Landed in Darwin ammo did not. Need Hornady 450/400 and/or 404 Jeffery. Tried all local stores and came up with a blank. Anyone reading this thread have any that can be purchased?

Bad news there James, no 577 NE either?

Have asked on Australian Hunting Net.

Good luck

Chris

You could try Vic Pedersen on 8927 1471 he may know someone.

Vic is a gunsmith in Darwin.

Cheers, Chris

Apparently if you head out to the SSAA range at Mickets Creek there is a shoot on and someone may know of some.

Also sent you a PM.

Good luck and good hunting,

Chris

Rockdoc and what you're doing is one of the reasons I still have faith in this forum. The infighting and hating in other areas try to drive me away.

Good luck and good hunting, Safari James.

Thanks DCS Member,

I put it to Australian Hunting Net and members there rallied too! I sent a contact who would even reload for him!

Best wishes, Chris

Absolutely incredible. If I'm ever on the same neighborhood, I'll buy you a drink or few.

Marcus

DCS Member thank you very much.

Generally forum members are like minded people with few exceptions. We see many times the support they provide. People here will go out of their way to help people in need. I am proud to be associated with the shooting and hunting fraternity as displayed by members of this and other forums like AHN.

I hope Safari James and his friends have a great safari with Graham. Hopefully he is able to use his own rifles during the hunt.

Best wishes, Chris

Sorry for the delay in responding. We are now back in Darwin after a fantastic hunt awaiting a flight to Sydney.

Ammo for the 404 Jeffery and the 450/400 was found at Lacky's Guns and Outdoor just outside of Darwin proper.

I had no issues with my .577 ammo and the two other members of the hunt had no issues with their ammo arriving (375 Flanged, 375 H&H, 450NE).

Once back on US soil our group will start a thread on hunt discussing rifles, bullet selection/performance, etc.

Epic hunt.

Hi Safari James

Glad it all worked out well.

There were a number of locals prepared to back you up with ammo.

Look forward to hearing about the hunt.

Best wishes, Chris

If travelling with someone else we will always split our ammo between each others luggage. That way if someone loses a bag he will still have half of his ammo. In the vast majority of cases half is still more than enough.

Australian shooters are great. A board member has loaded me many hundreds of rounds and sent them to the outfitter for me. To this day we've never met thogh I'd sure like to. Another picks me up and tours me around the NT, stores my ammo, takes me to the Darwin range and has offered to load as well. Our bond is as simple as fellow shooters.

The fellows on the African forum banded together last year and saved a hunt for me in Mozambique. What was interesting was it was South Africans working to save a hunt for Canadian in Mozambique. Nobody made them, it was just spontaneous good-will.

I liken some of the quibbling and quarrelling on the forums to family quarrels, or sibling rivalry. Brothers will argue, fight, compete and out-bullshit each other but when push comes to shove they have each other's back. Saeed has done us a great service by bringing us together.

Very Wonderful to hear all worked out, especially that you could
pursue the hunt with the rifles that you truly wanted to use!!!

I was actually posting for New_Guy as his ammo was lost in transit.

Yep, he and I agreed that we broke the first rule of traveling with ammo and a buddy… split up the ammo.

The good news is that we were able to locate Hornady ammo in the appropriate calibers (there is a great story here but I'll let New_Guy tell it as it's his thunder). Even better news was that his ammo case was located and flown to the airstrip at Bulman where it was retrieved.

I suppose the silver lining was that we had enough firepower in camp for anyone wanting to shoot different rifles/calibers.

At the end of the day, a great group of guys hunting together and supported by a wonderful group of hunters in the rear willing to assist in locating ammo abroad.

Thanks everyone.

I was in a bit of a panic on ammo. I always remind my clients to swap ammo in transit, but in hindsight, it would have required some explaining to Australian customs.

They were pretty "by-the-book"... checking headstamps for caliber and counting rounds to match to our ammo permits. We could have probably explained the mixing of ammo, but they would have noticed.

Thanks to Lacky's, it all worked out.

A couple different ways of handling the ammo swap are to write the permit that way in the first place, or to swap back between the baggage pickup and customs.