AFRICA HUNTER QUEST© 

Chapter 5 - THE CONFRONTATION 

     Donny got up well before dawn on Wednesday. It was a 40-minute drive to the range, and he wanted to get there before GG. He wanted to confront the Old Man straight up, with no possibility of sidebar distractions. In thinking about what he wanted to say, Donny was convinced that GG’s advice would be a disservice to the club members. Many of his deer-hunting buddies had rifles chambered in 25-06, 260 Remington, 7-08 Remington, and 280 Remington. He had done a Matunas calculation on each of these chamberings based on muzzle velocities and bullet weights he knew his friends had used. Typical game weights calculated from Matunas’ formula were over 600 pounds. GG’s formula indicated game weights in the range of about half that. If his friends wanted to go to Africa to hunt and used GG’s formula to decide on a chambering, the results would mean they would have to buy new rifles in unnecessarily powerful chamberings, basically taking too much gun to Africa. That wasn’t right, and he was going to tell GG so. 

     Donny wasn’t soon enough. As he drove up to the 200-yard range, he could see GG at one of the tables behind the benches. He appeared to be seating bullets with a small press. As Donny approached the table, he could see GG measuring the result of his bullet seating using a digital caliper with some sort of fixtures clamped on the jaws. He could see a belt on the cases indicating a magnum chambering. The cases, however, were way smaller than the 375 H&H he had seen previously. The bullet came to a sharp point at its tip, the lead core completely encased by copper.  

     Donny looked at the bench on which GG’s rifle had been placed. The rifle looked exactly the same as he remembered when he saw it previously. Maybe the barrel was a bit shorter, maybe not. It had the same muzzle brake on its snout. How could GG be using the same rifle to shoot a different chambering? 

     GG still had his ear protection on as he seated the bullets. Even so, Donny saw that GG’s internal radar had picked him up well before he was within conversation range. GG put his calipers down, took off his hearing protection, then turned his head to face Donny. GG’s face was expressionless, as if waiting for Donny to initiate whatever was to occur. 

     D:      Good morning, sir. I took a look at the info you gave me and wanted to follow up on a few things. 

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     GG:   Okay. 

     D:      I did game weight calculations for my 270 Winchester using the formula you gave me. The formula gave me a game weight of only 405 pounds at the muzzle, not near enough for a kudu. That weight is very low, considering Jack O’Conner used his 270 Winchester to repeatedly take elk, which can weigh much more. I found another formula on line that had been published in a magazine in 1992.  

     GG:   Matunas. 

     Donny’s eyes widened slightly. GG knew about the formula. 

     D:      Yes. I calculated an optimum game weight for my 270 Winchester and my ammo of 830 pounds at the muzzle. That is way more than even a magnum kudu weighs, and is more in keeping with what a big bull elk weighs.  

     GG:   Do you have a point or a question? 

     D:      Well, it seems to me that using your formula would lead to the conclusion that I would have to purchase or borrow another gun to hunt kudu in Africa, one that is needlessly powerful. Many of my friends who hunt deer have chamberings that Matunas’ formula says would be okay for hunting kudu. Aren’t you doing a disservice to the club membership by offering advice that would needlessly cost them money to implement? 

     GG’s eyes narrowed while his jaw clamped his teeth shut, forming his mouth into a tight, horizontal line. GG’s wife and children instinctively knew this expression meant seek reinforced covered shelter immediately, as laser-guided, high-explosive ordinance was now incoming. 

     GG:   Did you read Robertson’s book? 

     D:      No. 

     GG:   So that means you didn’t or wouldn’t follow instructions. Did you do calculations with any formula for any chambering other than your and your friends’ deer rifles? 

     Donny felt the flush on his face that he knew was beginning to turn red. 

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     D:      No. 

     GG:   You obviously made a special effort to seek me out the first time, almost as if I were a last resort. Had you asked anyone else about your 270 being applicable for kudu? 

     “Oh $#!+,” thought Donny. 

     D:      Yes. 

     GG:   Who were they? 

     D:      PHs. 

     GG:   PHs. Do you know what PH stands for? 

     D:      Professional Hunter. 

     GG:   Professional Hunter. The operative word: professional. They hunt for a living. I do not. Where were these PHs from? 

     D:      South Africa. 

     GG:   South Africa. There are kudu in South Africa, so I think it’s safe to say they likely know a thing or three about hunting kudu. When you asked them about your 270 Winchester, what did they tell you? 

     Donny stood there fully red faced and embarrassed. He had completely forgotten about the PHs’ comments concerning his 270 Winchester. He was now locked into a logic pillory of his own design and fabrication. There was no honorable escape.  

     D:      They said that it could work, but only with precise shot placement and a premium bullet. 

     GG:   Did you ask them if the ammo you shoot will work? 

     D:      (Swallowing hard) No. 

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     GG:   Did they tell you anything else? 

    Up until that question, Donny knew he had come across as pigheaded and not-so-bright. He intrinsically knew that the answer to this question would determine if he was also a liar. 

    D:      (Again swallowing hard) I asked the PHs of four outfitters an open- ended question about what chambering they would use to hunt kudu. I got four different answers: a 7 mag shooting a 175-grain bullet, a 30-06 shooting at least a 200-grain bullet, a 7.62x51 shooting a 165-grain solid copper bullet, and a 35 Whelen shooting a 250-grain bullet.  It was only after I heard their responses that I asked them about my 270 Winchester.  

     “Ouch,” thought GG. “That had to have been painful and it’s gonna leave a mark.” 

     GG’s expression slowly ratcheted back to neutral. Unexpected honesty. A confession. Uncommon. 

     What to do? GG’s natural inclination was to help the youngun sort it out. He was honest. He had basically just told his ego to sit down and hush. But dogma had warped his tenacity into pigheaded obstinacy that GG had no time for. The youngun was still a tar baby. 

     GG:   Pilgrim, you have a problem to both define and solve, and only you can do it. Only you can define the problem on your terms: your likes, your expectations, your tolerance for risk, and your acceptance of the consequences associated with a bad outcome. 

     It sounds to me like you have already solved it. So be it, but it would be derelict of me not to point out you have only marginally defined your problem. No, that’s too damn PC: you really haven’t. 

     You draw the Matunas empiricism like a gun. I figure you damn-near smoked your calculator punchin’ in and spittin’ out numbers. Do you know what concepts, assumptions, and field performance database Matunas used to derive it? 

     D:      (Sheepishly) No. 

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     GG:   Then how confident can you be in the answers you got? Enough to risk losing at least a $2,500 trophy fee for an unrecovered animal? 

     Donny had stood there and ‘taken it’ from the Old Man. He deserved it. But he didn’t like it. Donny wished the Geezer had called him names he knew were applicable so he could tell him to go have pseudo sexual relations with himself. That would have been the easy exit. 

     But the bastard hadn’t done that. He had just implied the kudu hunt was a technical problem that could be defined, studied, and solved. That prospect was pretty cool. However, Donny intuitively knew that any analytical steps would be sole sourced, originating from an old grouch. Donny had been around him enough to believe the intel about his seemingly pedantic spew was likely true.  

     In some ways, GG uncomfortably reminded him of at least one of his agricultural professors, a dogmatic, pompous, educated idiot who ruled in his fiefdom of theory. There could be no disagreement or debate. He was convinced that his way was the right way and anything else was no way. He was oblivious to issues of reality, disparaging any hard evidence of deviation from theoretically predicted outcome as inconsequential outliers. The word ‘limitation’ was not in his vocabulary. He was a poster child absolutist. 

     Donny was convinced the man could not obtain employment in the private sector where stuff had to not only work, but work in accordance with customer expectations. Any technology Donny chose to apply to his farming had to work, damn it, or he could go bust. 

     The notion that analytical methods could be applied to solve hunting problems was difficult to accept. The intel on GG was that he was primarily a target shooter with nothing more than a limited experience database from intermittently hunting in Africa. Donny knew such Africa hunting experiences could be the experience obtained on the first trip, then exactly replicated the remaining times the Geezer had gone. How in blazes could anyone, let along GG with no true Africa hunting credentials, talk as if such methods existed? Not only that, he acted as if such methods could be used to make reality-based judgments. There was more going on with the Old Man than met the eye. 

     Donny contemplated the man sitting in front of him. Just how did GG remind him of that el primo educated idiot professor at school? 

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     He certainly wasn’t pompous nor self-absorbed. He kept to himself and made no demands for anyone to regard him as special. Donny had given him the chance to declare himself as an Africa hunting expert, but instead he had furnished him the title of a book to read. 

     He wasn’t self-absorbed, more like problem-absorbed. In doing so, he could give folks the impression that his problem was more important and had a higher priority for attention than theirs. It was obvious that the focus he brought to his load development problems was above average, maybe judged by some to be intense. Maybe the behavior many interpreted as anti-social was, in fact, disappointment and frustration at the interruption to his focus and train of thought. He obviously had been irritated when he was interrupted at their initial meeting, but had taken the time to help him. 

     Dogmatic? Maybe. Folks with that degree of focus can arrive at absolutely inflexible conclusions.  

     Educated idiot? Could be, but doubtful. With those folks, it was all about them, to the point of broadcast news. They tended to seek the spotlight. They needed an audience to impress with their ‘ain’t I smart’ esoterica. GG sought no spotlight, published or otherwise. Whatever his achievements were, they were known only from rumor and speculation. 

     Then what was it? What made the man so damned obnoxious? Donny supposed it had to do with the surety with which GG asked those damn questions, like he knew what was going on and Donny didn’t. Just like that idiot professor, only the professor let you know that you couldn’t find your a$$ with anybody’s hands while he was lecturing you. GG had let Donny furnish his own self abuse.  

     Those damn questions GG asked forced him to think. Because he didn’t know the answers, he had been forced to admit he didn’t know. It was embarrassing, particularly under GG’s implied premise that he should have known. 

     But wasn’t that a teaching point?  Were the answers to GG’s initial questions about his rifle, ammunition, and proposed hunt fundamental to arriving at a responsive answer?  

     “Questions,” thought Donny. 

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     D:      You seem to know about the Matunas formula. Do you know what concepts, assumptions, and field performance database were used to derive it? 

     GG:   Not really.  

     D:      Not really?!! 

     GG:   That’s the point. He never declares where it came from in enough detail so that I had any confidence in it. Besides, his empiricism indicates buffalo rifles should never have worked, not even close. 

     Donny audibly groaned. GG had just awarded him a diploma, with honors, from Dumb-A$$ U. But Donny didn’t care. He had to know, really know, if his 270 Winchester would be okay for hunting kudu. He took a chance. 

     D:      The last time I was here I asked you if you thought my 270 Winchester would be okay to hunt kudu. You never answered. Instead, you gave me a book reference and a formula. The answer I got from the formula was a weight not even close to that of either a trophy elk or kudu bull. Our conversation this morning implies there is a big picture that needs looked at before that question can be answered. I don’t know why, but my gut tells me that picture is way bigger than the one I would see from reading the book. So I want to ask you again, would my 270 Winchester be okay to hunt kudu? 

     GG eyed the young man, took a deep breath, exhaled, and frowned. Tenacious. Yep. Pigheaded. Yep. He could sense and almost feel the sticky sensation of tar. 

     GG:   Depends. 

     “Damn him,” thought Donny.  

     D:      I want to understand ‘depends’. 

     “Damn him,” thought GG. He wanted to run him off with a smart-a$$ comment like “Get to be 70 with a bad prostate and it will all become clear to you”. But he couldn’t. The little $#!+ had slimed him. 

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     GG glanced down at the fixin’s of a 300 Winchester hunting load, then sighed. “Guess all that’s gonna have to wait,” thought GG. “Besides, the animals deserve no less.” GG took a chance. 

     GG:   Grab a stool and sit a spell. This is gonna take a while.

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