Mustangs Rule
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2021
- Messages
- 1,214
My Bear Knife, and a Worthless Rifle
A good friend of mine is an American citizen by marriage, but was by birth a Dutch Afrikaner. His family tree goes back hundreds of years to settlers in the South African Bush-veld when it was a pure, raw wilderness.
He is the keeper of endless family stories, which he tells with great skill to the delight of listeners made even more enjoyable with his thick accent and course almost growl-like voice.
He has only one physical family heirloom, but it is the centerpiece for one of his most thrilling stories.
It is a hefty hunting knife with a stout antler handle, serious brass cross-guard, and a strong, razor sharp carbon steel blade. I
It belonged to his great, great grand uncle who left their bush camp to relieve himself one morning, without his 9.3x62 Mauser rifle. He needed to climb a tree when being pursued by a leopard. Just when the leopard leaped up at him with paws and claws ready to maul him, he thrust that knife right into it’s heart and killed it.
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Spending summers on my grandfathers on his New England dairy farm, became a solid part of my life by the time I was 7 or 8. I joined him every week when he went to town for supplies, and to visit his wife, my grandmother, who was crippled with arthritis and confined to a convalescent home. While he shopped in town I would slip over to a nearby sporting goods store to buy ammunition, the type of it matching my age and “firearm”.
First came BB’s, then lead pellets for my more powerful pellet gun, then .22’s and finally center fire ammo. First were shotgun shells for bird hunting, then 22 hornet ammo for woodchucks, and lastly ammo for my first whitetail deer rifles.
This ammo buying ritual spanned about 13 years from my being 9 years old to 22, say from the summer of1957 to spring of1971
This sporting goods store was a delight then and would be even more appreciated now with so few such places left anymore.
The store was small, a narrow rectangle just loaded from floor to ceiling. The far end was where the gun racks were. When entering the store on the left there was a vertical Kabar Knife display case. All were still carbon steel knives and one fully caught my attention. It was a civilian version of the iconic WW2 Kabar Marine fighting knife. It’s blade was 6” not 7”, and was chrome plated, had a brass cross-guard and a drop dead gorgeous Sandbar antler handle and solid aluminum pommel.
The price was staggering, $6.25, leather sheath included.
In 1964 Buck knives with stainless steel hit the market, other brands soon followed in SS and the store had a new display case, then the old one with the carbon steel Kabars’ got stuck deep in a corner and buried. Still however as the years passed, if I looked just right I could see this big Kabar, with the same $6.25 price tag on it. When I was young it seemed like a sword. Later on with so many fine smaller SS knives for sale it looked clumsy, almost like a corny prop for some mountain man movie.
In 1970 I graduated dept free from a state university. Tuition for a full four years was a total of $400 with half being refunded upon graduation. I had worked summers on union construction jobs. That paid for college, then I saved enough for a travel fund. I wanted to head west and look into graduates schools and hike our relatively new dedicated wilderness areas. A gallon of gas then was 19.9 cents.
Before leaving I wanted to buy a light traveling rifle and went back to that Sports Shop and bought a pre-64 Model 94 in 32 Winchester Special. Taking one final peek into that dusty corner I had been looking at since 1958, I bought that big Kabar knife. The price was adjusted to $20.
Along with me on my travels came my dear sweetheart of my youth. She was 21 and I was 22 and we left out native New England to see the grand west for the first time ever.
Camping and hiking in bear country, scared her, especially real bear country with Grizzly bears. Just several years earlier two young woman had been mauled and killed by two different grizzlies in Glacier National Park and fear was still strong.
One full moon night we were camped in a forest service campground in western Idaho after spending the day first looking at the Washington State University campus in Pullman, Washington and then the University of Idaho campus in Moscow, Idaho.
Except for an abandoned kitten which we adopted, the entire campground was empty and it felt very lonely.
It was a bright full moon and I could see the shadows of pine tree limbs silhouetted through the walls of our 8 x10 canvas cabin tent were sleeping in. At some point in the night we woke up to a rough coughing sound and saw the silhouette of a bear through the canvas in the still strong moonlight.
My girlfriend flipped out especially since it was the worst part of the month for her. We had no food in the tent, but the bear would just not go away.
I wanted my girlfriend and I to get out of the cloth tent, and get in our big four door 1962 Pontiac sedan, but she was just too terrified to leave the tent.
In the trunk I had that Winchester 94 and mustering all my grit, I lit bright a double mantle Colman lantern and went out to get it, asking my girlfriend to come out and get in the car once I got my rifle out and loaded...”maybe” she said.
I got the rifle out while waving the Colman lantern at the bear which I could see was a black bear. I loaded it, felt relief running through my veins, and when I worked the lever heard a “ping and click” sound and it jammed open. I guess something had vibrated loose during all those thousands of miles of driving, especially on dirt roads. I had of course test fired the rifle before leaving.
The bear was still there; my girlfriend heard me curse and saw me obviously angry at this jammed rifle.
The one time in my life when I really needed a firearm, the one I had failed. I went back into the tent with the rifle, she held the lamp and tried in vain to clear the rifle which I could not do. A peek out the tent window with a flashlight showed the bear was still nearby.
My girlfriend crawled into our sleeping bag as deep as possible and covered her head and face. I chose, gallant young knight that I was, to sit up, with a flashlight in one hand and that big Kabar Knife in the other. My plan was if I heard any tent material being torn open by the bear, I would stab any body part, head or paw I could hoping to drive it away.
Sitting there, I was really glad that knife was so big. At some point I just fell asleep, then woke up at dawn with that Kabar knife still in my right hand.
In bright sunlight at my girlfriend's insistence, we packed up and left, the three of us, me, her and the kitten.
A few weeks later, back home now, I took that model 94 into the Sporting Goods store I have mentioned again and again, where I bought it. In a few minutes on the owners workbench he had it working just fine. He handed it back to me and without even trying it I put it back on the for sale rack.
I asked him what the most reliable rifle ever made was. He said a bolt action Mauser. I asked if he had one for sale. He did. It was a used beautiful Belgium Safari grade Browning bolt action 30-06. It was an enormous amount of money back then, $180 with a Weaver fixed 4X scope. I had to make payments, $30/month for six months.
That was 55 years ago. I will be honest; I have not been totally faithful and monogamous. I have had other rifles and other knives, but most have come and gone. For some years now I have been “flirting” with a cute little Model 70 stainless Featherweight in 6.6x55, a serious affair but not a marriage. The same goes for knives too.
However, when any serious country is to be hunted, for elk, deer or even high country antelope in the grizzly thick Wind River Range of Wyoming or when any glory is to be gained, like after drawing a desert bighorn tag, or when I had done live off the land adventures in Alaska, hunting small game like hare and grouse with downloaded lead bullets and iron sites, I always carry my beautiful Browning and big Kabar knife or do they “carry me? “Scrapings off either one would test positive for my DNA
The fact that I bought both of them I my hometown Sporting Goods store, where I bought my first BB’s for my Daisy “Red Rider” counts big time. THey bring me back to being with my grandfather in his 41 Chevy, such memories and the stories he told. That 41 Chevy belonged to his youngest son who did not come back from WW2.
Memories and stories are our real trophies.
I will be 79 too soon and do not have a clue how to post photos. If any of you would be willing to send me your text number via a PM here on Hunt Talk I would be very grateful and would like to send you a few photos to add to this story. I will never pass your # on. Thank you very much.
Mustangs Rule
A good friend of mine is an American citizen by marriage, but was by birth a Dutch Afrikaner. His family tree goes back hundreds of years to settlers in the South African Bush-veld when it was a pure, raw wilderness.
He is the keeper of endless family stories, which he tells with great skill to the delight of listeners made even more enjoyable with his thick accent and course almost growl-like voice.
He has only one physical family heirloom, but it is the centerpiece for one of his most thrilling stories.
It is a hefty hunting knife with a stout antler handle, serious brass cross-guard, and a strong, razor sharp carbon steel blade. I
It belonged to his great, great grand uncle who left their bush camp to relieve himself one morning, without his 9.3x62 Mauser rifle. He needed to climb a tree when being pursued by a leopard. Just when the leopard leaped up at him with paws and claws ready to maul him, he thrust that knife right into it’s heart and killed it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spending summers on my grandfathers on his New England dairy farm, became a solid part of my life by the time I was 7 or 8. I joined him every week when he went to town for supplies, and to visit his wife, my grandmother, who was crippled with arthritis and confined to a convalescent home. While he shopped in town I would slip over to a nearby sporting goods store to buy ammunition, the type of it matching my age and “firearm”.
First came BB’s, then lead pellets for my more powerful pellet gun, then .22’s and finally center fire ammo. First were shotgun shells for bird hunting, then 22 hornet ammo for woodchucks, and lastly ammo for my first whitetail deer rifles.
This ammo buying ritual spanned about 13 years from my being 9 years old to 22, say from the summer of1957 to spring of1971
This sporting goods store was a delight then and would be even more appreciated now with so few such places left anymore.
The store was small, a narrow rectangle just loaded from floor to ceiling. The far end was where the gun racks were. When entering the store on the left there was a vertical Kabar Knife display case. All were still carbon steel knives and one fully caught my attention. It was a civilian version of the iconic WW2 Kabar Marine fighting knife. It’s blade was 6” not 7”, and was chrome plated, had a brass cross-guard and a drop dead gorgeous Sandbar antler handle and solid aluminum pommel.
The price was staggering, $6.25, leather sheath included.
In 1964 Buck knives with stainless steel hit the market, other brands soon followed in SS and the store had a new display case, then the old one with the carbon steel Kabars’ got stuck deep in a corner and buried. Still however as the years passed, if I looked just right I could see this big Kabar, with the same $6.25 price tag on it. When I was young it seemed like a sword. Later on with so many fine smaller SS knives for sale it looked clumsy, almost like a corny prop for some mountain man movie.
In 1970 I graduated dept free from a state university. Tuition for a full four years was a total of $400 with half being refunded upon graduation. I had worked summers on union construction jobs. That paid for college, then I saved enough for a travel fund. I wanted to head west and look into graduates schools and hike our relatively new dedicated wilderness areas. A gallon of gas then was 19.9 cents.
Before leaving I wanted to buy a light traveling rifle and went back to that Sports Shop and bought a pre-64 Model 94 in 32 Winchester Special. Taking one final peek into that dusty corner I had been looking at since 1958, I bought that big Kabar knife. The price was adjusted to $20.
Along with me on my travels came my dear sweetheart of my youth. She was 21 and I was 22 and we left out native New England to see the grand west for the first time ever.
Camping and hiking in bear country, scared her, especially real bear country with Grizzly bears. Just several years earlier two young woman had been mauled and killed by two different grizzlies in Glacier National Park and fear was still strong.
One full moon night we were camped in a forest service campground in western Idaho after spending the day first looking at the Washington State University campus in Pullman, Washington and then the University of Idaho campus in Moscow, Idaho.
Except for an abandoned kitten which we adopted, the entire campground was empty and it felt very lonely.
It was a bright full moon and I could see the shadows of pine tree limbs silhouetted through the walls of our 8 x10 canvas cabin tent were sleeping in. At some point in the night we woke up to a rough coughing sound and saw the silhouette of a bear through the canvas in the still strong moonlight.
My girlfriend flipped out especially since it was the worst part of the month for her. We had no food in the tent, but the bear would just not go away.
I wanted my girlfriend and I to get out of the cloth tent, and get in our big four door 1962 Pontiac sedan, but she was just too terrified to leave the tent.
In the trunk I had that Winchester 94 and mustering all my grit, I lit bright a double mantle Colman lantern and went out to get it, asking my girlfriend to come out and get in the car once I got my rifle out and loaded...”maybe” she said.
I got the rifle out while waving the Colman lantern at the bear which I could see was a black bear. I loaded it, felt relief running through my veins, and when I worked the lever heard a “ping and click” sound and it jammed open. I guess something had vibrated loose during all those thousands of miles of driving, especially on dirt roads. I had of course test fired the rifle before leaving.
The bear was still there; my girlfriend heard me curse and saw me obviously angry at this jammed rifle.
The one time in my life when I really needed a firearm, the one I had failed. I went back into the tent with the rifle, she held the lamp and tried in vain to clear the rifle which I could not do. A peek out the tent window with a flashlight showed the bear was still nearby.
My girlfriend crawled into our sleeping bag as deep as possible and covered her head and face. I chose, gallant young knight that I was, to sit up, with a flashlight in one hand and that big Kabar Knife in the other. My plan was if I heard any tent material being torn open by the bear, I would stab any body part, head or paw I could hoping to drive it away.
Sitting there, I was really glad that knife was so big. At some point I just fell asleep, then woke up at dawn with that Kabar knife still in my right hand.
In bright sunlight at my girlfriend's insistence, we packed up and left, the three of us, me, her and the kitten.
A few weeks later, back home now, I took that model 94 into the Sporting Goods store I have mentioned again and again, where I bought it. In a few minutes on the owners workbench he had it working just fine. He handed it back to me and without even trying it I put it back on the for sale rack.
I asked him what the most reliable rifle ever made was. He said a bolt action Mauser. I asked if he had one for sale. He did. It was a used beautiful Belgium Safari grade Browning bolt action 30-06. It was an enormous amount of money back then, $180 with a Weaver fixed 4X scope. I had to make payments, $30/month for six months.
That was 55 years ago. I will be honest; I have not been totally faithful and monogamous. I have had other rifles and other knives, but most have come and gone. For some years now I have been “flirting” with a cute little Model 70 stainless Featherweight in 6.6x55, a serious affair but not a marriage. The same goes for knives too.
However, when any serious country is to be hunted, for elk, deer or even high country antelope in the grizzly thick Wind River Range of Wyoming or when any glory is to be gained, like after drawing a desert bighorn tag, or when I had done live off the land adventures in Alaska, hunting small game like hare and grouse with downloaded lead bullets and iron sites, I always carry my beautiful Browning and big Kabar knife or do they “carry me? “Scrapings off either one would test positive for my DNA
The fact that I bought both of them I my hometown Sporting Goods store, where I bought my first BB’s for my Daisy “Red Rider” counts big time. THey bring me back to being with my grandfather in his 41 Chevy, such memories and the stories he told. That 41 Chevy belonged to his youngest son who did not come back from WW2.
Memories and stories are our real trophies.
I will be 79 too soon and do not have a clue how to post photos. If any of you would be willing to send me your text number via a PM here on Hunt Talk I would be very grateful and would like to send you a few photos to add to this story. I will never pass your # on. Thank you very much.
Mustangs Rule
