Boer marksmanship during the guerrilla phase entered the status of legend, and British sentries' worst nightmare was the specter of the lone, hungry Boer with his Mauser.

Windage on the distinctive winged front sight is adjustable with a square-headed screw on the right side. The sporter's rear sight had much more practical settings than the over-optimistic service rifle. Both heavily pitted, these sights and the action are original. The barrel and stock are reproductions.

Kipling wrote both prose and verse in honor of Boer marksmanship. His poem "Two Kopjes" laments the frustration of British troops in trying to move through the small flat-topped hills that dot the veldt. The Boers used mutually supporting, highly accurate enfilade fire to consume columns of British light horse. Kipling helped nurture the legend of Boer marksmanship in Piet, writing:

An' when there wasn't aught to do
But camp and cattle-guards,
I've fought with 'im the 'ole day through,
At fifteen 'undred yards;
Long afternoons o' lyin' still,
An' 'earin' as you lay,
The bullets swish from 'ill to 'ill
Like scythes among the 'ay.

I was fortunate to be in Africa recently and privileged to evaluate current state-of-the-art technology: Trijicon's superb AccuPoint scope. After a wonderful hunt in the Kalahari, I went to visit old friends and was offered a restored Mauser with a weird name for a farm cull (a growing blesbok herd lives on the farm, and the larder was low on biltong).

South Africa, long cut off from western sources, developed its own firearms industry, and its standards are second to none. My host provided me with top-flight reloads: 140-grain Sierra GameKing BTPSPs seated over 40 grains of Somchem S335 (equal to 3031) in Pretoria Metal Printing casings. These were ignited with PMP magnum rifle primers to produce 2,711 fps. A slower-burning powder might grab some more V out of the long tube, but when in Rome…

The raised flats are a distinctive feature of the Plezier Mauser, which was often purchased as a presentation piece by grateful governments, industries and wealthy parents. Though these strengthening flats offered a convenient shape and location for inlays and escutcheons, they most often were placed on the buttstock.

A cardboard box, self-adhesive Orange Peel targets and a set of Leupy rangefinder binos turn any pasture into a surveyed range. We set up so on a fallow field, and the Plezier Mauser gave me minute-of-emu head. The clarity of the 8x32s was such that we could easily see impacts on the targets at 100 meters.

After a reconnaissance by ultralight, we landed and took a closer look at several groups of farm blesbok. Spotting a dozen gleaning a recently harvested field, we left the truck and stalked through waist-high grass to within 60 meters.

My host spotted a representative buck, and I popped up out of the grass and took him just above the shoulder. He hunched, sagged and then gave one last effort to catch up with his brethren. I Hemingwayed him again on the sprint, and he plowed into the yellow grass of Africa.

On a rocky berg in Natal, well over a century after its manufacture, this beautiful Plezier Mauser and the cartridge Frank Barnes described as "one of the best all-around sporting rounds ever developed" are still bringing in biltong.

Still at work and still effective at putting biltong in the larder. The author trusted the Mauser and Sierra bullets to bring down this fine blesbok during a farm cull.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, most of these rare, beautiful rifles are in private collections. Sadly, too, those few that were brought back to England after the war are probably languishing on the floor of the Atlantic--courtesy of the British government.

Ron Bester, in his academic treasure Boer Rifles and Carbines of the Anglo-Boer War, wrote that some Plezier Mausers were equipped with a thumb cutout on the left wall of the receiver, à la the 98. The actions of most Plezier Mausers are nearly identical to those used on Chilean 1895s, except that the bolt handles are turned down. In fact, many of the rifles sent to South Africa wore Chilean crests and, after the war, vice versa.

Which drives one to thinking…Chilean 1895s are as common now as trails across the border, and Dan Pedersen (928/772-4060, www.cutrifle.com) broach-cuts beautiful tapered octagonal barrels in his Prescott smithy. Perhaps there's a machine shop that would build replica sights. And for a stock...