Coming together: Merkel's stalking rifle brings old-world elegance to South Texas

Guns Magazine, August, 2004 by Clint Smith

Life is often like the pieces of a puzzle, as monthly finances are matched to monthly bills received. Available time is matched to all the many things required of us as daily activities, then to the hours of the day we spend awake. Often these plans don't come together. As I'm fond of pointing out: Neither a family vacation or a gunfight usually come out as planned. On a lighter note though, every once in a while, the pieces of the puzzle come together--an alignment of the stars so to speak--and in this case, we went hunting.

Piece One--The Rifle

At the 2004 SHOT show I met with Messieurs Peter Yates and Einar Hoff of GSI Incorporated, the U.S. importer for Merkel firearms. The meeting provided piece one of the puzzle in the form of the new Merkel K1 Stalking rifle.

Built on a Franz Jager-type break open single shot action, the rifle weighs a feathery 5.5 pounds, and it's nicely-equipped with a single trigger adjustable for three weights of pull. Fire controls involve a sliding safety, which cocks and uncocks the hammer for firing, or for safety.

The rifle has an extractor only (a gentlemanly feature), and sports a cold-hammer-forged barrel measuring 23.5 inches in length. Its got good, solid fixed sights even my old eyes can see, and has the ability to mount a scope. To spoil us even further, we mounted a Swaroski 3-10x in 30mm quick-release rings.

Chambered in .30-'06, the rifle is typical of the Merkel line, with wonderful hunting scenes engraved on the French gray finished action. At the range the rifle shot Federal 180-grain Nosier ammunition into five-shot groups spanning a heal 1.5" at 100 yards. Two hundred yards brought satisfactory 3-inch groups. The rifle is a true example of a stalking-type rifle and I believe proudly represents a tradition founded and built in the Thuringen Forest region of Germany since the 14th century.

Piece Two: Optics

I had an opportunity to use the new Leupold Wind River RB800 combination binocular and range finding optics for this trip. This set up uses the proven Leupold line of quality 8x32 binoculars as well as a built-in state-of the-art laser range finder. In the "big hills and short trees" environment of Texas, the range finder comes in handy with the larger-than-deer sized animals in an unfamiliar off-size environment.

The range finder works very well to a nominal 500 yards, and close to 800 yards on rock faces and solid objects the laser can reliably index on. The only shortcoming I found was the red screen can sometimes be difficult to read depending on how the sunlight hits it. With care, the range can be read even in awkward light, but we had to pay attention to business in our south Texas kind of bright light environment.

Piece Three: The Animal

For this piece of the puzzle I wanted something unique. Living in Texas the opportunities exist to hunt for something outside the lines, so to speak. My choice was simple--a Gnu. Gnu? Yup, a Gnu, that crooked-horned, tail-streaming in the wind as it runs, clown of the savanna.

I choose the White-bearded gnu, or wildebeest--to those of us who are plain minded in heart and head. The wildebeest could be construed as a real piece of work, as it has a heavy shouldered front end with sloped hindquarters, making it take on the appearance of a raked rear end on a 1950s hot rod. In movement, the darker vertical body stripes combined with the horsy-looking tail and flying mane serve as the flame job for our four-legged hot rod of the African plains.

The wildebeest is truly a survivor and is one of few animals that has extended its range and numbers in its native land over the last 40 years. And trust me, I chose well.

Piece Four: The Location

With the help of my good friend Mike Barrett of Dallas, Texas, I was able to go to Montana Rocosa Ranch near Utopia, Texas. Montana Rocosa, from my poor Spanish, comes to mean "mountains rocky"--sort of. But here in south Texas it comes to be true whatever the language. Ably managed by true professionals Joey and Cindy Schrecengost, with the help of Larry Goff, the ranch is a true piece of heaven. The land has lush green pastures toed to steep hills covered with lots of great cover for the resident wildlife.

The Montana Rocosa holds and hides in the thick brush over 60 species of exotics spread over 4,000 acres. Using the moniker "Joey Ghost," Mister Schrecengost (which translated from my even poorer German to English, means "shredded ghost") joined with a friend to open the ranch in 2001. Joey holds over 150 entries in the Safari Club International game records and definitely knows his land. animals and his business.

Priding themselves on quality service and animals, the management creates a wonderfully relaxed family environment, with no-pressure hunting, all done-up in a fashion any hunter could appreciate.

If you want to walk yourself into a pair of new shoes, this is the place. Yet the facility is happy to serve hunters with ADA requirements. The physical faculties and equipment are excellent. Geared towards drive-and-stalk hunting, the ranch also has stand hunting for all types of hunters wanting to use handguns, rifles or archery equipment. The Montana Rocosa provides its clients with what they want, the way they want it and they do it in style. This piece of the puzzle was perfect.