Great stuff, Paul--awesome read. And kudos (kudus") about your choice of caliber--the awesome .375. Can you tell us a bit more about your Mauser rifle?
Thanks Tom,
Great minds think alike.
The rifle I use when in Namibia belongs to Khomas Hunting Safaris.
It is a Brno Model 602, with all factory standard features, such as 25” barrel, five shot magazine and set trigger.
But here at home in the U.S.A., I own the exact same make, model and caliber rifle.
Well except that, mine has a simple 4x Zeiss scope in Alaska Arms brand lever rings.
The Khomas rifle has also a Zeiss scope but, it is a 2x to 8x Dialyte model scope, in permanent rings / bases.
(I just leave it set on 4x while trekking about the bush).
Back in 2016, when searching for a true free range (not-high-fenced) hunt, I also was searching for the possibility of renting a rifle to my liking.
Today’s trendy rifles and calibers have many things about them that I do not care for.
So, listing all details of same would take even more space here than I’m cluttering up as it is.
Therefore, I will spare you and only list what sort of rifles that I prefer.
(As if anyone might give a sneeze, about one more old geezer’s rifle preferences, LoL).
Being a nostalgic “rifle grump”, I prefer Mausers and reasonable copies thereof.
Also, I am quite fond of some certain single shot rifles as well.
These include Farquarson, Martini and Ruger #1 designs, as well as Remington Rolling Block plus, Winchester High Wall and Low Wall designs.
Honorable mention goes to the Sharps falling block design, from the time of metallic cartridges (not their earlier paper cartridge design).
Anyway, the Model 98 Mauser has only seen one “improvement” since 1898, IMO.
This was the lowered “safety catch”, such as found on the World War 1 era, US Military rifles of Patterns 1914 and 1917.
Both of these rifles are fairly well thought out variations of the Model 98 Mauser.
In fact, they are large and robust enough so as to rightfully be called “Magnum Mauser” variants.
The Winchester Model 70 design “safety catch” is also quite good however noisy it may be, compared to the dead silent P14 and P17 one is.
The above mentioned “safety catch” designs work very well under a properly low mounted scope.
At any rate, I ended up booking the first time with Khomas Highland Hunting Safaris, in part due to their not-high-fenced land.
And, it was in part due to their offer to lease to me a Brno Model 602, in my favorite hunting caliber, the .375 H&H.
This enabled me to thoroughly train at home with what amounts to the same rifle that I leased for hunting.
About 15 years ago, I was treated like an unwanted step child, while passing through London / Heathrow Airport, due to traveling with a rifle.
Now, when hunting outside the USA, I just rent one.
Incidentally, even though Hawaii is officially part of the USA, their local government hates gun owners and so they way over-regulate visitors traveling to their islands with a firearm.
Therefore, I rent a rifle there as well (guided goat, sheep and pig hunting).
Last but not least, I still need to post details describing the last days of this 17 day Namibian Safari.
Likewise, I will submit more photos to either my son, DoubleLunger or, my friend and fellow Alaskan, 1dirthawker for posting.
I’m such a fossil that every time I try to post photos, I manage to muck it up.
This time I will send captions with each photo so that, Jerome won’t later have to merge my captions with my photos, after the fact.
I haven’t forgotten to finish my story but, I’ve been swamped here at home, with orher tasks.
Cheers for now,
Paul.
(Velo Dog)
!!!!!!!!!
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