American Hunter Killed in Uganda

[Hunting Hitman]

A man is dead and a prominent young PH with a family is in the hospital. And all @Ontario Hunter can do is talk about himself.

It’s truly remarkable how out of touch his is.

I hit ignore on him at the beginning of the year and my Africa Hunting experience has been better because of it.

HH

 

[IvW]

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.

4 slugs not 3.......

 

[pilar]

A man is dead and a prominent young PH with a family is in the hospital. And all @Ontario Hunter can do is talk about himself.

It’s truly remarkable how out of touch he is.

He’s only been getting warmed up about that 404J and bolt shroud. And songs are written about these epic post

 

[Ontario Hunter]

4 slugs not 3.......

That's what is implied in the official report. They're also reporting the client shot the buffalo first and wounded it with a rifle that would have been inoperable. The report also says the PH shot it three times, the last shot being after he found his rifle while nearly fataly wounded with a ruptured diaphragm and collapsed lung. The first shot at the buffalo by client was not possible with a gun that had a detached bolt shroud. Therefore 4 - 1 = 3.

Another possible scenario: The client's gun was operational and he did wound the buffalo with the first shot. On followup the PH was unable to stop the charging bull before it hit them. It happens. The story about the shroud laying on the ground was fabricated to put this partly if not entirely on the client. Shooting buffalo, or anything else, with a gun that has detached shroud does not happen.

 

[pilar]

That's what is implied in the official report. And they're also reporting the client shot the buffalo first first and wounded it with a rifle that would have been inoperable. The report also says the PH shot it three times, the last shot being after he found his rifle while nearly fataly wounded with a ruptured diaphragm and collapsed lung. The first shot at the buffalo by client was not possible with a gun that had a detached bolt shroud. Therefore 4 - 1 = 3.

I guess I keep on rambling
I'm gonna, yeah, yeah, yeah
Sing my song (I gotta find my 404j )
I gotta ramble on, sing my song
Gotta work my way around the world baby, baby
Ramble on, yeah
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, my baby
Doo, doo, doo, doo
Doodoo doodoo doodoo doodoo doodoo

 

[jbirdwell]

Prayers to all involved

 

[1Birddog!]

How did that gun ever fire in the first place if the shroud wasn't screwed in? Something really doesn't make sense with that story.

Okay, I pulled out my 98 Mauser to see if I could replicate what happened. Didn't think it was possible. I was wrong. Maybe. Here's what happened, almost certainly. Someone was reassembling the bolt the night before and only started screwing on the bolt shroud when distracted (drunk?). The bolt can be closed with safety in position two and shroud only just started to thread onto the bolt. The firing pin was not released to store it overnight (not uncommon). Had it been released,, the error would have been discovered (shroud would come off the bolt). Mr Cox loaded the gun next day while safety still in position two (which position is required to reassemble the bolt). Then he pushed safety back to full safe for the stalk (so bolt is locked). But when the safety was disengaged, the striker was released and the gun fired prematurely, probably causing poor location of shot and wounding the buffalo. This "could have" happened because disengaging the safety not only releases the striker, it also causes the barely attached shroud to come off the bolt. The possible problems with this theory are 1) if the shroud comes loose from the bolt would the firing pin have enough energy to dent the primer sufficient to detonate? The striker spring jumps backwards so there would be little forward energy applied to firing pin. And 2) would the firing pin even reach the primer? I am tempted to load an empty case with just a primer and test my hypothesis. But I live in town so testing with detonating primers is not a good idea. As soon as Mr Cox attempted to cycle a followup shot the striker and shroud probably fell out of the gun. But maybe not. That I can test without alarming my neighbors. Let's see ... no, the striker, spring, and shroud almost certainly stayed with the bolt but unattached. So unless he deliberately looked at the gun when reloading (unlikely) he would be unaware the shroud was dangling loose and inoperable when he got on the sticks for the kill shot. The buffalo knocked the loose shroud and striker out of the gun and they became separated on the ground because they were no longer threaded together ... because they were barely threaded when the bolt was reassembled.

The question that is paramount to the official investigation is was Mr Cox hunting with his own gun? His family can answer that question. If not, then I think the blame belongs elsewhere. No outfitter would allow a client to completely disassemble a camp rifle. That would be delegated to an employee. Or it SHOULD be delegated to staff.

Excellent analysis.

 

[Tanner Lee]

I will keep all those involved in my prayers tragic situation.

 

[RedTag]

We don’t seem to know what kind of rifle the client was using. Some bolts are designed for easy disassembly and re-assembly in the field (quite important if you get underwater!) while others are most certainly not. I would agree that daily habitual disassembly is generally unwarranted. I would like to learn more details before commenting further.

 

[LivingTheDream]

I hit ignore on him at the beginning of the year and my Africa Hunting experience has been better because of it.

HH

Great minds, with a similar outcome.

 

[Lancaster]

Great minds, with a similar outcome.

Yes, finding that 'ignore' button (under their name/avatar) and applying it to him was the difference between me staying and leaving this forum

 

[Denvir Tire]

I also have deployed the ignore function for OH