jimbo1972
AH veteran
As this was my first international big game hunt I am going to go into as much detail as possible to help any new hunters who are on the fence about going to South Africa in general and Frontier Safari's/Burchell Game Reserve in specific.
Summary, just go you won't regret it!
Preparation:
Got permission from the misses to do another big hunt and had planned to go elk hunting. I have been lucky enough to hunt several western states over a decade ago but my hunting partners who knew where to go on public land and had the gear unfortunately have either passed away or gotten too old to climb mountains. Looking for a guided hunt I contacted Worldwide Trophy adventures WTA (Cabela's booking service). I was able to talk with a wonderful gentleman named Dino Bugni and we discussed options and I was surprised how much a quality private land Elk hunt would cost. During our conversation Dino asked if I have ever thought about hunting South Africa. I of course said yes and in fact I have dreamed of hunting Africa since I was a small kid watching Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom. I thought it would be crazy expensive but after talked with Dino I realized it was really reasonable. Originally I was going to do a 10 day 6 animal package for $5000, but decided to do the 10 day 12 animal package for $7500. Was a little concerned if I could really kill 12 animals in 10 days of hunting but Dino said I wouldn't have a problem.
So right after Christmas 2024 I booked and started my prep. My trip started July 10th and hunting started July 13.
First thing I did was started working out and losing weight. I am 52 years old, 6'4" and have always been big but with the holidays I had ballooned to over 320 lbs. Managed to loose 62 lbs by the time I left.
Second task was to buy a shooting stick, actually ended up buying 3 different ones over the next few months as I have lots of hunting experience but almost no experience shooting from sticks. First I bought a primos shooting stick and it was ok up to 100 yards but I struggled past that range. Second I bought a beautiful set of shooting sticks from African Sporting Creations. Unfortunately within 5 minutes of dry fire practice one of the legs broke, I believe this is not an issue with the design but just a freak weakness in that piece of wood. I contacted Jim at African Sporting creations and I had a replacement in a few days. Great customer service. With the African Sporting shooting I was good to shoot well past 300 yards. With that said they are really heavy and challenging for me to walk and practice shooting random yardages by myself. Finally I bought 4 Stable Sticks Ultimate Carbon Shooting sticks on Amazon. This was the answer I was looking for, supper steady, lightweight at slightly over 1lb and tough as nails. With these I could shoot any distance without a problem.
Firearms: I own many firearms but since I was going to hunt the mountains of the Eastern Cape I wanted to take my lightest weight rifles that could do the job. I quickly decided to take my Tikka T3 Roughtech in 300 Win Mag. I also planned to take my Ruger number 1 in 338 Win Mag. I took these to the the closest US Customs and Borders Office and got a 4457 Form completed. Pretty interesting process as I had to leave the firearms in the car and they walked out to see them. The border agent did check the serial numbers and I was off in a few minutes.
I have owned the Ruger number 1 for about a decade and it shoots cheap Remington corelocks pretty well. I have taken a few deer but have never really tested it for real accuracy. I was concerned the Corelocks wouldn't be tough enough so I bought several brands of ammo in 338. Barnes, Accubond in two different manufacturers, Hornady CX and a couple of more. I couldn't get the accuracy I wanted so I decided to leave it at home and take a different rifle.
I decided to replace the Ruger with a Savage Ultralight in 300WSM. Once again made the 90 minute drive to Customs and Border Protection to get an update 4457 filled out. This time they didn't even look at the rifles.
Sent this to my travel Agent at PWP travel (highly recommended them) so they could get Africa Sky who was going to to the SAPS paperwork. A day or so later got a call from Kasey to inform me that Africa Sky says SAPS says 300 win mag and 300wsm are too close to the same caliber and I could not bring them in as this violated South Africa rule of only having one firearm of a caliber. She didn't believe them and contacted the other 4 companies they use in South Africa and they confirmed South Africa would not let me bring in a 300 win mag and 300 wsm at the same time.
So I took as my backup rifle my heavy barrel custom rifle in 7mm Rem Mag that weighs 14lbs. Another trip to Customs and Border Protection and I had my final 4457 Form in hand without looking at the rifles.
Now the rifles were selected I chose the ammo. The Tikka loves everything so I decided on 300 win mag 200 grain Federal Terminal Ascent and with the 7mm Rem mag chose 155 grain Federal terminal ascent. I am very fortunate that have 200 acres with a shooting range out to 250 yards. Don't even know how many rounds I shot but I became very good at setting up quickly and shooting in less that a few seconds. In addition I live about 90 minutes from the CMP Talledega Marksmanship park which has an electronic scored range out to 600 yards and more important steel animal range out to 600. To fine tune on a bench to distance then shoot from my sticks on animal size targets gave me lots of confidence. Travel in next posting.
Summary, just go you won't regret it!
Preparation:
Got permission from the misses to do another big hunt and had planned to go elk hunting. I have been lucky enough to hunt several western states over a decade ago but my hunting partners who knew where to go on public land and had the gear unfortunately have either passed away or gotten too old to climb mountains. Looking for a guided hunt I contacted Worldwide Trophy adventures WTA (Cabela's booking service). I was able to talk with a wonderful gentleman named Dino Bugni and we discussed options and I was surprised how much a quality private land Elk hunt would cost. During our conversation Dino asked if I have ever thought about hunting South Africa. I of course said yes and in fact I have dreamed of hunting Africa since I was a small kid watching Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom. I thought it would be crazy expensive but after talked with Dino I realized it was really reasonable. Originally I was going to do a 10 day 6 animal package for $5000, but decided to do the 10 day 12 animal package for $7500. Was a little concerned if I could really kill 12 animals in 10 days of hunting but Dino said I wouldn't have a problem.
So right after Christmas 2024 I booked and started my prep. My trip started July 10th and hunting started July 13.
First thing I did was started working out and losing weight. I am 52 years old, 6'4" and have always been big but with the holidays I had ballooned to over 320 lbs. Managed to loose 62 lbs by the time I left.
Second task was to buy a shooting stick, actually ended up buying 3 different ones over the next few months as I have lots of hunting experience but almost no experience shooting from sticks. First I bought a primos shooting stick and it was ok up to 100 yards but I struggled past that range. Second I bought a beautiful set of shooting sticks from African Sporting Creations. Unfortunately within 5 minutes of dry fire practice one of the legs broke, I believe this is not an issue with the design but just a freak weakness in that piece of wood. I contacted Jim at African Sporting creations and I had a replacement in a few days. Great customer service. With the African Sporting shooting I was good to shoot well past 300 yards. With that said they are really heavy and challenging for me to walk and practice shooting random yardages by myself. Finally I bought 4 Stable Sticks Ultimate Carbon Shooting sticks on Amazon. This was the answer I was looking for, supper steady, lightweight at slightly over 1lb and tough as nails. With these I could shoot any distance without a problem.
Firearms: I own many firearms but since I was going to hunt the mountains of the Eastern Cape I wanted to take my lightest weight rifles that could do the job. I quickly decided to take my Tikka T3 Roughtech in 300 Win Mag. I also planned to take my Ruger number 1 in 338 Win Mag. I took these to the the closest US Customs and Borders Office and got a 4457 Form completed. Pretty interesting process as I had to leave the firearms in the car and they walked out to see them. The border agent did check the serial numbers and I was off in a few minutes.
I have owned the Ruger number 1 for about a decade and it shoots cheap Remington corelocks pretty well. I have taken a few deer but have never really tested it for real accuracy. I was concerned the Corelocks wouldn't be tough enough so I bought several brands of ammo in 338. Barnes, Accubond in two different manufacturers, Hornady CX and a couple of more. I couldn't get the accuracy I wanted so I decided to leave it at home and take a different rifle.
I decided to replace the Ruger with a Savage Ultralight in 300WSM. Once again made the 90 minute drive to Customs and Border Protection to get an update 4457 filled out. This time they didn't even look at the rifles.
Sent this to my travel Agent at PWP travel (highly recommended them) so they could get Africa Sky who was going to to the SAPS paperwork. A day or so later got a call from Kasey to inform me that Africa Sky says SAPS says 300 win mag and 300wsm are too close to the same caliber and I could not bring them in as this violated South Africa rule of only having one firearm of a caliber. She didn't believe them and contacted the other 4 companies they use in South Africa and they confirmed South Africa would not let me bring in a 300 win mag and 300 wsm at the same time.
So I took as my backup rifle my heavy barrel custom rifle in 7mm Rem Mag that weighs 14lbs. Another trip to Customs and Border Protection and I had my final 4457 Form in hand without looking at the rifles.
Now the rifles were selected I chose the ammo. The Tikka loves everything so I decided on 300 win mag 200 grain Federal Terminal Ascent and with the 7mm Rem mag chose 155 grain Federal terminal ascent. I am very fortunate that have 200 acres with a shooting range out to 250 yards. Don't even know how many rounds I shot but I became very good at setting up quickly and shooting in less that a few seconds. In addition I live about 90 minutes from the CMP Talledega Marksmanship park which has an electronic scored range out to 600 yards and more important steel animal range out to 600. To fine tune on a bench to distance then shoot from my sticks on animal size targets gave me lots of confidence. Travel in next posting.
Attachments
Last edited by a moderator: