Hello, need advice from the experienced hunters, PH and otherwise.

I've killed elephants with several calibers and handloaded Barnes, Hornady, and Winchester bullets. all with good results. usually, I go for a heart shot, but brain when necessary.

thought I'd try some vintage ordnance next time. am thinking of using factory RWS ammo(347gr FMJ) in my old Mauser.

have never killed anything with this rifle but paper. however, it likes the ammo.

what do you think of the caliber ? what's your opinion of the ammo ?

hand load recommendations welcomed. TOG

I have not hunted elephant or even buffalo.

So here is my comment on the 10.75X68

I have personal interest as my dad had a rifle in the 1950 & shot 2 leopards with it in India.

The traditional RWS 347 gr ammo was considered too soft. My dad's rifle was used on elephant by a friend and it failed to perform. I have no details about why or how it failed.

Pondoro Taylor had similar results with this ammo & therefore he condemned the caliber as no alternative bullets were available.

Now a days you can reload with Barnes or CEB or Woodleigh bullets and get performance identical to original 404 Jeffery loads - 2300 fps with 350 gr & 2150 fps with 400 gr bullets.

So to answer your question - No do not use the RWS ammo. Yes use the rifle with hand loads of Barnes or CEB or Woodleigh bullets. Others with more experience may also advise NF & Swift bullets.

Although the early bullets in the 10.75x68 failed to perform on large game including elephant according to Pondoro Taylor and others, the modern 347gr bullets from RWS maybe of stouter construction. Keith Luckhurst's article on "Reloading for the 404 Jeffery" also refers to his 10.75x68 as failing on a head shot elephant so he opened his Mauser up for the 404 Jeffery cartridge.

However I don't think it just comes down to bullet construction, to me the 347gr/350gr 10.75 calibre bullet is too short for the calibre. I imagine that RWS probably constructed the solid 347gr bullet much the same as the 400gr solid used in the 404 Jeffery. The 404J shot a pile of big game and was used by various African park rangers for elephant culling duties because it was so effective.

I used some RWS 400gr solids on big Asian buffalo and they worked fine. The photos below show a soft nose version of the 347gr RWS bullet, and the RWS 400gr solids including a sectioned one showing the reinforced nose. The comparison in length is quite obvious. The 400gr loaded to 2100fps in the 10.75x68 cartridge should perform as well as it did and does in the 404 Jeffery.

RWS 347gr soft nose


RWS 400gr solid bullet

pretty easy answer: solidly constructed bullet at 2200+fps = dead elephant, with a good shot.

You sound as if you have the experience to do that.

thanks for the input. glad to see the sectioned 400 gr .404 bullet. saves me from doing it. in all the years since Taylor, I think RWS figured out how to solve the bullet problem.

I am confident the .347 gr bullet can do the job, except the frontal shot. sometimes you don't have a choice.

got back recently from Zim where my PH showed me some factory ammo .470 Nitro bullets that didn't make it all the way. also, some major bullet company' bullets that bent. not comforting news.

at this point, I thnk it best to work up a 400 gr load for the Type A. thanks again. TOG