Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Minimum cartridge for elephant.

I agree with those who say that elephant populations need to be controlled. I've hunted in Zimbabwe and Mozambique in areas where there were quite a few elephants and I've seen the damage they can do to their environment. In the old days elephants could move when they had exhausted an area, but with much higher human populations currently, that option is mostly gone. As a result populations need to be controlled.

I've never hunted elephants, but based on what I've seen, it seems like the most exciting DG hunting one can do.

👍 on all that. I’ve talked to a number of ex Rhodesians that knew Thompson and give him highest praise.

I knew a fellow who some 40 plus years ago was hunting there and had taken along a guy to film it all. Great basic movies. They were hunting near a river for what I don’t recall when a bull elephant showed up heading for that river. In the film the guide is whispering to hit the ear hole, the elephant must not make the river, and the hunter did just that with the 7mag he had in hand. That elephant was dead before the next step. I have no clue what bullet.

Obviously not the preferred weapon but in that circumstance and at that angle it worked. If memory serves less than 100 yards.

Osky

Bell started out with the .303, then went to the 6.5x54 and 7x57--and the only reason he quit using the 6.5x54 M-S was the Austrian ammo became unreliable.

Yes, Sutherland reportedly killed more elephants than Bell. But Sutherland also used the .318 Westley-Richards quite a bit for his elephant hunting in more open country. He did not ONLY use the .577....

I just want to kill one.....a hundred pounder😜

$’s get in the way. I figure if I go I will have to prioritize and the one I might be able to swing is a Cape. Oh for the bank roll for the big 5.

this is a pretty cool thread. I never say much in here because I've never been to Africa and I'll probably never get to go.

but I'll just say this I've had a dispatch lots of wild cows that weren't supposed to be wild the domestic kind. as most people know the correct shot with a 22 rimfire will drop a cow. but you take an old cow that actually wants to kill you I mean wants to kill you you want to have something much larger in your hands. I can only imagine what a actual pissed off death raged elephant would be like...

I don't think anyone questions whether or not a .577 NE can kill an elephant.

As JB posted lots of smaller rounds have done well and the thread is about the minimum round.

I would love to poke a big bull up close in the noggin with a 6.5mm Creedmoor and a good 140gr mono or steel jacket flat point just to see what happens.

Burns,

You might want some back up. RIO7

No one has to hunt them. BUT they do need to be managed in some form or fashion. No hunting at all or harvest in some form simply will not work out. Never has. Never will.

No I don't.

Which makes it impossible.

Bell whacked them by the 100s with the little version of 6.5mm with no backup.

I just want one bull with out any backup but without becoming an international criminal it's not going to happen.

I thought I read it was because he found the 318 gave more immediate effect.

First time I hunted for a bull, I had a 404-375 Ruger - equivalent ballistics to a modern 404J load of 400 grain solid at 2400 fps. That hunt resulted in no shot as the bulls we saw, except one halfway across the river into Botswana with a broken tusk - were avg Zim 30+ pounders. After having been close to several small bull bands, it became clear that, back up or not by my PH, a larger caliber DGR was a more prudent option.

Unlike the hunters and poachers of the 1880s, today’s elephants are most commonly found, on final approach, in varyingly thick concealment. Not in the kind of open savannah grasslands that naive elephants were shot back then. From engagement at close range to withdrawal or shot, seconds count went elephants can turn and charge and need to be stopped. Bigger monolithic solid bullets, larger calibers, and more power, IMHE, are all better. There’s no sniping from concealment if one or more of the bulls or cows decide to have a go at the hunters, before or after the shot.

As a result, the next 2 hunts were done with a 500 NE 3” DR - enough gun from any angle.

IMHO, the large 400s - 416s, 404s - are adequate minimums. Having an expert PH for back up is reassuring, should it be needed, but at close quarters, all armed participants need to be relied on to shoot the elephant indicated and not shoot each other. You can’t always depend on the PH as the sole back up because angles vary significantly at close range in a fluid situation, as both eles and hunters may have to move about to get angles and shots in, rapidly, safely and accurately. Several elephants coming in at once - bulls or cows - is a scenario better avoided but not always possible. Avoidance and de-escalation are preferred and routinely practiced, but reliable large caliber DGRs are still the last line.

Well loaded 45 caliber DGRs, IMHO, used by a well practiced and properly PH-backed up hunter - infrequently needed - are ideal. Most of us have much greater experience with ‘affordable’ bolt actions, components and ammo are readily available for practice, and accuracy out to 50 yds and 100% reliability at speed trumps sniper-style groups.

I know the 404J works wonderfully, but the modern loads in the 458 WM, 460 G&A class provide straight line pass through penetration from most angles and deliver a definitive blow, while keeping recoil to a level that allows reasonably rapid, controlled follow ups.

Others’ experience may certainly differ, but this is my minimum-cartridge/caliber conclusion based on my own thin slice of experience.

Good post.

You have more experience than I do but Bell had quite a bit more than either of us.

He found the little 6.5mm to have enough penatration so I am differing to his much greater experience that the 6.5mm Creedmoor with good solids will stop and kill elephants if shot well.

I don't have much of a want to just shoot an elephant but doing it like Bell did has an appeal. Such a thing is not legally possible in todays world.

What did you use?

I've read a LOT of Bell's writing, and have never come across that.

Instead the general trend I've read is that he started using different cartridges (including the .318) due to problems with ammo, either functional or being able to buy it. He stated more than once, even in his later writings, that his all-time favorite rifle was his customized 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer (known to the British as the .256).

But the Austrian ammo often wasn't satisfactory. He not only had problems with cases splitting on firing, but the bullets weren't crimped in the case necks, and sometimes were pretty loose. There was one incident where he had a bullet stick in the chamber throat after he extracted the case.

He switched to the 7x57 because the German ammo he preferred was higher quality--and he liked that cartridge a lot as well. But eventually a problem with obtaining ammo also occurred with it, due to an "incident" known today as World War One. He started using the .318 when German ammo became almost impossible to obtain, but British .318 ammo was easy to find. But he also used the .303 British some after he started using the .318, as he did when starting to hunt in Africa--and probably because it was easy to get. And like the .318 it was available with appropriate "solids."

If you can carry it, it’s too small…😳😁

Bell does comment on the more “noticeable” effect of the 318 and the occasional inexplicable “misses” or off “off course” of the 256 solids that he attributed to bending inside the head. The “misses” stopped with the excellent ammo and the 7x57.
All of this is nothing that we don’t think today; placement is everything and you need a bullet capable of getting there.
F01