Dear fellow elephant hunters and hunting enthusiasts,

I have just returned from Africa last week after an excellent hunt in
Chifuti Safari’s Chewore South area. With over 500 kilometres under our belts, we enjoyed some outstanding elephant and buffalo hunting!

I am very pleased that some of you have found our Boddington On Elephant With Ivan Carter promotion clip on the Craig.Boddington.com website. This project is truly a milestone for us at Safari Classics. We have been collecting footage for over ten years and our film crews has been working very hard to get
this project ready to release by mid November. Our goal with this DVD is to share with you the experiences and information both Craig and I have learned in our safari hunting careers.

I have been privileged in my short hunting career to specialize in elephant hunting. I have adopted an “up close†style of hunting that works for many reasons and is a spectacular experience that, if practiced correctly, is designed to create a memorable and exciting experience for the safari client. We explain this in great detail in this production. Craig provides you with a detailed description of this 2 disc set on his website. I hope you will take the time to have a look.

Thank you all for your interest and I look forward to seeing you at the upcoming shows in Dallas, Houston and Reno.

have a look at the www.craigboddington.com website for a short trailer of the presentation.

quote:

is designed to create a memorable and exciting experience for the safari client.

Is peeing in your pants part of the experience?

Ivan, was some of the footage filmed by Ian ?

Welcome back Ivan. We really whacked the geese and ducks in Zim. Oh yeah, took some fine Leopards too See you in January unless you call me and we sneak off to Arkansas for some water-type fowling.
Cheers,
David

tony ,
yes there are a couple of kills filmed by ian , great guy that , sad he is not in this game anymore ....

waterfowl season here we come david ! back to africa next week for my last two trips , ele and buff then after that geese beware!

Hi Ivan

I posted this question a while back (see below) and wondered if you were interested in giving us your take on it. The last response from African Hunter was the first really conclusive one, but perhaps you could share with us your choice of rifle and caliber in line wit the below question. Thank
Ian


Topic: .500NE vs .577NE vs .600NE Knock down and Penetration
Hi Everyone
I am interested to know if any of you have in field comparisons or know of any that have been done to compare the big Nitro Express Rounds. While the shootability of each round is regularly discussed I have not found any conclusive data as to which of the three is most effective in the field.
While I realise that only penetration can be accurately measured, opinions on knock down from any long serving PH's/Experienced Big Bore hunters would be appreciated

Further to that does anyone have load information for any of these using monometal solids with drive bands like the GS Custom FN etc? Specifically velocity capabilities and regulation difficulties for doubles. Any info with regards to working up a load to regulate in a double and what acceptable accuracy would be?
These are all fairly wide open questions with a multitude of variables, but as doubles and Nitro Express rounds are new turf for me I am all ears

Ian,
i dont think i can be of much help ...but i will tell what i have seen ...

My take is actually very similar to African hunters take … the 500 outpenetrates the 577 which outpenetrates the 600.

a lot of this discussion is , however academic because i guarantee none of the animals listed below were in exactly the same position , the same size or even at the same distance.

I have some footage , that you will see on our video of a guy with a 577 tyrannosaur… he shoots high , the elephant is visibly shaken , stops and turns to leave ..its all placement placement placement…. I personally shot a small bodied cow with a .577 at two paces that I was absoulutely trying to avoid shooting and actually didn’t expect to shoot…(she had we found later some old muzzleloader bullets in her) as a result I shot high , the bullet went about 4 inches over her brain , through her neck muscle and exited between her shoulderblades …thus much energy was lost… she dropped but started getting up IMMEDIATELY the second barrel finished her.

Because of the fact that I prefer the frontal brainshot and also because its such a hard shot to place based on many factors that have been covered innumerable times here , I have seen lots and lots of failures and lots and lots of successes ..

I am not really qualified to accurately say which of the three calibers has the best knockdown or penetration, one thing I will say though is that VERY often the loads are too slow and these huge calibers have a lot of friction punching through bone thus slow down a lot faster and on a few occasions , ( the thread right here regarding Botswana bulls and a .577 where I was in fact guiding is a case in point) we have found that the placement was fine but penetration was lacking.

Looking back over my records, heres what I have , now please bear in mind inaccurate shot placement plays a major part here as does size of the animal . All shots were at the furthest 12 yards , the closest was three yards.


500 nitro
I have guided on 23 elephant bulls all with attempted frontal brainshots
8 perfect , back legs down first no further shot required
7 dropped but not dead and followup shot killed them
8 turned at the shot.
1 had no effect (the animal was coming in and didn’t even break stride, the second barrel brained it)

577 nitro (excl tyrannosaur)
I have guided only 15 elephant bulls
4 perfect back legs down first no further shot required
8 dropped but not dead
3 turned at the shot
0 had no effect

600 nitro
this is where it gets sketchy
I have only guided on 6 bulls
1 dropped perfectly no followup required
4 dropped but needed followup.
1 turned at the shot

As you can see while this may be of interest , there is simply not enough data or accurate measurements to make any conclusions.

Sorry to not be able to be of more help.

personally i carried a .375 formy first 8 years of guiding , now i have a .577 and a .450 3 and a quarter, the .450 has served me excellently and has been worn smooth from 10 years of being dragged around ..the .577 is new to me this season, i am liking it and those extra grains cannot but be a better stopper!!!

I think Ivan's last sentence pretty much says it all.

Hi Ivan
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I think we need to have this chat again in a year then and see how that 577 is holding up. Like you say though, that 375 did seem to do the job well enough.
Looking forward to watching the DVD, trailer looks amazing. Well done
Cheers
Ian

Ivan: Thanks for the info. Glad you had so much luck, and a great time filming all of those hunts.

Can't wait to get the video and watch over and over. Really looking forward to my tuskless hunt with Chifuti in August 2009. Hope my 450/400 will do the job up right; practice, practice, practice.

Got a chance to fondle Judge Jerry's 500 Nitro the other night - wow, what a cartridge to drop into those barrels! That would have to be the ultimate for me to experience on a hunt.

blank ,
your 450/400 will do fine , this year i hunted with craig and with his 450/400 we took a botswana ele bull and a buffalo and donna , his wife shot a huge bodied ele bull with it and the bullet performance was great...

one thing i would suggest , get yourself a side by side two trigger shotgun and spend some time on the clay pidgeons to get used to the idea of fast on the second trigger... cheaper than a bunch of 450/400 shells !! stoeger make a very cheap shotgun (new at 350 dollars) that will do the job, i have a stoeger that i put a few hundred rounds through a year for that very reason ...

good luck

Great trailer at the Boddington site. Get that to me in mid November '08, eh?

quote:

Originally posted by Blank:

Got a chance to fondle Judge Jerry's 500 Nitro the other night - wow, what a cartridge to drop into those barrels! That would have to be the ultimate for me to experience on a hunt.

I fondled that gun once too! nice double----but don't hold to tight or Judge Jerry might have you locked up for assaulting his baby!

Blank, what month are you scheduled to hunt in 09??
someday we should get a local shoot going and fire up the doubles here in I.F.--maybe this spring??