Man Magnum April 2016

Meet our Contributors: Paul Scarlata Paul hails from the USA and is also contributing editor for Firearms News, G&A Handguns and Shooting Times, to name but a few publications. He has written hundreds of articles for Magnum, mainly on handguns, and has published several books on military rifles. He started shooting at the age of six, and says: “My late father was an avid hunter and fisherman and taught me and my two brothers the joys of the outdoors. Many of my fondest memories are of the days we all spent hunting and deep sea fishing. I have been a member of the firearms media for two and a half decades now and contribute to magazines in a half dozen countries around the world. My friends often accuse me of…

BY THE TIME you read this you will have noticed that our cover price has increased by R1.50; for those buying it off the shelf it will now cost R18 more per year. For local subscribers the price will increase from R433.20 to R456. This price will remain fixed for the next twelve months. We have tried our utmost to keep the increase to a minimum but ever-rising production costs leave us no choice. However, there is a silver lining: to soften the blow we offer our readers the opportunity to subscribe, or renew their existing subscription, at a 40% discount on the cover price. The 40% discount goes with our 40th birthday and is our way of saying thank you to our loyal following. So, subscribe and pay only R365,…

To celebrate our 40th birthday some lucky readers will win a brand new 3-9x40 Vortex Crossfire II PLEX riflescope valued at R3 799 and a Vortex cap. Thanks to Whylo, distributor of Vortex in SA, we will announce one winner in each edition for the next six months These excellent scopesareavailable from your nearest dealer and offer one of the best price-to-quality ratios in optics today. We do not hesitate to recommend the Vortex range of products. Through the years Magnum has tested a wide variety of their scopes and found them top-notch. For a chance to win, simply answer the following question: How old will Magnum be in May 2016? Email your answer to mail@manmagnum.co.za . Please include your name and a telephone number. The first…

IN JANUARY of the 2014 season in the Central African Republic, it seemed everything was going badly throughout the hunting concession. We had a few hunts going for bongo and Lord Derby eland, but unseasonal weather patterns kept the bongo deep in the forest, and a rash of random poaching by Sudanese nomads using AK-47s spooked the eland into their secret woodland sanctuaries. The game simply wasn’t moving and we seemed dogged by bad luck. During that week, no hunters had any success. None, that is, except Ernie. Ernie was a good-natured, soft-spoken Texan, strongly optimistic from the outset, so I knew straight off our safari would be a good one. His first and only priority was a Lord Derby eland bull. Though I hadn’t even seen an eland for…

Your letters are an important part of Magnum. We (readers and editors) like to hear your problems and opinions. Unless marked ‘NOT FOR PUBLICATION’ all letters are considered and are edited for length and/or clarity. Pen-names may be used, provided that your full name, address and daytime phone number are furnished. Please try to keep your letters short and to the point. 7x57 and .458 on Elephant I have to comment on “My First Elephant” by the late Don Heath in the February 2016 edition. Exaggerated stories gave the .458 a bad name. Over the years I have found that most of these stories originate from a couple of incidents by one or two people who actually did have bad experiences from a batch of solids (Remington I believe). Most…

THE IDEA STEMMED from the need to control some baboons that were creating havoc with our gamebird management programme. No matter what we tried, we could not get closer than 400m from the troop before they took flight. One day, while watching them through binoculars, we noticed that a khaki-clad game ranger on his bicycle came within 30m before the baboons fled. Gerhard Ebersohn and I promptly fetched our mountain bikes and donned khaki clothes. The rifles presented a bit of a problem: there was no place on the bikes to attach a scabbard (as used by the cowboys) that would not interfere with either the handlebars or the pedalling action. We finally settled for carrying the rifles on our backs by their slings. It was a complete failure; the…