Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ross Seyfried on the 22 Hornet

I think we’re remembering the same one.

Dwayne,

Thanks for contributing to this thread. Rick's Island of Misfit Toys draws a fair share of toxic posters but you always remain above the fray and are a class act.

Well done.

John

During my first marriage, our second house was a cheap 1-story with a "crawl space" instead of a real basement, in a neighborhood just outside the city limits. Back then so-called "affordable" chronographs existed, but I couldn't afford one--so built a "ballistic pendulum" in the crawl space, using the directions in P.O. Ackley's HANDBOOK FOR SHOOTERS AND RELOADERS. You couldn't hear the report of a centerfire outside of the house, but definitely could anywhere inside. One of my wife's cousins came visiting one afternoon when I was down there, shooting a .30-06, and after I touched off the first round could hear a yelp from above.

But that wasn't one of the reasons we got divorced!

Ha, great one. I can imagine that made occupants jump a bit.

Dwayne, your big Norma is a cool rifle buddy. Always enjoy when you show it off some. Just a well built BG rifle.

A unbiased observer might say you have Upgraded.

Just Sayin.

John,
That's crazy and cool all at the same time... luv it

John,

Definitely. In fact have been told by more than one old-fashioned friend that my second marriage was "way above my station."

John

I’d follow those tracks myself. I still like shooting the bigger guns too, I just don’t believe they change much other than they all need some fresh air now and again!

Pappy;
Good evening my cyber friend, I trust the day was kind to you and yours.

Thanks for the specifics of the article, I meant to thank you this morning but got caught up in the projects of the day, but when you put it up last night I found it in the rows on the shelves and read it before bed. It's indeed an interesting article.

One of the firearms Ross had that I absolutely lusted for was a prototype drop block made in Germany. If memory serves it was a Blazer maybe???

It looked sort of like a Hagn in a way, but not exactly either. It was chambered in something exotic like a 7x64R too, which made me want one all the more.

Anyways thanks to you, to John Burns, John Barsness and the rest who've been kind enough to share their interactions and memories for a very fine thread.

All the best.

Dwayne

JB,

It goes both ways.

Tell Eileen Hi for me.

JB.

"Rifle Hunting" Annual #3 1999 "Bear Odyssey" p.38-45 Champlin .340 Weatherby 225-grain bullet (not specified)

Going to say 99.9% it was a Barnes X bullet.

Ross layed that tanned bear skin out on a visit while waiting for the full size mount. It was monstrous and covered the entance to his storm celler.

There were some small bugs in the the tanned hide.

Ross being Ross went off to the barn and came back with some kind of pesticide long banned (in the 80s) and gave the tanned hide a good dosing.

I was like that stuff has to be bad and he was like "It kills all the bugs dead".

I was thinking you’re right. Either a Failsafe or an X bullets. Either way, great account of his hunt with his excellent writing as usual.

Funny about the pesticide. I don’t think I blame him.

5SDad, I need to look for that one. Be a good reread.

I think I have that issue! I remember pics of a tent and a pack full of meat, and that gigantic hide tacked up to dry.

Thanks, that's a "Raquel Welch" rifle. Just stays pretty.

Irfubar, getting older is not for wimps!

Missed this one the first time around--but around 15 years ago was sitting around an African campfire with the PH I've hunted with most, the now-retired Kevin Thomas. He's a year older than I am, and was born and raised in what was then Rhodesia. His first job out of high school, at age 17, was a ranger for the Rhodesian game department--and he killed his first charging Cape buffalo bull shortly afterward while leading several tourists on a "game viewing" tour in a park.

During our campfire discussion I asked Kevin what he considered the smallest reliable Cape buffalo round. Without hesitation he said, "The .30-06 with 180-grain Nosler Partitions." I was somewhat startled, but asked for more details.

It turned out one of Kevin's jobs in his 20s (meaning the 1970s) was working for one of the huge Rhodesian cattle ranches as a culler. Back then domestic beef cattle were more valuable than wild game--in fact there was virtually no safari industry. Kevin's job involved culling Cape buffalo, which wasn't done at night with head-shots, but during the day during drives. The ranch workers would push buffalo herds toward him, as slowly as possible, and Kevin's rifle of choice was a .30-06 with handloaded 180 Partitions--which at that time were the original lathe-turned models with a "relief groove" around the area of the partition.

I then asked if he'd ever had any difficulties. The culling involved every size of buffalo, from calves on up to mature bulls, and Kevin said, "Never."

I then asked, "Even with frontal shots on big bulls?" He shook his head.

Have also known several other PHs who've regularly used the .30-06, 7mm Remington Magnum and .300 Winchester Magnum to kill mature buffalo bulls. In fact the 17-year-old son of my PH on a 2003 safari in Botswana's Okavango Delta was along on the hunt, partly as an apprentice. He'd recently killed his first bull with a .300 Winchester Magnum and a 180-grain Barnes TSX. It went around 75-100 yards before keeling over, after a typical heart-lung shot....

I believe that rifle was a Blaser BL 820/821/822 in 7x65R. Their mechanism was something out of a watchmakers shop and thus were too expensive to manufacture and make a decent margins on. They surface from time to time and usually nudge five figures when they do.

The first firearms article I have memories of reading was Ross’s Shooters Insight column in G&A. It had to be around ‘88-‘89 and I was 13 or 14 at the time. Ross wrote about when he first got his .577 Rigby Rising Bite and how the first time he shot it it was off of the hood of his pickup truck! Impressionable as I was, that sealed the deal to be a fan of his writing ever since!

John, when Tia, Taj & I hunted Zimbabwe 3 years ago the two PH's in our camp kept 308's as their personal hunting rifles