Yea definitely not my first choice in guns, I'm thinking a .416 Rigby

I guess I’ll be the big fat whiny bitch here


There’s no way I’d ever shoot an elephant they are such smart long lived creatures and besides does there populace need to be kept in check by hunters the same way that deer need it here in the US? I highly doubt it (but I don’t actually know so if I’m missing something let me know)

If you’d read a bit of the thread, you might learn something.

Not an official one yet.

Fuck that shit. If I can’t eat it, I’m not killing it.

I killed 3 deer this year. Don’t enjoy the killing part, but I think it’s the best/most ethical way to eat meat. Killing something just for the fun of it is fucked up imo.

I wish I could find the book now, I read it back in the 70's.  It was the memoirs of a big game hunter around WW1.  He went into great detail about what he called "small bores" and what game they were most effective on. 7mm, 8mm Mauser and .303 Brit. He killed a great deal of plains game with regular old military ball. Including crocodiles and hippo.

Why couldn’t you eat it? That’s just about the dumbest excuse in thread. Not the dumbest, but close.

@ me if you can ever figure it out, I like books and read quite a bit.

Skimmed it but honestly I’m doubtful on the need to do for population reasons remember you can find an article to support any argument dosnt mean that it’s honest


I just think it’s more likely dude who wanna get driven to an elephant so they can blast it for the trophy and I can’t imagine that they are up all night tossing and turning over there concern for the poor African farmers

Keep rocking that ignorance. Hopefully it keeps you warm.

that's an epic doubling down on stupid

This is one of the many problems with GD.  Ignorant posters who are so sure of themselves in all of their righteousness...which only magnifies their ignorance.  

Post away Gaston.  

I am knocking anyone who does it but its not for me.  Elephants are smart and I enjoy watching shows about them, couldnt bring myself to shoot one or a giraffe for that matter.  
As I get older I dont enjoying hunting as much as I used to.  I guess as I get closer to the end of my life, I take no joying out of ending something elses life.
This past deer season I only went out with binos and watched them.  The last buck I shot I instantly regretted it.  I suppose my twilight years will just be spent watching game animals.

If I’m not mistaken it was Walter Bell he was a fan of 275 Rigby aka as 7mm Mauser killed over a 1000 bulls I believe he was also quite fond of 303. Killed a number of lions as well.

I love hunting, but I hunt for the meat not the trophy.  I don't like to kill things just to kill them, but to each their own.  Don't get me wrong... if a buck, bull elk, etc., presents itself I'll take it for sure but the meat matters to me more than the hardware on its head.

There's few animals I'll shoot just to shoot them.  Mainly just geese because I absolutely hate the evil little fuckers, and coyotes because they're prone to doing shit like attacking farm animals and house pets.

Animals like elephants, giraffes, the big cats, and whatnot... I couldn't ever bring myself to shoot them.  They're just too majestic.

With that said... I love safari rifles and have owned numerous of them.  I'd like to use my 416 on a moose one day.

yup, per Amazon it looks like "Bell of Africa with Appendix on Rifles and Shooting" is the book to buy. Sadly, I've never heard of it before.

https://www.amazon.com/Bell-Africa-Appendix-Rifles-Shooting/dp/0854351353/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=bell+of+africa&qid=1611200254&sr=8-2

As I recall he had quite the interesting history. Favored a small bore rifle for the weight used military ball or era solids for the extreme penetration.

As I recall 7mm Mauser ball was quite effective.

That and 303 I don’t remember exactly but over 1000 is the number that drums up.

ETA: Google said 1011

He also made hardcast round balls for his 12 gauge and loaded them hot, as an improvised bigbore to shoot a hippo with.

W.D.M. Bell was a prolific elephant hunter from ( I believe) Scotland.  Immigrated to Africa as a young man.  Learned to brain shoot jumbos with rifles chambered for the 7X57 mm Mauser cartridge.

IIRC, he was a pilot in WWI.  

Not for me. It feels like killing another human for sport.

I would shoot an elephant, but it wouldnt be top on my list.

I would shoot the hell out of a giraffe though. Have to raise the roof on my house to mount it though

Another victim of the Disney channel.

That's exactly who i was reading.  All the African hunting books were in the school library, I had finished all by the time i was 14 or so. I cannot imagine the screaming if they were on the shelves there today.

Having actually shot an elephant I am more than qualified to post here

Years ago I was hunting buffalo and leopard in South Africa. By chance 10 licenses were granted to a small subcountry with in SA called Venda. they just ridded themselves from a dictator and Kruger gave them 10 permits from their culling quota. They were very anxious to get hunters in there. Right place, right time for me. My only provision was it had to be a brain shot at close range. I was not going to shoot one in the heart and let it die that way.

So next morning we go to the watering hole to look for fresh track to follow. usually you track them for hours. but this time everyone froze. There 15 yards in front of us was a bull, good size tusks, 50 lbs each. not a monster but fine with me. so at 15 yards it was a brain shot. either he would get me in two steps or I get him.  boom head shot. down

now the PH gets on radio Venda and gives out the location. about three hours later you could see a single file of natives with buckets on their heads approaching. with in hours EVERYTHING was gone except the tusks and hide.  even the bone was taken for bone meal. only red dust marked the spot.l

so what was accomplished. I had a fair chase hunt, kill or be killed. an entire village that had not had meat in years was fed. Kruger got $12,000. to the game department and maybe not this exact elephant but one in Kruger was going to be killed, by me, a game scout or a poacher.

as to taste. If you closed your eyes and ate it, you would say chuck roast.

    The white rhino is a perfect example of hunters saving a species . It did not take farmers long to  realize that saving white Rhinos cost them nothing vs the cost of cattle. So many farmers 'raised' Rhino. Now most White Rhino hunts are pretty cut and dry. But again for me, right place, right time. There was a call out on the hunters radio about a big bull that was wounded fighting over females. He had a piece of intestines hanging out thru a hole in his side and was going to die a painful death in a week or so.


  So this rhino had just lost his females, was fighting off lions all night and when he saw me and my PH he was pissed and going to take it out on us. He instantly charged and dropped him about 10 yards away.
again, what was better, a slow, painful death , or a bullet to the brain and the farmer paid a trophy fee and can afford to keep Rhinos.

All excellent points, but you are up against the Disney Channel.

Don't forget the PETArds.

Sadly it truly is that simple the Disney types are winning the argument because they don’t have the basis in reality and fact. Hunters are charged as unethical for killing an animal with no other facts presented. When from 1955-2020 the population there has went from 250 million to 1.3B. Those people mean less area for species of all types as all industries expanding. Not to mention the only thing that will hold back poaching is cash flow that clients bring and as a result governments will use to protect the greatest resource they have.

As a friend who had been on several safaris pointed out. There can be so many they eat themselves out of resources and starve, massive culling, or they can be controlled ethically thus coexist. You can have cattle and children on a spread or you can have leopards and lions. You can have successful crops or you can have unmanaged herds of elephants eating them.

He also pointed out as you did some of these villages get all the protein they will receive from the hunts. As well as the money those working for a PH as porters, cooks, cleaners, skinners, trackers and the rest will be more then they can make at any other job between the outfitters pay and tips they receive.

Outstanding, and I'm super jealous of you right now. Someday I'll make it to Africa.

To be preserved things need to have “Value”.  In most of the African Locations that elephants exist the people cannot afford to give Elephants emotional value based on Anthropomorphism learned from children’s movies.  When you and your family are starving to death the Elephant only has value as meat or export of it’s parts to China.  It may even have negative value because it is tearing up your fields, destroying your cattle’s water source etc.  
Foreign hunters give the Animal financial value that make the local people and government want to protect and conserve them.  Even if all the fee’s paid by Hunters don’t make it to conservation it atleast gives the people taking the money a reason to want to see elephants thrive.  The industry surrounding the hunting often times steps up to fill in the conservation gaps.  
 Africa is a very large Continent and Elephant populations live in different distinct geopolitical environments that need to be managed differently.

My heart is with you , but my ass is up in the helicopter with Marlin Perkins .

You , played by Jim will be well covered ........ and if you need coverage Mutual of Omaha has what you need .

You young guys maybe in the dark on this one ?

Attached File


This big old bull gave me the hunt of a lifetime. He was a cagey old bastard that had a sixth sense about being pursued. He had eluded hunters for years.

His story deserves telling, but I don’t want to hijack this thread. Maybe I’ll make a thread about him in the safari forum.

My 45-70 is ready for an Africa trip. My BIL has been and I’m jealous.

I like to tell people the only thing left behind in an African hunt, is the bloodstain on the ground. Here's experience showing that is true.

I don't know how to spell elephant and even I could see that stupidity.  Why do people deliberately shit in threads?

My old roommate back in the early 80's had all the Peter Capstick books.  The one I remember the best is "Death in the Long Grass".  I might just have to order that book.  

I'm not anti-hunting, but I have no desire to kill one.

I have that book.  It's a good read

Thank you for the your story.  

No shit!  I missed this story the first time around.

Way to go Quigley!  

Who are you talking to, or are you not smart enough to quote?

‘16 must have been a weird year.

It's funny because he and others think that's true

Those shoulders are THICCCCCCC

Exactly, it's like the idiots in Seattle or Boise who want to re-introduce Grizzly's and Wolves into Washington/Idaho. They don't have to worry about the effect they have on rural populations.

You guys should read up on a guy named Carl Akely, known as the father of modern day taxidermy. He hunted with Teddy Roosevelt and many others back in the day.

Additionally, he was almost killed by several Elephants and Leopards over the years, and killed a Leopard once time with his bare hands. A man's man.

The best book is called Kingdom Under Glass, but there are numerous others that he personally wrote.

So you really don't want to know the truth