I understand a soft point maybe not penetrate the skull on a brain shot.

But why not use soft points for chest shots?? is Elephant hide too thick for soft points??

A couple of years ago I met a hunter and his PH who had spent a few days tracking a wounded Jumbo from Dande south communal area al the way into Chewore south due to the use of a 416 Barns X against the recommendation of the PH.
I did not find out if they ever found the Bull.

Oz,

The single Barnes-X from my 460 went all the way through my last Jumbo's head and poked out of the skin on the other side....After ~4+ feet of bone/brain penetration. I use that bullet because it's demonstrated to me it can do pretty much everything on each of the big 5. It also eliminates distractions like thinking "maybe I should have switched to a solid" in the heat of things...Precisely when I need to be 100% focused on shot placement.

I posted a picture of that recovered bullet quite some time ago, along with a Barnes-X from a rhino:
https://forums.accuratereloading.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/1411043/m/949100633

Any chance your hunter acquaintance's unfortunate experience was more on account of just barely missing the brain than using the wrong bullet/penetration?

There are a bunch of variables here and not knowing the exact circumstances leads only to speculation. I would then speculate: If the 416 used was a 416 Rigby and the X bullet was 400gr, the most common mistake around the use of copper monos was made. A 416 Rem Mag will do better than a Rigby with the 400gr mono soft and both will do better with even lighter bullets. Offhand I know of two frontal brain shots on ele with expanding monos that produced no drama. One was a 320gr HV from a 425 Express taken on a follow up of a wounded animal. The other was a 160gr from a 300 Win Mag taken in self defense of a group of tourists.

It would be interesting to know what was used and exactly what happened in the incident mentioned by ozhunter above. With the ele taken with the 425 Express on follow up, the ele was initially wounded with a 416 Rigby and a 375 H&H. There were no caliber or bullet failures involved, it was just bad shooting.

If an expanding copper soft is properly matched to the caliber, it will do much more than what one would commonly expect from a conventional bullet of the same weight or heavier.

Gentlemen

Gunroom and classroom physics aside - only shoot elephant with FMJ or monolithic solids, there are far too many variables, including thick skin and heavy bone, to be playing experimental games with one of nature's most magnificent beasts.

quote:

Originally posted by JTHunt:
Gentlemen

Gunroom and classroom physics aside - only shoot elephant with FMJ or monolithic solids, there are far too many variables, including thick skin and heavy bone, to be playing experimental games with one of nature's most magnificent beasts.

Ditto.

All the "experiments" were done long ago, mostly by dead experimenters.

Hallo there,

i just shad a worried man, whom the 750 Grain from the .577" T-Rex were not enough for frontel Ele and he ordered Custom 800 Grain, or 52 Gramm. He wouldn`t dare to go for Elefant with less. Now some one asks for a Softpoint on Elfant frontal Brain shot! I wonder.

Regards LutzM

Lutz,

Great looking bullets.

I guess banded bullets are here to stay.

Lutz, your customer may be making a mistake by going with an overly long monolithic, as the excessive length will increase yaw and tend to induce early tumbling.

Gerard-

Just curious but why do you say "a .416 Rem Mag will do better than a Rigby with the 400gr mono soft"?

This does not make sense to me. Someone please enlighten me!

John

The 416 RM twist spec is 2.5" tighter than the Rigby and it will give more linear penetration than a Rigby with long bullets. The 416RM is not listed here but it is the same as the 416 Weatherby Mag.

Gerard- Thanks for the info. I have always been under the impression that the two (Rigby and Rem) were so close in performance that they might as well be called identical. If I understand you correctly, the difference in twist allows the Remington round more stability when penetrating animal bone/tissue when using longer bullet designs such as the Barnes TSX.

Don't mean to hijack this thread guys!! Just want to understand as Ele is on my menu at some point.

John

Gerard, you have a PM.
Peter.

I'm with Will and JTHunt all the way. Use solids only.

Lots of good points here, most of which completely ignore the question posed by the original poster.What about SHOTS TO THE CHEST WITH A SOFT POINT.

Now, can we try once again?

quote:

Originally posted by eyedoc:
Lots of good points here, most of which completely ignore the question posed by the original poster.What about SHOTS TO THE CHEST WITH A SOFT POINT.

Never. Have you seen a bull elephant's leg bone?

quote:

Originally posted by eyedoc:
Lots of good points here, most of which completely ignore the question posed by the original poster.What about SHOTS TO THE CHEST WITH A SOFT POINT.

Now, can we try once again?

JK

...hum I am trieing...

BIG

nah I don't think I would like to hit that humerus or scapula by accident...

source of pics:

http://www.wildlife-pictures-online.com/elephant-eye_kgr-0467.html
http://www.elephant.se/elephant_anatomy.php?open=Elephant%20anatomy

Soft points on elephant is about the dumbest idea I have seen floated around here in a long while. Real Darwin Award material.

I doubt that one single PH with any elephant hunting experience can be found who would advocate this kind of thing, and for good reason.

Elephant are unpredictable, tend to mass together in herds, and are hunted and shot at close range. Who knows what shot one might have to make? Who knows under what conditions one might be forced to shoot? Who knows how many other elephant may be standing or hiding nearby when the time comes to shoot at the chosen one? Elephant skin is thick; elephant bones are thick; and elephant brains are small, and sometimes their brains are the only targets one has.

Not all elephants are considerate enough to step out of the bush and present one with a nice broadside heart shot. In fact, some have been known to charge straight on, with their ears pinned back and their trunks curled down between their front legs.

The point is, a hunter doesn't always have a choice of shots on elephant. Things develop while one is standing among them, at very close range. Sometimes bad things. Who wants to try a frontal brain shot under those conditions, through three or four feet of skull, when 10-15-20 yards or so away from an elephant, or even closer, using a soft point bullet?

Not me. And not anyone else with a whit of sense, either, IMHO.

Possibly as much to stir the pot as any thing but I remember reading an article from Finn Aggard where a friend of his got involved with cropping some elephants with his 416 Rem...All the guy had were 400gr Brnes X bullet hand loads and they worked fine for brain shots........ No experience of my own tho ...

Top Predator,
The answer to your question is yes, the hide is too thick and the heart too deep to depend on softs to make get to/thru the good stuff. On two different Zebras, chest shots I've had with 458win TBBC's didn't have complete penetration, and I can remember some BIG hogs that 375H&H SpeerGrandSlam chest shots did not completely penetrate-- and I'm sure everyone who uses bigbore softs has had similiar experience, so penetration has to be the main thing on ele--no softs.

Ron Thompson, Jode Pardal, Richard Harland and even John Taylor in their various books indicate that they experimented with or seen elephants killed with soft point bullets. Yet, all srongly advise only using solids on elephants. Between them they have a huge amount of elephant hunting experience. That is good enough for me. Softs may work some of the time but sooner or later they will fail and someone will get hurt or killed.

465H&H

I remember being stunned reading some articles by Elgin Gates. He routinely used his 300 wthby and 200 grn noslers for buff, but he killed several elephants with the gun and load too, including his biggest. As they say, it's the man as much as the rifle, gates was a very experianced hunter.

quote:

Originally posted by 465H&H:
Ron Thompson, Jode Pardal, Richard Harland and even John Taylor in their various books indicate that they experimented with or seen elephants killed with soft point bullets. Yet, all srongly advise only using solids on elephants. Between them they have a huge amount of elephant hunting experience. That is good enough for me. Softs may work some of the time but sooner or later they will fail and someone will get hurt or killed.

465H&H

What do you mean "even John Taylor" white boy?

In agreement, I don't know of anyone that has ever recommended a soft on elephant, that was considered sane anyway!

Though it is not unusual for solids to zing thru buffalo, elephants are not buff.

And solids will kill elephants quite quickly with chest shots, much as softs do on buff.

I will never try soft points on Elephant,i asked out of interest.

Thanks for the replies.

quote:

Originally posted by TSJ:
I remember being stunned reading some articles by Elgin Gates. He routinely used his 300 wthby and 200 grn noslers for buff, but he killed several elephants with the gun and load too, including his biggest. As they say, it's the man as much as the rifle, gates was a very experianced hunter.

I just finished reading a 1968? issue of Guns and Ammo (or something) where Elgin Gates related his elephant hunt in the NFD of Kenya. Shot his largest, I believe, in that story, 142x147. Big, big ivory.

Shot it with a borrowed 470 NE.

Will, his biggest ( that I know of) came out of Uganda. he was hunting with John Blacklaws if I remember correctly. 176 and 181# and it took him a year or more to get the tusks home as an ugandan official tried to take them. I think Blacklaws ended up sneaking them out of Uganda and got them to Gates that way.

quote:

Originally posted by TSJ:
Will, his biggest ( that I know of) came out of Uganda. he was hunting with John Blacklaws if I remember correctly. 176 and 181# and it took him a year or more to get the tusks home as an ugandan official tried to take them. I think Blacklaws ended up sneaking them out of Uganda and got them to Gates that way.

And I thought 142x147 was big. Nothing personal, really, but I just can't believe 176x181. That is too big to swallow!

Surely someone has Gates' book(s) that could answer the question.

Thats out of his book Trophy hunter in Africa, called a pal of mine and had him read it to me to make sure. It was 181 1/2 # on the one tusk to be exact, after 2 yrs before he got them home.

Bill,

Go to the 24hr Campfire forums home page. There's an article in the "Smokelore" magazine called "Big Ivory" by Ken Howell, retelling Gates' trials and tribulations for that 181.5x176bler. Pretty incredible story.

stuntpilot2 very impressive !!!.. when I made the former post I hadn,t read your link.....Thanks for reporting on your safari and the attention to details...... what is the LOP of your rifle....????????

quote:

Originally posted by TSJ:
Thats out of his book Trophy hunter in Africa, called a pal of mine and had him read it to me to make sure. It was 181 1/2 # on the one tusk to be exact, after 2 yrs before he got them home.

TSJ and PWS,

Thanks for setting me straight. That ivory must be unbelievable. I just can't imagine it being taken in relatively recent history.

Thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by stuntpilot2:
Oz,

The single Barnes-X from my 460 went all the way through my last Jumbo's head and poked out of the skin on the other side....After ~4+ feet of bone/brain penetration. I use that bullet because it's demonstrated to me it can do pretty much everything on each of the big 5. It also eliminates distractions like thinking "maybe I should have switched to a solid" in the heat of things...Precisely when I need to be 100% focused on shot placement.

I posted a picture of that recovered bullet quite some time ago, along with a Barnes-X from a rhino:
https://forums.accuratereloading.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/1411043/m/949100633

Any chance your hunter acquaintance's unfortunate experience was more on account of just barely missing the brain than using the wrong bullet/penetration?

Another PH in that camp also stated that he has recovered a large caliber Barns X from a Leopard.
As the X bullet is one of the strongest soft bullets available I certainly will not use a soft for Ele.

quote:

Another PH in that camp also stated that he has recovered a large caliber Barns X from a Leopard.

Maybe the twist rate was too slow!

quote:

Originally posted by ozhunter:

quote:

Originally posted by stuntpilot2:
Oz,

The single Barnes-X from my 460 went all the way through my last Jumbo's head and poked out of the skin on the other side....After ~4+ feet of bone/brain penetration. I use that bullet because it's demonstrated to me it can do pretty much everything on each of the big 5. It also eliminates distractions like thinking "maybe I should have switched to a solid" in the heat of things...Precisely when I need to be 100% focused on shot placement.

I posted a picture of that recovered bullet quite some time ago, along with a Barnes-X from a rhino:
https://forums.accuratereloading.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/1411043/m/949100633

Any chance your hunter acquaintance's unfortunate experience was more on account of just barely missing the brain than using the wrong bullet/penetration?

Another PH in that camp also stated that he has recovered a large caliber Barns X from a Leopard.
As the X bullet is one of the strongest soft bullets available I certainly will not use a soft for Ele.

Recovered one from a Leopard? Really?!? I'd be surprised to ever recover a Barnes-X from a Leopard. Especially one delivered from a larger caliber rifle....

Short of the bullet having either:
1. Passed through a small tree first
2. Been shot from 1000 yards
or
3. Been delivered Texas heart shot style...

They're pretty tough projectiles. Leopards are pretty soft. Virtually porous when compared to Buff or Jumbo.

x - type bullets work untill they lose 1 of their petals (not all of them) - then they are lost

Didn't Capstick have a BS story about being lost for several days with a couple of buddies, and without water, when an elephant started harassing them. One of the buddies pulled a 270 win SP out of the case, with his teeth, turned it around backwards, and killed the elephant with a brainshot?

quote:

Originally posted by Gerard:
The 416 RM twist spec is 2.5" tighter than the Rigby and it will give more linear penetration than a Rigby with long bullets. The 416RM is not listed here but it is the same as the 416 Weatherby Mag.

Listen up gentlemen. A faster twist leads to deeper penetration.

Dan you are being naughty. You should complete your sentences otherwise we are going to get 17 pages of misunderstanding raining down here.

quote:

Listen up gentlemen. A faster twist leads to deeper penetration.....

by virtue of better stability when the bullet transitions from flight to target.

One might also ad: "Especially at high angles of incidence."

Mayby the X bullet that was recovered from a leopard had passed thru a foot thick boabab limb or as you say a thousand yard shot..... I am not above believing that some African P H ,s might be perhaps less than 100 % straight up , in keeping with their prejudeces........

quote:

Originally posted by gumboot458:
Mayby the X bullet that was recovered from a leopard had passed thru a foot thick boabab limb or as you say a thousand yard shot.....

More likely, it tumbled due to excessive length. Best go a little bit light when using monolithic bullets.