I am convinced that it is extremely unwise for any man to hunt elephant, buffalo, or rhino with a gun of less than .450 caliber. A light rifle simply will not stop a charge. While I was on a hunt in Southern Tanganyika, I met a Dutch sportsman named Lediboor who was very eager to get an African elephant. The man came from Java and had shot several Indian elephants. He proudly showed me his gun -- a .405 caliber he had used with great success in Ceylon.



I told the man frankly that his gun was too light for African big game. All African animals, even antelope, are remarkedly tenacious of life. They will take punishment that would quickly finish off Asiatic, European, or American game animals. But it is one of the hardest things I know of to try to convert another hunter to your way of thinking. He will listen politely and then, whether rightly or wrongly, will continue to cling to his own belief. Lediboor had shot elephant in India with his .405. Therefore the gun could stop African elephants.



A few weeks later, Mr. Millar, a tsetse fly research official in the Kilossa district, happended to pass my camp and told me that Lediboor had been killed by his first elephant. Lediboor had sighted a herd and climbed a tree to get a better shot at them. He dropped one and feeling very elated, started toward the beast. The elephant was only stunned. He leaped up and charged Lediboor. All that Mr. Millar could say was that judging from the mangled remains, Lediboor had not suffered.



from Hunter by J.A. Hunter

Terry,

I was just re-reading "Hunter" not too long ago. The stubborn part is proved on this forum everyday!

"He will listen politely and then, whether rightly or wrongly, will continue to cling to his own belief".

Indeed

If only they would listen politely!

If only Mr. Lediboor had talked with Teddy Roosevelt.

Lucky for us today they only charge the PH...

I am by no means an expert in the matter, but was his mistake not using a large enough caliber or was it walking up to the elephant before he knew it was dead?

gthomsen,

I would say both.

"Use enough gun." and "It's the dead ones that will kill you."

Regards,

Terry

Terry,
good story. But I'd be afraid to tell it, for fear of the 405 Win backlash you may get. I read a good book by TS White - Land of Foot Prints. Lots of good and not so good hunting stories about the shooting of animals with the 405 Win in Africa.

O'K guys, you do know that the Indian elephant has a bigger head than the African elephant, don't you? It would take more penitration. An elephant is an elephant. Why would one be any easior to kill than another. And don't tell me it is because the African elephant has more predators chasing and eating them than their cousins. Would the Indian lion be easior to kill than the African lion? Would the extinct European lion be easior to kill than the African lion? Me thinks not! I'm smarter than that.

Well Leo, you should know about Lions.

I didn't know that the head was bigger. Is the skull thicker too? You don't need to penitrate through the Brain and out the other side.

I think it was a matter of bullets back then. Or the lack of them to be more precise.

If only lediboor had used a .45/70 with flat nosed hard cast bullets ............

Leo,

I have never shot an elephant and probably never will. I have had hunters in my family in India and among friends of my family and can tell you that Indian big game was definitely shot with much smaller guns than a lot of African game is. Yes, there were spectacular big bore double rifles made for In dia's maharajas but there were also double rifles made for calibers like the .405 Winchester and all sorts of game wwas hunted with them.

There were also far fewer fatalities in Indian hunting (that is, among the hunters) and though this was probably because it was beaten game that was hunted here, Indian game was definitely more easily killed from all written accounts than African game was.

One of India's most wanted men is a bandit called Veerappan from my home state of Tamil Nadu who has (by the Indian Government's account) killed over 2000 Indian elephant for their ivory (which is mostly smuggled to Japan) and his preferred rifles (which have been filmed by television reporters who seem to find him far more easily than out police do) are a .303 Enfield and a Sharps of some obsolete caliber.

The Indian elephant may have a larger head than the African, but it is on the whole a much smaller animal. I have seen African elephant only in zoos, but have seen several Indian elephants in the wild as well as on the streets of several Indian towns where they are used to beg with. A number of Hindu temples, too, have domesticated Indian elephants. I may be very wrong here but I have never heard of the African elephant used as a beast of burden or in the timber industry.

Indian game is, from the experts' writings, easier to kill than African. We also hunt our boar (and large animals for that) with 12 bore shotguns loaded with ball. I posted about this a long time ago and nearly got flamed by an English member who said that he knew it was done but wasn't sporting. Just my very amateur 2c.

I would also add that attitude and temperament count for a lot. I am sure we have all seen smaller animals fight twice as hard and refuse to give up. I wonder if anatomically the adrenal glands vary in size between the african and asian elephant. I also just reread the initial statement. It sounds to me more like a bad shot and bad judgement than anything else.

Mike,
I think you made a very good point in how some animals refuse to give up. I once put 3 7mag rounds into a forkhorn mulie over a 1/4 mile chase. All 3 were in the heart lungs and broke the off shoulder with one of them. He flat refused to admit he was dead. It is interesting how Mother Nature instills some animals with such a strong desire to survive.

Mehulkamdar, I don't know the hunting regs of India but I suspect smaller calibers are used there more than in Africa because India doesn't have such restrictive minimum calibers laws. Using a .303 on elephant in Africa is nothing new either. The use of small calibers for large game is a common habit among poachers everywhere. I have seen a trained african elephant in a zoo; San Antonio zoo I think. I'm sure Africans could have tamed and trained young African elephants if they just had a mind too but their civilization having been very primitive verses that of India probably had something to do with it. Are tigers easior to kill than lions? The Indian nilgai(blue bull) is supposed to be pretty tuff, even Texas game ranchers think so. We need to have a game ranch test where both African and Indian species exist.