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Hi There,

There are two fellows and both are excellent:

1. Pete Mazur is one of the best at resurecting dead doubles and also most antique rifles and shotguns. He is an excellent craftsman and knows these beasts backwards and forward.

2. Steve Heilmann is a fellow that mant think will be in the top 5 in the world. Steve is incredible and really does not mess with double guns at all. I have had him bail me out by welding a broken forend plate. You could not tell it had been broken. This fellow has been in a wheel chair since he was 16 and his work has to be sen to be believed. I looked at a rifle he built for a customers wife that started life as a VZ 24 mauser. He cut the action, reduced the size so it would be perfect for a 222 Remington cartridge. The entire rifle was scaled down as the lady who was to use it was very, very small. I was at Steve's shop when I saw the rifle and asked what the piece cost. He replied, $ 21,000 and my jaw fell open. I can't tell you the things he did to that rifle. It had a full rib with sights that looked as though they grew out of the barrel, as did the rib. The rust blue was incredible, ( done by Pete Mazur) and the Turkish walnut stock was a 2500.000 blank that was to die for! Steve was always busy but would do certain jobs for me and always did them very quickly. I have never seen anyone who could make bolt gun feed Like Steve. I swear the one he did for me feels as though the cartridge is riding on ball bearings!

I was in Zimbabwe, near the Gonarezhou Game preserve and wanted to take a nice Buffalo. I was on a 15 day hunt and on the third day the PH said, "Lets go look for buffalo".

We parked the safari truck after the trackers had noticed fresh spoor. We had walked about one mile when all of a sudden the head tracker froze. We all did the same and he motioned me forward. As I got beside him I could see approximately 10 buffalo about 75 yards out. It was very difficult to see any horns through the scrub so we waited. In a few minutes the herd trotted off and I was told that the wind shifted and they sniffed us out.

We started after them once again and caught up with them in about 45 minutes. Christ it was hot and we were all covered with dirt and sweat. We stopped and once again i was motioned forward. As we sat trying to see if there was a decent head in the group, from my right side came an old bull feeding across our path approximately 35 yards in front of us! I froze and the PH whispered in my ear, " Take him but please make sure you don't make a bad shot at this close range". I raised my 470 and fired the old bull lunged forward and hauled ass out of there. The PH asked, " Did you gut shoot that bull "? I replied that he was dead and we walked in the diection he ran. All of a sudden we heard the familiar death bellow and the old bull was down and as we approached from the rear I gave him a final shot just for the sake of safety.

He was a very nice buff with 42" horns. I was thrilled as I could be and we all shook hands and took some pictures. The head tracker and his helper looked over the bullet wound and found that the Woodleigh solid had entered the left shoulder and exited on the right side. He returned to the area that I shot the bull and located the bullet which was on the opposite side of a small Mopane tree which it had penetrated as well! I still have that slug and I am certain that it could be reloaded and fired again.

A great hunt,as if there are any really bad ones.

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