One of the first outfitters I worked for in South Africa swore that his 340 weatherby was the most lethal rifle ever made. I witnessed it absolutely clobber animals are ranges that I would have never have expected. One Livingston Eland had escaped a breeding operation by jumping an 8' fence where is was kept. We watched this jump, so there is no doubt about it happening. Imagine seeing a 2000 lb animal as big as a black angus bull, a bison, or a bull moose make a running leap over an 8 foot fence!
Anyway, that bull was free ranging for a few weeks, no matter the effort or the attempts to dart it, we never managed to recapture it. The owner finally said that it was bad enough to lose the value of the animal, but he darn sure was not gonna lose the meat too. He sent us out to shoot it and get the meat back to him.
When we finally came upon this big bull at about 150 yards, Pieter shot it with this 340 weatherby. The impact was impressive and the bull folded on the spot, without a CNS hit, it was a lung shot. It still never took a step. In my career I've seen a lot of big eland shot with a lot of cartridges. Nothing I've ever seen has the pure crumple power of this 340 weatherby. It's in a class all it's own for decisive astonishing power. This was with factory Weatherby 250 grain ammo too. ( imagine the additional performance with a TSX today!)
As an interesting side note, the scope on that rifle was worth about 20 bucks, a Tasco. Never failed, always was dead on the money, and Pieter said he never touched the adjustments in at least ten years he owned it. I shot this rifle about 5 times in my life. Probably 2 times for "fun" to feel the power, and a couple more times for "emergency" situations that came up when it was all we had.
So this is the good news about the 340 weatherby....... The bad news is that the recoil was by a wide margin the most harsh I have ever felt from any gun. It made me temporarily blind at the moment of the shot. I seriously went black the instant I pulled the trigger. I also don't see this being sighted in from a bench for entertainment to shoot groups. I owned a 458Lott and I shot a 460 weatherby, Several 500 british cartridges and other massive "elephant guns" Nothing hit back to my 175pound anatomy like this 340 weatherby.
It is to this day the most lethal and tissue destructive cartridge I have ever witnessed. Like a 220 swift but for the biggest game, same results!
Part of the crumple factor on a lung shot may have been because of, rather than in spite of, the Hornady supplied factory bullet rather than a "harder" option.
