20/12/07

Pigs, babes & short barrels

By Kobus Fourie

As is the tradition when my friend Tommie Calldo and I are together, we spent at least one evening round a campfire, enjoying a barbecue, the sounds of nature and each other’s company along with some interesting conversation. This particular evening we were sitting around a Leadwood fire, watching the flames slowly dancing over the wood, experiencing the wonderful smell hunters around the world share; wood smoke and the fruits of a successful hunt. With a sigh of content the ridgeback curled herself up closer to the fire, it is winter after all, oblivious to the to hunters talking, or rather…. well let’s just say at times the peace pipe was not doing the rounds. That particular evening’s conversation was about the effect of a rifle’s barrel length.

Barrel length has been discussed ‘ad nauseum’ for centuries. With the advent of black powder, which is, compared with modern propellant, quite slow burning. To get the most out of a black powder rifle, a long barrel ensured that all the powder burned while the bullet was still in the barrel, using all its energy to propel the bullet out the barrel. A long barrel also increased the sight radius, the distance between back and front sight. Very important when not using a telescopic sight. Modern nitrocellulose propellants have changed all that. Very fast burning propellant like that used for shotguns burn completely in about 12 inches of the barrel. The magnum propellant used in the big case magnums need to be slower burning, because in many instances the case is over bore capacity; meaning a big case necked down to a small caliber bullet.

The 30-378 Weatherby is a good example. The constriction of the case by necking it down is such that a fast burning propellant cannot push the expanding gasses through the neck fast enough, resulting in a pressure spike. And because of having to push the gasses through the neck as well, it needs to be slow burning. With an abundance of sighting aides, sight radius is not as important either these days. We decided that the only sure way to settle this would be to test it. Going through our gun battery’s we, between us, had three Mk III* .303 British rifles. During the course of my hunting adventures, I had already altered two of my rifles to do duty as dedicated rifles optimized for specific hunting situations. Tommie’s rifle still had a barrel in original factory condition, so no trip to the gunsmith would be necessary. (Below is a summary of the rifles)

Tommie hard at work test firing his rifle. Rifle No1 has the 24.5inch barrel and the 4-16x42 Lynx scope.

THE RIFLES:

No1: The 24.5-inch barreled rifle*.

As is the case with many of the people I know, Tommie and me began our shooting careers by starting out with the ‘kettie’ (slingshot) then graduated to a air gun then to a .22 LR, and finally to the ‘Lemetfort’ as the old hands calls the .303 Lee Enfield. The name ‘lemetfort’ is derived from the first British Lee magazine rifles used in the 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer war. Mr. James Paris Lee invented the action, and the barrel was rifled with Metford rifling. (Later changed to rifling developed at Enfield) the Boers called the rifles Lee-Metfords, but been of Dutch decent and not pronouncing the name correctly, it became ‘lemetfort’, and stayed that way even after the rifling was changed.

 As with my two rifles, Tommie’s rifle started life as a military standard MkIII SMLE (Short magazine Lee Enfield). After carrying (sweating and cursing) the heavy full-stocked rifle up many a Karoo mountain after the crafty Vaalribbok, he fitted a GRC synthetic stock and had the rifle drill and taped to accept Lynx scope mounts and rings. Apart from that, his rifle is as it left the factory.

*All barrels were measured from the front of the receiver ring to the tip of the muzzle. Chamber volume in all three rifles were measured with the same PMP case (LOT No 063), trimmed to 56.25mm, with flash hole and primer pocket uniformed and a fired CCI 200 primer. Case expansion was achieved by firing 38.0 grains of S335 behind a 174 grain HORNADY RNSP. To measure the chamber volume, we fired the above mentioned case with the abovementioned load, and filled the empty case with water and weighed it. The fired case for rifle No1 took 54.0 grains of water.

And, of coarse we had to take a break from all the hard work we were doing testing the loads. Here Tommie is firing a Martini Henry with origenal black powder loads. An experience that brought a tear to his eye.

No2: THE 19-INCH RIFLE.

This rifle stood in grandpa’s closet for many a year, its barrel shot out and rusted. Back then I was just starting my hunting career, and barely knew the muzzle from the butt. Consequently I had no idea why the rifle, when shot at a paper target printed something that resembled a pattern, not a group. And with an added misery that all the bullets tumbling on impact, leaving oblong holes in the target instead of the preferably round ones. The riffling was worn away by hundreds of corrosive primed cordite loaded rounds of ammunition been fired with the gun, and the rifle not getting cleaned properly afterwards. (Corrosive primed cartridges contain salt in the primers which attacks the metal. I have found the best way to clean the barrel is with a dedicated cleaning product. The one I use is from Parker-Hale, and is diluted with water. I prefer hot water, as it is more effective and the hot water evaporates quickly so the metal does not rust. If you have nothing at hand to clean a firearm after shooting corrosive cartridges, hot water, and plenty of it can be used.) The rifle obviously was not very accurate, and was impossible to zero, but by some miracle I did manage to shoot my first garden-raiding baboon with it. The shot was no more than 40 meters, but that wet my appetite for bigger calibers than the .22 LR, and in particular the .303 British.

I started playing around to see if I could get the rifle back in action without fitting a new barrel. Un-sized cast bullets did make neat round holes, but getting a group was not to be. Eventually I gave up on the cast bullets and had the rifle re-barreled, with a brand new barrel, and when the gun was at the gunsmith for the new barrel, I also had him fit a Harrison synthetic stock. Before I could get the full potential out of the old war-horse, I had bought a brand new CZ .308 Win, and the .303 was demoted to my bakkie rifle. (‘Bakkie’ is South African slang for a pick-up truck.)

As with so many firearm enthusiasts I just could not leave well enough alone, and after a few years, and more hunting experience, I recognized the need for a handy, lightweight rifle with adequate ballistics for use in dense brush, an ideal bush pig and bushbuck gun. First things first, so I fitted a scope and a Timney trigger. With the abovementioned ad-on’s I did get satisfactory groups (1.5 – 2 inches at 100m – plenty good enough for a gun designed to work in dense brush were the ranges are not more than halve that), and the gun did sterling work in its new form for a few months. But that 24-inch barrel keeps snagging on branches and the gun as a whole was not all that pleasant to crawl through thick riverine bush with.

After thinking long and hard about the requirements of a brush-gun, and factoring in my actual experience with that gun in dense brush, I had the barrel trimmed to 19 inches and the stock shortened by 1 inch. Eureka! Without a scope the gun seem to come alive in my hands, the rifle seem to read my thoughts, pointing in the direction I want it to point without me making any effort to point it. Muzzle blast was hardly different and the well-designed stock made the slight increase in recoil trivial. Next I had to find the perfect scope for the intended purpose. Finding a scope that could be mounted low enough, with low magnification and crosshairs that could be seen when the target is standing in deep shadows proved more difficult than expected.

Here is the two of us hard at work testing all the loads. Note the 'smoke', even though we are using modern smokeless powder. This picture was taken into the sun, and that is the only time the 'smoke' from nitro cellulose powder is visible to the naked eye.

I eventually settled for a zero magnification red dot by Lynx. The scope is lightweight, compact, and rugged and the switch is a big dial with 11 brightness settings. That big switch is very easy to find without taking your eyes of the target, and best of all it is silent. The zero magnification also allows both eyes to be open while using the scope. Now that I had the perfect scope, I still could not get it mounted low enough on top of the receiver in the conventional manner.

On the MkIII rifle the charger bridge (the part of the action that has groves to accept a 5-round charger – perfected by Herr Mauser- to reload the magazine quickly) is used to secure the back of the scope mount-base. That is unfortunately the highest part of the action, and having to secure the base on the charger bridge makes for a very high mount. So high in fact that a shooter have to lift his head from the stock slightly to get a clear sight picture. Definitely not good for fast instinctive shooting because the all important triangle between shoulder, shooting hand and cheek is broken by having to lift your head in order to look through the scope. After a lot of consideration, I had a barrel mount made utilizing the original sight-bridge, which on the MKIII rifle is halfway down the barrel, as the base and silver-soldering modified CZ ZKK series mounts in place to attach the scope. For the purists it will take a little getting used to, but I find the combination unbeatable for those closes shots in fading light at moving targets. At the end of the day this rifle comes very close to a rifle concept suggested by Jeff Cooper, and this gun is affectionately known as the ‘Scout’.

The fired case volume for rifle N02 measured 52.8grains of water

No3: THE 14-INCH BARREL

This MkIII is fitted with a new barrel, chopped to 14 inches and threaded to accept a suppressor. This gun is used mainly for game cropping near water holes and predator control near areas where regular gunshots would cause too much disturbance. All tests were done without the suppressor. The fired case volume for rifle No3 measured 53.5 grains of water.

The first day of the hunt was occupied with the very agreeable task of overindulging in Somchems product. (Somchem is the company that produces propellant for the South African armaments industry and private consumer market.) The loads we used were as follow: (WARNING! IF U DECIDES TO STOKE UP THE OLD SMOKEPOLE WITH THE FOLLOWING WITCHES BREW, TAKE CARE. A GOOD LOADING MANUAL WILL SHOW THE WAY, SO RATHER START THERE. I/WE ACCEPT NO RESPOSIBILITY FOR THESE LOADS!)

THE SCOPES

Rifle no1 was fitted with a Lynx 4-16 x 42, with parallax adjustment. This scope is a dedicated target scope and proved the most user friendly of the three, in terms of target work (fine crosshairs for precise placement)

Rifle no2 is carrying the red dot, almost unbeatable in dense bush, but nearly useless for target work. With a three moa dot that has no clearly defined border, it was very difficult to place the dot consecutively on the same place on the target, even at 25 meters.

No3 is toped with a Tasco 4 x 40.

ACCURACY

Since such a wide verity of loads, travailing at a wide spectrum of velocities would be tested, we decided to compare accuracy at 25 meters. After all, the purpose of the test is to compare the difference in velocity between barrel lengths. Since no useful advantage or disadvantage other than handling, which is different from person to person anyway, and velocity can be gained from a different barrel length, we focus on velocity only.

Bullet velocity may not be a factor to loose sleep over in a brush-gun, and in mediocre caliber such as a .303 British at that, but the results would be comparable in ballistically similar calibers. (None magnums (with maybe a few exceptions) using medium burning propellants in a average size case – 6.5x52 Carcano to .375 H&H mag) None of the loads tested were developed for accuracy, so the groups that were shot should be seen only as a rough guide (and even then it is not to say your rifle will not love a load ours hated) for that particular load’s potential.

The view from the target side. I 'killed a crony before, so now I make sure the bullet pass over the screen way above the sensors.

With the crony 2 meters from the bench the results is as follow.

As can be seen from the data we were in for a few surprises. The velocity of both monolithics (GS custom and Rhino) was higher in the 19-inch barrel than in the long barrel, probably because the 19-inch barrel is new. As for the 180 gr. Sierra all I can think of is a big bearing surface that produced higher pressures in the tighter new barrel. The first load assembled with the 180gr Lyman cast bullet is a sub-sonic loading used with the silencer. The propellant used for that load is S265, a faster burning propellant than the S335 used for the rest of the loads.

As can be seem from the above table, two 7.65 handgun bullets were tested (Hornady’s .32 100gr XTP bullets work extremely well, but none could be found for the test) one were tested without a case filler (cf) the other with. In all the rifles, the load with case filler gave higher velocities, but only the 19-inch barrel shot a tighter group with it.

Cleaning the gun between different bullets. We started each new bullet using a clean cold rifle before firing the test rounds.

As can be seen from the data that we collected, none of the loads gave a consistent drop in velocity between deferent barrel lengths. Velocity dropped more from the 19 inch to the 14 inch than it did from 24.5 to 19 inch. With the randomly assembled loads the 14-inch barrel did the best accuracy wise, perhaps pure coincidence or maybe barrel stiffens played a part. The grouping shot with the 174 Hornady, 180 Sierra and 215 Rhino (in the 14-inch) are no indication of accuracy potential, as the scope mounts loosened during their test. As can be seen each rifle had a taste for a certain bullet, but the 215gr Woodleighs performed well in all three guns, and would be my choice for a hunting load.

A real surprise was the 123gr Hornady, these bullets are designed for the 7.62X39 cartridge and have a .310” diameter, .002 inches under the recommended .312 diameter for a .303, but still produced very good groups. Perhaps the .303 with the 123 grainers could be pressed into service as a varminter if nothing else is at hand.

To conclude our findings; A short rifle gives u the advantage of being lighter, handles easier and the deference in velocity is negligible. In fact the slightly lower velocities will give less meat damage. In this case the saying “horses for courses” holds very true. For certain types of hunting and for people of small stature a short barrel will be very useful. For more open country, or in faster calibers, the longer barrels would be more useful.

With all our tests completed, velocities noted and targets measured, we opted for an early evening. Looking forward to tomorrow’s early wake up, the quiver down your spine as you lace up the hunting boots, the promise of a beautiful day spent in the company of Mother Nature.

THE HUNT.

Since the 19 inch-barreled rifles is such an ideal rifle for people of small stature and women, we decided to invite Miss Clara Opperman to do the hunting part. The dimensions of the rifle made it easy for her to handle and aim without leaning back as woman have to do with regular rifles. In short, the ‘scout’ fitted her perfectly. After having to do some date shifting to fit our hunt into our schedules, the day finally arrived when the four of us came together on my farm for the weekend. Groenfontein was the farm I owned at the time, and it is situated in a area known as the Waterberg near Nylstroom in the Limpopo province of South Africa. Our party consisted of Tommie, Clara, Tommie’s sister, Martie and I. Clara had hunted a few springbuck in the Free State, but never hunted in the bushveld before, so naturally she jumped at the opportunity and was quite excited to hunt her first warthog.

Clara with the 'scout'. The rifle is very short and handy, and she enjoyed shooting it.

Neither graceful nor beautiful, warthogs are however, remarkable animals. They are found in most of Africa south of the Sahara and are widely distributed in East Africa. They are the only pigs able to live in areas without water for several months of the year. By tolerating a higher-than-normal body temperature, the warthog is perhaps able to conserve moisture inside its body that might otherwise be used for cooling.

 Warthog (Phacochoerus aethiopicus) is a member of the pig family; it has a naked skin with sparse, long bristles. A characteristic feature of Warthogs is the protruding curved tusks, which in boars grow into formidable weapons. The warthog's large tusks are unusual; The two upper ones emerge from the sides of the snout to form a semicircle; the lower tusks at the base of the uppers are worn to a sharp cutting edge. These tusks are used to dig up roots, which all Warthog relish.

Boars stand 680mm high and weigh 80 Kg. Sows are smaller at a height of 600mm and an average mass of 57 Kg. Wart like tubercles on the large, flat head is another distinctive feature of this animal, and can be used to determine the sex of the warthog. Males have 4 ‘warts’, while females have only 2.  A tuft of hair at the end of the thin tail is very visible when the tail is held erect during running.

They feed mainly on grass and roots, but also take bulbs, fruits, carrion, insects, scorpions, earthworms, centipedes and bones. Mating takes place during May and June and three to four piglets are born during October to December, after a gestation period of 175 days. Young are weaned at three months and sexual activity is commenced at 18 months, occasionally as early as 6 months. Warthogs are day animals and spend most of their time looking for food. They are normally found in family groups. Warthogs have the peculiar habit of kneeling on the front knees while feeding and foraging in a localised area.

They shelter in burrows at night, which they enter tail first. Socially, three main groups are encountered, namely solitary boars, bachelor groups and matriarchal groups. Matriarchal groups consist of adult sows with their young and yearlings. Boars play no part in rearing piglets and seldom associate with sows outside the mating process. Promiscuous, both sexes will mate with more than one partner. Warthog can frequently be found at waterholes where they dig in the marsh and wallow in the mud with obvious enthusiasm. Warthogs have a wide habitat tolerance, although its distribution range shows a strong correlation with open woodland savannahs.  

Warthogs are widely distributed, and presently not threatened in South Africa. They still occur naturally on farms throughout the range, and are being re-introduced into the areas where they have become locally extinct. They are also found in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, Kenya, Zambia and Tanzania. The young may be taken by Eagles and Jackal with Lion, Hyena, Cheetah, Leopard and Crocodile being the main enemies of the adults. A warthog’s hoofs are narrower than those of Bush pigs, and the dew claws usually mark clearly in the spoor.

Clara and one of my Ridgebacks. The other one never left my side. In the background is the low hill were the Warthog had their burrows.

The morning was clear with a light, but slightly chilly breeze from the north, the kind of crisp clean refreshing air that makes your nose burn slightly when you inhale deeply. We were walking in single file, me in front with my two Ridgebacks beside me. When the excitement of the hunt would cause the dogs to stray from my side, a soft tap on the thigh and with a point of my finger they would fall in beside me again. Clara followed, the rifle comfortably cradled in the crook of her arm, at the back Tommie and his sister completed a picture almost as old as the Dark Continent itself; A hunting party walking in a single file towards their prey. A few paces to our right a francolin, perched on top of a dried Wild Seringa tree, signaled the start of a new day.

We were after warthog, preferably a big old porker. In the chamber of the .303 Clara carried, a 215gr Woodleigh in front of 36gr’s of S335, waiting to endow her life with an unforgettable experience when the time come. The previous day, after we finished the load testing, she fired a few shots to familiarize herself with the rifle. These were fired mostly from the offhand position, and had any hogs had a look at the targets they would be boarding a transatlantic flight by now.

We slowly made our way towards the fountain at the lower corner of the farm, but found only signs of yesterdays’ root dinner. We spend a few minutes observing two grey duiker nibble on their chosen delicacies before they spotted us and ambled of through the dew covered grass to continue their breakfast at a safe distance from the strange looking two-legged creatures. 

Martie on the Land Rover before the afternoon hunt. Who says hunting is only a 'man' thing.

I was beginning to wonder if we had offended Lady Luck in any way, for up to that point we saw no warthog at all. Maybe the wonderful smell of wet grass, dew-covered wood and crisp birdcalls led our minds far away from warthog. But as is so often the case in the veld, as soon as u relaxes you almost bump into the animal you are looking for. The human snake lazily made its way up a dusty two-track road flanked by some fairly dense bush to the right. Suddenly movement to my left caused me to kneel down and signaled the others to do likewise. Barely fifteen paces away a warthog sensed something and lifted its head, still chewing a mouthful of grass.

Poor Clara found herself in a tricky position. Between her and the pig was a dense stand of thatch grass, too high to shoot over from the kneeling position and too low to hide her if she stood up. No matter how careful and slow she moved to get into a better position, the pig was simply to close and with a surprised expression grunted once before running off. Well, no hog this morning, but at least we had a good chuckle at the expression on the pig’s face. Time to head home for a well-deserved siesta; the afternoon will bring new opportunities.

In the afternoon the breeze picked up a little and was now blowing from a southerly direction. A short drive in the Land Rover took us to the northeastern part of the farm to hunt with the wind angling into us. After parking the Rover in the shade of a big African wattle, we walked into the breeze, next to a thick strip of sickelbush, near the place were we had our encounter with the pig that morning, when we spotted five pigs feeding in a grassland to our left. Now Clara was on her own, with a slight tremble in her hands she eased forward to within 45m from the feeding pigs, still blissfully unaware of the approaching danger. With practiced ease she gently moved the safety to the off position, rises slowly into a standing position, shouldered the rifle and fired. The bore was on its front knees, facing to her right, quartering away slightly. At the sound of the shot all the pigs fled into the grassland to our left.

As the pigs stampeded through the grass we noticed the bore was not running with its tail in the air, a sure sign that the Woodleigh found its mark. We continued to watch the pigs, but lost sight of then in the long grass, fortunately before the bore passed from sight he passed a small sweet thorn, which we duly marked. The Ridgebacks took the spoor, but turned to the mountain on the right, instead of to the left, the direction the pigs ran before they disappeared. (I thought my dogs were intoxicated after they had been chewing on some fermented marulas when I was not looking; how else could I explain their apparent loss in direction). As we walked to the marked tree, we came across the first drop of blood 20m from it.

Having lost complete faith in my dogs, I decided to do the tracking himself. For the first 30 meters or so I thought my dogs had gone mad for the blood trail went in the direction the pigs last ran, but suddenly the tracks turned towards the mountain. At first the trail was easy to follow, but after 800m the drops of blood became mere specks, slowing down our progress considerably. Having lost the spoor twice we decided to leapfrog ahead to a road, hoping to pick up the tracks as it crossed the red dust in the barren soil on the road. Having reached the road I could only laugh (and made a silent apology to my dogs) as the dog-tracks was on top of the tracks made by the wounded hog where they crossed the road. By now the blood had disappeared almost completely, and had the warthog not fled in the well used game track, the going would have been mighty tough. We caught up with the dogs were the warthogs tracks crossed fresh kudu tracks, confusing them.

The end of the hunt. The 'warts' on this young bore is not very big, but you can make out one at the end of the brown stripe running down from its eye, and the other 'wart between and below the eye and ear.

With the Waterberg already cutting the belly of the setting sun we knew our time was running out fast. Knowing the farm, I had a gut feeling that the bore was heading for some burrows close to where we lost the spoor. The burrow was next to a road that ran along the foot of the mountain, so with no time to loose we headed for the Land Rover, hoping to reach the burrows before nightfall. Rattling along at breakneck speed we were able to reach the burrows just in time. We searched the approaches to the burrows, but found nothing. Surprisingly we found no obvious tracks heading towards the hole, as we were about to head home we found the only sign, seven inches from the ground, on a tree, 8 paces from the hole was a tiny spec of blood. The pig was inside for sure. We were grateful for the chance to end the warthog’s misery, and after clearing the entrance of all tracks, we decide on an ambush at first light to end the hunt.

At six (in the winter, it is still dark at 6) the next morning we were on our posts, shivering in the freezing morning air. I positioned myself 20m from the burrow, sitting on the trunk of a fallen Buffalo thorn, the ‘scout’ resting on my lap. Tommie was to my left, covering the road with a scoped .308 rifle. We planed the ambush carefully, each sitting under a prominent tree to prevent one shooting in the other’s direction.

As the first sliver of red peaked over the horizon, Tommie and I longed for a cup of steaming hot coffee to chase away the stiffness bought about by the chilly breeze. Apart from an inquisitive young duiker ram and two flocks of Queleas flying over at treetop level, nothing moved. Shortly after seven we reasoned that the pig would have came out by now, and crept forward to investigate the burrows. I was sickened by the fading hope of ever finding the bore again. As a last measure we swept the surroundings in the hope that we would find a sign of the warthog, founding nothing we moved to the burrows to see if his tracks came out. It was when Tommie moved to one of the seldom used holes that he gaped in amazement; ‘buurman! Die vark sal nooit hier uitkom nie, hy is klaar dood.’ (My friend, the pig will never come out of this hole. It’s dead already) the pig lay in the entrance to one of the holes, stone dead. It was either pushed out, or crawled out by itself during the night for there was no sign of it the previous night. The warthog was ice-cold and rigger mortise had set in, so it must have been outside for at least halve the night.

Clara watching Tommie 'cape' the Warthog. 'Cape' is the word we use to describe the method of skinning the animal in such a way that the skin can be tanned for mounting as a trophy.

Clara were smiling again, not pulling of a one shot kill and not knowing if we would be able to find the wounded warthog bothered her quite a bit. Her shot went a bit low, entering midway, hitting the lower corner of the left lung before exiting on the left shoulder, breaking the bone. The exit wound measured 9mm, obviously not enough resistance for the super tough 215gr Woodleigh. The small exit wound, combined with most of the blood going into the chest cavity instead of to the outside, made tracking very difficult.

Clara eagerly helped Tommie to skin the warthog, observing with interest the position of the vital organs. No doubt it will go into her memory for future reference. That night, as we sit around the fire, discussing the hunt it was clear she learned two valuable lessons; firstly, shot placement is the most important part of shooting at an animal, and secondly never give up hope, go the extra mile, your efforts will be rewarded. I smiled and thought to myself, our hunting grounds is a richer place with a lady hunter like that in our midst.

One of the most beautiful trees in the Bushveld. A wild seringa (Burkea africana), highlighted with a spotlight during a night 'game drive' on the farm.