Which Elephant Rifle and cartridge?

[FlyGuy]

450 Rigby shooting a 500gr solid

 

[aminkus]

CZ 550 .404 Jeffery with Nikon African Monarch scope

 

[Longwalker]

I've only hunted one elephant so far. If I ever got to hunt another, my "Ideal" would need to be practical and limited to what I have on hand for firearms.
So I'd pick my Merkel 140 AE double rifle chambered in .450-400 3" Nitro Express. Perhaps few experienced elephant hunters would consider it "ideal" but with this relatively mild but quite capable chambering, in a rifle that I know, have some experience with, and like, I feel I could quickly hit what I'm aiming at. It's especially quick, accurate and responsive when fitted with a Burris reflex sight in the Recknagel QD mount. The recoil is manageable, so I don't flinch. That matters more to me than extra power.

 

[wildwilderness]

I've only hunted one elephant so far. If I ever got to hunt another, my "Ideal" would need to be practical and limited to what I have on hand for firearms.
So I'd pick my Merkel 140 AE double rifle chambered in .450-400 3" Nitro

What rifle, cartridge did you take your first Ele with?

 

[Longwalker]

It was a rented Winchester M70 Safari Express, .416 Rem, loaded with Trophy Bonded Sledgehammer solids. Equipped with a 1.5-5x Leupold. Worked OK, but it would fail to feed if three cartridges were placed in the magazine. So it was a "three shooter". That didn't bother me until I had a wounded bull elephant on the ground at spitting distance and an empty rifle in my hands ... that was disconcerting!

 

[Captain Munro]

Heym .89b .470 or Heym Martini mauser ,404J

My choices exactly! I'd take an 89B in 500 and a Martini in 416 as well haha. Inhave no basis on which to qualify these choices save all the books and articles I have read, as well as other media.

 

[Flipper Dude]

That didn't bother me until I had a wounded bull elephant on the ground at spitting distance and an empty rifle in my hands ... that was disconcerting!

Disconcerting………….. Understated, yet apt description.