Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Killing versus stopping

Real words of wisdom.

I say do what your PH or guide says. My last PH told me that a .375 was the best hunting rifle for a client to bring for elephant, buffalo, etc. He personally carried a .500 NE, not because it was the best hunting rifle. It was the best STOPPING rifle.

The heart may continue to pump, but (in the absence of the spine shot in your particular example) for how long of that period would it be up and at 'em, as opposed to walking a circle in wobbly boots, or unconscious? A genuine question, as I've never shot a Cape Buffalo, though I've shot or been in at the kill for more than a couple of dozen of the buffalo we have in the NT. I soon worked out that spinal shots were a much quicker means of putting them on the ground too.

Experience and truth right here. Thanks Phil.

dan oz,

A Cape buffalo can be "up and at 'em" for quite a while even with big holes through the center of its ciculatory system. I've seen them on their feet and ambulating at least as long after a good shot as that heart was pumping--and sometimes shooting them again just made them more ambulatory until they finally realized they should be dead.

John, I have witnessed wounded brown bears do the same. I can remember numerous bears that were still alive and attempting to get up a long time after receiving multiple fatal hits from 375's and .458's.
The bigger calibers tend to usually put them down a little quicker and keep them down a bit longer but some animals can seem Bullet proof. I had one aggressive boar that took three solid fatal hits from my 505 Gibbs before he quit getting up and coming for us and Kodiak guide Joe Want told me similar stories of incidents when he was carrying his 500 Nitro H& H Royal double rifle.

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Hey guys, been reading a new book about Bell Hatari gave me , some of his lost manuscripts he wrote later in life and for him, definitively "smaller was better." Here's a shocker, even though he never used it in Africa, but he wrote the 308 is probably about THE perfect caliber for elephant! That said, the said the "penetration king" was the 318 WR with 250gr bullets at 2400.

Phil,

Sounds very similar to Cape buffalo. Some will run 50-100 yards with a decent chest hit from something like a .375 H&H and keel over, and other seem to be made of some other substance!

Once in a while even smaller animals act similarly. Eileen once shot a rutting pronghorn buck broadside through the chest with a 120-grain Partition from a .257 Roberts at 2900 fps, at modest range, and despite a major pumping of blood from the wound (much like the buffalo described above) the buck tried to mount a doe! So she shot the buck again, also a well-placed chest shot, and he staggered to the ground--but even then was making motions with his head, as if trying to hook her when she approached. She finally shot him again just to end it, and the buck was so bled-out by the time he quit, when field-dressed there wasn't more than an ounce or two of blood inside the chest cavity.

Thanks John

FWIW I can't recall seeing any of our buffalo actually spurting arterial blood, but some that seemed less than immediately convinced by good shots into the area above the heart. Hence moving to spinal shots as a preference on them.

Yeah, spinal shots work very well--unless they miss.

A Cape buffalo I killed in Tanzania in 2011 had pretty obvious bullet scars on each side of its back, just above the shoulders. The spinous process between the bullet holes was also missing. I always wondered what happened after that shot....

This has been very interesting reading so I'll add my 2 cents, bear in mind it's worth what you pay for it:). You don't need stopping power for any North American animal except for the big bears. I have taken black bears with a 280 and dead is dead, a Brown bear fell to a well placed 250gr NPT from a 338 but I paid the insurance anyway. My definition of "stopping power" is to halt or turn the forward motion of a dangerous animal to provide enough time for either the client or guide/PH to get in a more well placed shot. On a trip to Africa I took two rifles a 7X57AI and a 416 Taylor. It just so happened I used the Taylor for just about everything from Warthog to Buff. The Buff took a 400gr A frame angling forward from just behind the last rib into the off shoulder area. It took out the vast majority of the lungs and the shoulder. It stopped him and a second shot put him down so fast there wasn't even a death bellow.

At the end of the day do you need a 500NE to hunt dangerous game? Probably not but IF I can shoot my 416 just as accurately as an 06 I'll take the 416. There is a reason the professionals carry big guns and it's because they need them to clean up someone's mess. It's better to have the biggest gun you can use and not need it than to need it and not have it.

Nice. Makes perfect sense to me.

Thank you. Guy

John, I had to look up "spinous process." Thanks for furthering my education!

Guy

"This has been very interesting reading so I'll add my 2 cents, bear in mind it's worth what you pay for it:). You don't need stopping power for any North American animal except for the big bears."

I would add Dall sheep and mountain goat( or any critter that lives in steep terrain ). A sheep or goat making even a relatively short "death run" could very easily make it unrecoverable. Bang flops be a good thing with such game.

Jeff

Let me add my thanks for that comment, Phil! I would like to quote you on that, if I may?

I am no hands-on expert on stopping a charging bear/elephant/lion, by any means, but I've been compiling extensive notes from a number of men who are, for the past couple of years. This is for a writing project that may or may not come off... because of my experience and research in the area of use of deadly force in law enforcement (which does NOT equate to UDF against quadrupeds much larger than our species!) I have been intensely curious about the parallels between those sorts of encounters and the hunting variety. I've discussed it with a few established hunting writers, and they seem to think it's a worthy subject. Many of the terms are common to both arenas: stopping power, adrenalized condition, etc, etc. I continue to gather information, and we shall see, in the long term, what I can come up with and whether it has any value to the average Joe. But in the short term I've come to appreciate some points that more or less amount to a consensus. These points come mostly from African PH's--and a few hunters who've been in the thick of it quite a bit--and I hope to add the insights of some of our North American fellows as well.

One of the things that is common to all the PH's I've interviewed is that they view a stopping rifle as a very different thing than a hunting rifle. A stopping rifle has be able to finish the job with a high degree of finality, right now. Most of them think a .375 is plenty of rifle for hunting any game, any of the Big Five. But they clearly all prefer something bigger for stopping an adrenalized, wounded, enraged beast bent on tearing you to bits or stomping you into a puddle of strawberry jelly. A stopping rifle is typically deployed at close range, so as to increase the precise shot placement necessary to the task.

Another thing these chaps have in common is that none of them, as in 0%, ever wished they had a smaller gun and less ammunition when facing an aggressive dangerous game animal. (This observation carries over to law enforcement encounters as well, for what that is worth!) I can confirm from my limited exposure to hunting Cape buffalo in thick mopane brush that my .375 H&H seemed awfully small and inadequate at times, and I wondered if I had made a mistake by not buying that .416 rifle instead of the .375! This was particularly true when we had two buffalo bulls gallop by us a scant 4 yards off our right flank closely followed by an irate black rhino. At that point I doubt a bazooka would have felt adequate! But as it turned out the .375 was more than adequate for the hunting and killing of my bull.

My own PH on my sole African buff hunt has faced down, by his accounts, more DG charges than I care to say, although I believe his tally is accurate. I'll leave him to substantiate that claim in his own book, which should be coming out in the next year or two. His experiences have led him to believe that bore size and power are very relevant in a stopping rifle, especially when you're knocking heads with the big stuff: elephant, rhino, hippo, and buff. His stopping rifle is a 470 Rigby double, and before he got that one his stopping rifle was a 450/400, as I recall. He believes that a double is the best option because stopping a charge requires shooting only when the animal is very close, and no bolt rifle can be worked fast enough to get a second shot at that close range whereas as the double will do so, if just barely. He admits that he has needed the second shot less than a handful of times in his career, though.

Another highly respected PH, who was my second choice to hunt with, also prefers a rifle of greater than .400 caliber, but his preference is for a magazine rifle rather than a double. His reasons for preferring the bolt gun are again highly subjective and personal. Yet another PH, a young man I came to like very much in the brief time I spent with him on my safari, carries a .375 H&H bolt rifle and feels very confident in it. But I have to note that he is the only PH I've talked to who doesn't prefer a .400+ caliber stopping rifle, and more than a couple have expressed fondness for bore sizes upwards of half an inch.

I would echo Mule Deer's recommendation of Craig Boddington's Safari Rifles I and II. These are excellent books, written by a fellow who's done more African dangerous game hunting than many PH's. His observations carry a lot of weight, in my view. Another excellent book is Terry Wieland's Dangerous Game Rifles. Phil Shoemaker has written enough good magazine articles on his rifles to make me believe he could write one heckuva book on stopping rifles for big Alaskan brown bears, and maybe if we goad him enough he might actually put that book together for us. And I really wish John Barsness would get busy and do more African hunting so he can get around to writing that authoritative African Rifle book we all know that's in him, but if he keeps wasting time hunting Montana pheasants and ducks and whatnot, that's not likely to come to pass, so apparently more goading is in order...

Good post, Doc. When the pros speak, the "shot placement is the ONLY thing that matters" crowd should read and heed.

Guns are a funny subject. Lots of guys like to talk about how big theirs is.

Not buying, if structural support bone or CNS isn't hit all bets are off on stopping. It is a human nature to go bigger, but that doesn't negate shot placement.

Phil, is spot on!

How hard is my writing to understand? kee-rist. Not only did I agree 100% with Phil but with the PH Doc's talking about, who also happens to be the PH I hunt with. Maybe this will take: YOU CAN'T GET A CNS HIT IF THE CALIBER/BULLET YOU ARE USING IS EITHER TOO SMALL OR TO POORLY CONSTRUCTED. If shot placement was the only issue, Guides would be going around using FMJ 22s.

Doc,

Excellent post, but the big reason I recommend Craig's books isn't because of Craig's opinions (though they are certainly based on considerable experience, and he explains them clearly) but the multitude of opinions from various PH's.

Many hunters who go to Africa come back with quite a few "my PH said" stories, and many African hunters who write books mostly promote their own opinions. W.D.M. Bell's and John Taylor's books are good examples.

Craig's books are very informative because they DON'T contain only his opinions, and those of PH's who might agree with him--which is what "my PH said" stories are often about. Instead he made it a major point to interview LOTS of experienced PH's, and their opinions can vary as much as those of Campfire members talking about deer or elk rifles. In fact PH's seem to enjoy arguing about rifles just as much as many Campfire members.

Most Americans who go on safaris don't realize this, because they rarely spend much time around more than a couple of PH's--and often only one. Plus, most safari clients shoot relatively few animals with relatively few cartridges, and even fewer get charged. (I've only seen one charge during my safaris, and it was a wounded springhare, which probably headed toward the PH and my hunting partner by sheer chance--though it did eventually bite the PH's hand severely.)

One of my most vivid African memories, however, didn't take place in the field. It happened one evening years ago, on a big, month-long cull hunt involving around 15 hunters, when several PH's were hoisting a few and, of course, started discussing rifles--just like any bunch of deer hunters who end up together. The discussion (and disagreements) lasted past midnight, and started because a couple of the PH's had followed up a wounded Cape buffalo that day, eventually putting 11 shots from a .416 Rigby and .458 Lott into the bull before their adventure ended. But in the end there was no more consensus about "stopping power" than there is about the effectiveness of various cartridges and bullets on the Campfire deer-hunting forum.

Craig has probably been in on more Cape buffalo kills than any other American gun writer. I know that several years ago he'd taken over 50 himself, and the total of what he's taken and seen killed may be around 100. That's certainly a lot more experience than some other American gun writers, who set themselves up as Cape buffalo experts after taking maybe half a dozen, or safari clients who know it all after one or two trips.

Yet Craig's buffalo experience is a small fraction of that of many older PH's, who've seen hundreds of buffalo taken, and may have taken several hundred themselves. Which is why Craig doesn't primarily provide his perspective (as Bell and Taylor did) but those of many PH's, often with decades in the field.

Craig's a true journalist, which is relatively rare in gun writing, partly because hunting is such a personal experience, but partly because so many humans consider their personal experience the only valid experience. This shows up constantly in other Campfire threads, and not just about "killing power" but rifle recoil, or even which powders to use when handloading a certain cartridge. How many times do we see a response like, "Reloder 22. Thank me later," without the slightest evidence of why? Instead Craig provides as comprehensive a view as possible, including not just his own views but those of far more experienced PH's.

The books of Bell and Taylor are primarily valuable for their historical perspective, but their ballistic theories have been twisted too often by relatively inexperienced hunters, many already prejudiced about the subject. Craig's books are far more valuable for their overall perspective, accomplished by his encyclopedic inclusion of other, widely experienced hunters.