Classic Rifle Setups Are Still Great For Hunting

During World War II, an aeronautical engineer working at Lockheed named Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, developed what he called the K.I.S.S. principle. It was intended as an admonishment to his team of brainiacs to remember the most technologically advanced and sophisticated aircraft still had to be serviced and flown by lesser mortals. In effect, don’t design something the average person can’t figure out how to work or fix. The axiom we all know now as “keep it simple stupid” subsequently came into common usage across all facets of industry and business. Unfortunately, in my opinion, we seem to be forgetting that nowadays.

I was reminded of this after my arrival at our safari camp in South Africa’s Limpopo province last summer. My son and I, along with his father-in-law, had elected not to bring our own rifles. We would use instead “camp guns” as they are commonly called, and of course we had no idea exactly what they would be.

After freshening up and a change of clothes we piled into the bakkie and set off for the range. Upon mounting up I was pleased to see a Ruger Model 77 chambered for .30-06 resting in the bakkie’s rack. The rifle’s blued action was bedded into a nice walnut stock with Ruger’s classy red recoil pad. A straightforward, Leupold Vari-X III 3.5-10x50 with fixed turrets perched atop the rifle’s action.

Once at the range, I allowed my son to go first. I’m proud to say that over the years he has developed into a very good rifleman. His first centerfire rifle was a .222 Remington, a Christmas present built for him by the Meistermacher himself, Dieter Anschutz, after Sean had attended a prairie dog shoot with Dieter and I the previous summer. At the bench Sean settled behind the Ruger, thumbed three rounds of 180-grain cup-and-core soft points made by PPU (Serbia) into the magazine and shot his string. The three bullets nestled into a perfect triangle around the bull, stretching just under an inch center-to-center.

Old Standby

Sean passed the rifle to me and after a couple dry snaps to try the trigger, I loaded a round and fired. The bullet created a four-shot group among Sean’s earlier three. Ejecting the spent casing I turned to my PH with a smile said, “Good to go.”

Like the Colt Model of 1911, there are more than a few reasons the Mauser action and its many clones, like the Ruger M77, retains its position at the pinnacle of turn-bolt design. Becoming glass smooth with use, the two-lug, cock-on-opening bolt and its massive non-rotating claw extractor exemplifies the K.I.S.S. principle. As the bolt strips a cartridge from the integral spring-loaded staggered box magazine, the rim of the cartridge slips under the bolt’s massive claw where it is held tight against the bolt face for its “controlled” journey into the chamber.

The bolt rides atop twin rails within the receiver’s body with a fair bit of side-to-side sway. This was intentional as it allows the bolt to clean its raceways of dust, sand, mud et al., and thereby remaining functional. This feature has been most appreciated from WWI’s soldaten all the way to today’s professional and amateur hunters who are in the know. Finally, once the cartridge is fired the casing remains securely fixed to the bolt face by the extractor claw until it is expelled upon drawing the bolt back to where the case head meets the action’s fixed (read foolproof), steel ejector.

In addition to the Ruger Model 77 itself, our camp rifle’s scope was also simple and rugged in design. There were no gigantic, rubber-coated power rings so often encountered now on our rifle scopes. I intensely dislike these as they require the use of high rings or bases to permit the bolt to be lifted to its proper extent. In addition, the higher rings and/or bases raise the shooters cheek up and away from the stock’s comb, resulting in awkward sight acquisition and accentuating recoil.

Keep It Simple Stupid

Instead, the simple, elegant lines of the Leupold Vari-X III possessed all the features that hunters truly require in a riflescope, along with enhancing rather than detracting from the aesthetic lines of the rifle itself. Just what are the requirements for a hunter’s scope? First and foremost, quality glass, followed by rugged construction and finally precise and accurate click adjustments that run true to their scale, in this case ¼-inch at 100 yards.

Over the course of the next seven days, Sean impressed his PH Werner Swart and tracker Thomas by taking six animals with six shots, among them gemsbok, kudu, duiker and impala. I only fired one round as I was hunting exclusively for klipspringer and Limpopo bush buck. While the klippie managed to elude me once again, I managed to take a marvelous old bush buck ram that had been my nemesis for decades.

In the deepest gloaming, the ram stood feeding at 160 yards. Despite the extremely low light, the Leupold’s fine glass and coatings allowed me to see the crosshairs on the ram’s dark, chocolate-colored hide. At the shot the ram dropped, the bullet hitting the intended spot on his shoulder. My long running quest finally ended, I became quite emotional as I stroked the ram’s soft, luxuriant hide and gave thanks for my blessing.

But the story continued following our return home. Sean had been so impressed with the Ruger M77 that he decided to have one of his own. The only difference between his new prize and the camp rifle is that his has a stainless-steel barreled action while the camp gun was blued. Arriving just in time for our local blacktail deer season here on the Central Coast of California we added a GPO scope before heading out for our annual deer camp at his father-in-law’s family ranch.

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

Sean has always had the “hunter’s luck” and he was able to put a nice buck in the salt. Shooting Norma Eco Strike .30-06 loads with 165-grain tipped, homogenous bullets his 200-yard, across-canyon shot struck home.

Just recently, Sean and I got together for a hog hunt along with my good friend and neighbor Jaime Smith, who operates Wild Country Hunts along with his wife Holly, who is famous among hunters for her wicked-good breakfast burritos. Once again, the simple, “old-fashioned” Ruger rifle shined as it sent a 165-grain Hornady GMX into the boar’s shoulder. The boar ran about fifty yards before collapsing against a blue oak on a steep hillside.

The moral of the story? These “old style” hunting rifles, optics and cartridges with their long histories of success are still with us, and in the hands of a competent rifleman (or woman), will continue to do yeoman’s work for hunters of all ages.

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