Some time ago I read some of Bell's writing and even then as a budding PH I found some of his statements to be a bit stretched. Nicely written but truth or fiction? One has to remember that this latter day celebrity made money from selling books.

" I met at close range, in high grass, three bull buffalo.....
One stood with head up about 10 yds. away and facing me, while the others appeared as rustles in the grass behind him.
Instantly ready as I always was, carrying my own rifle, I placed a -276 solid in his chest. He fell away in a forward lurch,
disclosing another immediately behind him and in a similar posture. He also received a 276, falling on his nose and knees.
The third now became visible through the commotion, affording a chance at his neck as he barged across my front.
A bullet between neck and shoulder laid him flat. All three died without further trouble, and the whole affair lasted perhaps four or five seconds." - WDM Bell.

Sorry chaps but never have I seen a buffalo easily succumb to solid from a light rifle unless it was brain or spine similar to that of his third Buffalo.

Is there any reference to a witness of his amazing feats?

..................................................................... Right on Andrew!

I suppose Bell can take a little disbelief as well! Capstick has over the years.

All books have a little pink clouds floating around in the text, in my opinion!

The one thing I have never seen in any of the books written by the folks who killed hundreds of elephants, and thousands of buffalo, is there is no mention of the ones that were wounded and never followed up, and were lost!

It seems every shot taken was a sudden death to what ever it was aimed at!

Of course YOU and I have never had to follow up anything, as all ours have been REAL one shot death on the spot deals!
..........................................................................

Journalistic license is pretty common in the better known writers.

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
Some time ago I read some of Bell's writing and even then as a budding PH I found some of his statements to be a bit stretched. Nicely written but truth or fiction? One has to remember that this latter day celebrity made money from selling books.

" I met at close range, in high grass, three bull buffalo.....
One stood with head up about 10 yds. away and facing me, while the others appeared as rustles in the grass behind him.
Instantly ready as I always was, carrying my own rifle, I placed a -276 solid in his chest. He fell away in a forward lurch,
disclosing another immediately behind him and in a similar posture. He also received a 276, falling on his nose and knees.
The third now became visible through the commotion, affording a chance at his neck as he barged across my front.
A bullet between neck and shoulder laid him flat. All three died without further trouble, and the whole affair lasted perhaps four or five seconds." - WDM Bell.

Sorry chaps but never have I seen a buffalo easily succumb to solid from a light rifle unless it was brain or spine similar to that of his third Buffalo.

Is there any reference to a witness of his amazing feats?

I'm surprised by your experience Andrew , all my Buffalo fall like that......

Every single write of old, that I have read books of, have had a bit of a liberty with what they had written

Just as there are no witnesses to verify Bell's claims, there are none to disprove it either.

One thing I have found to be amusing concerning the writings of those no longer with us, is how quick some people alive today are to cast doubt on the veracity of the events described.

Somehow modern day humans appear to be constantly on the lookout for a way to discredit the Bell's/Taylor's/Ruark's/Capstick's et al.

Maybe those folks did embellish on the actual events, maybe they didn't. We can't prove they didn't do as they claim, they or nobody that may have been present at the time is alive to verify that they did do what they claim.

To me, and this is just how I view such things, it is fun to read the accounts of the adventures people like Bell or Theodore Roosevelt or PHC, or any of those that lived during times that none of us will have the ability to repeat, and to take everything they wrote with a liberal dose of salt and just enjoy the story.

The past is the past and the line between what did happen and what may have happened and how the writer viewed it is often pretty blurry.

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
Some time ago I read some of Bell's writing and even then as a budding PH I found some of his statements to be a bit stretched. Nicely written but truth or fiction? One has to remember that this latter day celebrity made money from selling books.

" I met at close range, in high grass, three bull buffalo.....
One stood with head up about 10 yds. away and facing me, while the others appeared as rustles in the grass behind him.
Instantly ready as I always was, carrying my own rifle, I placed a -276 solid in his chest. He fell away in a forward lurch,
disclosing another immediately behind him and in a similar posture. He also received a 276, falling on his nose and knees.
The third now became visible through the commotion, affording a chance at his neck as he barged across my front.
A bullet between neck and shoulder laid him flat. All three died without further trouble, and the whole affair lasted perhaps four or five seconds." - WDM Bell.

Sorry chaps but never have I seen a buffalo easily succumb to solid from a light rifle unless it was brain or spine similar to that of his third Buffalo.

Is there any reference to a witness of his amazing feats?

Similar to hunt reports! I lie half the time in mine.

Not to be picky, but Bell never says the single-shots immediately killed the bulls. The first "fell away," merely reacting to the shot and moving, the second fell on his "nose and knees," again, reacting to the shot, and the third was likely hit in the spine, which "laid him flat." The dying without "further" trouble means to me he felt no need to keep shooting as they were well-hit. The "four or five second" was the time he was shooting, not the entire amount of time it took the bulls to die. They were probably laid in the bush bleeding and bellowing, and Bell felt no need to waste ammo on what he knew would be lethal shots.

Was he a bullshitter, I don't think so. I think the passage is meant to tell a story about how he killed three buffalo in three shots as fast as he could cycle the action.

Just my opinion.

Viva la Bell.

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:
Not to be picky, but Bell never says the single-shots immediately killed the bulls. The first "fell away," merely reacting to the shot and moving, the second fell on his "nose and knees," again, reacting to the shot, and the third was likely hit in the spine, which "laid him flat." The dying without "further" trouble means to me he felt no need to keep shooting as they were well-hit. The "four or five second" was the time he was shooting, not the entire amount of time it took the bulls to die. They were probably laid in the bush bleeding and bellowing, and Bell felt no need to waste ammo on what he knew would be lethal shots.

Was he a bullshitter, I don't think so. I think the passage is meant to tell a story about how he killed three buffalo in three shots as fast as he could cycle the action.

Just my opinion.

Viva la Bell.

I think he was bullshitting. No doubt he was a great hunter, but he was also selling books.

We'll disagree.

Plenty of other writers would have made a chapter of the above paragraph, Bell didn't. There is nothing especially remarkable about the story, just that he shot three buffalo very fast. This is similar to what Beryl Markham said of Blixen, that he made "molehills out of mountains." Years ago JudgeG wrote elaborately of an experience he called, "I have been to the mountain," yet no one doubted his veracity (least of all me). Why do so with Bell in regards to a much simpler story?

Of course he wanted to sell books, else why write them? I think Bell was an exceptional individual, talented with a rifle, and capable of many things most of us never will be.

In the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, "Good stories deserve a little embellishment."

Note it was easy for my to cut and paste the example as it appears on AR courtesy of Trax.

Bells claim to fame was the use of dainty calibers on DG which seem to challenge modern day ballistics.

Like I said it makes for interesting reading and no doubt that Bell was a great hunter and adventurer.

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
Just as there are no witnesses to verify Bell's claims, there are none to disprove it either.

One thing I have found to be amusing concerning the writings of those no longer with us, is how quick some people alive today are to cast doubt on the veracity of the events described.

Somehow modern day humans appear to be constantly on the lookout for a way to discredit the Bell's/Taylor's/Ruark's/Capstick's et al.

Maybe those folks did embellish on the actual events, maybe they didn't. We can't prove they didn't do as they claim, they or nobody that may have been present at the time is alive to verify that they did do what they claim.

To me, and this is just how I view such things, it is fun to read the accounts of the adventures people like Bell or Theodore Roosevelt or PHC, or any of those that lived during times that none of us will have the ability to repeat, and to take everything they wrote with a liberal dose of salt and just enjoy the story.

The past is the past and the line between what did happen and what may have happened and how the writer viewed it is often pretty blurry.

Roosevelt was an appalling shot and admitted to wounding many animals.

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
. . . courtesy of Trax.

. . . good stories deserve a little embellishment, not complete fabrication.

Saeed once duplicated that stunt!

The most remarkable attribute of WDM Bell's was his ability to shoot flying swallows with a 7X57. The person who witnessed this and wrote about it thought that Bell was using a 410 gauge shotgun & then expressed amazement when he saw that it was a rifle!

quote:

Roosevelt was an appalling shot and admitted to wounding many animals.

No argument on that point. If you will notice, all or mosat of TR'
s rifles had shotgun style butt stocks, because of his eyesight.

How many people have you ever heard openly state that EVERY animal they have shot fell dead right there?

The big question is Bell a more trustworthy storyteller or the avg AR member?

Fishermen and hunters have embellished the accounts of their exploits since we were still living in caves.

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
Fishermen and hunters have embellished the accounts of their exploits since we were still living in caves.

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election."

Otto von Bismarck

Mac:
I believe, if memory serves, that Sutherland, Nyschens, and Fred Everett all wrote about the ones that were wounded and got away. They were followed up but circumstances dealt otherwise.


Dutch

Folks here on AR pretty much crucified PHC some time ago with no "real" proof of actually what happened, so why not carry it over to Bell and anyone else who is dead and gone. Easy to slam the accounts and stories from these folks as they are not here to defend them. Hey it's reading folks. If you don't like what they put in print, don't bother to read it. Kinda like the TV shows, switch it right off and stop complaining. JMHO.

Larry Sellers
SCI(International)Life Member
R8 Blaser

Well if it didn't happen exactly that way, it should have.

But we'll never know.

quote:

Originally posted by Larry Sellers:
Folks here on AR pretty much crucified PHC some time ago with no "real" proof of actually what happened, so why not carry it over to Bell and anyone else who is dead and gone. Easy to slam the accounts and stories from these folks as they are not here to defend them. Hey it's reading folks. If you don't like what they put in print, don't bother to read it. Kinda like the TV shows, switch it right off and stop complaining. JMHO.

Larry Sellers
SCI(International)Life Member
R8 Blaser

Its not a matter of complaining Larry, its simply an analysis of a purportedly factual account. That any story was put to print, metaphorically chiseled into stone for preservation means it was meant to be available for review and criticism long after the authors death.

I noticed Capstick used the word, "probably" quite a bit in his stories. "Probably" as used in what's supposed to be a factual account is a bit perplexing in my view.

If Bell didn't want to make himself available for question when regaling the crowd with stories about multiple buffalo taken in rapid fire with small calibers, then he shouldn't have written it.

I try not to be much of an exaggerator and when I very occasionally do, I darn sure make an attempt to not let myself be called on it.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by lavaca:
Well if it didn't happen exactly that way, it should have.

Perfect! Wish I'd said that.

As BaxterB points out, the story (probably ) relates how long it took to put rounds into all three, not how long it took all 3 to die.

The first "fell away in a forward lurch" - just how far did he lurch away? - "disclosing another immediately behind him and in a similar posture" - Frontal??. - "He also received a 276, falling on his nose and knees." - dropped on the spot by a frontal chest shot just how hard is it to sever the aorta from the front with a 7mm? The third being a spinal so enough said.

A lot easier for us to publish review and criticism from behind a keyboard now than when the story was published, review and critique back then would probably have equated to an increase in book sales

What about his shooting German pilots from his plane with his rifle? True or not?

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:
..................................................................... Right on Andrew!

All books have a little pink clouds floating around in the text, in my opinion!

..........................................................................

After writing or editing just one book shy of two dozen books since I retired in 1999, I can truthfully say that to the best of my knowledge not one of the books I worked on had a pink cloud floating around in its text.

I do remember one where the person I interviewed flat-out lied to me, and that lie wound up in his memoirs. In that case, it was a dingy red cloud.

Bill Quimby

The book that struck me a BS was Dugard's book about Stanley. I don't think life was a tough as he made out ... and I think the reason he wandered around Africa all those years leaving the little woman in England was he developed a taste for the local ladies.

My bullshit detector goes off a lot in reading the old books. And the new books.

Having said that, I can easily believe that two frontals and a neck shot could have 3 buffalo laid out. Its easy to get the spine on a frontal shot on buffalo.

Was the second chest or spine though?

quote:

Originally posted by GBE:
Was the second chest or spine though?

He said the first was facing him with its head held up, and the second was in a similar posture. That would suggest the identical shot. Pop 'em in the wishbone and you got yourself a couple of down buffalo.

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:


It seems every shot taken was a sudden death to what ever it was aimed at!

...

Its rather evident that you have not properly read Bells material,or have not read it at all.
since Bell clearly does mention incidences where DG does not fall instantly to his shots:

- Bell tells of his brain shot attempts that are slightly off-mark and he then has to give chase to a fleeing animal,
or where the animal is downed but not out, and he then has to finish the beast.

- Bell talks of occasions where he opts for the heart shot instead of the preferred brain shot, and how the beasts then
typically runs a distance when heart shot.

Brain shot animals meant he could pile them up in close proximity to one another,
rather than having to find the heart shot ones that have run off a distance and inconveniently dissappeared into the thick stuff.


>> Some of the idiotic-False statements made on AR in the past about Mr.Bell......

- 1. That he shot only unriled elephants

How can that be the case when on occasions he could drop near 20 elephants, in one shooting spree.
He also got his name from the natives as 'Karamojo' because he brain drilled close range charging bulls.


- 2. That he only shot elephants in open country.

Bells talks of where he is following elephants so closely in the thick stuff, that he can see the the thick foliage
closing in behind the elephants disappearing rear.

Bell talks of an occasion where the bull turns around right in front of him, and he is so close that the only shot angle
on offer is the less desirable heart shot, but takes it anyway.

Bell tells of when he arrives in Africa for the first time, the elephant has already been heavily persecuted by
hunters and settlers in the easy open country, and that he must instead travel to the more difficult remote interior
region to hunt for his ivory.

[QUOTE]"For years after that I continued to use the -275 and the -256 in all kinds of country and for all kinds of game."
-WDM Bell
[end/QUOTE]


- 3. That he was recoil shy

If that was the case he would not have purchased two .416 Rigby rifles in 1913,
He purchased his first four (of six) Rigby .275 rifles prior to that, from 1910-1912.
He preferred the std98 length action to the long stroke magnum action of his .350 Rigbys and .416 Rigbys.
and found that if he placed the shot correctly, the 6.5 MS and 7X57 worked just fine, and just as good as
the much larger cals.

Recoil that did annoy Bell, were the .500 and .577 Express doubles that he would help sight - off the bench,
for friend-gunbuilder Daniel Frazer.


- 4. That he was a scrooge and chose the 7x57 round to save money.

For someone who ordered/purchased near 20 firearms from the Rigby shop,
then additionally his purchases of a .450/400 Thomas Bland SxS, .318WR Thomas Bland SxS,
his Gibbs of Bristol .256 and his Daniel Frazer .256 Mannlicher and .303s,
He also purchased British .318 rounds in large lots (several thousands), but stopped using them due to reliability
issues, not cost.

I then find it difficult to justify anyone calling him a scrooge.

quote:

-
He also got his name from the natives as 'Karamojo' because he brain drilled close range charging bulls.

Karamojo is an area in Uganda he hunted in. You don't suppose that's where the name came from?

quote:

Originally posted by Dogleg:

quote:

-
He also got his name from the natives as 'Karamojo' because he brain drilled close range charging bulls.

Karamojo is an area in Uganda he hunted in. You don't suppose that's where the name came from?

My understand was that Bell became a very wealthy man from selling ivory . I think it is a long stretch to say he jazzed up his stories to attract sales . It would carry more weight if his stories were disputed by his contemporaries rather than people not alive when he was hunting .
Mark

Bell in Africa, was in the business of ivory and tried to do it as efficiently as possible
in order to best his business profits for his efforts.

He was distinctly annoyed when a native tracker put him onto some bulls that had smallish ivory,
Bell thought such time should be better spent chasing bulls with larger ivory, not for posterity,but for better profit.

He mastered the brain-shot in order to better avoid the task of wasting precious time tracking/finding bulls shot in other
less efficient manner... since that time could be better spent braining more bulls.

Head shot bulls,he found, would also cause less distress/movement to the rest of the herd, allowing him to kill more from
the herd as they milled around...Even the ones that were not killed with the first head-shot, just dropped or turned & fled
in relative silence., leaving others still around for Bell to take.

Bell found heart-shot bulls would let out a shriek that caused the whole herd to run, making Bells job more difficult.
Ideally for Bell, head-shot bulls that fell to their knees rather than flop to the side,caused the least disturbance to the herd.

Not all his ivory hunting quests through Africa were profitable, and his accurate record of business profit/costs, show just that.

someone else once put it quite appropriately:

quote:

The prose in his books has none of the trumpeting about the manly virtues of facing grisly death upon which Capstick built his
writing career and that has been popular ever since Hemingway went on a couple of hunting trips.
(Hemingway was disappointed when he shot a lion and it simply died.)

Bell did not personally recommend 6.5mm or 7mm as a DG gun, he simply reported how consistently effective it proved to be in his hands.
His suggestion was that a person new to the game, choose a rifle and cartridge and get to know it very well...in saying that, he did not
recommend or suggest one choose a large bore over a small bore.

Not to discredit this amazing man I have toned down the title of the thread. What I am angling at is that some of his feats seem extraordinary and I wonder if he did not stretch his hunting exploits a bit?

Or simply was his feats that great?

I'd say
We will never know...
Beautiful

quote:

I'd say We will never know...

That should sum it up quite well.