franzfmdavis
AH fanatic
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2024
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- 989
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- Eden Prairie, Minnesota
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- USA, South Africa
Roosevelt uttered these words at the Minnesota State Fair on September 2, 1901. Two weeks later he would be the president of the United States.
Eight years later, and 19 days after his presidency ended in March 1909, he went on his first African safari during which his group collected 11,400 specimens for the Smithsonian natural history museum. It took almost a decade to catalog them all.
Among the guns Roosevelt used was his Holland & Holland Royal double rifle chambered in 500/450 3 1/4" that he had ordered the year before. This gun has become known as the 'Big Stick'.
In African Game Trails, he wrote of its first use in the field: “I pushed forward the safety of the double-barrelled Holland rifle which I was now to use for the first time on big game…. The rhino saw me and […] as he rose, I put in the right barrel […] Before he could get quite all the way round in his headlong rush to reach us, I struck him with my left-hand barrel […] Ploughing up the ground with horn and feet, the great bull rhino, still toward us, dropped just thirteen paces from where we stood.”
He went on to note: “For heavy game like rhinoceroses and buffaloes, I found that for me personally, the heavy Holland was unquestionably the proper weapon.” But, of course, the power came at a price and his son, Kermit, noted: "the recoil of the big gun was so severe that it became a standing joke as to whether we did not fear it more than a charging elephant!”
Please share a picture (and description) of your Biggest Stick!
Eight years later, and 19 days after his presidency ended in March 1909, he went on his first African safari during which his group collected 11,400 specimens for the Smithsonian natural history museum. It took almost a decade to catalog them all.
Among the guns Roosevelt used was his Holland & Holland Royal double rifle chambered in 500/450 3 1/4" that he had ordered the year before. This gun has become known as the 'Big Stick'.
In African Game Trails, he wrote of its first use in the field: “I pushed forward the safety of the double-barrelled Holland rifle which I was now to use for the first time on big game…. The rhino saw me and […] as he rose, I put in the right barrel […] Before he could get quite all the way round in his headlong rush to reach us, I struck him with my left-hand barrel […] Ploughing up the ground with horn and feet, the great bull rhino, still toward us, dropped just thirteen paces from where we stood.”
He went on to note: “For heavy game like rhinoceroses and buffaloes, I found that for me personally, the heavy Holland was unquestionably the proper weapon.” But, of course, the power came at a price and his son, Kermit, noted: "the recoil of the big gun was so severe that it became a standing joke as to whether we did not fear it more than a charging elephant!”
Please share a picture (and description) of your Biggest Stick!
