Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa YET ANOTHER DANGEROUS GAME (ELEPHANT) INCIDENT

Howdy gents, I've taken the liberty of copying this from the Accurate Reloading Forums and hopefully PH Buzz Charlton will not take umbrage at this, but I think it important to once again reiterate why they call it DANGEROUS GAME and to treat it otherwise, or attempt hunting these animals with anything but the approriate weapon you do at your own risk:

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Just a quick post to let all the folks that I have hunted with and others know the facts surrounding an incident that resulted in my main tracker Criton getting trampled by an ele bull.

� I have just returned from an elephant bull hunt where my client shot and wounded an elephant bull. It was a hard shot under very trying circumstances and my clients shot was a little high. It dropped the bull unfortunately in quite thick bush. Knowing that it was not a perfect brain shot I did a back up shot as best I could. We then followed the bull for a few hours when we reached a road where my client said that he was not feeling well enough to carry on ( I must point out right away that my client was an extremely fit and capable hunter but had been suffering from a bad case of nausea for a few days and really was not well at all. The fact that he had gone this far was a surprise to me and a credit to him.) I left him with a learner hunter for Eddy my driver to pick up and continued after the bull.

We were tracking at a very fast pace when we came up to him late evening in thick bush. He charged and I gave him a frontal brain shot at about 15 yards which had no effect on him and then proceeded to have a jam with my 416. I only just managed to jump out the way as the ele sped past me and unfortunately for Criton he had slipped on a bit of gravel and the elephant tried to trample him. It did manage to step on his waste area before I shot it off him.

Been late in the evening we got Criton to Triangle Hospital (as Mars could not fly out been dark) and have to say the service that we had there was first class. In the morning we got MARS to take him to Harare where we had the top orthopaedic surgeons on stand by. After numerous xrays and examining Criton they decide that no operation was needed as he had a broken Pelvis but that traction for several weeks was what was required. Criton has been there for 11 days now and is recovering well and is in good spirits and we expect to be hunting ele bull again together in September.

The reason I post this apart from wanting to let all my clients know, is that when there is no first hand info on an incident it often results in numerous interesting scenarios been thrown around- which is what I want to avoid. The facts are the facts and a fact that is worth pointing out is that my client was an excellent hunter and in no way did he let the side down and I look forward to hunting with him again.

Please bear in mind that I have hunted elephant solidly with Criton for over 15 years now and we have been together on well over 400 kills. I mention this only to point out that unlike your average PH that does a couple of eles a season we are constantly in the line of fire as such and law of averages means that we will get ourselves in more sticky situations then average. I have also up graded now to a 500 Jeffery Blazer which I hope will give me a bit more fire power

Better to get in front of the story IMO.

Always better to get the truth out, rather than rumor and innuendo.

Intersting that Buzz has upgraded to a Blaser in 500J !!

I've never used a Blaser, but have read some stuff that would lead me to believe that it may not the the best DG choice.

Would appreciate comments, especially in light of the "jam" mentioned.

DF

I have seen this post on another site and I commented on the "shot being made under trying circumstances" and the client suffering from nausea.
I am sure some may view my following comments insensitive but that is the problem with DG. Taking shots that might not should be tried and if a client is not fit for the job at hand. It sure sounds like the client was dehydrated which on an elephant hunt is totally possible. We really need to be honest with our selves on our ability and to pass shots if it is not right. No need to impress. The PH will have no problem getting you in a position he could make the shot from. If you cant make it say so. No need getting anyone killed. If the shot goes wrong it is the fault of who pulled the trigger. No one else.

There's board called "Blaserbuds" that is frequented by several members here, they have a decent discussion group on the rifles, the issues, and the African game. Worth looking up, I've been looking at the Blaser with the same thought of only one round in the way of DG, not sure I'm ready for that jump. JMO

I read it was a Ruger rifle. Doesn't excuse the client in all of this

Very interesting and well-stated account. I am glad to hear that Criton is on the mend with a good prognosis. (The mention of the "waste" area caught my eye and left me wondering if it was meant as "waist" or if it truly was his "waste" area that was stepped upon.) I also would be intersted in knowing the nature of the jam as well as the rifle involved.

I just noticed that the R8 in the 500 it is a two shot! ...one in the chamber and one in the magazine...

I'm not sure of the wisdom of this as a stopper...AT ALL.

It was an RSM Buzz has been using for many years and over 400 elephant kills. The issue arises from those damned FLAT NOSED bullets. They DO work better to be sure, and few (if any) gunsmiths can make them feed reliably, but I'll never use them in a bolt action. I do use them in my double though. jorge

I don't shoot a Blaser and I'm not expert in this mechanism, but had an opportunity to practice extensively with a friend before we went to Zimbabwe last year for DG. His Blaser rifle is a 375H&H and I saw several misfires from failure to chamber rounds fully. The problem was insufficiently re-sized cases, which we easily corrected and solved the problem.

The disconcerting observation was that there was no easily detected external sign that the round had failed to fully chamber. The first sign of a problem was lack of a discharge when the trigger was pulled. As I had no prior experience with Blasers, it took a couple of tries before figuring out the problem. No amount of pushing on the bolt would force the round to chamber.

Had an event like this happened in the field while facing DG, it could have created a major problem. My choice of a traditional bolt action - yes, I favor CRFs for this type of work - was re-affirmed after this experience. Just an opinion based on my own experience YMMV.

Factory loads are for people who don't have time to reload, don't know how to, or for those that dont take the time to do it right.

Human error is often explained away if we can find and excuses that sound better than taking credit for our mistakes

It's easy oh so easy, sick or not, to shoot a little high on a frontal brain shot especially if the elephant is moving toward you... and you don't need to miss by much for the shot to have little effect.

Anyone who faults the shot has never hunted elephants in the thick stuff.

That's why I wonder why some try the frontal brain shot especially if it is thick and you cannot follow up with a heart shot. Brain shots are fantastic till they don't work. I think some would be better served to send one through the heart and not take the chance. If this shot is not possible for these hunters then they should be realistic and wait Or go home without.
They call it dangerous for a reason

Glad to hear Criton is on the mend. My dream is to take my two sons hunting tuskless with Buzz. The 500 Jeffery is a sweet caliber.

As stated earlier, Buzz was using a 416 Rigby RSM. His latest video shows a jam with the same rifle on a charge. I believe that the new rifle is a Blaser S2. He had looked at other doubles including the Krieghoff and Searcy, but thought that the Blaser would suit his needs best.I killed a tuskless with Buzz in 09 and experienced a bit of illness for a few days as well. I think that the hunter's (and my own) sickness may be attributed in part to the heat, terrain and medications. I took doxycycline as an anti-malarial and was exposed to the sun way too much.

Doxy sensitized the skin to the effects of the sun and it can irritate the stomach, causing nausia. One can quickly become sunburned, even with sun blockers. It's a good antibiotic, but like most medicines, has it's own profile of problems that have to be considered. It can add insult to injury for one not acclimated to the heat and exposure. GI irritation can be a problem when one should be pushing fluids to prevent dehydration and nausia curtails the desire to drink adequate volumes of liquids.

DF

DirtFarmer

As with most antibiotics fluid intake should be increased. Dehydration would only accentuate the side effects. You hit the nail on the head when you stated "but like most medicines, has it's own profile of problems that have to be considered". Too often people take medicine without studying the information that comes with it.

This often results in secondary effects becoming problematic. I estimate fully 10% of my responses involve medication errors or effects. This may or may not have been a contributing factor. I do understand the clients desire to cowboy on in the spirit of the hunt. His desire to hold up his end of the bargain is an admireable trait, and the PH would have taken that into account.

A couple of comments:

1. If you're concerned about flat-nosed solids feeding, run all of them through your rifle before going to Africa. They feed fine in my .375 and .458 Model 70s. Sometimes they won't feed well if the feed ramp is scuffed up.

2. If your Blaser won't chamber loads, and there is no indication that they aren't chambered except that the firing pin won't set off the round, don't hunt DG with a Blaser.

3. It's easy to talk about passing up all but perfect shots. But harder to do. When the PH says shoot, you'd better shoot. I have shot one moving elephant and two running Cape buffalos.

4. If you're sick, don't hunt elephants that day.

5. It's pretty hard to get dehydrated, in my experience. The tracker carries a big supply of water in a backpack.

If it's Blaser S2, can't be 500 Jeffery but could be 500 NE. Except if Blaser do make 500 Jeffery barrel today the S2 was never offered in that caliber for evident reasons any gun loony can understand easily looking at the cartridge.

Dom