After the elephants, Dudley loaded us up on his airplane and we took off for the Matetsi. I had 5 buffalo on quota there, 1 bull left, and 5 cows. Cow buffalo are just as dangerous as the bulls, just not quite as big. I was testing bullets, and bullets do not know the difference either..... I was hunting with a PH I did not know and had not hunted with before. Ross Johnston. Ross was waiting for us as we landed on the dirt strip. 2007 was a hard year for the folks in Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe and sanctions was rough on everyone, diesel fuel was in short supply, grocery shelves empty, even a coke was hard to come by. But the camp at Matetsi had done good on supplies and we managed to get by.
We set out that next morning in search of buffalo. We found them, plenty of them. We were on a big herd, must have been 50 or more animals. We were in no hurry for the bull, so decided to see if we could get a nice cow out of the way first thing. There was this one cow, and it was behind the only bush in sight! There was a woods line, and then large open area, and damn this one big cow was behind the only piece of brush in sight. Was not big brush, but the cow was directly behind it. I did not shoot, Ross said shoot, it will go threw it. And back and forth we went, Me, No, him Yes, finally I said OK and dropped the hammer! Buffalo bucks up, runs, gets mixed in the herd, can't tell one from another, and off they go, no second shot! NOT GOOD. Did not like that brush.
We tracked and tracked, and did not find anything but a drop of blood here and there, and not good blood, dark ugly meat blood! Not bright lung or heart blood! Crap! We left, came back later that evening hoping to try and sort something out. We decided to split up to see if we could cover more area that way, run across a track or trail. I followed the herd, Ross took off to the right thinking maybe the buffalo turned out of the herd at some point to lay up. Probably a couple of hundred yards up I also turned into the wooded area to take a look when I heard Ross's 375 HH fire. He was carrying a POS CZ in 375 HH..... Could not be much worse. I took off running in his direction where he was holding the buffalo at bay, he had ran across it, it had jumped up and charged him. He hit it in the nose with the 375 and it stopped, his gun jammed. I threw up the 50 and hammered it to the dirt, end of story....... Except we saw what had happened with the first shot. First shot had hit that brush, turned sideways and hit the animal too far back. Brush!
2007 was also the year I had a heart attack! That was in July that year, we were now hunting Zimbabwe in October. My Wife had told Ross about this, in case I had any issues I suppose. I carried Nitro in my pocket. She was concerned. Now Ross had this in the back of his mind.
We got on another big cow buffalo. Little far out for my taste, about 60-70 yards. I was ahead of the group, and the buffalo was facing me frontal. I took what I thought was a easy shot. Now I work a rifle hard, when I am loading another round in, I am snatching the living hell out of the bolt, no way I could ever short stroke a bolt gun! Remember the bolt stop issue I mentioned on this gun before leaving on this trip? Well, it had worked perfectly up until now. I snatched that bolt back HARD, and it flew out of the gun in my right hand, and gun in my left hand. My arm came back so damn far, it felt like it was going to tear out my right side, pulling muscles and such. I went down, probably did some squalling as well! HEH......... They came running up, Ross started digging through my pockets, I looked at him like he was crazy as hell and said "WTF are you doing?"....... to which he replied he was looking for the Nitro to give me a pill! I said I don't need a damn pill get off me! Then I told them what happened, I still had rifle in left hand and bolt in right hand, and explained the situation. They were releived, and had thought I was having a damn heart attack.... HEH HEH.............
Went up to where the buffalo was standing, and I saw a damn stick about a 1.5 inches thick, that had a nick shot out of it! It was 10-12 feet in front of the buffalo when I shot, and of course I had to hit the damn thing! Not a drop of blood was ever found, and all we could decipher was the stick I hit had thrown the bullet, missing the buffalo completely!
Put the bolt back in the gun, and tried every way in the world to get it to come back out, snatching hell out of it, but it never came out again for the rest of the trip..............
I took care of the quota fairly quick, one buffalo a day........ Ended up with a really good bull too. Close, about 20 yards and he dropped to the shot, never moved again. I was very pleased with this. All the bullets I had tried were good. Nothing was failure, but I still felt like there was room for improvement in some areas. When we got home, I sent the rifle back to Brian at SSK, he put a new bolt stop in. I removed the scope, and saw immediately what the problem was, that 1/4 inch too far back in the rings. Solved that problem. Also solved the gun issue with the bolt stop. But, I retired that rifle after that hunt. There was zero reason to have a 20 inch 50 B&M. I gave the rifle to my son Matthew and its in his rack at home now. He does not mess with it much, but I think he is just keeping it because I shot two elephants and 5 buffalo with it. He much prefers his 50 B&M Super Short.
I took 50 B&Ms out a few more times on various hunts, took one to Alaska and found the rifle does extremely well on bear................
And then in 2008 I had it when I took the boys to South Africa............ After this, I started using some of the other B&M rifles which needed field time...... Including the big 500 MDM................
It was on this trip that I got my BIG FIVE completed, Rhino! Well, as far as I was concerned anyway. I actually DID NOT PULL THE TRIGGER on this. It was just a SHOW.... for the Photo. In fact, I made sure the gun was completely EMPTY so I would not be tempted, and I could not make a mistake, Rhino were extremely Expensive, I did not want to spend that dime! I figure this photo shows I COULD HAVE, and that will have to do as my BIG FIVE.................. HEH HEH......... and it was damn CHEAP too! Didn't cost a thing............