... the 6.5x54 has been used a bit long ago, seems a famous person dropped many elephants, not ideal, but did the job.
Maybe not ideal for others, but It was ideal for him. The only reason he stopped using it for DG was because the Austrian ammunition
proved faulty as did his WR .318 ammunition, but the performance of the .256 bore 160 RN full jacket itself was to Bells satisfaction.
Yeah, but Bell carried a ladder around with him so he could get a clean shot at the ear-hole of tuskers, or so I was told.
Yes he used on occasion a stand to shoot over 14ft grass..but a good read of Bells books
will tell a person that he used his MS .256 bore in ALL kinds of country on ALL kinds of game.
and that he expressed that it was his most favorite rifle/calibre of all...but for some reason
most people remain so fixated on his use of 7mm Mauser.
When it came to resistance to grit and muck contaminating a rifle action while following bulls close-up
for distances through dry or wet mud impacted onto surrounding tight foliage, Bell actually favored his
sporterised Lee Enfield over the Mauser for reliability. Once again its something that most people don't
know and I think the reason is, many people don't read his books much or at all, and tend to just rely on
what incomplete snippets they read about Bell in other peoples posts or publications.
Bells first .256 bore purchase was a long-barrelled George Gibbs of Bristol, from which he fired
soft-points and became his workhorse meat gun.
The second was the 5lb Daniel Frazer .256 bore carbine which became one of his primary DG guns.
He purchased the weapon around the same time as his first Rigby Mauser .275 bore.
end note: Bell himself didn't recommend a specific calibre/rifle another person should use, what he simply
did say is that one should decide for themselves to use the one they have the most confidence in.