Firearms Of The Frontier Partisans — Blixen Rifle

My Sporting Classics Magazine arrived in the mail on Monday (hat tip to Rick Schwertfeger). Usually, I just drop whatever I’m doing and plunge in. Had to hold off a bit so I could record The Fall of Pancho Villa.

Flipping through the magazine pages, my eye was instantly caught by the image of a beauty of a double rifle. To my delight, it accompanied a lengthy profile of Baron Bror Fredrik von Blixen-Finecke — better known simply as the East Africa safari hunter Bror Blixen. It was written by hunter, gun writer and scholar of Old Africa Wayne Van Zwoll.

Turns out, the rifle is a Purdey double rifle in .500/.465 that a Swedish businessman handed over to Blix, basically as a permanent loan.

People tended to do favors for Blix. Men loaned him money and stood him drinks, because he was hopeless with money and perpetually broke. Nobody really expected him to pay them back. Women offered… other… favors because, well… because they wanted to. Women loved him, and he loved them, though his notorious wanderlust manifested itself in a chronic case of Waymore‘s Blues.

I’ve got a good woman what’s the matter with me

What makes me want to love every woman I see…

I wrote a two-parter about Blixen back in 2014, which you can read here and here. Bror was married to the writer Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen). His portrayal in the film Out of Africa gives him a caddish, slightly sinister cast, but that’s not who he was. He had a sunny disposition and a joie de vivre that drew both men and women to him. Men like Ernest Hemingway sought his company.

His wives and lovers recalled him with affection and no resentment. His second wife, Jacqueline Harriet “Cockie” Alexander left him when he took up with a Swedish aviatrix named Eva Dickinson. Bror had proposed what is known nowadays as a “throuple,” but Cockie wasn’t into sharing. Late in life, she looked back and said:

“I have never regretted anything in my life as much as leaving Blix… He was a wonderful — unfaithful —  husband, and the best lover I ever had.”

Bror Blixen was an excellent hunter and safari leader, a naturalist who truly loved the African bush, and a crack shot. One client later wrote:

“Hunting with Blix was a magnificent experience. With his quiet, almost lyrical narrative of what happened around us, he got nature to live like I have never experienced since.”

Another noted:

“(Blixen was) An excellent shot, a meticulous organizer, and very good teacher. He was on a par with the best African trackers, and they admired him greatly for his skills and stamina.”

His stamina was, indeed, legendary — he could put in 30-mile days over and over again, and it didn’t seem to faze him. He worked in partnership with Philip Percival, who was regarded as the top safari guide of the era — which gives you an idea of Blixen’s status. He was the real deal.

Like most safari hunters, he had a variety of rifles, but that Purdey served him well in the bush. A double rifle remains the right medicine for dangerous game at close range, offering stopping power with a quick followup shot.

An article on the Westley Richards Explora Club site notes:

The rifle certainly seems to have seen some ‘bush use’ judging by the many subtle knocks and scrapes that it displays, all suggesting that it was used, not abused. The rifle has fantastic crisp rifling and appears as tight today as the day it was made. 

The Bror Blixen “Loan Rifle” has all the characteristics I love in a rifle: excellent craftsmanship and form that follows function — with a patina of use that gives it character and a story to tell. The rifle was an implement of one of the great hunting eras, wielded by one of the elite among the practitioners of the hunt.