Mauser collectors, there are a few in South Africa. The Mauser factory also listed the African model as the ‘Normal Hunting Rifle Type L’ which stood for ‘Lang’ –…

Baobabs and Buffalo Weavers I enjoyed Gregor Woods’s article on the Baobab in the Feb 2020 issue of Magnum. He raised the question as to why red-billed buffalo weavers invariably nest on the west side of a baobab tree. Would it be that the prevailing winds come from the east, and it suits the birds to fly into wind when landing on their nests? Also, the setting sun would warm the nest in the evening? These are two theories which I have told my clients in the past. – Henry H Henley, Kenya Mauser .303 Die artikel ‘Mauser Revelation’ in die April uitgawe wat verwys na Mauser wat gewere in .303 gemaak het, het my teruggeneem na 1974. Ek was in Kaapstad Sentraal gestasioneer toe ’n Portugese man een dag…

AT SOME INT during the mid-1950s, I became involved in a gunfight with some neighbourhood kids. My parents spotted me m dodging bullets while trying o shoot b k at my assailants with my pointed finger. My dad was hastily sent to town with the terse instruction to “Buy you son a cap-gun this minute!” That afternoon, with my new toy in hand, I managed to hold my own against the outlaws. When comparing my puny cap-firing revolver with pictures of the Colt Single Action Army (SAA), I found my toy seriously lacking. Much later, I learned that the original ‘P’ model of 1873 was produced for issue to the United States Cavalry, and as such was used until the early 1890s, when new developments in military firearms caused the…

TO ME, THERE are few more stirring sounds in the African veld than he far-off call of a Namaqua sandgrouse reaching my ears long before the birds come into view over the distant horizon. This nigh-inaudible, three-noted dove-like coo holds the prom f the most exciting wing-shooting experience I have known. It is a sound so faint, initially, that unless you know it w you won’t even hear it. When I lived in South West Africa (SWA) during the 1970s, my ears became so finely attuned to this sound that people accompanying me for the first time, when warned to get ready as the birds were on their way, refused to believe I could hear anything. The first person I introduced to sandgrouse shooting was my brother-in-law, Mark Mayson, who…

THIS IS A true story, based on an event that occurred in Zimbabwe’s Zambezi Valley in 9. It is about Sgt Agrippa Nhamo, who made the supreme sacrifice while defending one of Africa’s last remaining black rhino populations. Between 1984 and 1988, despite Operation Stronghold, an intensive anti-poaching campaign took place in the Zambezi Valley with approximately 50 annual armed incursions. During this time, poachers and Zimbabwean National Parks personnel were killed, and 623 black rhino died. Undiscovered carcasses could easily double the death toll. It is against this background that I tell the story of Agrippa. Agrippa Nhamo was born in 1949 at Pfumbe, not far from the Zambezi River, in the Valley. There were many rhinos during those days; Agrippa grew up with them, and acquired bushcraft skills…

SINCE THE TIME of the first firearms in the era of flints, and the locks that struck them i pans, through to the latest of today’s modern semi-automatic weapons, the demand for reliable operation has remained consistent. In many applications, handguns and rifles are life-protecting weapons so a trustworthy gun is imperative in this role. In the flint and percussion cap era, the challenge to achieve this was largely through the quality of the workmanship in the simple lock mechanisms of the day. When revolvers and magazine-fed, repeater-action rifles arrived, the attention shifted to good designs. The parallel requirement of quality remained and was largely met by mass production through the use of patterns, jigs and machine tools which offered high standards of precision. This reduced the over-reliance on the…

A FRENCH CLIENT, Philippe Moritz, booked a safari with me to hunt a big elephant with a “beautiful pair of long tusks”. He knew nothing bout record books or the magical hundred-pounder elephant. Prior to his safari, I had met Philippe during a visit to Paris He invited my wife and me to stay with him and offered to show us around the city. Philippe was a remarkable man. During I he’d been a pilot in the Royal Air Force and had flown one of the Pathfinders prior to the bombing mission to blow up the Mohne and Eder dams in Germany. Special ‘bouncing’ bombs had to be built to accomplish the task. This was the most spectacular bombing raid of the war, as recorded in Paul Brick-hill’s book The…

THE CZ P-10 M (MICRO) is a single-stack, short recoil, 9mmP designed for concealed carry. It operates on the locked breech principle with a striker-fired double-ac on trigger (SFDA) mechanism employing e-cocked striker. The magazine hold seven rounds; an eighth can be carried in the chamber. Overall length is 160.5mm (slide 155mm); height 122mm and width 25.5mm at grip’s broadest point (slide width is 24mm). It weighs 570g with magazine empty, 660g full. Barrel length is 85mm (3.34''). For comparison, the CZ P-10 S (sub-compact) is 170mm long, 116mm high, 32mm wide, with 90mm barrel and weighs 710g with an empty 12-round mag. The CZ P-10 Micro competes directly with the 6-round single-stack micro Glock 43 of similar dimensions. The CZ P-10 Micro competes directly with the 6-round single-stack micro…

THE SUN HAD just risen above the horizon when we arrived at the farm. The gold and green sunflowers stretched as far as the eye could see. And, there were pigeons! We drove around the field checking on flight lines and I set up a portable blind in a beautiful spot, leaving my guest, Steve, with a cup of coffee and a case of ammo. I then drove the short distance to the large karee bush, a gnarly specimen with a thick branch growing out sideways, dipping almost to the ground before turning up to the sky. Indeed, it would be a misnomer to call it a tree, but it did give ample shade, with a view over the field and the birds. I set up a couple of decoys…