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Sarg
.400 member


Reged: 20/01/07
Posts: 1365
Loc: Nil
Rhino Poachers Mauser !
      #294000 - 17/01/17 11:08 PM

I see one group of Rhino poachers had a nice old sporter !





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Homer
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Reged: 07/04/09
Posts: 3081
Loc: Canberra, Australia
Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: Sarg]
      #294007 - 18/01/17 08:04 AM

G'Day Fella's,

Looks to be/or at least was, a quality rifle.
Love those Cable Ties!

Doh!
Homer

--------------------
"Beware the Lolly Pop of Mediocrity,
Lick it Once and You Will Suck Forever"


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Maxim
.224 member


Reged: 04/06/16
Posts: 42
Loc: Michigan USA
Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: Homer]
      #294009 - 18/01/17 08:42 AM

That thing has been around the block a few times...regrettably, I ponder how many rhinos and other prize game was taken illegally with it.

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MMBA
.275 member


Reged: 12/12/15
Posts: 89
Loc: NSW Australia
Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: Maxim]
      #294015 - 18/01/17 11:56 AM

How effective would be the suppressor?

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Claydog
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Reged: 17/08/12
Posts: 934
Loc: Katherine, Northern Territory ...
Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: MMBA]
      #294018 - 18/01/17 01:21 PM

Not entirely effective, they were caught.

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Wayne59
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Reged: 20/06/15
Posts: 1219
Loc: Lagrange Ga. USA
Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: Claydog]
      #294019 - 18/01/17 02:11 PM

They should have used that Mauser on the poacher.

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MMBA
.275 member


Reged: 12/12/15
Posts: 89
Loc: NSW Australia
Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: Wayne59]
      #294030 - 18/01/17 09:45 PM

Waste of a good bullet. Use their wire snares.

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Wayne59
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Reged: 20/06/15
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Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: MMBA]
      #294043 - 19/01/17 07:57 AM

Agreed.

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Sarg
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Reged: 20/01/07
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Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: Wayne59]
      #294053 - 19/01/17 11:47 AM

This rifle was from a larger synticate, that my friends & I helped catch some of it,s members early on in the year !

Pity I missed this nice old rifle !


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Ash
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Reged: 10/05/11
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Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: Sarg]
      #294056 - 19/01/17 05:37 PM

Any idea on chambering?

--------------------
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xausa
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Reged: 07/03/07
Posts: 2037
Loc: Tennessee, USA
Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: Ash]
      #294061 - 20/01/17 02:58 AM

I wonder how many of our members have ever been up close and personal with a black rhino as I have. On my first trip to Africa in 1971 I had a license for a rhino and filled it. Back then in Kenya the problem was not finding a rhino, it was avoiding bumping into a cow rhino with a calf, which would result in an instant charge. After several days of looking for a shootable bull, I was beginning to get discouraged. I had reached the point that a 14" horn would be satisfactory.

Then our lock changed. Somehow we got word of a large bull rhino which was escaping from the Aberdares National Park by day and returning to it at night. He was encroaching on private land and chasing both the cattle and the cattle herders. A complaint had been filed with the game department and he was slated for destruction. We, of course, volunteered to do the job for them.

We reported to the ranch early the next morning and were given one of the cattle herders as a guide. He showed us the spot in the game ditch surrounding the park where the rhino was crossing over, and examination of the tracks reveled that he was already at large on the ranch. The two gun bearers and the tracker went with the herder following the tracks. I remained at the crossing point with the PH.

A short time later they returned looking very disgusted. They had found the rhino, but the herder had immediately began yelling at it and throwing stones. Nonetheless we headed out to the spot where the rhino was last seen, going down hill all the way. The Aberdares Park is located on the slopes of Mount Kenya, and the area outside it is quite steep.

The tracker was leading the way, with me immediately behind him, and as we went through an area of thick brush, suddenly the rhino appeared, looking very white against the green background. However, I could not get a shot with the tracker in the way, and he moved off down hill. We followed him for several hundred yards, flushing him several times. We rarely saw him, just heard the noise of his breaking through the underbrush.

Finally we came to a clearing composed of very hard and rocky soil. The tracker lost the track. The two gun bearers and the tracker, plus the PH spread out across the clearing, trying to pick it up again. Suddenly the PH snapped his fingers to attract our attention. Almost simultaneously there came from behind us a noise like a steam locomotive letting off steam, and as I turned toward it, found the rhino, who had circled around behind us in order to charge down hill, heading full tilt at the PH, who was slightly to my right and in front of me. He presented a fine broadside shot, which I took, aiming for the shoulder. He immediately swapped ends and started back in the direction from which he had come, giving me another broadside shot.

I was able to get off two more hurried shots aiming at his shoulder, emptying the magazine of my .505, and as I reached into my pocket for more ammunition, I saw a black arm snake around my waist, holding a handful of cartridges. My gun bearer had headed for me when the action started, instead of for the nearest tree. I was impressed.

I fired one more shot as he disappeared into the underbrush. By this time the PH had joined in with his William Evans .470NE double rifle, with no apparent effect. We stood there looking at one another, when suddenly the sweet sound of a rhino's death groan reached our ears. We followed the sound and found our rhino lying on the ground with his back toward us. Two more shots aimed at the spine with my .458 WM double rifle did not produce a movement, so we relaxed and went to examine the trophy.

To my immense gratification, the horn measured over 27", earning it a spot in Rowland Ward's Records of Big Game. A little effort rolled the body upright, and clearly revealed the bullet holes. My first shot had gone too far forward. The PH indicated that the rhino had seen me just as I fired and checked his charge, while I evidently had continued with my swing. The other two shots went directly into the shoulder, where I had aimed them, but did not hit any bones. The PH's shots were ineffectual. One grazed the horn and the other keyholed in the right buttock. My parting shot went into the left buttock, but we never determined how far it had penetrated. Anyway, the photo the reflects the happy and relieved end of a successful hunt.

The property owner was equally pleased, for in addition to having a nuisance and threat to his livestock removed, he was to receive the trophy fee normally paid to the government. He requested that it be deposited to his account in the US, a request which we were happy to comply with.

Here's the group:



On the left behind the rhino, Kheri Bhai, the PH's gun bearer, a reformed elephant poacher from a tribe, the Waliangulu, which specializes in killing elephants with bow and poisoned arrow. Next, Kaoli, my gun bearer, then the local herder. In front, Sabuni, another reformed poacher, the tracker, the only one who looks as pleased as I.

The impetus toward developing my .505 cartridge was provided by Ernest Hemingway in his story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" in which he mentions the "short, ugly, shockingly big-bored .505 Gibbs" used by the fictional PH.


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NitroXAdministrator
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Loc: Barossa Valley, South Australi...
Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: xausa]
      #294081 - 20/01/17 03:46 PM

Quote:

I wonder how many of our members have ever been up close and personal with a black rhino as I have.




I have been within say 20 feet of a black rhino in the Bubiana Conservancy of Zimbabwe in 1994. In the dark. I never saw it standing right in front of me, 20 feet across a clearing, but we could hear it stripping the branches of leaves, which attracted the attention of the PH. Who asked the tracker, "what is that, elephant?" Judea replied "No, rhino." We back tracked and got out of there quickly.

Was hunting wildebeest with my .30-06 Parker Hale. The PH had a .416 Rem Mag. If it had become aware of us and charged, can you shoot something in the dark you can't see? And if dropped, gaol sentences for us, perhaps expulsion for me.

The same black rhino bull had ealier walked past within sight of my wife waiting in the Landcruiser with another tracker. So we had confirmed exactly what it was.

***

Great story, XAUSA. I was just thinking we need more hunting stories on NE again. And how to get some going. To add to the many classic firearms, collecting and gunsmithing type threads. I enjoy good riproaring hunting adventure yarns !!!

I think you had some luck. How awful if the PH's shot had smashed the great horn instead of nicking it. Plus what a great beast when they could still be hunted and also in East Africa. Once were very numerous pests, now handfulls only thanks to poachers and wildlife areas encroachment by local peoples.

--------------------
John aka NitroX

...
Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"


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Claydog
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Reged: 17/08/12
Posts: 934
Loc: Katherine, Northern Territory ...
Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: NitroX]
      #294085 - 20/01/17 06:14 PM

Love hearing Xausa's stories and those old school photos. What a dashing figure you cut in those times Xausa. I was just being born when you hunted that Rhino.

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NitroXAdministrator
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Reged: 25/12/02
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Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: Claydog]
      #294087 - 20/01/17 06:58 PM

Quote:

Love hearing Xausa's stories and those old school photos. What a dashing figure you cut in those times Xausa. I was just being born when you hunted that Rhino.




A great asset to NE with interesting stories, firearms, photos and insights.

I found this image of one of Xausa's rhino hunts importalised in oils!



Only joking, but who wouldn't liked to have been hunting in these era's. Or even the 50's, 60's and 70's.

Clayton, I am sure in 2050 people will reminence about the good old days of the Top End of 2017 too. Got to do it, while its there.

--------------------
John aka NitroX

...
Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"


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xausa
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Reged: 07/03/07
Posts: 2037
Loc: Tennessee, USA
Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: NitroX]
      #294098 - 20/01/17 10:46 PM

One morning, on the same trip as the one described above, I was having breakfast with my PH when he asked, "Did you hear the rhino in camp last night?" I replied, with surprise, that I hadn't, and he proceeded to show me the tracks in the dust just a few feet from the dining tent. He went on to say that the camp had inadvertently been located on the rhino's normal path to water, but that only once had he had a problem with such a nocturnal visit, when a rhino took a dislike to the latrine tent and thoroughly demolished it.

I thought nothing further about it until that night, when an urgent call of nature took me to the latrine tent. I was seated there, contemplating my sins, when I suddenly heard the same steam-engine-releasing-steam sound I had heard on a previous occasion. I was completely unarmed, and the rhino was between me and my tent, so there was nothing I could do but remain where I was, hoping he would depart peacefully, which he eventually did.

I never visited the latrine tent at night unarmed again.


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Sarg
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Reged: 20/01/07
Posts: 1365
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Re: Rhino Poachers Mauser ! [Re: xausa]
      #294110 - 21/01/17 09:31 AM

Awesome story from the day, great to read Xausa & a nice Bull to !

A Black is the only one I would hunt & is really the only Rhino that should be in the Big 5

A Hippo is more dangerous than a White Rhino !

I have encounted Black Rhino many times & again last year in Kenya 3 times from the air by Ballon & Gyrocopter, also on a game drive !

One came steaming past us in Zim many years back, barely visable in the thick thorns & I asked the PH
(who was very excited to see it, as they had been reintroduced many years before in the area & never seen again) if we would shoot him in self defence ?

He said the old boy would need to have all our trackers hanging off his horn & most likely me before he would & he would still get written up !

Ash I have asked about the rifle details, evidently in this lot another Police officer was caught, in the group we caught they was SA police officer also, so far he was only put on leave from the force !!

Heck I never asked put I suppose it could be the same guy Again !


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