Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mule Deer - Message for Craig Boddington

Arthur Neumann was another of the great Ivory hunters who worked a lot with smallbores. The .303 was his choice. His harrowing escape from death after taking an elephant tusk through the the chest in the middle of nowhere is absolutely amazing. His recovery took months and the whole while he was stranded in the bush, laid up. The book is called "Elephant Hunting in East Equatorial Africa ".

since this is up my alley, another guy along with Bell and Hunter and Neumann all interested in Africa should read is John Burger, he was to buffalo what Bell was to elephants and Hunter was to black rhino....the story in his main book, "Horned Death" about him and his buddy scheming to get rich off an albino buffalo calf they spotted in a herd and the lengths they go to try and catch it to sell to a zoo or collector are hilarious...when people ask me who they should read after Capstick gets them hooked on Africa i point to Hunter and Burger

also if you are really interested in what all rifles the major big game hunters used "The Rifle: Its Development for Big-Game Hunting" by Truesdell is very good but if your a book worm like me it leads you to other books you have to have cause he scoured the books by guys like Bell and Hunter and dozens of others to see what they used and why...

In what era did John Burger hunt? Was he a big bore guy?

We're putting together a pretty good bibliography.

About two pages before Boddington's article on Bell, there is a picture of a Winchester 1895. It reminds me of another writer, Kenneth Anderson. He used a .405 Winchester to hunt man-eaters in southern India not long after Corbett was in northern India. He even shot a few rogue elephants himself. Great stories.

RevMike, Anderson used a 405 to kill elephants?

Yep. Sometimes he used a .450/400 but most of the time it was his .405. Interesting, as well a unconventional choice for the time.

you ask me this now im staying at my parents but most my books are boxed up at my brothers place.....want to say post WWI, forget what rifles he preferred....do remember he gained his experience shooting buffalo feeding railroad workers

yeah i was right on the time period.....anyone interested in African/Asian hunting books this is the site to have bookmarked...

http://www.shakariconnection.com/john-f-burger-books.html

Cool. Thanks.

Teddy Roosevelt was mighty fond of the .405 Win. himself. JA Hunter talked about somebody getting stomped into a pancake for insisting on using it on African Elephant because it worked for them on Asian Elephant.

The basic difference between a 405 and a 450/400 is 300 vs 400gr bullets, yes? I suppose a 405 fmj would get it done, but it seems more iffy than a 173gr 7mm to me.

Yeah, a fellow ought to not hunt/shoot on his own property!!

Guess some things just haven't changed.

Bell wrote that he used lighter recoiling rifles because the heavier recoiling rounds were unsuitable when he perched above the tall grass on his tripod or ladders. He had heavier guns at hand when using the lighter pieces.

Great thread. I'm picking up Bell of Africa ASAP.

It will give you a new perspective. And I think it was that book that had an" Appendix to Rifles and Shooting" at the end. About three pages long,and other than our modern wazoo bullets, it is STILL all you need to know about rifles and shooting for real hunting situations.

I NEED to read this book. Trick now is finding one that won't raise the ire of my wife due to the cost.

Wazoo bullets?? Are those the ones capable of penetrating end-to-end AKA "Texas heart shots?"

Try your local library.

He did write something like that, which was referring to shooting over tall grasses while standing on his telescope tripod, or sitting on the shoulders of one of his men, but it was part of a passage listing all the different reasons he didn't like big bores.
As a rule he didnt have heavier rifles available and didn't feel he needed them, writing chapters of his books and articles explaining why.

He did own a 450/400 but never used it after the first safari he took it on and describes this in a letter to a friend. He purchased a pair of 416's from Rigby after they came out, but I cannot find anything about him using them or taking them to Africa. He mentioned a .350 Rigby Magnum, but it was about giving up on it because it was so heavy and didnt kill anything any quicker than his 7x57.

Bell plainly worked quite well with his light rifles (800 elephants with a 7x57 says it all) but he was also a gun nut who liked trying the latest thing.
He was a neophile. When the .22 Hipower came out he had to shoot an obstinacy of buffalo with one. When the 416 came out he bought two of them just to see what it was about. The .350 Rigby Mgagnum, same. When the Colt 1911 came out he bought one. When the .220 Swift came out he had to use it on red deer.
(I have references to him fitting some kind of a machine gun to his plane early in WW1, that was designed by someone he knew.)
Overall, although he doesn't say so explicitly, I think Bell thought of himself as a progressive man, and that he regarded big bores as old fashioned.

Yes. Exactly.

Bell & Elmer Keith should have met , Elmer could have learned something.



Mike