On the subject of books by African hunters,I am looking forward to reading at least a few from todays Ph's if ever they were to write any.

quote:

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!

Yes, I have seen my uncle shot down flying kites with his 30-06.

It all really comes down to a matter of marksmanship. And I believe Bell (I've worn out my copy of his book) really did as stated. Why?

Well, I've never been elephant hunting. But I don't have to, to know a gifted talent for shooting and to know such a thing does exist that sets some shooters apart from the rest of us. And if you happen to be equipped with it and have the opportunity available for constant experience to keep that skill well polished, then you are capable of a long, long string of perfect bullet placements. It's quite possible, in other words.

I know because I've seen others display such skills.

Here's one. The famous Winchester shooting exhibitionist, Herb Parsons. As a child I was there. 1950s. I saw him say, "which side do you want the shot through?", then take nickels (a U.S. 5 cent piece for non-Americans here) and throw them high in the air and put a hole in them with a .22 rifle. And no, those were a single bullet, not shot shells. And he could do it over and over. He was THAT good.

I could name other examples. Just one more. Nash Buckingham. The author of so many classic books on waterfowling and the co-founder of Ducks Unlimited. That old boy could consistently hit birds others either could barely see or wouldn't even try.

So with Bell, I believe. He was the real deal. So everyone else do whatever, but I'm willing to give him all the credit for literally being able to pull it off as stated.

And I'd ask any doubters a simple question, how many true gifted shooting professionals have you personally watched perform their craft and display their skills?

Btw, I've heard nobody mention this, but Bell was also quite the talented artist. Those are his sketches in the elephant hunting book, and some would be worthy of framing - the arrival in West Africa by boat in particular.

While ya'll discuss the merits of accuracy of prose I'm going to reread some Corbett for the 15th time. Don't think I'll read any exaggerated accounts here. (And a better use of my time).


Dutch

I am not an expert in anything and not a hunter of any great experience and until this thread I didn't even know Bell WAS an author of anything. While I have made 8 safaris (all in Zimbabwe) and shot 3 Elephants I have only shot 1 buffalo (a cow) which I shot simply because so much has been written on the romance of hunting Buffalo and the extreme danger and ferocity and tenacious hold on life they have it seemed I was REQUIRED to shoot one. After much tracking and more walking than I care to remember. It seems buffalo just like to wander over an area (they would seem to be like my father used to say about a goose,'everytime it blinked it's eye it woke up in a new world') I finally caught up with the herd we were after and absolutely missed a shot at one and the herd ran off. After waiting a time we chased them and found them several hundred yards away. A suitable cow was picked by my PH and we jockied into position about 25 yards away broadside. I shot for a heart/lung shot with a 375H&H. The bullet was either a 270gr Nosler Partition or a 300gr Woodleigh solid (much discussion had been had with my PH about this choice). At the shot the buffalo reared up on her hind legs and just kept going on over on her back landing with all 4 legs straight up and never moved anothe muscle. This is an instantaneous kill with a 375H&H on a heart/lung shot buffalo and there were several witnesses to the occurance. This just proved to me that my feeling Buffalo were way overrated as a game animal and as such I never shot another. I have no idea whether Bell did what he said or not but I have to say that a man with his experience and confirmed skill would certainly deserve my belief.

Andrew, to answer your question I have a simple question.

How many of us have seen someone shoot flying swallows with a rifle? Even 1 in 10 shots?

That particular example leaves us with 2 options - accept the observer's writing as fact (bell did not claim this feat BTW) or simple ridicule the writer as telling porkies about Bell's abilities!

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
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?

He must be a great shot indeed. Good on him.

More than 40 years ago I knew someone who shot flying / gliding kites with a .22 airgun from his terrace!

I must say a swallow is a lot smaller and a lot faster. It also darts around more than the smooth gliding of a kite.

quote:

Originally posted by BAPU:

quote:

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!

Yes, I have seen my uncle shot down flying kites with his 30-06.

I have also thought about Howard Hill in discussions like this. HIll was an absolute magician with a longbow. Some of the crazy stuff he did (shooting prunes off people's heads) are on film and you can find them. If I think about Bell as having the capability with a rifle as Hill had with a bow, doubt goes out the window. That is not to say the other did not exist as well, but when the planets aligned for them (and they did much more often than mortal men), things like this were not out of the cards.

I'm pretty damn good at shooting fireflies with my Red Ryder while standing up in a hammock with a G&T in the other hand. It's going to be a separate chapter in my Festivus book "Feets of Strength". But that's a story for another time. Back to Corbett.


Dutch

Corbett is one that can transport you back in time like no one else
I read him 40 times or more ( no shit ) and never gets old especially on long winter nights
Bell I have read at least 10 times

quote:

Originally posted by Nakihunter:
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!

Who is the person that orig. wrote claiming Bell for shooting flying Swallows with a 7x57?
and what publication did you see it written in?...a reliable source for that claim would be helpful.

The only flying birds I know of that Bell shot with a rifle, were the cormorants he shot for practice
using his surplus of now unwanted .318WR ammunition, while at Lake Jinja in Uganda.
I believe he achieved an average of something like 6-8 birds out of 10 shot at, and the witnesses to this
were the Goanese colonial town clerks who came over wanting to look at the shotgun they though he was using.

Boarkiller:
Have you had an opportunity to read all volumes he produced. I can't think of any books better to reread. Prolific writer, educator, naturalist, conservator and hunter. Loved the man.

Dutch

quote:

Originally posted by MJines:

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

IF one had choice of putting credibility into Mr.Bell, or low level ambulance chasers that by industry reputation
will among other practices, distort,distract, embelish-exaggerate or 'stretch the truth' on behalf of their
questionable action-character clients,
the choice is rather easy....

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:
...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 "four or five second" was the time he was shooting, not the entire amount of time it took the bulls to die.

yours seems like a sensible-logical-well reasoned interpretation of Bells passage.

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:
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."

Bell likely had the mindset similar to seasoned hunter Selby, Selby saying that once you have got to the stage of killing some 200+
of something,the same thrill & excitement one experienced in the first are not much present...add to that Bell was killing for business
not direct pleasure. He was not interested to write a whole melodramatic chapter about chasing a wounded elephant till dark.

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:
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.

Talented in several respects, encompassing among other things, his extensive hunting exploits on more than one continent,
and his efforts in three wars. ..He fought in the Boer War with his two brothers under the Canadian Mounted Rifles and
during WW1 he was a 2nd Lieutenant[finally captain] in the British Royal flying corp[as a pilot] and was engaged in
front line aerial battle. During WW2 he was in the home-guard and sailed his personal yacht to evacuate soldiers from Dunkirk.

Up until the outbreak of WW1 Bell hunted the Karamojo, Lado Enclave, Belgian and French Congo, the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Uganda,
Abyssinia and the East Africa Coast.

For sure cape buff seem impossible to kill cleanly with a single shot, but if you watch that old cull video on Australian buff, many of them look stone dead with one shot from a 308! He was obviously a very gifted shot as well.

Trax:
I can assure you that MJines is not a low level ambulance chaser but a highly regarded and respected corporate attorney.

I, on the other hand, defend pedophiles, dope-eaters, rapists, murderers, burglars and others that are despised by our communities. In 20 years I have never had my veracity or credibility challenged. Are you somehow asserting that all attorneys are low-level scum? I'm proud of the job I perform as few are willing to do so.

I, and the other attorneys that participate on this forum, are just contributors to the forum and we don't put our choice of career out there for denigrating comments. I don't ridicule your choice of profession and slurs are not appreciated. Rather cowardly but, I'll be at DSC with Pierre von Tonder, Buzz, Chifuti and J.P. Kleinhans booth if you care to speak to me.

Dutch

Mike, the funny thing is that my comment regarding fabrication was directed not at Bell but at Trax. Trax epitomizes the Texas saying, "all hat and no cattle". Think about it . . . while he has opinions on all issues hunting and shooting related . . . have you ever seen any post, report, photograph or other information that substantiates his experience base on which such opinions are based . . . I am convinced that his hunting and shooting experience comes from the internet, his imagination, books and the vicarious experiences of others. Give his views the weight they are properly entitled to . . . put him on ignore.

quote:

Originally posted by Dutch44:

I, and the other attorneys that participate on this forum, are just contributors to the forum

Since your attorney colleague MJines started by directing comments aimed at/about me on a Bell thread,
I suggest you convince him to pull his head-in, or else he will get the same in return.
If he's the respect corporate attorney you believe he is , maybe can show some more maturity on AR.
and honestly speaking, MJines is a hypocrite, since sensible people don't put someone on ignore and then
keep referring to them in different threads,....thats really stupid.
...and the fact MJines want to tell people like Saeed how to post on AR, makes MJines a complete egotistical tool.

Now, can we keep this thread focused on the interesting life & extensive experiences of career hunter WDM.Bell,
cause I'm sure not many people are really interested in hearing you blow hot wind up the ass of a mostly inconsequential
recreational hunter attorney with a life of no real exception and just part of the common mix crowd.

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:

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

Well all you have to do is listen to some modern day 'X'perts on AR who claim even the best modern loaded .375
is marginal at best on large DG,
then we have Gerard from GSC reporting how a PH culled 52 cape buff with 52 shots- using 200gn .338cal.

Bell was not the only one to use relatively small cal. on numerous count of African DG.
other before him: F.Selous used his 6.5mm,.... Arthur Neuman his .303cal?....J.H.Robbertse 7mm & .303

and if we just look at one calibre:.....

the 6.5mm/.256 bore, was used very successfully in Africa by among others;...
- Mr.Bell
- Mr.F.Selous ,(wrote of good results of .256 bore on elephant, he used a rimmed .256 bore H&H single shot rifle)
- the Hemingways
- PH-Phil Percival .

Bell killed some 300 elephant and Percival killed his tally of 31 lions,.... with the .256 bore Mannlicher.
mind you they also achieved this by just relying on their individual selves, no back UP!
not surprisingly, Hemingway wrote to say that he attributed Phil Percivals success with the .256 bore,
as being due to his fine shooting skills.


other well noted hunters in history that had success whilst being prominent users of the .256 bore, were;

- Blayney Percival ,(a Kenyan game warden and .256 bore advocate, with personal tally of about 100 lions)

- Major C,H. Stigand (including elephant and rhino)

- Sir Alfred Pease (a reknown lion hunter around the same time as Selous, but used .256 bore to also take rhino and elephant)

- Major R. L. Kennion (hunted bear and yak, and wrote "Sport and life in further Himalayas")

- Capt. H. A. Wilson (of the Kings african Rifles, he took game including lion,elephant,eland and buff)

- Sir Edmund Loder ( book:- "Edmund Loder,naturalist,horticulturist,traveller and sportman: a memoir" )

- Dennis D.Lyell ( wrote: "Wildlife in central Africa" and: "The African elephant and its Hunters")

- George Littledale - once wrote to D.Lyell:

"In 1895 Sir Edmund Loder gave me a Mannlicher rifle, all complete on the eve of starting for Tibet.
Had only time to have sighting altered. On my protesting that I had a room full of rifles and did not want any more, all he said was try the Mannlicher,
... I have used no other since."

- John G. Millais

- Leslie Tarlton (a most famous Kenyan lion hunter)

- Denys Finch-Hatton ( african BG hunter, killed not by using his small bore, but in his Gypsy Moth)

- Hesketh K. H. Prichard

- Vilhjalmur Steffanson (variety of game including grizzly and polar bears)

- Capt.P.B.Vanderbyl

- Crawford Fletcher Jamieson (Rhodesian professional ivory hunter in the 1930s-40s)

- Charles Sheldon (killed several brown and polar bears with .256 bore, and quote:- "..but for large game my Mannlicher, .256 calibre, is the only rifle I have used in the North.”)

- Roy Chapman Andrews. ( Coastal grizzlies with .256 bore.. and a tremendous amount of Mongolian game animals)

- Major Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton. (filled a museum with African game taken with .256 bore)

- Kalman Kittenberger (on his 10-year exploration of Africa,used his Model 1903 .256 bore to collect many of the 300 or so animal species for the Hungarian National Museum)

Even large bore advocate Elmer keith, wrote to acknowledge the success and effectiveness of the .256 bore Mannlicher throughout the US and African continent.

Some notes and pontifications regarding the use of small bore guns in Elephant hunting at the end of the 1800's and early 1900's

There is ample evidence that large bore sporting double guns were not widely used and that most if not all of the elephant hunted in the heyday of the ivory trade were shot using military issue guns of the time or alternately large bore fowlers pressed into action as hunting "rifles"

As evidence of this I offer the following:

The name Jan Harm Robbertse pops up, arguably the greatest elephant hunter of all time with more than 2000 recorded elephant to his own name ( this number only for the last 14 years of the 28 year hunting career) Von Moltke published two books largely based on interviews with many of these old hunters Unfortunately only available in Afrikaans "Jagkonings" and "Veldsmanne" translated as Hunting Kings and Veld men respectively, the two books deal with the Thirst land trekkers .

He was born in 1851 and died in 1919. As one of the famous "thirst land " trekkers he gained notoriety for his prowess as a elephant hunter making a business of this.

He and his team of hunters hunted for 28 years in Southern Angola. Robbertse Together with other boer hunters in this time they practically slaughtered all the elephant in the Kaokoveld and Southern Angola

Robbertse returned to South Africa in 1909 where he farmed until his death in 1919.

Robbertse and his hunters hunted from Horse back, He amassed a group of other known names around him.

They used whatever weapons they could lay hands on. The choice of weapon determined by availability of ammo.

Initially they used standard Boer muzzle loaders, and then later Martini Henry rifles.
They used home made "culling belts" specially made belts with loops for cartridges or pouches for components. Great care was taken with powder, primers and bullets which they cast. By all accounts based on the timeline the martini henry accounted for most kills at this time.
In surviving photographs of the time this is the most featured weapon

What is fact is that powder and ammo was very very scarce ! The lengths they went to to conserve ammo was amazing with stories of going hungry , not shooting any other game for food just so they had enough ammo for elephant.

Robbertse was a business man ! He paid his hunters in Portuguese or British currency, he paid for his hunters ammo, he supplied rifles and if they used their own he compensated them for this.

They operated from Humpata in Angola where he was one of the largest land owners and by all accounts were supplied with ammo and powder from the Portuguese. this meant then likely Portuguese issue arms and ammunition.

Initially the Snider was the issue rifle for all colonial troops then came the 450-500 martini henry and around 1886 the 8mm x 60 R Kroptacheck Styer rifle.

We see anecdotal notes of the use of 8mm rifles used and one has to assume based on the issue rifle that it was the 8mm Kroptacheck

The Portuguese Mauser ( 6.5x58) only became issue in 1904 and it is quite possible that this is the 6.5 Robbertse is claimed to have used until his departure from Angola in 1909.

As a young boy hunting in South West with my uncles I came to learn of the fame of the 6.5 x58 it had a cult following amongst certain Afrikaners. Much of this I suspect had to do with the famous hunters of old Angola

Very interesting.

Bell states that an elephant he shot shook his head so vigorously that one of its tusks flew out of its head and landed some distance away.

A man who was awarded two VC's for bravery was indeed a man amongst men I just get the impression that some of his prose was embellished for his audience? And if so that may indicate that some of the ballistic feats and shooting prowess may have been exaggerated for the benefit of the reader?

For some reason I have never doubted the writings of Selous, Hunter and Corbett. The latter probably portraying some of the most interesting hunting escapades ever written.

Capstick was another brilliant emotive writer but as we all know he had a tendency to stretch it a bit.

quote:

Originally posted by reddy375:
For sure cape buff seem impossible to kill cleanly with a single shot, but if you watch that old cull video on Australian buff, many of them look stone dead with one shot from a 308! He was obviously a very gifted shot as well.

I can never understand why people try to compare "meat shooting" out of 4WD and Big Game Hunting.

Of course the Buffalo in the video look stone dead he's brain shooting them with military .308 FMJ's.

Once you have shot a few thousand of anything you usually get pretty good at it, but he still misses the brain on one occasion and has to give the bull another one.

I'd strongly advise not to go walking around the bush Buffalo hunting with a .308, because one day you will more than likely end up with a horn in the rear end !!!

Here is the thing...even modern clients who do just a good bit of hunting have done or seen singular things we might deem unlikely or even very rare. For a guy like Bell who probably knocked down SEVERAL thousand heads of big game over the time spent in Africa, it is not at all unlikely that the scale of those unlikely events will be bigger or even occasionally cluster together in something like two or three dropped buffalo the way he described. Do enough hunting and strange things are seen.

I have never had any trouble hitting kites with a rifle.
The kids get a little pissed off though.

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
Bell states that an elephant he shot shook his head so vigorously that one of its tusks flew out of its head and landed some distance away.

A man who was awarded two VC's for bravery was indeed a man amongst men I just get the impression that some of his prose was embellished for his audience? And if so that may indicate that some of the ballistic feats and shooting prowess may have been exaggerated for the benefit of the reader?

For some reason I have never doubted the writings of Selous, Hunter and Corbett. The latter probably portraying some of the most interesting hunting escapades ever written.

Capstick was another brilliant emotive writer but as we all know he had a tendency to stretch it a bit.

Bell states that that elephant's tusk socket was rotten by infection, and that's why it flew off when he shook his head.

Why don't you quote fully from the book, instead of relying on imperfect memory?

As for Bell's character, I am thoroughly acquainted with the places he operated in, in Karamoja, from the Kilimi river to the Sudan. I have read and re-read his books with interest, and can assure you that he rather understates most of what happened. He had balls of steel in his dealings with the locals, who by tradition would kill anyone stupid enough to wander in their areas without a strong armed troop. He earned their respect, and today the elders still remember him. No white man survived on his own in that region for decades after that, and even today it is ill-advised to get on the wrong side of the natives.

Bell left home aged 16, and started shooting buffalo on contract to feed railway workers in Kenya. In his early twenties, he was leading elephant hunting expeditions in lawless territories, with hundreds of men and women in tow - a full fledged safari is not a weekend trip to the park. There was no Global Rescue back then, nor satellite phones, no Embassy to run to in case of problem, nothing but himself and his guns, and his human qualities earning him the respect (again) of locals who'd chop a stranger in very tiny chunks without thinking twice about it.

Did he stretch it? Nowhere in his books he tries to boast of anything, and most of the time he treats in quite a casual manner events that would have many people in need of clean underwear.

A gentleman. Rare breed today.

I really wonder what difference it makes whether he embellished any of his stories or not. No one is disputing that he was an incredible adventurer, amazing shot, phenomenal hunter and wonderful writer. Whether he did or did not take a little literary license in this writings . . . or perhaps the passage of time made his recollection a little more favorable . . . does it really matter? It certainly does not detract from his accomplishments and any embellishment I am confident would merely be "around the edges". If it makes his stories a little more entertaining what harm is there in that.

OK Gents I am backing down on this one. Probably best if I re read some of his writings and the merits of a 6 or 7mm as an DG calibre.

quote:

Originally posted by Navaluk:
What about his shooting German pilots from his plane with his rifle? True or not?

Considering the Commonwealth mounted troops in the Boer war that Bell served in, would fire from their horses,
why would it then be strange for people like him to also fire from a WW1 plane?

In all fairness to the old-timers like Bell, I think that they were under some pressure from editors/publishers to embellish things. (Perhaps some embellishment was done following receipt of a few rejection letters.) When one considers that the vast majority of readers had never been to Africa and would never even meet anyone who had, they could get away with it. Today, especially with the internet, people are far more sophisticated and I think it would be harder to pass B.S.

I consider any book I read crap when it is easily forgettable and his was one book that falls into that category.Also, his was a a book that bored the hell out of me.

quote:

I consider any book I read crap when it is easily forgettable and his was one book that falls into that category.Also, his was a a book that bored the hell out of me.

--Thus sayeth the Lord!

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:

A man who was awarded two VC's for bravery was indeed a man amongst men ,
I just get the impression that some of his prose was embellished

VCs don't come easy, and he was a committed person who switched between full-time career hunter to full time military service,
volunteering for service when duty called.

Now people who want to doubt him, are themselves just part-time recreational hunters who go on their brief little luxury Africa hunt
jaunts, then go quickly scuttling back to their comfy lifestyle and candy ass office jobs.

Im afraid Bell didn't have it that easy, having to deal with:
-long period journeys just to get to his locations,
-menacing & waring tribes,
-disease/viruses related to his hunting environments,
-rouge white traders who didn't want him around-and who made things hard for him.
-having to also hunt to feed his hundreds of African helpers in addition to his ivory hunting,
helpers which would desert his foot safari when feeling threatened by rival tribes, thus requiring
Bell to then try and source other helpers to be able to continue his months long ivory trek.

with that perspective it mind, it just makes me chuckle when some of todays high convenience lifestyle rec. hunters
come back and want to tell what a 'tough arduous 10 day hunt experience' it was, while they again fall lazily back into
their drive through-fast food lifestyle....

Bell was credited by his command for shooting down a enemy plane,
But Bell himself expressed doubt that he really did so ,saying that his vickers jammed after the first shot.
His combat report was that the enemy plane broke off the fight, landing in a field where the german pilot got out
and ran for the safety of his own lines.
IF he then was the person to 'embellish' things and make false claims, why didn't he then just take the easy opportunity
to lap-up the attention and take the false credit given him by command?
The fact that he didn't, shows in part the credibility and integrity of the man.

In addition,regarding another WW1 air incident, Bell humbly acknowledged that his first 'Kill' as a pilot, was by shear luck/mistake.
Since when he later checked the sighting of his Vickers on the ground, he found that the sighting alignment was way out.

Took your advice, Mike.

Dutch

Good response Trax.

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:

A man who was awarded two VC's for bravery was indeed a man amongst men ....

Where is this written? Doesn't seem to be in any VC lists!!

Bell won an MC and later Bar for his MC.

Wonder where this VC talk came from? You'd think Trax would know about it, since he worships Bell.

quote:

"... All three died without further trouble, and the whole affair lasted perhaps four or five seconds." - WDM Bell.

Three dead buffalo in just 4 or 5 seconds...hmmmm??

This would be difficult with a 50 BMG machine gun.

quote:

Three dead buffalo in just 4 or 5 seconds...hmmmm??

Bell or no Bell, and as good a marksman as he may have been, cycling the bolt, picking and pinpointing the target all in 5 seconds is hard to swallow.