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.

African Outfitter Back Issues: CONTENTS - December 2006 / January 2007 - (Vol 2/1)

Norse persistence in Africa - Mauritz Coetzee

I have been told many times that we South Africans are indeed very fortunate from a hunting point of view. From Pretoria, for example, one needs to drive around 30 kilometres to hunt impala, kudu, blue wildebeest and numerous other species. The same applies to many of our cities and towns.

Imagine then, living in Norway and not being allowed to hunt with your weapon of choice, the handgun. This is the exact situation that handgun hunters like Jan-Tore Hilstad, Johnny Knutsen and Sverre Meisingseth had to deal with. Although it is indeed legal to own handguns for sporting purposes in Norway, hunting legislation prohibits hunting with a handgun.

Amongst the handgun hunting fraternity in Norway a decision was made to simply opt for the best of what is available, huntingwise, namely Africa. As the individuals returned from South Africa with success stories, more and more handgun hunters from Norway as well as Sweden decided to visit South Africa.

Jan-Tore Hilstad, alias Calibros, started his hunting trips to South Africa in 2000. Although Jan-Tore has done a lot of hunting with rifles and shotguns, his handgun hunting career actually started with a model 29 Smith & Wesson 44 Magnum revolver.

As many handgunners have found out, the S&W mod 29 revolver, although superbly finished and highly accurate, is simply not meant for heavy loads and prolonged shooting before the timing of the cylinder becomes a problem.

Due to his exposure to competition field and silhouette shooting, Jan-Tore decided to buy the well-known Freedom Arms single-action revolvers. This implies the world's strongest single action revolver in .454 Casull calibre.

During Jan-Tore's first visit in 2000, he took trophies such as impala and gemsbuck. From this first visit it became clear that the .454 Casull cartridge is capable of taking Africa's game animals with deadly efficiency if the shot is placed correctly.

Initially he and fellow handgun hunters used the open sights as supplied by the Freedoms Arms Company. For the 2005 and 2006 hunting seasons they opted for the halo optical sight as manufactured by the DOCTER riflescope company from Germany.

For the last four years, Jan-Tore and his hunting friends from Norway have hunted with professional hunter and outfitter, Gerhard Bredenkamp of Oryx Hunting Adventures. Since the number of game animals taken with handguns is generally lower compared to animals hunted with rifles, they have built up a solid understanding with Gerhard.

Within Jan-Tore's handgun hunting group there is a basic rule that applies, namely to adhere to the principle of fair chase. No hunting is done from vehicles and all game animals are tracked on foot.

I visited Jan-Tore and his friends at Gerhard's game ranch near Rust de Winter recently. On that specific Saturday afternoon I spent three very productive hours with the Norwegian hunters. What was obvious from the outset is the fact that Gerhard understands handgun hunting and the specific hunting techniques applied. During this hunting trip Jan-Tore managed to harvest a zebra after stalking it for over two hours to get within an acceptable shooting range. To achieve this they had to outsmart a herd of blesbuck and when Jan-Tore finally took the shot at the zebra they were in fact only 27 metres from the blesbuck herd.

Jan-Tore eventually killed the zebra at a distance of 82 metres with his .454 Casull. His load is quite interesting in the sense that he uses a heavy-for-calibre cast bullet. Using a modified Lyman mould a 375 grain cast bullet with no gas check is produced. This bullet is driven at an average velocity of 1 350 feet per second.

On animals like kudu, blue wildebeest and zebra, this combination gives phenomenal penetration and also an exit wound on most occasions. In this regard Jan-Tore is in total agreement with well-known handgun hunters like Ross Seyfried of America who insists on an exit wound for the sake of a proper blood trail. The effectiveness of this 385/1350 combination has also now been proved by Jan-Tore on animals such as giraffe.

I was most impressed by the pride of those Norwegian handgun hunters that showed in their ability and willingness to hunt the hard way. On the day of my visit I was given a chance to fire their Freedom Arms revolvers with their favourite loads. The accuracy was very impressive and it was quite obvious that these hunters do know how to use their weapons.

Prior to this hunting trip each hunter had fired hundreds of cartridges from different field positions to hone their skills. This type of preparation obviously paid off, since not a single animal was lost due to wounding. The entire group at Gerhard's farm also agreed that the joy and satisfaction do not lie in how many animals were taken, but rather how many animals were hunted on foot, the hard way. One can only admire such dedication to fair chase practices.

Exactly a day after our meeting, I received an e-mail from Sverre Meisingseth of Norway, a close friend of Jan-Tore. It turned out that Sverre hunted with Corris and Rod Ferreira in Zimbabwe close to Lake Kariba in pursuit of the African buffalo.

Although Sverre owns several handguns, including a .375 JDJ Thompson single shot pistol, he decided to use his Freedom Arms 454 loaded with the same bullet as used by Jan-Tore. When the moment finally came, the 378 grain bullet, also with a velocity of 1 350 feet per second, hit the buffalo bull squarely on the shoulder. As the bull turned at a distance of around 40 metres, Sverre placed the second bullet 10 cm from the first bullet's entrance hole. The bull ran exactly 65 metres and then dropped.

The deadly terminal effect of the rather slow-moving bullet surprised everybody, including the professional hunters. The one bullet the trackers managed to retrieve weighed 364 of the original 378 grains. This bullet also did massive damage to the buffalo's heart. If anything, this hunt by Sverre shows that proper bullet placement with a properly designed bullet, even if it lacks velocity, can kill quickly and efficiently.