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Rifles, Reloading, Optics, Equipment
Rifles, Bullets, Barrels & Ballistics
What can't .223 kill?
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<blockquote data-quote="436" data-source="post: 391001" data-attributes="member: 16609"><p>jrsolocam,</p><p></p><p> Your point is well taken, and ethical; here's a guy that didn't get memo. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big Grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" /></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"></span></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Arial'"></span> <strong><span style="font-family: 'Arial'">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 because of his 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.</span></strong></p><p> <strong><span style="font-family: 'Arial'">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 most of his 1000 elephants with a 7x57mm rifle" or words to that effect. In fact, Walter Bell killed 1011 elephants with a 7x57 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.)</span></strong></p><p> <strong><span style="font-family: 'Arial'">Bell recorded all of his kills and shots fired. It was a business to him, not pleasure, and he needed to record expenditures.</span></strong></p><p> </p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <strong><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><br /> [*]He shot exactly 1,011 elephants with a series of six Rigby-made 7x57mm (.275 Rigby) rifles with 173 grain military ammo. <br /> [*]He shot 300 elephants with a Mannlicher-Schoenauer 6.5x54mm carbine using the long 159 grain FMJ bullets. <br /> [*]He shot 200 odd with the .303 and the 215 grain army bullet. <br /> [*]He went to a .318 Westley Richards for a while, which is a cartridge firing a 250 grain bullet at about 2400 fps, but found the ammunition unreliable and returned to the 7mm. <br /> [*] 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. <br /> [*]The balance of his elephants were shot with this .318 and his .450/400 Jeffrey double rifle. <br /> [*] 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. <br /> [*]It was unmentioned, but understood, that 7x57 ammunition cost a tenth the price of large caliber .450/400 Jeffrey cartridges and money is always a factor in business. </span></strong> </li> </ul><p> <strong><span style="font-family: 'Arial'">Just out of interest, I will mention that to judge ammunition expenditure and his own shooting, he calculated an average. He discovered that with the .275 (7x57mm) he fired an average of 1.5 shots per kill. This means that half the time he only needed one shot. That is a fair performance for such a large number of elephants killed and considering that it is common today to fire an insurance shot, anyway.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"></span></strong></p><p> <strong><span style="font-family: 'Arial'">436</span></strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="436, post: 391001, member: 16609"] jrsolocam, Your point is well taken, and ethical; here's a guy that didn't get memo. :D [FONT=Arial] [/FONT] [B][FONT=Arial]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 because of his 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.[/FONT][/B] [B][FONT=Arial]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 most of his 1000 elephants with a 7x57mm rifle” or words to that effect. In fact, Walter Bell killed 1011 elephants with a 7x57 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.)[/FONT][/B] [B][FONT=Arial]Bell recorded all of his kills and shots fired. It was a business to him, not pleasure, and he needed to record expenditures.[/FONT][/B] [LIST] [B][FONT=Arial] [*]He shot exactly 1,011 elephants with a series of six Rigby-made 7x57mm (.275 Rigby) rifles with 173 grain military ammo. [*]He shot 300 elephants with a Mannlicher-Schoenauer 6.5x54mm carbine using the long 159 grain FMJ bullets. [*]He shot 200 odd with the .303 and the 215 grain army bullet. [*]He went to a .318 Westley Richards for a while, which is a cartridge firing a 250 grain bullet at about 2400 fps, but found the ammunition unreliable and returned to the 7mm. [*] 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. [*]The balance of his elephants were shot with this .318 and his .450/400 Jeffrey double rifle. [*] 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. [*]It was unmentioned, but understood, that 7x57 ammunition cost a tenth the price of large caliber .450/400 Jeffrey cartridges and money is always a factor in business. [/FONT][/B] [/LIST] [B][FONT=Arial]Just out of interest, I will mention that to judge ammunition expenditure and his own shooting, he calculated an average. He discovered that with the .275 (7x57mm) he fired an average of 1.5 shots per kill. This means that half the time he only needed one shot. That is a fair performance for such a large number of elephants killed and considering that it is common today to fire an insurance shot, anyway. [/FONT][/B] [B][FONT=Arial]436[/FONT][/B] [/QUOTE]
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