Body Shots On Elephant (Does Caliber Really Matter?)

[Flint]

And for the hunter in us.
A strong bullet must transverse the vitals.
With a bullet through the heart or lungs we can guarantee ethical hunting with clean conscience.
As opposed to. Can anyone imagine slaughtering ANY wild game from a hide 30 metres from a field drinking- or feeding trough?
Quite akin to poisoning children's food. And outfitters supporting it. And game ranch owners offering it.

All for money.
Heavens alive.

 

[Tanks]

...
As opposed to. Can anyone imagine slaughtering ANY wild game from a hide 30 metres from a field drinking- or feeding trough?
Quite akin to poisoning children's food. And outfitters supporting it. And game ranch owners offering it.

All for money.
Heavens alive.

The above comments have nothing to do with elephant hunts. I have never seen an elephant hunt being offered at a game ranch. Also, elephants are hunted by foot and tracking not from a blind.

 

[Plainsman]

I don't know that I have sufficient experience to hold a strong opinion, but my personal view is you should take the largest caliber you can shoot accurately, and use the heaviest quality solids available. I wouldn't use a Barnes TSX; if I were taking Barnes bullets, I'd use their banded solids.

My elephant no. 1 was a head-on shot with a 458 Lott/500 grain federal sledgehammer solid. I thought I'd brained it, but in fact had only stunned it. It staggered as if it was going to fall, but then started to run at a very rapid pace. At that point I was (as I later confessed to my ph) slinging bullets at anything that looked gray. Fortunately, that strategy was successful five shots later, and we didn't lose it. Elephant no. 2 was a tuskless cow that charged us down a narrow trail, so the only shot available was a frontal shot (which happily worked perfectly). Elephant no. 3 was another tuskless cow with a single side brain shot, as its heart/lung area was concealed by brush.

In each case, my personal plan had been to take a heart shot. In all three instances, my plan was irrelevant due to circumstances on the ground. So, I think you need to be ready for any situation that might arise. And to me, being ready means (to be repetitive) to take along as much gun as you can shoot.

I've actually carried my "bigger caliber" advise over even to plains game hunting. Not that a .30 bullet isn't perfectly adequate for plains game, but the last time I left the heavy artillery at home thinking there was no dangerous game in the area, we got chased by a rhino. And while we were skittering away, I was thinking constantly that a .308 was just going to piss it off, if it came down to an Alamo-style last stand. And on an earlier occasion I was sitting in a leopard blind when a baby elephant started sniffing around the blind, panicked when it smelled us, and its mother came round to see what was going on. Nothing dramatic happened there but, again, I was sweating like a fountain and looking at my puny rifle, realizing it wouldn't do much good if mama elephant decided to disassemble our blind (and us). So now, my usual plains game rifle is a .416 --- or Ruger No. 1 .450/400 when I'm shooting iron sights.

 

[Plainsman]

The above comments have nothing to do with elephant hunts. I have never seen an elephant hunt being offered at a game ranch. Also, elephants are hunted by foot and tracking not from a blind.

Yup. As far as I know, there ain't no such thing as high-fence elephants!

 

[edward]

I wouldn't say that! But that Heym sure is mighty pretty to be dragging through the thorns. My synthetic stocked 416 would make much more sense!

the elephant wants pretty.

 

[TOBY458]

the elephant wants pretty.

Too late. That Heym is long gone!

 

[TOBY458]

I think I've settled on my Winchester 70 416 Rem Mag for my upcoming hunt. I will take it as my only rifle. I know it's a bit too much gun for PG, but since my main focus is Elephant, Hippo and Buffalo, I doubt I'll have much time for PG hunting anyway.
My load of choice is a CEB 400gr solid for the Elephant and possibly Hippo. Barnes 400gr TSX or Swift for Buffalo and anything else that may come up. I tested the solids and TSX yesterday and am getting 2380 fps from both bullets. POI is also the same for both loads. This is from my 21.5" rifle I had SSK put together for me. I also plan to try some Swift A Frames and see how close I can get the POI on those.

 

[Travis2282]

I think I've settled on my Winchester 70 416 Rem Mag for my upcoming hunt. I will take it as my only rifle. I know it's a bit too much gun for PG, but since my main focus is Elephant, Hippo and Buffalo, I doubt I'll have much time for PG hunting anyway.
My load of choice is a CEB 400gr solid for the Elephant and possibly Hippo. Barnes 400gr TSX or Swift for Buffalo and anything else that may come up. I tested the solids and TSX yesterday and am getting 2380 fps from both bullets. POI is also the same for both loads. This is from my 21.5" rifle I had SSK put together for me. I also plan to try some Swift A Frames and see how close I can get the POI on those.

I think you have made a great decision Toby! Enjoy sir!

 

[sureshot375]

I think you have made a wise choice. The .416 will serve you well.

 

[grand veneur]

I went on elephants hunt few times and shot some with heart/lung shot without any problems, one also without problems with a frontal brain shot, but had a lot of problems with another one after a side shot in the head that went wrong. The elephant fell to the ground, but got up again and fled. Luckily I was able to place a second shot somewhere in the body, but we could find and shot the wounded elephant only in the next morning. So good after the first shooting, then at finding and last shooting the elephant, due to the very special circumstances, the PH could not help me. Unfortunately this can also happen. There were no problems between me and the PH, except that and IMHO, the initial shooting conditions in the thick bush were not very optimal for a brain shot, so that I would rather have placed an heart/lung shot as a brain shot.

I would like to emphasize that I used mainly a rifle caliber 500 Jeffery when hunting elephants, which offers IMHO better possibilities than a rifle of smaller caliber when it comes to a body shot on an elephants. When you see how an elephant immediately goes down after a well-placed 535gr FMJ bullet from a rifle caliber 500 Jeffery on the body, you can understand the enthusiasm of well-known elephant hunters for such cartridges.

Use enough gun applies in particular if something does not go as planned, and I should experience that personally.

 

[Tanks]

...

Use enough gun applies in particular if something does not go as planned, and I should experience that personally.

Can't emphasize this enough. Even Taylor mentions it in that a .375 just makes a small hole whereas a hip/shoulder shot from a true big bore disables, giving the hunter the opportunity to finish his quarry. I have experienced this when the only shot available was a frontal shoulder shot on a quartering elephant. Soon after he lay down enabling me to finish him off with heart/lung. We found the solid on the opposite hip. I would not have tried it with a medium bore rifle.

 

[crs]

Having read only the first page, I concluded that if the .375 and .400 s are OK, then a .458 Win Mag should be also. Therefore I skipped the rest of the post.
As usual, making the good shot is paramount.

 

[C.W. Richter]

fyi 'have found in .416 that the 400 Swift and Barnes banded solids print the same with identical handloads (using 4320 or the hotter Varget in a Taylor.) As the Vs (and twist rates) are quite similar amongst the 416s, I'd expect same no matter what cartridge is being used...This is also out of a relatively short 21" bbl.

 

[TOBY458]

fyi 'have found in .416 that the 400 Swift and Barnes banded solids print the same with identical handloads (using 4320 or the hotter Varget in a Taylor.) As the Vs (and twist rates) are quite similar amongst the 416s, I'd expect same no matter what cartridge is being used...This is also out of a relatively short 21" bbl.

My 416 has a 21.5" barrel, and from my chronograph results, I'm only losing around 30 fps total with 400gr Bullets from the previous 24" barrel it originally had. The CEB solids print very close to my TSX loads, but I do plan to try some Swifts and see if they shoot with the solids as well.

 

[postoak]

Wouldn't what the OP (I believe) suggested be just backward? For brain shots bullet diameter should be less important than for heart shots? On a body shot, since solids will be used, the larger the diameter of the bullet the better, it seems to me.

 

[Tanks]

Wouldn't what the OP (I believe) suggested be just backward? For brain shots bullet diameter should be less important than for heart shots? On a body shot, since solids will be used, the larger the diameter of the bullet the better, it seems to me.

Yes and No. On a frontal brain shot you are also shooting through a honeycomb of bone. Bullet penetration is just as important as placement. It won't be any good if there is perfect placement, but the bullet stops before reaching the brain. Also, in case of a near miss Taylor KO formula comes into play.

Also, on a body shot larger diameter means a larger wound channel so it should be more effective.

 

[postoak]

Didn't Bell show that solids from a 6.5 x 54 mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer was enough to cleanly kill elephants with brain shots? Of course he hit what he aimed at.

 

[Tanks]

Didn't Bell show that solids from a 6.5 x 54 mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer was enough to cleanly kill elephants with brain shots? Of course he hit what he aimed at.

I think he was sniping at side brain shots from a platform he built, not shooting up from the ground. Also, we have no idea how many were wounded and were able to run away.

Hunting elephants is a lot different than his day where there are financial penalties if an animal is wounded and can get away today.

 

[IvW]

If only they wrote about all the wounded and lost ones as well......

 

[PerH]

He also wrote the biggest batch he got on fewest safaris was with the .318 the most easiest . Later on in his last article, which probably is in pdf file here . He wrote monobullet in .308, .3006, and .318 was whatt he was workin on. But the last safari never came to be.


As Mola Ram fans have reduced the elephant qoutas in last decades, who knows that huge reduction numbers per hunter have to be taken as natural part of people and nature existence again.