The Gaur Shikar Which Went Very Terribly Wrong

JPbowhunter · Sep 30, 2019

Another great story, thank you for taking the time to share it with us! Did he not take the gaur home because you had also shot it?

Kawshik Rahman · Sep 30, 2019

JPbowhunter said:
Another great story, thank you for taking the time to share it with us! Did he not take the gaur home because you had also shot it?

JPbowhunter
Thank you also much for your appreciation. That is correct. The only trophy he had taken back was that Porcupine which Karim's father had skinned , because he had killed it. I felt very sad for him , although Karim felt that the gentleman had brought this upon himself by bringing a gun and ammunition which had never been field tested , for a costly Shikar , without an extra gun . To come to India to secure a Gaur and to go back with a porcupine is rather unfortunate , considering all that money he spent to come here. He was a very good man , and treated us breakfast on the first day of the week before the Shikar began, at the Royal Bakery , which used to have the most expensive breakfast in the Darjeeling at the time.

Ridge Runner · Sep 30, 2019

Another great article by you. Looking forward to reading about the bear hunt.

I would personally disagree with you on considering climbing a tree after having fired your 2 shots at a charging beast meant on doing you great harm as a ...."cowardly act".... As you did draw it's rage away from the client, initially protecting him. He was able to reload, attempt to kill the animal again, unfortunately unsuccessfully, again. You climbed down to the ground, reloaded your shotgun, gave chase (with intent) to kill the Guar before it injuried your client......HMMM...I see no cowardess on your actions.

Kawshik Rahman · Sep 30, 2019

Ridge Runner said:
Another great article by you. Looking forward to reading about the bear hunt.

I would personally disagree with you on considering climbing a tree after having fired your 2 shots at a charging beast meant on doing you great harm as a ...."cowardly act".... As you did draw it's rage away from the client, initially protecting him. He was able to reload, attempt to kill the animal again, unfortunately unsuccessfully, again. You climbed down to the ground, reloaded your shotgun, gave chase (with intent) to kill the Guar before it injuried your client......HMMM...I see no cowardess on your actions.

Ridge Runner
You are very kind in your words. In Darjeeling , Sundar Raj's shop had the slogan " Shahib Raja " (" Client is King ") engraved on the wall. Muslim Shikaris had to swear on the Qur'an , Hindu Shikaris had to swear on the Geetanjali and Christian Shikaris had to swear on the Bible to Sundar Raj that no harm could ever befall our client. Fortunately , none of my clients ever died and only one of them broke 3 ribs upon trying to escape a Gaur , because of the negligence of a coolie. You see back in those days , before bullets with controlled expansion rates were invented , the standard practice to shoot a Gaur was as follows : let us use my favorite magnum .375 as an example. From bottom to top , the magazine will be filled with solid metal envelope cartridges , except for the upmost bullet which will be a soft nose bullet ( like a Winchester silver tip ). The idea was to use a soft nose expanding bullet for the first shot ( which would invariably be made from the side , so as to pierce both lungs of the creature ) and use metal envelope bullets for any extra shots once the animal becomes injured and alerted. The coolie mistakenly thought that you can load the bullets into the gun in any order and he loaded three Winchester silver tips into the gun and then a solid metal envelope bullet in the chamber . A disaster ensued and several members of my party got injured and my client nearly lost his life . It could have been avoided if l had just supervised the coolie or kept an eye over him . The coolie used to load guns for those of our clients who did not like loading their guns themselves and he never failed prior to that event. After that , Karim and l started loading the gun's of these types of clients ourselves and then making them see for themselves.

kgesch · Sep 30, 2019

Red Leg said:
@Shootist43 has that exactly correct. I hate travelling with multiple rifles, so I tend to use the .375 for everything. For tiny animals like Duiker and Suni, I use .375 solids. They produce a .375 entrance and exit wound and no issues for the taxidermist.

You are the one who should consider a book. A number of professional hunters have written anthologies of their hunting experiences in recent years. Almost nothing has been written about the final years of hunting in India.

+1

Kawshik Rahman · Sep 30, 2019

kgesch said:
+1

Kgesch
Thank you for your support.

BenKK · Sep 30, 2019

A wonderful story, Sir! Thank you.

Red Leg · Sep 30, 2019

Kawshik Rahman said:
Ridge Runner
You are very kind in your words. In Darjeeling , Sundar Raj's shop had the slogan " Shahib Raja " (" Client is King ") engraved on the wall. Muslim Shikaris had to swear on the Qur'an , Hindu Shikaris had to swear on the Geetanjali and Christian Shikaris had to swear on the Bible to Sundar Raj that no harm could ever befall our client. Fortunately , none of my clients ever died and only one of them broke 3 ribs upon trying to escape a Gaur , because of the negligence of a coolie. You see back in those days , before bullets with controlled expansion rates were invented , the standard practice to shoot a Gaur was as follows : let us use my favorite magnum .375 as an example. From bottom to top , the magazine will be filled with solid metal envelope cartridges , except for the upmost bullet which will be a soft nose bullet ( like a Winchester silver tip ). The idea was to use a soft nose expanding bullet for the first shot ( which would invariably be made from the side , so as to pierce both lungs of the creature ) and use metal envelope bullets for any extra shots once the animal becomes injured and alerted. The coolie mistakenly thought that you can load the bullets into the gun in any order and he loaded three Winchester silver tips into the gun and then a solid metal envelope bullet in the chamber . A disaster ensued and several members of my party got injured and my client nearly lost his life . It could have been avoided if l had just supervised the coolie or kept an eye over him . The coolie used to load guns for those of our clients who did not like loading their guns themselves and he never failed prior to that event. After that , Karim and l started loading the gun's of these types of clients ourselves and then making them see for themselves.

‘Clients who did not like loading their guns themselves....”. It is wonderful that you can illustrate for us a cultural norm of which Americans have, fortunately, no understanding. It reminds me of the old story of the American who visits Purdey in London and is handed one of their assisted opening SxS’s (the cocking spring assists in dropping the barrels open). The American marvels at it until he tries to close the action which requires a bit of effort to reload the springs. The American comments about it, at which point the salesman sniffs, looks down his nose imperiously, and taking the gun away says, “Our clients do not typically load their own guns.” Should anyone be confused, on a high end British (or Spanish) drive hunt for grouse, the shooter would have a matched pair of guns and a loader to keep them fed.

Kawshik Rahman · Sep 30, 2019

Red Leg said:
‘Clients who did not like loading their guns themselves....”. It is wonderful that you can illustrate for us a cultural norm of which Americans have, fortunately, no understanding. It reminds me of the old story of the American who visits Purdey in London and is handed one of their assisted opening SxS’s (the cocking spring assists in dropping the barrels open). The American marvels at it until he tries to close the action which requires a bit of effort to reload the springs. The American comments about it, at which point the salesman sniffs, looks down his nose imperiously, and taking the gun away says, “Our clients do not typically load their own guns.” Should anyone be confused, on a high end British (or Spanish) drive hunt for grouse, the shooter would have a matched pair of guns and a loader to keep them fed.

Red Leg ,
You have described something which l have seen with my own eyes . The Maharani of Bhopal was an avid bird shooter. She owned a pair of side by side shot-guns in 20 bore made by the firm , Holland and Holland . Long before l even began hunting , in 1952 or 1953 , when l was a child , l used to see the Maharani shoot quails with one gun while one of her Havildaars ( Royal servants) would reload the other . This used to happen in a field and l used to go there with my parents who were friends of many Zamindaars there . They used to have a golden color tray with cartridges lying over the tray.
Holland and Holland makes some of the most luxurious shot-guns in the world , but l am certain you are already very aware of these beautiful works of art.

Kawshik Rahman · Sep 30, 2019

BenKK said:
A wonderful story, Sir! Thank you.

BenKK
Thank you so much for your kind words. I hope that l have been respectful to the magnum .458 by Winchester

Hank2211 · Sep 30, 2019

Kawshik Rahman said:
BenKK
Thank you so much for your kind words. I hope that l have been respectful to the magnum .458 by Winchester

Thank you very much for your stories, both this one and the tiger shikar. I, too, have been enjoying them immensely.

If I could make a small request, it would be that you expand them! You could, for example, describe in more detail how hunts are conducted, who the principle (and minor) players are and what their roles are, etc. The description of ammunition and how it was "made to fit" for example was new and very interesting. I suspect that very few of us have much, if any, experience hunting in India, let alone in the time frame you are describing.

I look forward to more!

Ridge Runner · Sep 30, 2019

Maybe it's just me and my way of doing things.......but I would never, never , trust someone I didn't know or have full ,( my life dependent) ( which means others life's dependent on mine) to load my weapon for me!!! I would out of respect thank the loader..... then excuse the loader while I loaded/reloaded my own rifle.

Anyone who is to damn lazy to load their own weapon deserves the end result to them and hopefully they don't cause unwarranted injury or death to others in the party.

The time frame you are writing able is an era I was born in, thus no knowledge of how things were done. So it is exciting for me to read about your experiences.

Please continue to reflect on your many hunts/shikars.

Wheels · Sep 30, 2019

Kawshik Rahman said:
The client fired that big magnum .458 rifle with a soft nosed bullets of either 500 or 510 grain weight ( the correct weight escapes my memory , although l clearly remember that the client had both ) .

Kawshik Rahman said:
It was a big rifle of bolt configuration made by the firm , Birmingham Small Arms . It was of calibre magnum .458 Winchester , the first l had ever seen . Along with this , he brought several boxes of brand new ammunition from the American firm , Hornady. There were soft nose bullets and bullets with a metal envelope with a slightly flat nose weighing 500 grains .

Another wonderful story. Thank you.

BSA made a good mid priced rifle in the 1960's. As I recall their .458 is a fairly light rifle for the caliber. Perhaps the recoil was too much for your hunter.

The Winchester soft point ammo of the day weighed 510 grains. The solids weighed 500 grains. Evidently the Hornady ammo weighed the same.

The only .458 ammo with problems that I was familiar with in the 1960's was the Winchester Super X. Interesting to hear that Hornady evidently had problems also. When your friend posts photos of the problem ammo, can you please link them to this thread for our benefit?

mark-hunter · Sep 30, 2019

Gun loaders in high volume shoots, are also called secretario in spain and portugal.
Interestingly, in UK it is very much formalized, and gun loaders have their own code of conduct.

https://basc.org.uk/cop/loading-for-other-people/

However, in a DG hunt, in - nota bene - in a hunt where very few shots will be fired, an american client to have guns loaded by someone else.... ehmm.. I am not sure how I would describe that.

Ridge Runner · Sep 30, 2019

Wheels,

I also would like to see the photos, but as Kawshik, has said, he can not post pics as he has an agreement not to, because his friends book has copy rights to those photos.

Thus I would Not make such a request, although I started too.

We must respect his reluctance, with good reason.

Perhaps we can ask that Kawshik, ask his friend to join AH, and tease us to purchase his book by showing us some pics and part one of a story out of the book.

I own a .458 WM and am interested in the problems the .458WM had prior to today's bullets and ballistics.

Kawshik Rahman, is it possible for your friend to join AH and tempt us into getting his book and posting a picture or two from his book?

mark-hunter · Sep 30, 2019

Ridge Runner said:
Perhaps we can ask that Kawshik, ask his friend to join AH, and tease us to purchase his book by showing us some pics and part one of a story out of the book.

He is member on the forum, it is our dear colleague mr @Hoss Delgado.

Writing on his experiences in India/Bangladesh, Mr Delagdo mentioned our new member @ Kawshik Rahman.

Who in turn, when found his name on internet here... joined the forum, which brought us to this point!
This was few days ago, you just need to do the search by member post.

Quite extraordinary, how they have met here after so many years!!

Ridge Runner · Sep 30, 2019

mark-hunter said:
He is member on the forum, it is our dear colleague mr @Hoss Delgado.

Writing on his experiences in India/Bangladesh, Mr Delagdo mentioned our new member @ Kawshik Rahman.

Who in turn, when found his name on internet here... joined the forum, which brought us to this point!
This was few days ago, you just need to do the search by member post.

Quite extraordinary, how they have met here after so many years!!

Perhaps we can encourage @Hoss Delgdo to post some stories and photos of this most interesting by gone era. :A Thumbs Up:

Kawshik Rahman · Oct 1, 2019

Ridge Runner said:
Maybe it's just me and my way of doing things.......but I would never, never , trust someone I didn't know or have full ,( my life dependent) ( which means others life's dependent on mine) to load my weapon for me!!! I would out of respect thank the loader..... then excuse the loader while I loaded/reloaded my own rifle.

Anyone who is to damn lazy to load their own weapon deserves the end result to them and hopefully they don't cause unwarranted injury or death to others in the party.

The time frame you are writing able is an era I was born in, thus no knowledge of how things were done. So it is exciting for me to read about your experiences.

Please continue to reflect on your many hunts/shikars.

Ridge Runner,
I agree , completely with you. In my entire life , l have always loaded all my own fire arms because my life would depend on it . However , in those days client was king . There were clients who did not like to load their own fire arms and we had to accomodate these clients somehow.

Kawshik Rahman · Oct 1, 2019

Hank2211 said:
Thank you very much for your stories, both this one and the tiger shikar. I, too, have been enjoying them immensely.

If I could make a small request, it would be that you expand them! You could, for example, describe in more detail how hunts are conducted, who the principle (and minor) players are and what their roles are, etc. The description of ammunition and how it was "made to fit" for example was new and very interesting. I suspect that very few of us have much, if any, experience hunting in India, let alone in the time frame you are describing.

I look forward to more!

Hank 2211,
Thank you for your interest. If there is any extra detail which you are ever curious about , please let me know. I will specifically mention that part as well. If not publicly , then as a private message.

Kawshik Rahman · Oct 1, 2019

Wheels said:
Another wonderful story. Thank you.

BSA made a good mid priced rifle in the 1960's. As I recall their .458 is a fairly light rifle for the caliber. Perhaps the recoil was too much for your hunter.

The Winchester soft point ammo of the day weighed 510 grains. The solids weighed 500 grains. Evidently the Hornady ammo weighed the same.

The only .458 ammo with problems that I was familiar with in the 1960's was the Winchester Super X. Interesting to hear that Hornady evidently had problems also. When your friend posts photos of the problem ammo, can you please link them to this thread for our benefit?

Wheels,
Thank you for educating me on Birmingham Small Arms rifles. I would like to comment on how observant you are . You see , when l held that rifle , it felt fairly light too. Infact , l have seen magnum .375 rifles which are heavier.
In regards to the ammunition from the firm ,Hornady , l really liked their flattened noses at the time because flattened nose munitions will give little bit better penetration than round nose munitions of the same weight. Were l to guess , the metal envelope was flawed in some way.
The person who is writing a book featuring me in one chapter , is Mr. Hoss Delgado , who is a member of these forums and is the grandson of one of my former clients and friends. I have promised him twenty photographs which will feature in his book , while l disclosed the rest to these forums.

The Gaur Shikar Which Went Very Terribly Wrong

JPbowhunter

Kawshik Rahman

Ridge Runner

Kawshik Rahman

kgesch

Kawshik Rahman

BenKK

Red Leg

Kawshik Rahman

Kawshik Rahman

Hank2211

Ridge Runner

Wheels

mark-hunter

Ridge Runner

mark-hunter

Ridge Runner

Kawshik Rahman

Kawshik Rahman

Kawshik Rahman

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