By John Mattera
Great hunters seem to shoot legendary rifles? Or maybe great rifles create legendary hunters? Celebrated hunters, generations past and present, always seem to have storied firearms in hand.
Which came first, the rifle or the hunter?
It does pose one of those questions.
It has to be the singer, not the song; the hunter, not the rifle.
For a hunter hunts, no matter how he is armed, and the greatest of rifles in unskilled hands is just half of a story.
But how does a hunter or rifle achieve greatness?
Legendary hunters of yesteryear were the forefathers of the Professional Hunter we know today. Rugged men who faced down dangerous animals, their exploits and personalities brought home through the tales and writings of past literary greats.
For a rifle to reach celebrated status, the criteria may vary.
It could be pedigree, provenance, or success attained?
Combine all three, and now you have a legend.
Hefting a rifle to my shoulder and looking down the sights, rolling the bolt in my hand, the action- worked smoothly from countless safaris past.
I gazed at the tusker through my sights and held it there for a long moment, making the shot in my mind, than reluctantly I lowered the big rifle.
For the elephant had long since become a taxidermist prize – I was at the AHG hunting show in Atlanta. While the elephant may have been a fleeting dream, the rifle was real.
A W.J. Jeffery in .500 Jeffery, the rarest of dangerous game rifles, and it is legend!
It was built by one of the greats the gun world has ever known in a not-often-seen caliber.
It’s providence royal!
Its record of success is without rival.
Bill Jones with Fletcher Jamieson’s .500 once again hunting elephant
In 1937, W.J. Jeffery & Co. of London delivered the only .500 Jeffery built to customer specifications. It says just that along the top of the barrel: “Specially Built for C. Fletcher Jamieson.”
Constructed on the time-honored ’98 Mauser single-square bridge magnum #2 action, serial number 25554 sported a 26-inch blued nitro barrel chambered in .500 Jeffery.
This rifle had a single purpose.
Hunting ivory.
Rifle number 21 of 26 built in this caliber by H. Leonard of Birmingham for W.J. Jeffery. The barrel is 2 inches longer than standard with a ramped front sight and a flip-up platinum bead, The express rear sight has a standing 100-yard leaf with two folding leaves, marked for 200 and 300 yards. If a hunter is capable of using iron sights effectively at those distances, the .500 is a remarkably accurate shooter. The scroll-engraved receiver sports a hinged floor-plate, and the magazine can only hold three fat cartridges. It is a lesson in engineering to run a full magazine with a fourth round in the chamber. You must load the chamber first and then fill the magazine through the trap door, closing it tightly. After doing this once, it became obvious that three rounds and shot placement were a better option.
The overall rifle weight is just over 12 pounds, and while the weight and extra barrel length make the old Jeffery manageable to shoot, it is a lot to carry through the bush all day. The wood bespeaks Africa, English walnut checkered nicely, heavy and dark. It is obvious at first blush this rifle was built for a big man.
The cost in 1937 was £45, equivalent to about U.S. $191. Considering that a Winchester model 70 in 375 H&H cost about 30 bucks at the time, the Jeffery was a major financial commitment.
Jamieson was a Rhodesian farmer by trade. But, like most Rhodesian homesteaders he was a journeyman hunter first, walking the rich Zambezi Valley and venturing into what was then Portuguese Africa, where the ivory was big and the road less traveled.
In his trekking Jamieson became fast friends with the legendary, charismatic, and often time controversial hunter John “Pondoro” Taylor.
John Taylor was a poacher, author, and brigand. How I would of loved to have had a few beers with him. His fame came from his ability to put words on paper. He was the first to explain African game and bullet performance in a way that made sense to hunter and novice alike. His book, “African Rifles and Cartridges,” is a must-read for any serious student of African hunting.
Taylor was a product of his day, a throwback to another time.
Living in the bush among indigenous people, Taylor obviously understood the subject of hunting and had vast experience in evaluating the terminal ballistic effect of bullets on hundreds of animals. Most of his summations prove accurate. But, I believe much of what Taylor had to say was speculative and guess worthy at best. As I find it doubtful that he was actually able to review and test such a wide variety of rifles and calibers while maintaining such a remote existence. However, his work is entertaining and knowledgeable, although a little rough around the edges as he was writing for his time.
It is through Taylor and his classic book that we come to know Jamieson and his .500 Jeffery. Old black-and-white images of a big game hunter in the prime of his life, with a wide-brimmed field hat and cradling a big bolt-action rifle. But, it is through Jamieson’s pursuit of photography that we know him best. In the early days when field photography was a black art, Jamison trudged through the bush with a huge Grafley 5” X 7” plate camera and tripod, his big .500 Jeff over his shoulder, searching for dramatic photos. It is Jamieson’s illustrations that charge from the pages of Taylor’s book.
You could imagine the cavalier hunter under the black hood of his camera, viewing inverted images of dangerous animals, squeezing the shutter release bulb, and then snatching up his big .500 to stop a charge.
Jamieson kept extensive journals, five in all, along with his photos, with the dream of publishing his own book about his safari adventures. Two of the volumes are still with his son C. Fletcher Jamieson Jr. One journal is still unaccounted for, but two are in the collection of modern hunting notable Bill Jones.
It is Bill’s goal one day to reunite these pages in a published work. What a great story they may tell.
What would make a simple farmer from Rhodesia, even one with an eccentric friend like Taylor, contract one of the greatest firearms manufacturers the world has ever known and order a rifle so unique, so single-purposed that it has developed a cult following all its own?
First and foremost, Jamieson was an ivory hunter, so he needed a big-boy caliber. Also, an accident as a teen was a contributing factor: Jamieson fell from a tree and landed on a plough, breaking his left arm and shattering his wrist. It was a two-day journey by oxen cart and mail train for medical attention, and when he did arrive his arm was in a sad state. His broken bones were set and his wrist wired together. While he still had use of his hand, his mobility was diminished. Learning to shoot a rifle using his left hand as a cradle for the fore stock, he handled his big rifles well, a fine old .500/.450 Holland & Holland and a .577 Manton. However, breaking open the big doubles quickly was a daunting task with only one good arm.
When the Mercury rose, issues compounded.
Cordite did not do well in tropical climates. As the ambient temperature soared, so did the pressure of the ammo, causing all manner of problems. Cases would stick primers would back out of their pocket, locking up the action. Or, the soft metal of the primer would sometimes melt and flow into the firing pinholes, really messing up the day.
Jamieson had to reverse the rifle, place the barrels under his arm, and use his body for leverage to break open the action. He feared that this would someday be his undoing. What he needed was a turn-bolt rifle in a suitable caliber. Legend has it that Jamieson found a Schuler bolt-action rifle in 12,7×70 mm Schuler at the Mitchell & Fallon gun shop of Salisbury, in present-day Harare. While not impressed by the rifle (or maybe his sense of patriotism made a German-manufactured rifle out of the question), he was impressed by the cartridge and placed an order with Ronnie Mitchell for a rifle to be built by W.J. Jeffery of London to his specifications.
The Jeffery Company was also impressed with the 12,7×70 cartridge, which first appeared around 1920, introduced by August Schuler of Germany, a company that already had 100-year history of making firearms. Schuler started developing big-bore cartridges for the German African trade as early as 1904. But, by the time the .500 Schuler (or .500 German, as it was also called) was developed, Germany was all but out of the ivory trade. W.J. Jeffery and Company, never one to let an opportunity slip by, quickly jumped on the concept of this new caliber and chambered their Mauser Square bridge magnum for it. Knowing that the post-Great War English public would have a better time getting their minds around a non-metric caliber, the Jeffery company renamed the cartridge the .500 Jeffery. It would be wonderful to understand more of the development process of this cartridge. But, at the close of World War II, the Schuler factory sat squarely in Russian-occupied Germany, and all company records have long since vanished.
The .500 Jeff became the most powerful rifle cartridge in existence, edging slightly ahead of the current big boy on the block, the 505 Gibbs, which had been in production since 1911. The Gibbs offered a larger case capacity, greater seating depth for larger sectional density bullets. But, like H&H, Gibbs used cordite, and its temperature sensitivity required lower pressures.
The .500 Jeff at 2.74 inches fit better in standard receivers and pushed a 535-grain bullet out at 2350 feet per second, propelled by 103 grains of Hi-Vel smokeless powder.
On the downside the .500 Jeffery has a rather short neck length and a small shoulder that can make it problematic when seating larger for caliber bullets. It also has a rebated rim while fitting better into bolt-action rifles it can sometimes caused extractor issues.
With the 1957 introduction of the 460 Weatherby Magnum, the .500 was unseated from its most powerful status. But how fast is too fast? The time-proven equation of 500-plus grains going out at plus 2200fps works.
Jamieson was a hunter of vast experience and minimalist principles. Named “Chimpongani” by the BaTonga tribesman of his region – meaning “the one who never misses,” we therefore have to assume that he was very good.
According to Jamieson’s journals, the big Jeffery claimed upwards of 300 elephants in the ten years that the pair hunted together. That’s, 30 elephants a year; it’s a wonder he had time to farm.
Coming home from a safari one September evening in 1947, Jamieson wanted to inspect a well that the workers were digging on his farm. He borrowed a homemade electric lantern from a friend. Unbeknownst to Fletcher, the lantern had a short in it. Plugging the light into his kitchen to test it, he then grabbed the lead handle and made his way to the well. He climbed into the bucket and instructed his workers to lower him down. He then called out for a domestic worker to plug in the light. Hanging there by a rope, Jamieson ingested 220 volts of electricity, already dead but he didn’t know it. All he needed was mother earth and a little bit of water to complete the circuit.
As he reached the bottom he stepped from the bucket into the water and to his death.
Jamieson in the Zambezi Valley with a zebra stallion
Crawford Fletcher Jamieson was 42 years old.
The rifle went to Fletcher’s brother Norman and then passed on to Fletcher Jr. in 1978. For many years the family again and again refused offers to sell such a storied piece of African history. Much as the myth of Excalibur imbedded in stone, the Jeffery rifle remained in place until a worthy wielder appeared.
Then came Bill Jones. Legendary hunters and great rifles just seem to find one another. For certain that’s what C. Fletcher Jamieson Jr. believed when he met Bill Jones, a no-nonsense hunter in very much the same way that his father had been. A deal was struck, and the Jeffery had a new home.
So the big Jeffery went back to Africa, doing just as it had been built to do, hunt dangerous game. In the company of Bill Jones, historic rifles tend to see more of the Dark Continent than they do an Alabama gun vault.
First stop for the .500 was Mozambique, where Bill Jones and long-time hunting companion Craig Boddington took off after Cape buffalo with seasoned PH Craig Hammon. Boddington was given the first opportunity to blood the rifle since Jamieson’s death. He took an 80-yard shot on a big bull quartering away. The .500 Jeff dropped the old buff like a bad habit with a four-hoof high salute of surrender. An ostensible rebirth for a legendary hunting rifle as one-shot takedowns of buff are not often seen.
Next turn belonged to Bill Jones, shooting 570-grain bullets loaded by Don Heath at Norma ammo. Bill pursued a dagga boy though the thick jess when they fell upon a small group. Picking out a seasoned old warrior, Bill dropped him in similar decisive fashion without much fuss. One thing was certain: the .500 hit with authority.
Next stop was where it all started – the Zambezi Valley, in search for elephant with famed PH Len Taylor. Bill and Len, in true elephant-hunting fashion, wore out quite a bit of shoe leather over the course of many days. They tracked an inordinate number of big tusk-less bulls and a giant old boy with broken tusk as the hunt pressed on.
Eventually they came across three bulls feeding along a dry riverbed in some monstrously thick bush. Passing on the first two bulls, Bill and Len settled on the third, a very respectable old man. The big Jeffery .500 barked as Bill lined up a side brain shot, and the elephant crumpled, followed by two insurance shots.
You don’t get to hunt elephant often, so you might as well shoot him again.
Insurance doesn’t cost- it pays!
Bringing classic rifles back to Africa to do what they were built to do – hunt dangerous game. The legend endures.
READ PART 1 of Rifles of Legend by John Mattera HERE
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