No this is not about their choices of trouser belt or suspenders.

Let's give Rich a hand for being the first wildcatter ever to build a rifle using the full length .416 Rigby necked to .510 caliber, the .510 Kayser Express. It is a beltless version of the .510 Wells Express.

Does anyone know of someone who beat him to it?

We still know very little about the .510 Wells history. Rich, can you help us out with any info on the .510 Wells Express, like what year it was done by Fred Wells?

You also knew J.R. Buhmiller quite well didn't you say?

According to Bob Bell, regarding Buhmiller:

'A reporter who attended the talk later wrote "John Buhmiller is a droll, small man but big with a rifle and one of the most knowledgeable persons in the US when it comes to guns and ammunition." Which shows that occasionally a newspaper story can be accurate.'

Please give us some reminiscences about Uncle John "Oom Janie" Buhmiller, who was about 62 years old when he started guiding himself in East Africa on elephant and buffalo control work, 3 months at a sojourn, many safaris ago, starting in 1955, we believe. He was still longing to return to the long grass in his eighties.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can share some knowledge here.

RIP,

thanks for the profs, although I am not sure I am worthy. John Buhmiller first came to prominence by winning the 1937 Montana Wimbledon 1,000yard match, with what was then a revolutionary design. He modified a P17 into a "Bull Pup" style, rebarreled in in 300 H&H (Buhmiller barrel, of course)and scoped it. He had all of his trophies scattered around the shop. He told me once that winning the 1,000 yard match resulted in a backlog of orders that lasted almost two years and made it possible for him to make a good living the rest of his working life. He worked in his shop about nine months a year, and hunted Buffalo and Elephant the other three...my kind of guy. He hunted almost exclusively with the .505 Gibbs for several years. He had a contact in Africa, a gunsmith that was buying .505 barrels from him, who invited him to "...hand deliver barrels". IIRC, he finally quit the Gibbs for the same reason we had twenty years ago...finding ammunition. He had issues bringing a suitable quantity into Africa, for some reason they thought it a bit odd for a hunter to bring a couple hundred rounds in every year. Some of what he bought in country was poor quality, and his order from Kynoch took eighteen months to arrive.
I think it was 1957 when he got "dragged in" to an elephant control around the Rift Wall (imagine the thrill of being asked to do that as a "freebie" on a hunt..."hey, we got a hundred extra elephants, want to shoot some...?"). He had just finished a couple of wildcat 45 caliber rifles back in Montana at his shop and this was a trial run. The first was a .450 Magnum made on a Brevex Magnum action, and the case was the .300H&H cylindrical Norma brass necked down. Necked down, not tapered like a Lott. I still have a couple boxes of the brass he gave me the last visit I made. He reworked the Brevex to hold six rounds (as does the CZ in 375H&H) so as to have a bit more firepower for the culling work. He also had the .45-378 he had done. This was adopted later by Wbee as the .460 Weatherby. John built another rifle for Wbee to test out in 1958 IIRC, and had some issues trying to get it back. This is similiar to the .500 M'bogo you came up with. Great minds DO think alike, RIP.
He was selling out, and I had taken the other .45 caliber wildcat he made up in 1959-60 back to him to have some repairs made. This rifle was an M30 he had built and took to Africa twice in the early 'sixties. John told me a rifle needed a belt, a rim, or a shoulder... He had located a source for 416 Rigby cylindrical brass, sound familiar, and had cut a reamer (btw, he made all of his own reamers)to replicate his 45-378 of a few years earlier, minus the belt. I screwed up, he had all of those rifles for sale, and homemade dies, a couple bullet swaging tools, and tons of other stuff. About what you would expect from fifty years of gunsmithing. I could have bought the rifles, other than the bullpup for less than three hundred dollars apiece.

At the time of his death it was said that he had killed more African game than any other American. That excludes expatriates like Cottar, the sixgun packing Texan who moved to Africa. Cottar is an interesting study as well, he was gored thru the thigh by a rhino that "surprised" him. He killed the rhino with a SAA in 45 Long Colt, but died less than an hour later.

He was a giant, all 5'10" and 150 pounds of him.


Rich
DRSS
Knowledge not shared is knowledge lost...

Rich,
Thanks for the reply! Holy Cow! Are you saying that Buhmiller did a .510/.416 Rigby from cylindrical .416 Rigby basic?

You really need to write a book about Buhmiller. See if you can get with Bob Bell to get access to the letters from the 50s and 60s and the "carbon copy of the diary of his fourth safari."

You would be a highly qualified biographer of "Oom Janie." I am bugging Pierre van der Walt about it too, he seems interested in researching Buhmiller. Somebody needs to write a book about John R. Buhmiller. Collaboration between you and Pierre and Bob Bell might be productive.

Please elaborate on any Buhmiller .510's if you can. This knowledge must not be lost.

Maybe the "500 Mbogo" should be called the "500 Buhmiller Mbogo?" Nope. That would be "500 BM."
I better stick with "500 Mbogo." I'm sure Oom Janie could appreciate that name, and he already has all the 500 Buhmiller and 510 Buhmiller titles sewn up.

Thanks again.

The best thing I remember seeing about
John was a picture of him and the 460
forerunner next to him, being
long enough to as tall as he
was, with a real long barrel.My
kind of guy.Ed

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:

Maybe the "500 Mbogo" should be called the "500 Buhmiller Mbogo?" Nope.

Why not call it the .500 Buhmiller? He was probably the first, obviously he deserves it - and it sounds so much better than Mbogo...

And hey, all of a sudden it is an old classic, instead of a new wildcat!

Rich, RIP,

Hope I won't be accused of highjacking a thread but I can see you like calibers that start with the number 5, but have you guys thought of doing a .495 on the Rigby case? I just read Terry Wieland's book on Dangerous Game Rifles and he talks about the .495 A-Square and its "politically correct" caliber, ie not .50 caliber +. Having a .50 caliber maximum is sort of like a ten round maximum on a handgun magazine but it would be a real bummer to have some bureaucratic genius seize your rifle at the outset of a safari. Of course you could come live in France and it wouldn't be a problem.

the .495 a2 is a .510 bullet

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:
the .495 a2 is a .510 bullet

Then Mr. Alphin seems to have a clever mind. How many TSA/Customs/Airport Security/BATF personnel would know that?

quote:

Originally posted by Wink:

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:
the .495 a2 is a .510 bullet

Then Mr. Alphin seems to have a clever mind. How many TSA/Customs/Airport Security/BATF personnel would know that?

I thought the tsa has a problem with OVER 50 cal...

maybe I need to name the 500 MAX (.500" ullet)the 495 MAX

quote:

Originally posted by Bent Fossdal:

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:

Maybe the "500 Mbogo" should be called the "500 Buhmiller Mbogo?" Nope.

Why not call it the .500 Buhmiller? He was probably the first, obviously he deserves it - and it sounds so much better than Mbogo...

And hey, all of a sudden it is an old classic, instead of a new wildcat!

Bent,
As I tried to explain:
50, 500, .510 Buhmiller's have all been spoken of before. We do not know the exact specs to duplicate one of his.

We are stuck with "500 Mbogo." Things could be worse.