African Outfitter is an independent international bimonthly publication promoting
fair hunting and ethical business practices within the hunting industry.
From a hunting perspective, the preservation of biodiversity on the
African continent is the first and foremost priority. The emphasis
is however also on the sustainable utilisation of wildlife.
In the blink of an eye - Berkeley Geer
Early in June this year I received a phone call from Berkeley. It tuned out that he had a horrific experience whilst hunting in Namibia earlier this year.
During a visit to a game ranch of his friend, Lenn de Jager, situated between Windhoek and Gobabis, his favourite Steyr Mannlicher rifle, chambered for the .308 Winchester cartridge, developed a problem on the second day of hunting.
Unable to continue with the hunt with this rifle, Lenn de Jager's neighbour offered to accompany Berkeley on the remaining time of his hunting trip. He was also willing to allow Berkeley to use his own 25-06 custom rifle.
This rifle, equipped with a heavy Walther barrel and a Musgrave RSA single shot action, was quite capable of delivering sub-minute angle groupings with the aid of a Zeis 8 x 56 scope.
A few springbok and gemsbok were taken with this rifle during the course of the next two days.
During the afternoon of 18 May Berkeley shot his last gemsbok.. Since the herd was not really spooked and a decision was made to follow the herd and try and get a shot at another gemsbok. Loading quite fast Berkeley, with his eyes on the herd, took a cartridge from the pocket of his hunting jacket and chambered the cartridge.
Slowly recovering he found himself with only a portion of the stock of the rifle in his hands. Blood was spurting from a wound on his upper lip. He can still vividly remember that his mouth was filled with blood as well. His friend, stand slightly behind him, got hit by the bolt of the rifle against the head, fortunately not sustaining any serious wounds.
Berkeley also had a wound above his mouth. The barrel of this 25-06 rifle was found about 5 meters in frond of the position Berkeley was standing when he pulled the trigger.
The top section of the RSA action was also blown off whilst only the objective bell of the Zeiss scope was found. Pieces of steel were scattered in a 30 meter radius around the position where he stood when taking the shot.
In the chamber a blown-open .308 Winchester case was found, with most of the back or web section were gone.
It is anybodies guess on what the pressure must have been when the .308 bullet made contact with the rifling of the smaller .25 calibre barrel. In my time I have also seen blown-up guns with shattered stocks, magazine boxes blown away and firmly "frozen up" botls.
The degree of destruction that went with this incident is an eye opener for any hunter or reloader. I have seen .243 cartridges fired in 30-06 rifles with the usual result of a rimless bottle neck case looking like a straightwall case after being fired in the larger 30-06 chamber.
The underlying lesson stays the same – do not carry cartridges of different calibre sizes on your body at the same time. Anybody seeing these pictures must agree on one factor, namely that Berkeley Geer is indeed fortunate to have survived this accident with the slight or minor injuries he has sustained on this 18 May 2007 in Namibia.
