It may not all have been in Taylor's head...

25 March 2011, 22:52

It may not all have been in John Taylor’s head.

In African rifles and cartridges he mentions a prejudice he formed concerning the .470 nitro express round:

quote:
p.78 African Rifles and Cartridges
The .470 is a killer – a real killer. But as much and all as I like it, I cannot help feeling that in someloadings of this cartridge the full-patch bullet tapers a trifle too much towards the nose.

…I found on three occasions that I had to give an elephant a second shot after bringing him down with a frontal brain shot, which I was, and am, quite sure would not have been necessary had I been using either the .465 or one of the .450’s. I put it down to that taper.
…

He, to his credit, goes on to say that the whole thing could very well be a figment of his imagination. But I was reading another book recently that said some similar things about the .470 that apparently came to similar conclusions but from a different direction.

In Fred Bartlett’s Shoot Straight and Stay Alive, (he was a game ranger and PH in Kenya) he says:

quote:
P.68
Among the rifles left in my care for elephant control work was a .475 No. 2 double which fired a 480 grain bullet with eighty grains of cordite. The .470 fired a 500 grain bullet with seventy-five grains which was a little slower with less penetration than the .475 bullet.

I often used the .475 double on elephant hunts and found it performed better than the .470 on brain shots as it had excellent penetration. However when aiming for a side brain shot, I ha to be careful that there was not a second elephant standing behind the first because the bullet could go clear through it and wound the second animal.

…For some brain shots the bullet has to pass through quite a lot of bone in order to penetrate the brain, so there are two important requirements. Firstly, the bullet used must be a solid otherwise it will not hold together on impact. Secondly, good penetration is required. While the .475 No. 2 had these requirements, the .470 lacked that little extra ‘oomph’.

Both of these comments naturally only apply to the Kynoch loads – and with the wide variety of modern bullets and powders these comments are of historical interest only.

Never the less I found it interesting that another hunter came to a similar conclusion to Taylor, albeit from a different direction.

.

26 March 2011, 01:54

Will

If you see any of the old Kynoch 470 solids they had very tapered front ends, which did and do not lend themselves to straight line penetration.

It is amazing how much Taylor knew. And amuses me how little is known by those that question Taylor.

God Bless John Taylor.

And John Wayne!

30 March 2011, 05:53

BigFiveJack

quote:
Originally posted by Will:
If you see any of the old Kynoch 470 solids they had very tapered front ends,...

It is amazing how much Taylor knew. And amuses me how little is known by those that question Taylor.

God Bless John Taylor. And John Wayne!

I double agree!!!

30 March 2011, 06:26

MikeBurke

Plus one more for me.

Will,

I may (did) add your line to my signature:

"It is amazing how much Taylor knew. And amuses me how little is known by those that question Taylor."

And Will you may want to stay out of the medium bore forum.