With all of the recent venting of spleens regarding lever actions and the suitability of the .45-70 for dangerous game hunting, I've become downright wistful for the days when we mostly chose to bash or defend an "African" cartridge, the .458 Win. Mag.

I came across the following story in "Mahohboh", by Ron Thomson. It is an excellent read with some great stories and very good information on hunting elephant.

We take up the story as Ron is about to go mano a mano with seven bull elephants in the Tjolotjo Communal Lands in Zimbabwe:

"I stood alongside a mopani tree, my only camoflage. Mbuyotsi stood next to me, slightly behind, and close to my right hand side. In his left hand he held an open yellow box of Winchester .458 Magnum cartridges two rounds of which were clasped in his right hand. He was always prepared to feed me ammunition. Ben squatted on his haunches behind us holding my 'second weapon', a .416 Rigby...

The elephants plodded on, their giant boddies swaying from side to side with each laboured step. They were oblivious to our presence. They were huge, all of them and my nerves began to tingle...The adrenaline began to pump as I slipped off the rifle's safety catch...

They came closer than I had expected, the first bull passing me by at no more than ten yards distance...

I had in my hands my new .458 Magnum FN rifle. It was by then already well tested. There were three rounds in the magazine and one up the spout...

The third bull moved on past us. I now had them bracketed. The first bull was twenty five yards from me and moving away steadily on my right. The last one was the same distance away but approaching on my left.

I lifted my rifle and placed the bead on the first elephant's brain. 'Baahm' the rifle went off before I was even conscious of squeezing the trigger. 'Whack Whurrrrr' I heard the bullet impact, its job done, and I could almost 'see' the projectile wobbling off through the air on the far side of the elephant's head. The elephant threw its head high, its trunk flicking skyward. Then it collapsed ignominously onto its nose. I looked for, and noted the wide staring eyes nearest to me and I knew the animal was dead before it hit the ground.

The second bull stopped. It lifted its head high and had just begun to move off to the left when my next bullet ploughed through his skull. 'Baaahm! Whack! Whurrrrr! I again heard the bullet whistling off into the distance after having passed through the animal's head.

The remaining five bulls were swinging around now, their heads held high, as they prepared to make good their escape along their back trail. 'Baaahm! Whack! the fourth bull went down.

Mbuyotsi fed me two rounds over my right shoulder. He had been counting as I fired and knew my magazine was then empty. I pushed the shiny cartridges into the open magazine. The remaining three elephanst had turned right around now.

Bahhhm! Whack! the fifth elephant hit the deck. The last two elephants were running now, back along their tracks. Baaahm!...Whack!...Whurrr! The sixth big bull pitched headlong into the mopani scrub.

Mbuyotsi fed me another two rounds. The last bull was now moving very fast. He was perhaps forty yards away when my last bullet ploughed through the back of his neck an into his brain...I again heard the bullet whistling off into the distance.

They were all down...They had all been killed with one shot each through their brains...I later discovered that the smallest of the fourteen tusks weighed seventy pounds. But that is not what this story is about...

I had distinctly heard four bullets passing through four heads - and they had all been the elephants that were furthest from me... I was puzzled...

Surely, I reasoned, there MUST have been MORE bullet velocity and MORE bullet energy expended on the animals closest to me? And there MUST have been LESS velocity and LESS energy in the bullets that hit the furthest animals? All things being equal, therefore, those facts SHOULD have resulted in just the opposite effect to the one I had just experienced...

I must say that I have never had any trouble getting my Winchester 500 grain .458 Magnum solids penetrating to an elephant's brain, at any angle, at ranges up to fifty yards and more...

I am a .458 Magnum man. I love the caliber and over many, many years, I have learned how to use it effectively...

He goes on to compare the .458 to the .470 and offers an explanation for the lesser penetration at close range. Good story, though.

Regardless of his choice of weapons, I'd say old Ron has Magnum sized balls!

Actually, as he explains, the bullet took awhile to stabilize.

To summarize his book: Like most every other caliber, the 458 worked most of the time. When the 458 and/or the bolt action didn't cut it, you get killed or luck out and live.

He lucked out a few times. It's not much of a testimony for the 458 or bolt actions.

Will

If I recall correctly, wasn't Peter Capstick a big fan of the .458?

I have a great respect for the 458 Win with a proper handload...You need to get to at least 2000 FPS plus and 2100 plus is just that much better and you need to do it with a 500 gr. bullet of 45 cal. or a 400 gr. bullet of 40 caliber or a 300 gr. bullet of 375 cal. IMO...

The secret here is the bullets are all 2.5 times there caliber in lenth as Bell advised, his qualification to what we now refer to as SD or sectional density...it simply works.