ROGER SAYS: I really don’t care to shoot an elephant, though I’ve taken considerable offense at their antics, bluff charging the safari car, squealing and stomping, throwing great clods of earth and such, tipping trees on both sides of my tent at four in the morning. Even so, I had no desire to shoot one, though I’ve often wished someone else would.
No, I don’t care to kill an elephant, but any rifle that will kill something so big, so dead, so quick gets my attention. I have not been disappointed. My period Mauser has racked up an impressive roll—deer and boar beyond recollection, black bear, puku, impala, warthogs, some in the tightest tangles, others at impossible and unmentionable ranges. It rode along on my first buffalo hunt. Though a .416 did the job with a single shot, it was mighty satisfying to have the old Mauser in ready reserve. Had I a magazine of 7 mm solids, roles would have been reversed.
After 30 years of hard hunting on three continents, I’ve never recovered an expended slug.
And it gets better. Try as I may—and I have tried plenty—I cannot make better ammo than I can buy. No need to puzzle data or belabor the hours hooked over a reloading press. Federal 175-grain round nose is commonly available in the States, with just enough lead showing to make it legal where the law mandates “expanding type bullets.” At 100 yards, that century-old bore will put holes in a biscuit all day long. Not an American biscuit, mind you, which is thick and cakey and bigger than a doorknob, but an African biscuit, a cracker, we call them in the States, maybe the size of a half crown.
Expanding? I can only guess. After 30 years of hard hunting on three continents, I’ve never recovered an expended slug. Never. Head shots, heart shots, side shots, neck shots, quartering shots before or away, a last-chance breakdown shot to the base of the tail—no bullet was ever seen again. And though I always listen for the whine of the departing bullet, I’ve never heard it. Maybe that’s because I refuse to shoot an elephant.
PETER SAYS: We’re assaulted at every side by the belief that new is better. The 7 mm/08 is a great case in point. I’ve used it a lot, most recently on stags and for general deer culling, and it works. But with 100 years to improve on the Magnificent Seven, all they’ve been able to come up with is something almost as good. It just can’t shift the freight with the heavier bullets, and its history is mundane, the necked-down son of a committee caliber.
The argument for complete penetration versus explosive transfer of energy is a constant across campfires in every hunting country. There is no final answer, just what each of us is comfortable with, and I’m happy with a long bullet that will expand a bit—we’re not talking about solids here—but will go straight as a laser and deep every time. The sectional density of those long bullets is phenomenal. I’ve hunted Africa many times now, and most of if not all the professionals I’ve met there like an exit. No screwups on bone, and bloedspoor, a blood trail to follow if need be. That’s good enough for me.
Roger’s military conversion is probably very close to what Bell would understand as a rifle to take to Africa. It’s a working piece and a damn fine one. The sporting model offers more opportunity for embellishment. It won’t shoot any better—though it groups an inch—but for some, that detail is part of the joy of ownership.
In this case, the wood comes from an English walnut planted in the 1860s, a generation before the Mausers created the 7 mm cartridge or the action that bears their name. The tree was dug out and slabbed in 1994, the blank cut in 1998, and carefully aged since. The stock work is period, with shadow-line cheek piece in the London style. The grip cap, French gray scroll around a gold map of Africa, the sling personally sourced from the hide of a Cape buffalo bull. Being a double square bridge, there’s no drilling; scope mounts go straight onto the dovetail. They are the superb QD model made by Alaska Arms. The blue is deep satin. It took six months to put together.
Then it went to Africa. And one day it will go to my son, who may do the same.
When something old works, it really works.
Roger Pinckney loves the ritual of buckshot and hounds, but when he goes solo to make meat, he carries his faithful DWM 7 x 57. His latest novel, Blow the Man Down, is available through Amazon.com or directly from the publisher, Evening Post Books.
Pete Ryan hunts, fishes, and parties on New Zealand’s South Island. He is the author of Wild South—Hunting & Fly Fishing the Southern Hemisphere, a journey with rod, rifle, and gun dog across New Zealand, Africa, South America, and Australia. See more at www.faraway.co.
