I don't believe the official report and consequently I don't see how we can learn much from this tragedy. It is virtually impossible for any rifle I've ever seen to successfully fire a round and then moments later fail to fire and somehow lose its bolt shroud and striker. A buffalo could dance for a half hour on my 404 Mauser and the shroud would never come off the bolt if I'd just put a bullet in him with the gun. I don't believe Mr Cox was shooting a Gunwerks rifle or similar mutant. Watching the company's promotional video I don't see a detachable shroud, only a striker unit. If the bolt somehow became disembowelled, there would only be one piece laying on the ground, not two as described in the report. I'm not sure Gunwerks even has a shroud. Clearly, someone failed to reassemble the bolt properly. If it was a Mauser or CRF clone with 3-position safety, which seems the most likely candidate, and the bolt was reassembled on safety position 2 (necessary for reassembly) without threading the shroud onto the bolt, the rifle could still be loaded without knowing the bolt assembly was inoperable. The safety could then be fully engaged to lock the bolt, again without any indication the shroud was not properly threaded and the rifle inoperable. Mr Cox could have carried his rifle this way for hours without knowing it could not be fired. At this point the story goes awry. The quarry is spotted and stalked to shooting distance which as we all know is typically VERY close. Supposedly Mr Cox then gets on the sticks and wounds the bull. Sorry, but that just didn't happen. It could not happen. Not with a rifle that had a bolt shroud that was essentially detached. My theory is the client attempted to fire and the shroud became fully detached when the safety was disengaged. Perhaps the client had instructed PH he would only pay for a buff that he personally killed. The PH is exclaiming "Shoot! Shoot!" Confused client utters all kinds of expletives and frantically recycles the action thinking he had a dud round. PH holds off shooting because he hears and/or sees the client successfully reload (detached shroud would not interfere with cycling). The racket unnerved the buffalo and it charged. After client reloads twice and fails to fire, the PH finally shoots but not in time to put the bull down before it's on them. Unknown what the armed soldier was doing through this. I think I can guess. Bull clobbers the client and the detached shroud and striker slide out of the bolt. I would bet money that buffalo has three slugs in it ... all from the PH's rifle.
Why was the gun not reassembled properly? It is hard for me to believe anyone in command of his faculties who repeatedly disassembles his rifle every night as the report claims, would somehow fail to reattach the bolt shroud properly. There again the story becomes unbelievable. I wonder if we will ever know what actually happened.
