A 75 year old rifle!

The large Panther stopped in his tracks and curled himself into a ball. He crouched down with his chin above his front paws, feet tucked right under him.

He had awoken from his sleep, refreshed from his previous night’s wanderings and as the evening shadows lengthened had decided to head towards the dry Chikman river where he would drink at a small pool to satisfy his thirst, waiting for it to become dark and for all human sounds to die down from the fifteen or so mud huts that made up the small Gond village about half a mile upstream. He knew an easy meal in the shape of a calf, goat or dog awaited him.

But the unfamiliar rumbling sound caused him to stop and all seven foot plus of him was now wound up like a spring, fifteen feet high and no more than ten yards from the winding dirt road. My father and a friend were at that very moment returning from the same village where he was probably headed, they had heard of the nightly sawing calls of a large panther around the village and had gone to investigate. The Leopard had already killed a few precious goats and cattle and was getting bolder!

As the open jeep turned the sharp bend in the road, my father was hurriedly tapped on the shoulder from behind, by one of our trackers who said in a low voice “jita pulli” meaning big spotted cat! His friend who was driving, stepped on the brakes and reached for his rifle. My father had by that time got out of the jeep to face the panther which was on his side of the road glaring down at them from no more than twenty feet!

The two shots came almost simultaneously. A 180 grain 30-06 bullet from my father’s friend’s rifle hit the panther at the base of the neck followed a split second later by a 300grain soft nosed Kynoch bullet behind its ear from my father’s double 375 H&H flanged magnum. The leopard’s head which was a few inches above his paws sank slowly in slow motion and came to rest on his paws, it never twitched a muscle and my father said that he had never ever seen another animal react in that way after being shot!

With that second shot came the end of the problem for the little Gond village and the end of an era for a rifle that had hunted big game for three generations in our family!

Made as one of a pair of 375 H&H Flanged Magnum double rifles in 1927 by Holland & Holland at the cost of twenty pounds sterling each, the pair of rifles was ordered by Nawab Salar Jung III. Nawab Salar Jung was a great connoisseur of art, antiques and manuscripts and even to this day the Salar Jung Museum bears his name and houses the remnants of a once great collection of rare Indian and European art and artifacts.

In those bygone days, representatives from the great houses of Holland & Holland, Purdeys, Rigby and other British gun manufacturers’ made annual trips to India where they would show off their latest models and calibers and take multiple orders from the many Maharajas and Nawabs that ruled India in those days.

This group of extraordinary men with huge personal fortunes, grand palaces, hunting lodges, entourage of servants and followers, often stables of elephants and all the time in the world on their hands definitely had every use for such fine sporting arms.

In those days the pair of guns would have been shipped to India, a long sea voyage and then travel overland over dusty roads to end their long journey in Hyderabad.

Story has it that my grand father Lakshman Reddy was having tea with Nawab Salar Jung when the rifles eventually arrived and were brought out by his personal armourer. In those day’s personal armourer’s where employed to maintain their master’s gun collections, which often numbered in the hundreds! The guns were unboxed and were given a look over. My grand father’s favorite tiger thumper at that point in time was a 500 BP hammer rifle also made by Holland and Holland. Hammer guns I guess were slowly going out of fashion and the new hammerless double rifles must have looked pretty good to him!

Whatever transpired between the two good friends thereafter has also been lost to time but my grandfather left Nawab Salar Jung’s palace with one of the pair of rifles in the trunk of his car!

In those days few sportsmen kept count or records of head of game that they shot. Tigers were regularly shot within a few hours drive of Hyderabad. I remember my father pointing out a patch of scrub jungle less than an hour’s drive from Hyderabad, where in his father’s time, three tigers were beaten out and shot one afternoon! My grand father’s personal bag included over fifty tigers and close to a hundred and fifty leopards and quite a few of these fell to the 375 double rifle.

My father shot twenty-one odd tigers and forty eight Leopards plus countless other big-game and quite a few of these were also shot with the 375! He felt the high velocity of the 375 H&H was not that effective on tiger and experienced bullets frequently breaking up! He never had access to the premium bullets we know of today and mainly used the old Kynoch ammunition.

After our father passed away, my brother and I inherited the 375 rifle and started our own hunting careers with it. Our old shikaris had a name for the rifle and called it “Pedaa Tupaki” meaning big gun, for they had great faith in it and had seen what it was capable of! With the “Pedaa Tupaki” we shot numerous head of big-game and even rabbit and fish on occasion!

The old double 375 has been used on foot, from machans on trees, from bullock carts, from tractors, jeeps, cars and even from a motorcycle in my youth! It has been carried up and down hills, rivers and swamps. It has experienced the wet, humid monsoon season, where rust comes fast worked in dusty, hot dry conditions where fine sand gets into everything and acts like sand paper. It has yet to see snow!

If the gun could speak I am sure it would have many interesting stories to tell! Of the many hunts when my grandfather and father used it to shoot tigers that will never ever be hunted again. The time when a leaky boat sank and the guns were saved from being washed away for good! Another time when my brother fired at a sloth bear but an old cartridge failed to fire, a good thing too, when he opened the gun he discovered that a hornet had built it’s solid mud nest down the right barrel!

The sun has set on the days of hunting big game in India and most of the great sportsmen and their shikaris (guides) who were privileged and fortunate to experience that golden era, have now mostly all gone to the Happy Hunting grounds and with them their stories, their trophies and their guns now scattered all over the world. In the early 70s Double rifles were worthless in India. In a spark of wisdom, my uncle exchanged our grandfather’s favorite 500 H&H double rifle for a then new pump action air gun!

The “Pedaa Tupaki” had not been used in many years and sat locked up back home in India. My brother and I also having left in search of new lives and hunting grounds! One nostalgic evening and quite a few beers later my brother and I came to the decision that we somehow had to export our rifle out of India!

A long overseas call later a good friend was given the Herculean task of trying to arrange this difficult undertaking. Guns are all licensed in India and the system is highly bureaucratic and filled with red tape especially when it comes to anything to do with firearms. A year and countless calls, pleas, threats and highs and lows later, the day finally dawned!

I got up one cold early January morning switched on my computer and typed into the Air France Cargo tracking system the tracking number of the box in which lay the old 375. The message said that the box was loaded on to the plane destined to leave Delhi in a few hours. A few hours later the updated system displayed the message that our precious cargo was finally enroute to Paris and then on to New York.

My brother and I were ecstatic; it brought both a sense of relief and joy that we would once again be joined together with our old friend. It also brought a great sense of sadness that the double barrels would never again face a tiger or look down from a hot sunny rock at a mural fish as it surfaced in the hot afternoon sun in a clear jungle pool or ever again be carried by the hands of jungle folk in the once very wild jungles of India.

Seventy five years of heavy use has taken it’s toll and there is a small crack in the heel of the stock, and the bluing and checkering has worn from being carried for countless hours on many different hunts, but it’s lovely feel, great balance and the familiarity and knowledge that it will get the job done today as it did in 1927 has never faltered once.

In these days, where guns and other material possessions are bought, sold and traded on a whim and there is little thought or sentimental attachment for the living let alone the inert, this story may not have much meaning.

But I do believe that in all of us hunters, perhaps some more than others, we still hold precious and value the stories and spirit that lie in our guns. I can truly say that the great times three generations of our family have shared with our old and trusted friend can never be equaled.

To be continued the next 25 years……………

Note: As per Holland And Holland it was completed in November 1927. Cost of manufacture 11 pounds - 18 pence, so they estimate it retailed for 20 pounds!!

Added to the ezine in Old Asian Hunting Photos and Articles - Indian Hunting Story