I have finally booked that African hunt, in case anyone is interested: 14 days in Cabo del Gado, Moz. with Tomkinson's Jason van Aarde in early September, hunting buff, sable and kudu.

Also, my Heym 88PH .450/.400 has lobbed, albeit two months late. Innocent of engraving, at least it has reasonable wood. It shoots to point with Hornady ammo and has less felt recoil than my 338 Sako, which weighs almost as much. The only trouble so far is that the forend is extremely hard to get back on, possibly because of the wood expanding in the warmer Australian weather. Hopefully it won't have to go back to Germany to get fixed.

Another thing I'm not happy about is the spares. Hearing of disastrous breakages on safari, I asked about getting two mainsprings and replacement tumblers (thinking that boxlocks still had strikers as part of the tumblers). Yes, they said, but they will cost $A700 (c. $US500). I took a deep breath and said OK.

When the rifle arrived the parts turned out to be two sidelock-type strikers with two helical return springs and two locating pins. OK, it's good to see separate strikers, expecially since this puts the tumbler axle back far enough not to threaten strength at the action angle. And yes, their diagram shows Heym use compression coil springs located with shafts so that, even if broken, they would would always work to some extent, so I probably don't need those spares.

That said, $700 for bits that can basically be turned out by robot lathes is a bit rich IMHO.

Cheers
- Paul