Innehållsförteckning för Nov/Dec 2024 från Man Magnum

MY GRANDSON, Jimmy, was growing into a thoughtful boy with a natural curiosity and a love for nature which pleased me immensely. He enjoyed camping, and the evening fireside chats invariably became question sessions. “Grandpa,” he said, “you remember a couple of years ago, I found a weaver bird’s nest and you told me how they wove them? You said nature gives them knowledge to do things that their tiny brains could never have learned. Same as the trapdoor spider’s nest we found. You said it was instinct.” “That’s right, laddie.” “Well, I told my teacher about the mud nest the swallow’s built on our veranda, and he says our swallows fly to Europe each year, then the very same pair fly back to our veranda nest the next year.…

WHEN I was still an active PH, I was somewhat addicted to hunting kudu. It didn’t really matter where, be it the Eastern Cape, or further north, in Zimbabwe. As with all forms of ethical hunting, it wasn’t only about horn length and tape measures. Rather, it was more about the overall hunting experience. A colleague of mine, well known American gun-writer and author, John Barsness, titled one of his books The Life of the Hunt. I can’t think of a more fitting way to describe a hunting experience. By way of a trip down memory lane, I’m going to journey back to about 2007 and re-live the life of an Eastern Cape kudu hunt. It was a typical Eastern Cape mid-winter morning: freezing. After making our way through the…

WERE it not for his tragic death in 1947 at the age of 42, Fletcher Jamieson would have been as prominent in African hunting history as Karamojo Bell, John ‘Pondoro’ Taylor and Harry Manners (whose books made them famous). Jamieson kept detailed journals, intending to use these as the basis for a book, and he went to great trouble to take excellent photos for illustrating it, but died before he could write it. Pondoro Taylor knew Jamieson, and struck a deal to pay him £50 for the use of some of his photos to illustrate his own book, African Rifles & Cartridges. In his book, Taylor credited Jamieson for the photos, describing him as Rhodesia’s top ivory hunter. Had he not, Jamieson would have been little known today. Jamieson died…

MICK, my husband of fifteen years, is a dedicated hunter, and while I understood this to be his passion, I never fully accepted it – until recently. I had spent some months speaking to numerous female hunters in my quest to transcribe their experiences, and this enabled me to dispel a popular myth. Hunters are not killers; they rank among the most ardent animal lovers out there. Their knowledge of wildlife and their dedication to the sport ensure that they are well versed in nature conservation and animal behaviour. You see, most hunters can think of nothing worse than injuring an animal. This ensures that they spend copious amounts of money on their rifles and time at the shooting range, perfecting what, to them, is not a hobby but a…

THIS is a welcome volume – such a book is long overdue. I have always mourned the fact that most of the early Boers’ hunting adventures are lost to us, having gone unrecorded due to illiteracy resulting from the absence of formal schooling in the interior during those times. The few historical Boer hunting experiences we do have were mostly recorded by visiting British and French writers such as Baldwin, Delegorgue, Selous and Millais, who briefly hunted with Boers and learned from them. Now, author Graeme Polson has ‘chased down’ family descendants and other sources to capture hunting tales and biographical information which he has compiled into a rich collection that is both entertaining and informative, with historically important photographs. Afrikaans and English editions of this book are separately available.…

Gen Jan Smuts In the September/October 2024 edition, the photo of SA’s forgotten leader on page 65 is that of Gen. Tobias Smuts with his Krag-Jorgensen rifle and not of the famous Gen. Jan Smuts. – Abel Bezuidenhout, Eastern Cape Gregor Woods Replies: Thank you for pointing out this error. I took the photo and the caption details from the book The Making of South Africa by Martin Meredith, which is how the error occurred. The photo appears opposite page 287 of that book, and its caption clearly reads, “General Jan Smuts”. Wanting a photo of Jan Smuts holding a rifle, I assumed the caption to be correct, and looked no further. After you pointed out the error, I found the same photo in Ron Bester’s book Boer Rifles and Carbines…

LOCALLY we are spoilt for choice with quality firearms imported from Turkey and I’ve been fortunate to enjoy memorable shooting experiences with a wide variety of these budget-priced firearms in different configurations and calibres. One such example is the Stoeger STR-9MC pistol. Stoeger celebrates 100 years in the firearms industry this year and the firm is well-known worldwide especially for their shotguns and air rifles, while their pistols have also grown a reputation for good ergonomics and reliability. And, as the firm is part of the Beretta Group it is backed by Beretta’s aftermarket service. I have shot Stoeger pistols in the past and have always been impressed by how comfortable and shootable they are. With the STR-9MC being a micro compact design, my biggest concern was whether it would…

MOST of us learned to hunt from our fathers, and they learned from their fathers, and so it goes back to the beginning of mankind. From the time when man sat around the first fires and had to hunt for survival, the tradition and skill of hunting has been passed on from father to son or daughter. There is a certain indescribable pride that a father feels when he is able to take his offspring on their first hunt. Even though the feeling can be overwhelming and even confusing for the child, I challenge you to find a photo of a dad and his child posing next to that all-important “eerste bok”, where the dad’s shirt-buttons are not under immense strain as his chest swells with pride. It was the…

IN 2023, after more than forty years of hunting with shotguns, rifles, muzzleloaders and handguns, I decided that most of my future hunting (which will take place in the wide open plains of the southern Free State) would be done with a handgun. Wanting a calibre better suited to such terrain than my Ruger Super Redhawk .44 Magnum, I purchased a second-hand Thompson Center Contender in 7-30 Waters (.30-30 Win necked down to 7mm). After some case forming and load development, I settled on a load of 30gr of IMR3031 behind a 130gr PMP soft point with a Remington large rifle primer. This load averaged 2 240fps and consistently grouped five shots in an inch at 100m. Using shooting sticks, I practised on a life-size blesbuck target out to 150m.…

Have you got local hunting on offer in 2025? Advertise for FREE in the March/April 2025 edition of MAGNUM Adverts will also be placed on the MAGNUM website at www.manmagnum.com Email your advert to huntopps@manmagnum.co.za by 15 January 2025 Adverts must > be a maximum of 30 words > include the name of the district and province > give the species available > contain full contact details - Name/Numbers/Email/Website (as appropriate) Adverts cannot be booked by telephone.…

MY OLD friend and fellow ex-PH, Neil Pretorius, told me a story of a hard desert hunt he’d had way back when he was much younger and fitter. It all started, Neil said, after reading a Magnum article by Gregor Woods who wrote of a backpack hunt he’d done in Namibia for a Hartmann’s mountain zebra – a 3-day hunt that left him utterly exhausted because it involved climbing down into a deep, waterless rocky canyon, hunting the steep, ruggedly broken canyon slopes and then carrying the skin and meat back up again, requiring three trips. Neil wanted to do the same thing, so he contacted John Wambach, the PH who had organized Greg’s hunt. After a chat, Neil, who seems to be a glutton for punishment, booked not one,…

HIGH-POWER cartridges sporting short, fat cases with very little taper and sharp shoulders are popular today. We embrace them, which is good, but sadly, in doing so, we allow a number of classic cartridges to slip into obscurity. The .22 Hornet is one such cartridge. Yet, despite its age, mild velocity and tapered, outdated case design, it refuses to die. Around 1894, Reuben Harwood increased the ballistics of the .22 WCF from 1 540fps to 1 900fps by using a 45gr bullet with duplex loads consisting of semi-smokeless and smokeless powder. He called it the Hornet, and this so-called “Harwood-Hornet” was modernized during the 1920s, first by Captain GL Wotkyns and later by Colonel Townsend Whelen. When Hercules 2400 propellant became available, it was used to push Hornet velocities up…

All prices correct at time of print. Gregor Woods Stanley Travel Mug For Christmas I’d like a Stanley Travel Mug for drinking coffee while driving. Being of stainless steel construction, it’s hence unbreakable. It requires no pouring from another flask; this 470ml mug is a vacuum flask in itself, keeping liquids hot for seven hours. It has a mechanically sealed nozzle to prevent spillage even if dropped in your lap. Simply depress a springloaded plunger with the index finger of the hand holding the mug to open a slot for sipping. Releasing pressure on the plunger re-seals the nozzle. It keeps refrigerated liquids cold for 10 hours, and iced for 30 hours. Available from about R750 at leading outdoor stores and firearm dealers. Jaco Erasmus Hawke 25MOA Scope Ring Inserts…

IN 1652, Jan van Riebeeck and other employees of the Dutch East India Company (V.O.C.) landed at the Cape to establish a victualing station for replenishing the food and water supplies of the company’s ships sailing the spice route to India. The issue of firearms at the Cape was strictly controlled – only the company’s mercenary soldiers and Free Burghers (people released from the company to farm locally) were permitted to possess firearms. Hunters and explorers brought their own firearms from Europe. No private gun dealers were permitted at the Cape – the only gunsmiths were company employees. However, war ensued between the Dutch and the English, and in 1795, England took possession of the Cape. The British garrison had its own armourers, but the now-unemployed Dutch company gunsmiths were…