We were in the company of a fellow American hunter by the name of Yancy that had several days under his belt when we arrived. Yancy is a fellow AH member and was a pleasure to spend the evenings with during our stay and a fun guy to talk to.
Rifles: I took my custom Jense Precision (now PROOF Research) 300 WinMag. The rifle was build by KK Jense the President of PROOF Research with components from most of the companies he merged to create PROOF. It is sporting a 28” Carbon Fiber 1-11.25twist barrel, a Defiance right bolt left port action, a Lone Wolf carbon fiber stock, Bix’n’Andy TacSport trigger and a Bushnell LRHSi 4.5-18x44. I was shooting handloads of Hornady ELD-X 178gr with ADG Brass at 3100fps and well under half minute groups off the bench.
In celebration of my fathers pending retirement, my sister and I got together and surprised him with a new custom built rifle as a present. I had convinced him that his Jense Precision 308 that he has had for years would be enough bang for Africa, all while assembling parts for his new 300 WinMag. The rifle was built by Spartan Precision Rifles out of San Jose, Ca and features a house branded Defiance Deviant Ultralight Hunter action, a PROOF Research 24” Lite Sendero contour 1-10twist carbon fiber wrapped barrel with 5/8-24 threads and a thread protector, a Manners Composite Stocks EH-6A carbon fiber stock, Timney 510 Trigger, Spartan Precision Javelin Carbon Fiber bipod and was initially spec’d with a Leica ER5 and American Precision Arms 30mm rings. The rifle was shooting handloads of Hornady ELD-X 200gr with ADG Brass at 2910fps and awesome accuracy.
His rifle:
The muzzle brake was removed for the hunt and we swapped out the harris for the Spartan bipod.
The scope ended up being a disaster that we were able to diagnose prior to our trip thank god. When I initially put it on the rifle for load development, after sighting it in the elevation turret cap contacted the turret when I put it back on and when tightened down it would adjust the scope about 5-6 clicks that you could feel as it tightened. I had ordered the scope from EuroOptic and with a quick call, they had a replacement on the way to me with the original on the way back to them for a warranty replacement. The second scope came in the day before my father was to receive the rifle, so I just had time to mount it without shooting it before he received it, which was no big deal as he would need to adjust eye relief, etc to set up the rifle for himself. After he got the rifle (he was VERY surprised to say the least) we took it out to the range, and when I went to take off the elevation turret cap, the entire turret unscrewed from the scope body! Thankfully I had a trusty Vortex/Cabelas Intrepid 4.5-22x50 sitting on the shelf at home and we had something tried and true to mount up and sight in for our hunt! EuroOptic has offered us a full refund on the scope and been great about the entire ordeal but Leica has let me down immensely.
