I apologize up front, I have tried the search function to no avail. Can someone please post a link to Kevin Robertson's story about shooting his newly acquired .505 Gibbs at Popeye the bull and starting the grass fire, please?

Sorry for the off-hand request, but I have 4 new SCI folks I'm trying to get spun up and excited out our sport. That story rocks.

TIA,

RA

I lost that in a computer crash I hope someone can post a link.

I don't have the link, but I saved it as a MicroSoft Word document. If someone can tell me how to upload it to the AR Forum and if that's legit, I will. It's a great story! I should've asked Kevin about it at SCI when he signed my book.

Regards,

Chuck

quote:

Kevin Robertson story

Apparently there were TWO brush fire stories?

There was one, about a new/young PH who acquired a 416 Rigby and 505 Gibbs from a retired or deceased neighbor in Africa. The 505 was restocked to fit. Along the way hunting with some old 505 ammo it hang fired and the recoil knocked winded him with a blow to the chest. It also started a fire, so he woke up burned and sore.

I guess this is another story, because this person is not a doctor, as far as I know? Two stores? Pointers to either/both?

fourbore,
I have read that one on the 505 bought from the widow and the shot setting fire to the grass. I thought it was in a BIG BORE magazine but have just had a look through the ones I have so it must have been in one that was leant to me some time back. Great read worth a second look if someone has the link or can upload.

Von Gruff.

Kevin told me that story in January after the Dallas Safari club show. Funny, funny story. I laughed till I cried.

I think it may have been in Sports Afield, and I'm pretty sure it's in "Africa's Most Dangerous". I haven't bought his book "It Shouldn't Happen", but I've suggested that as an upcoming Father's Day gift.

Now I am reeeeely curious.
Can anyone tell the story or find the story?

I think it is in It Shouldn't Happen but I will have to double check.

Excuse the lack of formatting.

EDIT - You guys can thank "chuck375" for it.
I just cut and pasted it into here.

Excuse the lack of photos, only 1 came through which was a picture of the gun.


505 GIBBS - TAMING THE BEAST

By Kevin Robertson

Every aspiring African Professional Hunter or Guide, especially those who will ply their trade in dangerous game country, needs a decently large calibre rifle for 'backing', 'stopping' or 'protection'. For the inexperienced, acquiring such a rifle can be a difficult task, especially in those African countries where such things are not readily available.
During the late 1980's I faced just such a dilemma. At the time I was a cattle rancher and veterinarian in north-western Mashonaland, a stones throw from the famed Zambezi valley. My 'all-round' hunting rifle was a wonderful old Brno ZG-47 in 9,3 x 62mm calibre - a rifle with which I was initially satisfied as I had successfully taken a number of buffalo with it. But as I slowly gained dangerous game experience and worked towards taking my Professional Hunters license, I realized that good as the Nine-Three is, it is simply too small to be an effective 'backup' or 'stopping' rifle. To become a fully licensed Zimbabwean PH, I needed something bigger and harder hitting and for once, the gods smiled favorably upon me.
Geel Pretorius was an elderly cattle rancher in the Karoi North area, a farming community close to where my new wife and I had settled. From solid Afrikaner stock, Geel was a hard working and resourceful man and he was good at picking my brains about veterinary matters. I enjoyed my visits to his farm for they provided me with the opportunity to practice my Afrikaans - a language which I could in those days, speak fluently. Afrikaans farmers are well known for their hospitality and my visits invariably ended up with me being invited into the farmhouse for strong Boere coffee and either milk tart or koeksisters.
Like so many of his fellow countrymen, Geel had been for the greater part of his life, an enthusiastic big game hunter and Rhodesia, the country in which he had originally chosen to make his home had offered him over the years, hunting opportunities the likes of which we later generation sportsmen can only dream about. Geel's living room was consequently filled with trophies, all of them impressive and I spent many pleasurable occasions discussing their finer points and listening to his stories of the hunt. They were enjoyable visits, and I now regret that there were not more of them, for although I did not initially know it, Gerhard's health was failing. The 'big C' soon claimed him and his passing was a blow to our small close-knit European community. With him went a wealth of knowledge about Africa , the olden days and 'the bush', and I missed him, for we had become friends.
After his death, Geel's widow stayed on to run their farm, and as she was inexperienced when it came to cattle breeding, my services were called upon frequently. It was during one such occasion when the sensitive topic of Geel's hunting rifles was brought up. In those Zimbabwean times, all firearms were individually licensed and re-licensed every three years thereafter. A classical bureaucratic red tape situation it was - and a genuine pain in the butt!
The licenses for all of Geel's hunting rifles were about to expire and his widow was concerned that her renewal applications would be refused. Would I be interested, she inquired, in purchasing Geel's Vyf-Nul-Vyf, as she called it (his Five-Oh-Five).
Is the Pope a Catholic? Can a duck swim? Do South Africans like rugby? Most definitely, yes! And before I knew it, I was holding a quality turn-bolt rifle in .505 Gibbs calibre. Build on a Brevex Magnum Mauser action by Henry Du-moulin, a well known Belgium maker, the rifle was obviously little used, and even though its stock was way too short for me, it just felt 'good' in my hands, despite its almost 5 kg weight. Skeptics may not believe in the term, 'love at first sight', but I do - for I was instantly and madly, 'in love'.

'Geel did not like the .505,' his widow explained, 'it recoiled too much.' This I could understand for he had been a small, lightly built man, and this also explained why the Dumoulin's stock was so short. 'There is a similar Dumoulin .416 Rigby - Geel had a pair made. He preferred the Rigby because it kicked less. He almost never used the .505 because of this.'
Up until that time, I had never even seen .505 Gibbs rifle or a cartridge. Sure I had read about the calibre which George Gibbs introduced way back in 1910 - what 'gun-nut' hasn't, but even so, the big, thumb thick cartridges just looked impressive and I was awe-struck by my good fortune.
'Find out what the rifle is worth, and make me an offer,' she said, 'I'm sure Geel would have wanted you to you have it. There is plenty of ammunition for it by the way, in little tin boxes of ten.'
Way back in those long ago days, the .458 Winchester Magnum ruled the 'large calibre' roost, simply because old Kynoch ammunition was difficult to find and this made rifles thus chambered unpopular. I made Geel's widow a reasonable offer, based on this fact and she graciously accepted it.
There then followed an agonizing, month-long wait while my license application was being processed (a copy of my Learner PH license was sufficient proof for this). Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, it arrived and I immediately rushed out to her farm to collect my prize.


Along with the Dumoulin came a cleaning rod, an assortment of bronze brushes and a few dozen neatly soldered tin boxes, each of which contained 10 nickel jacke-ted solid cartrid-ges. Tropical packs, I was told, the label of which stated, 'Supplied by George Gibbs, 39 Baldwin Street , Bristol '. There was even a date - 1936. Somewhat un-derstandably, I was eager to test fire my new acquisition - and coincidentally, such an opportunity arose that very afternoon.
Thelizia is the species name for a thread-like worm which lives on the outside of the eyeball on many of the cattle in Zimbabwe . They are spread by moths and continually irritate the eye. This causes a steady stream of tears which attracts the common housefly. Morixella bovis are bacteria which infest the legs of these pests and infect the eyeball when flies feed thus. The end result is 'Pink Eye' - a nasty eye infection.
'Popeye' was a white-faced Hereford cow in my cattle herd. In that part of Africa , Herefords were unpopular because their white faces attracted the moths which initiate this eye condition. I named her thus because of her bulging, poppy eyes, a condition which further encouraged the moths to settle on them as they were unprotected by the eyebrow arch. Over the years, I treated Popeye for 'Pink Eye', numerous times, but despite my best efforts she became blind. From then on, she would continually walk into and break my fences. She also developed a taste for the mielies I grew. Popeye was a problem. It was time to get rid of her and as this somewhat cut-throat decision coincided with the acquisition of my new rifle - a 'kill two birds with one stone' solution presented itself. Get rid of my problem and test-fire my new .505 Gibbs at the same time. A simple, easy and almost enjoyable solution!
Northern Zimbabwe enjoys two distinct seasons - a five month rainy summer and an even longer, bone-dry winter. Towards the end of the dry season, the heat builds up daily as summer approaches. It is also particularly windy at this time of the years and as a result, veld fires can be a very real and frightening problem.
A veld fire was however the last thing on my mind that hot and windy afternoon as I drove off in search of Popeye. In the Land Rover's gunrack lay the Dumoulin and I had already cut open one of the tin boxes to inspect its contents. Despite being some fifty years old, the Kynoch cartridges still looked shiny, almost new in fact. Their sheer size had impressed the half dozen African helpers who had fought with each other for the privilege of standing on the open back of the vehicle - so willing and ready to assist with the loading of Popeye, once she had been dispatched, in return for a share of her meat.


We found Popeye standing in one of my pastures, not where she was supposed to be and adjacent to one of my ready to be harvested mielie lands. Stopping the Land Rover a couple of hundred paces away, so as not to disturb her, I chambered one of the thumb thick cartridges and engaged the Dumoulin's flag-type safety catch.
Popeye was obviously suspicious of the proceedings and she turned towards the rustling sounds of my approach through knee high, golden brown grass. Standing thus, she presented herself in the classic, full frontal chest shot position. What an ideal opportunity for testing the .505 Gibbs's legendary penetration this now provided, and I resolved, right there and then, to make the most of it. Quickly dropping to one knee so as to be able to shoot horizontally, I sighted on the center of her chest. The metallic snick of the safety catch being released caused Popeye to lift her head out of curiosity, and as she did so, I gently squeezed the trigger.
There followed only an ominous and surprisingly loud click - and nothing else. Frustrated and somewhat embarrassed by the presence of the half dozen meat hungry observers who were watching the proceedings intently, I stood up, lowering the Dumoulin from my shoulder as I did so. But just as the recoil pad on the end of its 'far-too-short-for-me' butt was precisely positioned, fractionally below my sternum, and the muzzle was pointing safely towards the ground in front of me, there was an almighty KA-BOOM!
By my calculations, eighty four foot pounds of recoil energy then drove the heel of the Dumoulin's recoil pad up and into my solar plexus, just like an up-swinging, full power Mike Tyson body blow - while simultaneously, a meter long jet of flame erupted from the muzzle. The force of the recoil, as the stock drove up and into my solar plexus, knocked me unconscious. It evidently also knocked me right over onto my back.
I have no idea for how long I remained thus, lying on the ground, groaning, with not an ounce of breath left in my body. I eventually came round, and for a time I just lay there, gasping for breath like a fish out of water. It was the arid smell of singeing hair however - like that of smelling salts, which eventually brought me to my senses. I soon realized that it was my own hair, the hair on both my arms and legs in fact, which was being singed, for besides knocking me unconscious, the rifle's muzzle flash had also set the veld on fire! Fanned by the steady wind which was blowing, the tinder dry grass was instantly a blazing inferno and by the time I was once again compos mentis, it was too late - the veld all around me was burning strongly!


Of Popeye or the meat hungry observers whom I thought would have come to my aid, here was no sign (I later heard that they had thought that I had shot myself, and not wanting to be involved, they vanished, as only the African can.) As the flames were by that stage getting dangerously close to my precious Land Rover, I was forced to beat a hasty retreat, to save it from being burned and to get help to fight the blaze.
'Catherine the Cat', the love of my life, mother of our three beautiful daughters, matriarch to the family and a firm believer in the saying, all men are just overgrown boys with expensive toys - was not impressed!
'How was it possible?' she inquired, hands on her hips and a thunderous, 'don't mess with me' look in her pretty green eyes, 'for a grown man and a ruddy great Beast of a rifle, just to shoot a pathetic, blind and about to die of old age cow - to miss and start a veld fire instead?'
Had it been my intention, Catherine had further questioned sarcastically, to burn Popeye to death instead of shooting her? Unable to control the blaze in those conditions, the fire eventually devastated most of our 3,500 acre farm and a large portion of the mielie crop as well, causing thousands of dollars worth of damage in the process!
'Men,' she had finally declared before storming off, 'I'll just never under-stand them!'
The explanation for what had happened was of course simple. It was a classic hang-fire, from a corroded, fifty-year-old primer - but try explaining that to someone who is as mad as a hot snake and who is also a complete ignoramus when it comes to anything ballistic!
To say that my pride was hurt, would have been an understatement! How could something for which I had long dreamed, suddenly cause me so much trouble? But as they say, 'time heals all wounds.' The saucer sized bruise which quickly developed below my sternum eventually disappeared, and with the first rains of summer, the burned to a cinder veld sprung back to green and beautiful life. My cattle also did well on all the burned mielies I could not sell and was forced to feed them. More importantly however, Catherine eventually got to see the funny side of it all and we still laugh about the incident, many years later.


With the help of Peter Lynam, a good friend and reloading guru, a set of .505 dies and a Berdan primer de-capper were ordered from Fred Huntington of RCBS. I also sourced a good supply of RWS 6507 Berdan primers and a couple of boxes of 525-grain Woodleigh Weldcore soft points from Karl Cording of Rosenthal's in Windhoek , Namibia . On his lathe, Peter turned an inertia bullet puller and we were soon in the re-priming business, the process for which, while slow and laborious, is in fact, simple.
Just pull the cartridge's bullet, carefully prick and hook out the round cardboard covering cap, then gently tap out the spaghetti-like cordite sticks (all 90 grains of them), while simultaneously feeding them into the mouth of an empty .505 cartridge case. When all out, use the de-capper to remove the old and corroded primer - carefully so as not to damage the anvil. Replace the primer with a new one, seat it to the correct depth, replace all the cordite (it was all still soft and supple - a good sign) then re-insert the cardboard cover and the bullet. The final operation was to re-crimp the bullet using the press and crimping die. Simple really, and before long, my precious supply of 300 original Kynoch cartridges was all re-primed. At the time I also chronographed a sample dozen of these cartridges. At dead on 2,150 fps, ten feet beyond the muzzle, they were not even close to Kynoch's officially stated ballistics of 2,300 fps - but as I have come to learn, the olden day Brits were good at stretching the ballistic truth for all the calibre's and cartridges they produced.
Over the subsequently years it became my experience however that a 525-grain .505 calibre, nickel jacketed solid at an honest 2,150 fps is absolutely adequate for raking body or backing shots on even the biggest of bull buffalo. In fact, this is a ballistic combination which is not only surprisingly manageable, recoil wise, but one which has dropped a number of buffalo to the shot, all the way out to 150 metres in some instances, even from the Texas-end - usually to the open mouthed gapes of some highly impressed clients, I might just add!
I found that 123 grains of Du Pont IMR-4831 in new A-Square, boxer primed cases, with Federal 215 magnum primers and Woodleigh Weldcore's duplicated the cordite load's performance exactly. They too are equally impressive performers on ol' Syncerus, for side-on and frontal chest shots, and I recorded a number of one shot buffalo kills. (photo 4)
When elephant are on the menu, 130 grains of IMR-4831 and 525-grain Goodnel monometal solids gave me an honest 2,250 fps at the muzzle and all the penetration and bone breaking performance needed. To this day, I remain an absolutely dedicated .505 Gibbs man. For back-up, keep-your-client-in-one-piece work, it is surely one of the better large-bore calibres around.
Initially, I just had the Dumoulin's stock lengthened, so as to accommodate my larger than normal frame and gorilla length arms, but it was still just too Continental looking for my old fashioned tastes - with its Monte-Carlo shaped butt and too sharply angled pistol grip.


As soon as the opportunity arose, I had the Dumoulin restocked to my exact measurements. classical Rigby bolt ation style, in French walnut, with a 390mm length of pull, a longer than normal, buffalo horn tipped fore-end and a rakishly angled, semi-pistol grip for easy, over the shoulder carry.
Over the intervening two decades, the Dumoulin has done a lot of work. Some inevitable scratches have collected on the woodwork and the bluing has worn off in places, but she still shoots just fine. And so my Beast was tamed - and she remains to this day, one of the loves of my life. Long may she remain so.

Wow!

Thanks for posting!

That is the same story, extracted and saved paper and hard drive. Thanks

Makes the "case" for a smaller case for the 500's like the 500 AR, 500 Mbogo, 505 Empire, 500 MDM, 495 A2, 500 A2 ect.
Maybe a 505-458 Rigby makes sense too if you can live with 17 thou shoulders it would have by necking up 47 thou.

quote:

Originally posted by boom stick:
Wow!

Thanks for posting!

Credit where credit is due.

You guys can thank "chuck375" for it.
I just cut and pasted it into here.

Great story. I know his pain,years ago I was standing thigh deep in a pond throwing marks for a lab pup with one hand and shooting a 12 GA sxs with the other. I pulled the front trigger on a mark and the dam thing doubled. I was shooting some of the last 1 1/4 oz mag lead duck hunting loads I had left over from the previous season. It's hard butt stock hit me in the solarplex, It took every thing I had to keep standing.

JD

That is an awesome story!!!!

For more adventures check out Kevin Robertson's new book, "It Shouldn't Happen".