Elmer was very aware of Nosler Partitions, and mentioned them in his writings. Am sure that, like many gun writers back then, John Nosler was happy to supply him.
Believe I have read all his books, including some rare ones, often more than once, but could be mistaken.
There are two schools of thought on why Elmer kept insisting on using heavy, .33+ caliber bullets even for "big mule deer," long after Partitions appeared. One is that by then he knew some of his popularity was due to his bigger cartridge/bullet attitude. (Have also heard a claim from a couple of Idaho residents that he actually used the .30-06 with 180-grain Partitions for a lot of his big game hunting. But neither could claim personal knowledge of this. Instead it was "I heard somebody say....")
One thing I do know for sure is that Elmer would have been a LOT better off with 180 Partitions from a .30-06 than the 300-grain Kynoch bullets he used on his first safari, in his .333 OKH (his "light" rifle). He reported on the Kynochs in his book SAFARI, published by a friend and admirer. He used both soft-noses and solids--and the thin-jacketed soft-noses sometimes wouldn't even exit a Thompson gazelle, about as large as a big coyote. Consequently he used solids for most of the safari, which don't kill nearly as well as good expanding bullets. Sometimes elk-sized plains animals went a half-mile before falling. He then reported in his book that all African plains game is "as tough as an old gum boot," a myth that still circulates today, especially among Americans planning a plains-game safari, at least partly due to Elmer.
He could have saved himself a lot of trouble (and spouted less BS) if he'd used a .30-06 with 180 Partitions. I know this from having killed quite a bit of African plains game with that combination. Why didn't he, since Partitions has been around for a decade when he went on that safari?
