Man Magnum Jan/Feb 2022

The Covid-19 pandemic has been tough on the gun trade. At times, full lockdowns have banned gatherings and travel. Even during the ‘lighter’ restrictions, many shooters ceased to gather at shooting ranges and clubs. Likewise, many hunts were cancelled. All this resulted in lower demand for ammunition and gun-related equipment. But then an even worse problem arose: worldwide lockdowns, including the closing of harbours, stopped the inflow of ammunition and other gun products to South Africa. As demand recovered, dealers struggled to get stocks. During my lifetime, our local gun trade has been through widely differing phases. When I was a boy in the 1950s, importing was easy and gun dealers would gladly order individual rifles for customers, provided they were prepared to wait for the next ship. Practically any…

Mauser Broomhandle C96 Pistol Regarding Mr Berkemeyer’s query about a five-shot Mauser Broom-handle (C96) pistol in Letters, Nov/Dec 2021, I must start by mentioning that Mauser never made five-shot C96 pistols – only six-shot, ten-shot and 20-shot. Given that the six-shot and 10-shot pistols are easy to confuse, I can mention the following. InMarch1897, Wilcken & Ackermann, a Lourenço Marques based firm, applied for a permit to take with them to Pretoria “two C96 pistols of the 10-shot, one of the six-shot and one of the 20-shot pattern with 500 cartridges”. The permit was issued on 28 March, and on 8 April Commandant-General Piet Joubert was informed that the pistols were due to arrive in May 1897. The consignment arrived on 21 May and Wilcken & Ackermann planned to proceed…

A PAINFUL but necessary aspect of the battle against Covid is that it keeps family and friends apart. It had been over a year since I was last in the Drakensberg, and I had missed ‘chewing the fat’ about the ‘old days’ with my good friend Royce Buckle. Royce had been a professional hunter in Tanganyika, hence has many tales to tell, and I always learn something from him. Royce tells me he never discusses hunting, or his past profession, with anyone else but me, as he has too often been verbally attacked by self-righteous anti-hunters who know nothing of what life was like in wildest Africa during the 1950s and ’60s. “Many of them simply don’t believe you,” said Royce. “Their lives have been so urban and synthetic that…

THE Diamondback AM2 pistol is a compact 9mmP striker-fired polymer-framed pistol. It is a double-action-only pistol and comes with a flush fitting double stack 12-round magazine. An extended 17-round magazine also comes standard with the package. Diamondback Firearms is a US family-owned company based in Cocoa, Florida and, since 2009, has produced several compact and sub-compact pistols in .380 and 9mm. While most big gun manufacturers have released models in these two categories over the last few years, some smaller manufacturers feel there is still market space for small, light, and concealable pistols. The Diamondback AM2 pistol has an overall length of 164.8mm (Glock 19 G5: 185mm and CZ P-10C: 187mm), total width is 27.6mm with a slide width of 24.7mm. The height of the DBAM2 with the 12-round magazine…

PREPARATION for hunting involves more than the essential physical fitness. In this article I won’t include such aspects as choosing a venue, or booking the hunt after asking the landowner all the right questions – that’s an article on its own. Let’s start with the documents essential to ensure a legal hunt. I have encountered numerous cases where hunters were not aware that they were legally required to have a licence. In the Northern, Eastern and Western Cape provinces, every hunter must have a current hunting licence in his/her possession during the hunt, even when hunting on CAE (Certificate of Adequate Enclosure) properties. In the provinces that now make up what used to be the ‘old’ Transvaal, no hunting licence is required for hunting on enclosed properties (known there as…

I HAVE been a Winchester lever-action fan for as long as I can remember. I guess it all started when I was a boy watching Saturday morning cowboy films. Back then I referred to the rifles and revolvers used by my heroes simply as “cowboy guns”. I later learnt from the Buffalo Bill Annual I received every Christmas that the guns were actually Winchesters and Colts. By my late teens Buffalo Bill had been replaced by The Gun Digest and I was soon hooked by the fascinating history of firearms. Throughout my adult life I have snapped up every opportunity to shoot as many historical weapons as possible – in particular “cowboy guns”. Now, many, many years later, I have fired just about every Colt six-shooter and Winchester lever-action rifle…