Behind the ear in the right spot, and you can drop them like a rock.
Behind the ear in the right spot, and you can drop them like a rock.
That's what they told me once about the 8th grade, mustachioed school yard bully.
You go first.......
Dave70968 already referenced the name without the story. Here is the story.I'll take your word for it.
Woody
Walter D.M. Bell has become a legend among elephant hunters due to his great success in the ivory trade during the golden age of hunting in East Africa. He is known as “Karamojo” Bell due to his numerous safaris through this remote wilderness area in North Eastern Uganda. He is famous for perfecting the brain shot on elephants, dissecting their skulls and making a careful study of the anatomy of the skull, so he could predict paths of bullet travel from a shot at any angle in order to reach the brain. Using mostly 6.5mm and 7mm caliber rifles, he was an advocate of shot placement over big bore power for killing efficiently.
Modern writers on the internet and in magazine articles have tended to refer to him and his tally of elephants in this vein, “He shot all of his several hundred elephants with a 7x57mm rifle” or words to that effect. In fact, Walter Bell killed 1,011 elephants in the course of his career. Since most people refer to him for his small caliber prowess and his elephant tally I thought I would try and break it down, because there are a great number of people quoting what “Karamojo Bell” did or didn’t do and I have noted a common tendency in the last few years to play down what he did with small caliber rifles. Perhaps this is in direct relation to the resurgence in popularity of magnums and the larger safari rifles. Craig Boddington is quite apt to mention the "few hundred elephants" that Bell took. (Mr. Boddington, I believe, is an erstwhile heavy rifle enthusiast.)
Bell recorded all of his kills and shots fired. It was a business to him, not pleasure, and he needed to record expenditures.
- He shot exactly 1,011 elephants; about 800 of them were shot with Rigby-made 7x57mm (.275 Rigby) rifles and round nose 173 grain military ammo.
- He shot elephants with a Mannlicher-Schoenauer 6.5x54mm carbine using the long 159 grain FMJ bullets and noted that it was probably the most beautiful rifle he ever had, but gave it up due to faulty ammunition.
- He shot his first safari with a Lee Enfield in .303 British and the 215 grain army bullet. Thereafter he kept a ten shot Army& Navy Lee Enfield as a sort of back up and in the hope he might find ten elephants silly enough to stand around long enough for him to use the whole magazine.
- He went to rifles chambered in .318 Westley Richards for a while, which is a .32 caliber cartridge firing a 250 grain bullet at about 2400 fps, but found the ammunition unreliable and again returned to the 7x57mm. He later wrote that the .318 Westley Richards was more of a reliable killer for certain shots, while the 7x57 was a "surgeons" rifle.
- He also recorded that one of the reasons why he favored the 7x57 was that the ammunition was more reliable and he could not recall ever having a fault with it; whereas British sporting ammunition, apart from the .303 military ammo, gave him endless trouble with splitting cases.
- He owned a .450/400 Jeffrey double rifle made by Thomas Bland & Sons, but did not use it after his first safari, as he considered the action not rugged enough and the Mauser repeating action to be just as quick as a double for aimed shooting.
- He wrote about being able to drop an elephant with a light caliber rifle if he shot it in the same place that he would have shot it with a heavy rifle and realised this fully when he saw that elephants shot with a .303 died just as quickly when shot in the same place as a .450/400 double rifle with both triggers wired together, so they went off at the same time.
It is also interesting to note that, although Bell is the most famous proponent of using small caliber "nitro" rifles for large game, he did not discover the technique, nor was he its earliest advocate. Well known hunter Arthur Neumann, for example, had been shooting elephants with a .303 Lee Metford rifle for years before Walter Bell got into the business.
http://www.chuckhawks.com/bell_elephants.htm
Interesting and informative article. Thank you.
I'm gonna have to find a better place to use my "hemophiliac and you can wait a week" quip!
Woody
I'm gonna have to find a better place to use my "hemophiliac and you can wait a week" quip!
Woody
Lot of small caliber will do the job of you can hit them in the perfect spot lol
Don't know if the story is true or not, but the old saying was that more whitetail were killed in Ok with a .22 RF and spotlight after dark than were killed in legal seasons.
I doubt the validity of that now, but back when whitetail were scarce, it's possible.
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