Elephant Guns

rgrjit8

I'm helping my daughter with an English Essay paper and would LOVE to introduce some knowledgable and accurate information about guns into the heart of Liberal academia.The story is George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant". You can read it here:http://englishwww.humnet.ucla.edu/Individuals/turbo4/orwell_text.htmlSpecific questions: The Winchester .44Could he have meant the .44-40?Lever-action carbine?Black powder, rimfire, centerfire?Would a British constable in India/Burma be likely to have one?The "elephant gun" in question is only described as German made with beautiful crosshair sights. A Mauser I presume.Does the fixed magazine hold 5 cartridges? Or 4 plus one in the chamber?What's with the crosshair sights?He doesn't specify a scope, he says sights. Was there such a thing?On shooting an elephant. Where do you aim?He says that ideally you aim for an imaginary line going from one earhole to the other, is this accurate?British made big bores like the Nitro calibers and the 2-bores and 4 bores were black powder or smokeless?Tell me what you know, provide a source if you can but even good BS will be appreciated.

ndbilly

One of my favorite short stories. I think there are parallels with our current situation regarding OBL. If it was described as "German made" then it wasn't a Winchester or a common Winchester caliber. The .44-40 had a number of incarnations in black powdwer (.44 caliber bullet, 40 grains of black powder, hence, .44-40) and smokeless but in no way carried the velocity, energy or mass to kill an elephant. Orwell may have been thinking of a Mauser, as you suggest, but there were other firearms from Germany at that time of sufficient size to take an elephant that were not manufactured by Mauser. The model 96 and 98 Mausers hold five+one. I don't know about any of the Sporting Models. "Crosshair sights" I've only ever seen at the end of a double barreled shotgun in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. I suspect that Mr. Orwell's talents did not extend to researching firearms facts.I've never shot an elephant but I would think that you would aim just behind the shoulder as you would on any other quadraped and shoot for the heart/lung area. "...aim for an imaginary line..." - An elephant's ears must be 9 or 10 feet off the ground. In order to shoot in a straight line between them one would have to be at the same elevation.Never heard of a 2 bore but that only means I never heard of a two bore. 4 bores were black powder. I have a souvenier bullet for one I got at a blackpowder gun shop years ago. Sucker weighs 4 oz!Hope this helps.

He Dog

Elephants are indeed shot in the head, not heart/lungs. Usually just behind the ear or as suggested on a line between the eyes, which face on puts the bullet into the brain through the nasal passage. Over 1000 were killed by one hunter with a 7x57. I agree that it is likely Orwell did not research thoroughly and may have confused early scopes with crosshairs with sights, or simply confused the words sight and scope.

john carr

Some trivia: I always wondered why an elephant hunter would choose a double rifle when he could have five rounds in a magazine rifle. It was explained in an American Rifleman magazine. Apparently hunters have been killed by using magazine (bolt action) rifles.Elephant cartridges are very long. After firing the first round, in their haste to chamber another round they do not retract the bolt far enough to eject the fired brass and simply chamber the empty brass back into the gun. The last thing they hear is a loud click as they pull the trigger.

spell22

W.D.M."Karamojo" Bell is the person that killed over 1000 Elephants using the 7x57(or 275 Rigby), as well as few with the 303 British. He had the heads of the first few elephants he killed sawn in half to study where the brain was located so he knew where to shoot at different angles. A good source of info is Taylor's book "African Rifles and Cartridges"

Xracer

The largebore double guns were usually used only for head-on shots when the elephants were charging.Two reasons for the double....1. At the time doubles were popular, no bolt action was strong enough to take .450+ calibers necessary to take down a charging elephant with a between-the-eyes shot, and...2. No time to work a bolt. A double gave you two shots....RIGHT NOW! If two shots of a .500 Nitro with solid bullets wouldn't do the job.....kiss your * bye-bye.

Lowrider

Thank God that guy and others like him helped to rid the world of those dangerous elephants. I sleep a lot better at night knowing my chances of being killed in my bed by an out-of-control elephant are greatly diminished.Now let's have a go at those murderous two-toed sloths.