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Barrel Works
2430 W. Bullberry Lane
Hurricane, Utah 84737
(435)
635-9866
8am - 12pm
1pm - 5pm Mtn. time
Fax: (435) 635-0348 |
Ginger & Kent's Safari
Below is a story Kent put together to share with the Dallas Safari Club.
I Like Blondes
By
Kent Porter
It all started in 2008 in preparation for my wife’s first safari and my second. I sort of had to bribe her to go along and even at that she was apprehensive. Nothing like a wardrobe of the finest safari clothing to help coax your wife into flying halfway around the world to pursue your passion, not hers. To give credit where credit is due, she got on board with the idea and started to “prepare” for the trip, which meant figuring out what outfits she was going to wear each day.
Ginger’s hunting career up to that point had consisted of dove hunting on a more infrequent than frequent schedule. I guess curiosity finally got the best of her and one day she asked me what was on my list of animals to pursue. “Well now” I thought to myself, at least she’s thinking about it. I quickly pulled up some images on the laptop of my primary species, one of which was the Gemsbok and without hesitation, she said, “Oh, I’d shoot that!” At this point I was thinking, “I bet you would, I’ve only been waiting 30 years to get a crack at a Gemsbok, but you go right ahead.” And she did, with my 1946 Brno 21h in 8x57. I could tell the stock on the Brno was too long for her and the gun just didn’t fit her well at all, but I really wasn’t too concerned about it because I didn’t even know if she was actually going to go through with the hunting part of the trip until she had actually taken her first big game animal, a Springbok. In addition to her Gemsbok and Springbok, Ginger also harvested a nice Kudu bull on a mountain top, but that’s another story altogether.
Fast forward to the Dallas Safari Club Convention in 2010 and we’re scheduled to go back to Namibia to hunt more plains game with Janneman Brand of Getaway Kalahari Safari (www.kalahari-safari.com). By now my wife is all about hunting and hunting in Africa in particular. Not only does she know what she wants to hunt on this trip, she knows what she wants to hunt on the next tip as well. About now, I am thinking “this getting your wife to hunt with you thing is costing you twice as much money and you only get to hunt half as much!”
I’ve already stated that Ginger didn’t like the fit of my beloved Brno and really wanted a rifle that fit her well, one that she could call her own. My wife and I walked around the convention floor, trying to find a rifle that fit her well and that she felt comfortable with. I’m sure that means matches her hunting wardrobe, but I’m not complaining. I get full support for hunting trips from the wife and I get to share those experiences with her as well. She literally tried out every manner of firearm from falling block single shot, to ultra light weight bolt action, to double rifle without finding the one that she felt was “the one,” as they say on TV. Just about the time I’m getting ready to give up, she asks me, “What’s that?” and it takes me a second to figure out to what she is referring.
I say, “well, that’s Thompson Center’s booth and those are single shot rifles.” She picks one up off of the rack, raises it to her shoulder and proclaims, “That’s it, that’s what I want.”
Now, I’ve had my share of T/C products over the years in rifle and handgun form, but I really didn’t think about how and why that little rifle was the perfect one for her. There are three main reasons that rifle platform is ideal for a new hunter. First, my wife has small hands and the compactness of the T/C feels good to her and balances well for her without her feeling like her arms are over-stretched by the size of the gun and the length from the butt to the forearm. Second, she can look at the hammer and see whether the rifle is cocked or not and third, she doesn’t have to worry about loading or unloading the magazine. It’s loaded or unloaded, cocked or not cocked and all can be told by visual inspection.
To tell the truth, I didn’t want an off-the-shelf rifle for her and somewhere along the way, she had handled a gun that had a Maple stock and she liked the idea of her rifle having a Maple stock as well. So I did my research and finally settled on Bullberry Barrel Works, in Hurricane, Utah to build Ginger’s rifle. Originally I was going to have the rifle built in 7x57 AI, but later decided to go with 9,3x74R with the hopes of shooting much larger game in the not too distant future. The folks at Bullberry were kind enough to agree to make the 9.3x74R for me, but I had to provide the reamer and the barrel blank. Lilja made the barrel and delivered it to Bullberry while I bought a used reamer from a guy on Accurate Reloading who also had Bullberry make him a 9.3x74R.
Bullberry’s reputation for accuracy is widely known and it didn’t take me long to work up three loads that all shot in the same one inch group at 100 yards, with three different bullets. The gun shoots equally well with Woodleigh 286 grain soft points, Barnes 286 grain TSXs and A-Square 286 grain Monolithic solids.
The wood is just how Ginger imagined it should look and Fred at Bullberry made the grip size smaller to fit Ginger’s hands. She loves that rifle and loves to shoot it. The first trip to the range, she fired 40 rounds in a couple of hours. That’s a lot of 9.3x74R shooting for anyone in a single afternoon.
I was going to say “it’s a neat little rifle” (which it is), but I didn’t want to make it sound like it’s a toy gun or a ladies gun, because it’s not. Yes, she’s got it just the way she wanted it with the blonde wood, and it’s probably the only rifle she’ll ever own (she likes it that much), but don’t kid yourself, it’s a real thumper.
The most important part of the story is that Ginger loves her rifle. The rifle fits her, the stock length is correct, the grip is sized for her hand and the balance is superb. The rifle is comfortable for her to carry and shoot, but has enough weight so that it doesn’t beat her up.
She only fired the rifle three times on this trip, aside from checking the zero on arrival, which is a testament to her ability to shoot the rifle. Here are the results for you to judge for yourself.
Kent also supplied us with the below close-ups of his smaller kills from the same trip.
 
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