I personally think a 577 is a PH's caliber not a clients, but to each his own...My choice for a straight elephant gun would be a 500 N.E. double rifle or even a .470 would suit me...Not sure I want to pack a 14 pound .577 all day long, rather sacrifice myself to the elephant and get it over with..I'm happy with my 450-400, 416 or 404 and I know they are lesser calibers for elephant. My PH shoots a 500 Jefferys.

I wonder when Mr. Bell will resurrect and come on this board and give us his idea of what an elephant rifle should be, a 7x57 perhaps?? that should start a discussion. Then Finn A with his beloved 375 or the Manners boys and the 416 Rigby, Lot of smaller bore elephant hunters out there that have different ideas of what an elephant gun should be, and they are all qualified with huge numbers of kills... It's an age old argument. It won't be solved on the internet.

Correction Ray, just a tiny one:

Harry Manners thought the .375 H&H in a Winchester M-70 from the factory was the cat's meow for elephant medicine. His bag was around a thousand elephants, and a wonderful gentleman he was.

Captain Roy John Dugdale Salmon, Samaki Salmon ( samaki means "fish" in Swahili), used the .416 Rigby for his bag of over 4000 elephants in 19 years of control work in Uganda. "The Fish" was the Big Kahuna, and a cool character.

Then there is Ron "Mahohboh" (The Great Slayer of the Elephants) Thomson, who prefers the .458 Winchester, and has taken over 5000 elephants, and is still going I reckon.

Dagga,
Thanks for the heads up and I knew that, it just got away from me....Manners wore out 3 375's two stright taper barrels and one std. wt. barreled gun as I recall, He much prefered the std. weight lighter gun...Tony Sanchez was the 416 Rigby fan along with Harry Selby, whos son Mark still uses a 450-400-3" given to him by his Godfather Robt. Ruark...Hope I didn't screw this one up!