Body Shots On Elephant (Does Caliber Really Matter?)

[michael458]

Break some Bones Shoulder Hip

Yep...... here is what a .458 caliber 450 gr CEB Flat Nose Solid at 2200 fps can do.................

 

[Brandon.Gleason]

@michael458 have you seen any reason/improvement in driving the 450gr over 2200fps?

 

[michael458]

@michael458 have you seen any reason/improvement in driving the 450gr over 2200fps?

Hi Brandon......
Some nose profiles are very responsive to added velocity, some not so much. The #13 Design from CEB and the new designed (New about 10 years ago--LOL) North Forks are very responsive, meaning they will hit harder up front, and they will penetrate deeper with added velocity.

You will see a difference in transfer of trauma and depth of penetration between 2150 fps and 2400 fps.

Regardless of that fact, these bullets are very effective even at 2150 fps. I have a new 20 inch 458 Winchester that I am working with currently, doing data and pressure work, and one of my main goals was a 450 #13 at 2150-2200 fps, which I would declare more than adequate for anything that walks, and in particular elephant. Well, I achieved that goal and beyond the first test out with 2250 fps at 62000 PSI. I could easy slow that down to 2200-2225 fps at some less than 62000 PSI and would be more than ready, more than adequate to hammer and complete any mission asked of it.

I have busted elephant hard with this bullet at 2200 fps, broadside heart, went 25-30 yards, and was down for the count. At broadside it exited, and may still be going for all I know. Heart took a lot of trauma as well.

I just loaded some 450s in 458 Lott for a fellow that is hunting buffalo. My guy is not what I would call a shooter. Instead of top end velocity, I dropped it to 2350 fps which of course is more than enough to end to end buffalo if he needed........ This load would be around 55000 PSI or so.... easy on the gun, easy on the shooter, and hard as hell on the buffalo.......

You are NOT SHORT at 2200 fps with these, but more does indeed give you more with these designs.

Not so much however with other nose profiles...... For instance the Barnes banded FN... an excellent bullet, great penetration, dead straight because the meplat is 65% of caliber (in 458 caliber anyway) and I have used them in the field. They are very good bullets and good nose profile as well. However, they are not nearly as responsive to added velocity, especially in penetration. Trauma somewhat more responsive.

Solids that have less than 65% meplat are simply not stable, and everything is moot with that.....

Hope that helps.....

 

[colorado]

The nice thing about the .500 s is that they're already "expanded" to .500 "

 

[ay2626]

Hi Brandon......
Some nose profiles are very responsive to added velocity, some not so much. The #13 Design from CEB and the new designed (New about 10 years ago--LOL) North Forks are very responsive, meaning they will hit harder up front, and they will penetrate deeper with added velocity.

You will see a difference in transfer of trauma and depth of penetration between 2150 fps and 2400 fps.

Regardless of that fact, these bullets are very effective even at 2150 fps. I have a new 20 inch 458 Winchester that I am working with currently, doing data and pressure work, and one of my main goals was a 450 #13 at 2150-2200 fps, which I would declare more than adequate for anything that walks, and in particular elephant. Well, I achieved that goal and beyond the first test out with 2250 fps at 62000 PSI. I could easy slow that down to 2200-2225 fps at some less than 62000 PSI and would be more than ready, more than adequate to hammer and complete any mission asked of it.

I have busted elephant hard with this bullet at 2200 fps, broadside heart, went 25-30 yards, and was down for the count. At broadside it exited, and may still be going for all I know. Heart took a lot of trauma as well.

I just loaded some 450s in 458 Lott for a fellow that is hunting buffalo. My guy is not what I would call a shooter. Instead of top end velocity, I dropped it to 2350 fps which of course is more than enough to end to end buffalo if he needed........ This load would be around 55000 PSI or so.... easy on the gun, easy on the shooter, and hard as hell on the buffalo.......

You are NOT SHORT at 2200 fps with these, but more does indeed give you more with these designs.

Not so much however with other nose profiles...... For instance the Barnes banded FN... an excellent bullet, great penetration, dead straight because the meplat is 65% of caliber (in 458 caliber anyway) and I have used them in the field. They are very good bullets and good nose profile as well. However, they are not nearly as responsive to added velocity, especially in penetration. Trauma somewhat more responsive.

Solids that have less than 65% meplat are simply not stable, and everything is moot with that.....

Hope that helps.....

@michael458 if going with CEB in 500 Jeffery would you recommend the 510gr or the 570gr?

 

[Mark Audino]

Great question. I will simply share this insight from Paul Roberts, then owner of Rigby when the .450 Rigby Rimless Magnum was introduced. The stated rationale for the cartridge's design was "for body shots on elephant." I always thought that was a prolific statement in light of the great .416 already in the Rigby stable. The context as explained in the launch material was that modern day elephant hunting conditions do not always present classic brain shot opportunities. I ended up buying a Rigby .450 and took a big bull with a necessary body shot in Botswana with it.

 

[michael458]

@michael458 if going with CEB in 500 Jeffery would you recommend the 510gr or the 570gr?

Without any question the 510 gr. My buddy worked up the 510 Solid and 475 Raptor with Dan at CEB for his 500 Nitros. I have seen those work for years and they are incredible on buffalo, hippo and elephant. You no longer need the 570s. The 475 Raptors are devastating on buffalo, far better than the 535 Raptors. Being less weight, means less pressure as well. You can run that velocity up in any .510 caliber cartridge.

Sam did the same thing in .585 caliber for his 577 NE guns.... I believe those are 650 Solids and 600 Raptors....... And, like everything else in this category, extreme success in all areas.

Sam saw the success I had with my .500 caliber guns and the 500 gr Solids, which were the very first CEB #13 designs. I went crazy with solids in .500 caliber, I have 375 for Super Shorts, 375 and 405s for Lever Solids, 450, 475, 500, 525, and 550s for the bolt gun .500 calibers....... I think somewhere I saw a fellow state this "There are many reasons to have a properly designed solid for every endeavor in the field, and No good reason not to"..... LOL

 

[Brian Rothhammer]

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.

As I recall (from W.D.M. Bell's own written accounts) Bell did have kills with the .256 (6X54 Mannlicher Schoenauer) but with considerable bullet deformation (he extracted the projectiles and drew accurate images of them) and complained of inconsistencies with the 'poor quality cartridges' that were available to him at the time for his Gibbs built Mannlicher and for his MS.


From Karamojo Safari:
"In the course of time I acquired a long-barreled .256 Mannlicher, stocked and sighted (iron sights, but extremely refined) by Gibbs of Bristol. I did not use this rifle on elephant; I don't know why unless it was that I had only soft-nosed bullets. It was not until later that I got a .256 Mannlicher-Schonauer and used it on elephant. I used the long Gibbs -a most beautiful rifle- entirely for meat-getting. And what a deadly weapon it was!....Just to give an idea of this sort of thing, the donkey headman demands four hundred skins for donkey saddles…..This particular trouble was generally cured by nine or ten giraffe; failing them, a score or so of zebra or, more rarely, by a dozen buffalo. That Gibbs certainly had a full-time job to do. I don't think that even now a better rifle could be found for that particular work."

Other Bell quotes:
"At the same time I got the .256 I also acquired the first rifle I had made especially for me - a .275 (7mm) Mauser by Rigby of London. It was still in the days of the round-nosed bullet, and luckily for me the ammo was good, sound, reliable, German DWM stuff, powder, case, cap and bullet…..Without fault or hitch, misfire or hang-fire, that little rifle slew some eight hundred bull elephant besides scores of buffalo, a few rhino, and an occasional lion. Never once did a soft-nosed bullet pollute that perfect barrel"…. Only later, "As prosperity descended upon me," Bell obtained a "very refined little Mannlicher-Schoenauer .256 with a goodly store of solids" from Fraser of Edinburgh. He rarely used this rifle because the ammo of Austrian make, Roth or Hirtenberger, was unreliable.

From Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter:
"Speaking personally, my greatest successes have been obtained with the 7 mm. Rigby-Mauser or .276, with the old round-nosed solid, weighing, I believe, 200 grs. It seemed to show a remarkable aptitude for finding the brain of an elephant. This holding of a true course I think is due to the moderate velocity, 2,300 ft., and to the fact that the proportion of diameter to length of bullet seems to be the ideal combination. For when you come below .276 to .256 or 6-5 mm., I found a bending of the bullet took place when fired into heavy bones.
Then, again, the ballistics of the 275 cartridge, as loaded in Germany at any rate, are such as to make for the very greatest reliability. In spite of the pressures being high, the cartridge construction is so excellent that trouble from blowbacks and split cases and loose caps in the mechanism are entirely obviated. Why the caps should be so reliable in this particular cartridge I have never understood. But the fact remains that, although I have used almost every kind of rifle, the only one which never let me down was a .276 with German (D.W.M.) ammunition. I never had one single hangfire even. Nor a stuck case, nor a split one, nor a blowback, nor a miss-fire. All of these I had with other rifles."

..."I once lost a magnificent bull elephant through a .256 Mannlicher going wrong. I got up to him and pulled trigger on him, but click ! a miss-fire. He paid no attention and I softly opened the bolt. Out came the case, spilling the flake powder into the mechanism and leaving the bullet securely fast in the barrel lead. I tried to ram another cartridge in, but could not do so. Here was a fix. How to get that bullet out. Calibre .256 is very small when you come to try poking sticks down it. Finally I got the bullet out, but then the barrel was full of short lengths of sticks which could not be cleared out, as no stick could be found sufficiently long, yet small enough. So I decided to chance it and fire the whole lot into the old elephant, who, meanwhile, was feeding steadily along. I did so from sufficiently close range, but what happened I cannot say. Certainly that elephant got nothing of the charge except perhaps a few bits of stick. That something had touched him up was evident from his anxiety to get far away, for he never stopped during the hours I followed him."

..."I have never heard any explanation of the undoubted fact that our British ammunition manufacturers cannot even yet produce a reliable rifle cartridge head, anvil and cap, other than that of the service .303. On my last shoot in Africa two years ago, when W and I went up the Bahr Aouck, the very first time he fired at an elephant he had a miss-fire and I had identically the same thing. We were using .318’s with English made cartridges. Then on the same shoot I nearly had my head blown off and my thumb severely bruised by an English loaded .256. There was no miss-fire there. The cartridge appeared to me almost to detonate. More vapour came from the breech end than from the other. I have since been told by a great authority that it was probably due to a burst case, due to weak head. On my return I complained about this and was supplied with a new batch, said to be all right. But whenever I fire four or five rounds I have a jam, and on investigating invariably find a cap blown out and lodging in the slots cut for the lugs of the bolt head. Luckily these cartridges are wanting in force; at one time they used fairly to blast me with gas from the wrong end. The fact that these faults are not conspicuously apparent in this country may be traced to the small number of rounds fired from sporting rifles, or, more probably, to the pressures increasing in a tropical temperature."

'Bell brain shot'.

 

[Brian Rothhammer]

Also, we have no idea how many were wounded and were able to run away.

Bell was known for documenting every shot he took and its result, often in detail.

 

[Wyatt Smith]

I always thought his long barrel was a 256 Gibbs Magnum, by the way he compared it to the 270 Winchester.

 

[Woodcarver]

I always thought his long barrel was a 256 Gibbs Magnum, by the way he compared it to the 270 Winchester.

Interesting you mention the 256 Gibbs Magnum. I have one that my Dad bought in England in either 1954 or 1955. A Mannlicher-Schonauer stocked with a gorgeous piece of birds-eye maple. Problem I have is, finding any reloading data. He used a fireformed 257 Roberts case, and the only sketchy data I have is on the 1 box of reloads he gave me with the rifle. If any of you have any information on the 256 Gibbs Magnum, I would really appreciate it. Right now, it is simply a thing of beauty to look at; hunting with it again (carried it as a young hunter) would be fantastic.

 

[Wyatt Smith]

I wonder how close it is to the German 6.5x57. @Von Gruff has one of those, maybe he could help.

 

[Woodcarver]

I wonder how close it is to the German 6.5x57. @Von Gruff has one of those, maybe he could help.

This was very helpful. A quick Wikipedia search indicates the 6.5x57 was the parent case for the 256 Gibbs Magnum. With the plethora of cartridges, and the common method of naming cartridges with totally unrelated numbers (256 instead of 264? for instance), finding anything has been difficult at best. Hopefully Von Gruff may have some additional info. At least now I can resume the quest, thank you.

 

[nztimb]

This was very helpful. A quick Wikipedia search indicates the 6.5x57 was the parent case for the 256 Gibbs Magnum. With the plethora of cartridges, and the common method of naming cartridges with totally unrelated numbers (256 instead of 264? for instance), finding anything has been difficult at best. Hopefully Von Gruff may have some additional info. At least now I can resume the quest, thank you.

My gunsmith had a German match reamer for the 6.5x57 so my rifle shoots very nicely indeed. I havent done any research on other cartridges formed from the parent case or had to do any forming as I was able to get 100 PPU (Privi Partisan) 6.5x57 headstamped cases in from Australia for a better price (including shipping) than I could have got 7x57 cases here in NZ to form down.

 

[Brian Rothhammer]

As I recall (from W.D.M. Bell's own written accounts) Bell did have kills with the .256 (6X54 Mannlicher Schoenauer)...

Correction of error above - should read 6.5X54 Mannlicher Schoenauer.

 

[Woodcarver]

My gunsmith had a German match reamer for the 6.5x57 so my rifle shoots very nicely indeed. I havent done any research on other cartridges formed from the parent case or had to do any forming as I was able to get 100 PPU (Privi Partisan) 6.5x57 headstamped cases in from Australia for a better price (including shipping) than I could have got 7x57 cases here in NZ to form down.

Having it reamed to a more common caliber, if calling the 6.5x57 common counts, might be an option. I know the unique magazine of the MS makes that something of a challenge sometimes though. As this rifle did not start it's life in 256 Gibbs Magnum, the magazine has been shimmed to work with the new cartridge. I might give Kevin Weaver a call and see if he is familiar with these and what he thinks. At least now I have a better idea of the family of cartridges to study in putting this rifle back in to use.

 

[nztimb]

I am running the 139gn Privi Partisan bullet at 2800fps and it has worked wonderfully well on deer. The 120gn TTSX runs faster but the rifle like the heavier bullet better (and so do I for that matter)

 

[TOBY458]

Since I've added a bull elephant to my 2023 safari, I've been re-reading this thread. My current gun selection for my upcoming hunt is between these two rifles. One is a Blaser R8 in 458 Win Mag. The other is Sako 85 Brown Bear in 416 Rigby.
The ammo for the 458 would be 450gr CEB solids for Elephant. And either 450gr TSX or 420gr CEB Raptors for Buffalo. All of these are running approximately 2250 in my rifle.
For the 416 I'd be using 400gr CEB solids for Elephant, and 400gr Swifts for Buffalo. I'll be pushing these along at 2300 fps or so.
For elephant and Buffalo in thick cover, both of these rifles would be wearing a Trijjicon 1MOA RMR.
For everything else, I'll be using a 1-4 or 1.5-5 scope. Everything is in qd mounts, so it's a quick and easy swap between all sighting systems.

 

[zephyr]

Toby 458
CEB's have been my first choice of bullet the last three trips.
400H&H 400gr Solid and 370gr Raptor 2400fps.. Buff and Eland
450NE 480gr Solid and 450 Raptor 250fps ..Buff, Ele and Wildebeeste (Frontal Brain)
505 Gibbs 525gr Solid 485gr Raptor 2300fps.. Buff, Ele (Side Brian) and Bush Pig

 

[BeeMaa]

@TOBY458 - Given proper shot placement with either caliber, I'd say the difference will never be noticed by the elephant or buffalo in your sights. I know you practice, I know the rifles are reliable and the bullets you've chosen are top notch for the task at hand...

IMO, it would be a matter of which rifle you are more comfortable with. No real right or wrong answer for me. Regardless of which one you choose, I'm looking forward to the hunt report.