HUNTING Elephant

A.Dahlgren said:

My elephant I took some years ago with a side brain shot with a 416 rem.
Click to expand...


Nice video.

Great bull. Congratulations.

Hunting barefoot......a new concept for me but it sounds fun and comfortable.

Thanks for sharing.
 
A.Dahlgren said:
........

My elephant I took some years ago with a side brain shot with a 416 rem.
Click to expand...

Great shot on a moving Elephant at that distance. Congrats. Thanks for sharing.
 
What a great bull. Thank you for sharing
 
That's a very nice bull Anton, the shot was a risky one.... I see too many Bulls walk away from shots that miss the brain. But after 10 and sometimes 15 days on the tracks you have to decide to pull the trigger.... The first shot looks like it slightly miss the brain, but the impact make him to close down, if the brain was penetrated he would not have lift the head at all.

Anyhow, a great bull and a nice video, congrats !
 
Gordon that first shot hit the brain if all the classic indications mean anything. He went down by his rear quarters and he threw his head and trunk back. The puff of dust looked to be right in front of the ear hole where it should be. We can not really see the angle so it's possible Anton's shot went far to the top and back of the brain I guess. Any way one looks at it the man made a great shot. The elephant went down and stayed down. I'm not convinced all of the follow up shots were needed......maybe the second one was but the others??? I think also the PH must have considered the first shot to be a good one because he made no follow up shot.
 
Yes classical signs Austin, as you know a 400 gr bullet from .416 slightly near the brain can sometimes knock a elephant down with paralyzed effect. Sometimes they can get up, but there is many different scenarios, it can even be a skull bone splitter that penetrate the brain or simply the punch in the skull area that knock it down.

You have a even more typical sign if you look carefully at the slomo, when the bull hitting the ground he lifting the head slowly, if the bullet have penetrate the brain this would never happen and this is also probably the reason that he continue to shooting.

I tell you this ones can travel for days, and some years ago in Botswana we tracking a "missed brain shot" bull that 6 days later and 200 km crossing the border to Angola... Sad memories indeed.

Anyhow, I really like to highlight this kind of shots, it's a hunters nightmare to wound a elephant, so I say like old Sten : get as close as possible, and then get 10 yards closer.

G
 
CAustin said:
............... I'm not convinced all of the follow up shots were needed......maybe the second one was but the others???
Click to expand...
This discussion is really with hind sight, so...

The Elephant dropped and he did lift his head slightly. He was not done. That second one was required if I were there.
The others, insurance, insurance, insurance. That Bull was a couple of body lengths from being out of sight over the river bank and gone. That is a big costly trophy and I'd never want to see a wounded animal suffer.
As Gordon noted, end of the day, ten days in and how much effort... Glad Anton unloaded and went looking for more ammo. I'd have been just as nervous/anxious as Anton was.


CAustin said:
I think also the PH must have considered the first shot to be a good one because he made no follow up shot.
Click to expand...

The Elephant went down and the hunter was also capable of doing his own follow up at that point.
I'd bet you ten bucks that if that Elephant had gotten up you would have seen two hot barrels.
 
Charlie from my vast expieriance of shooting one elephant;) I have to fully agree with everything Gordon said. Sound like wisdom of the ages there! My bull dropped with one shot and never moved but it did drop front first... in any case I put in two more. And the PH refrained from shooting.

Tnere are stories of elephants running around without tails! Hunters cut the tail off and went to get help but the elephant woke up and walked off. My personal thoughts on dangerous game is to keep shooting until the PH says stop.

That is a great video and a terrific shot where I think all went very well and the hunter performed very admirably! If anything different, my instinct might have been to put one though the shoulders/lungs, trying for the heart as well.. Just can't see too much insurance being a problem in a case like that. And your not ruining a trophy with solids. Although I saw a tusk with a hole though the base end... first shot angle took the bullet through a tusk but it was an incredible one shot kill at a difficult angle!
 
Agreed with you, a moving target big as a grapefruit on 100 yards is tricky, but as you say ActionBob everything went well even if a shoulder hart/lung shot should be safer in that situation.

Sorry I wrote only Sten, for you that do not know him it's Sten Cedergren I referred to.
 
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Purple arrow first shot and after that yellow. He was not going anywhere after the first shot but we where hunting a few hundred meters from a border so we did not take any chances.


 

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78 pounder taken in Zim, a great hunt with Zambezi Hunters and Jonny Hulme.
 

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Anton, thanks for the close up.
I dumped it into Photoshop and also took the shot placement photo from page one and overlayed it.
I resized it to your photo and matched the eye up and rotated the plane to match your Elephant.
The angles of the two photos are not on the exact same z axis but, its an approximation.
I also marked the bullet holes in red. (at least the ones I could see).


IMG_24222-1 copy.jpg



I still think it is pretty damn good shooting. Certainly from the distance and a moving target.
 
I think that first shot may have hit at the back of the brain and the spinal cord as well. Maybe that's why he just moved his head. The rest of the body didn't really move from where he landed. Like Anton said he wasn't going anywhere. But Brickburn you got it too insurance, insurance and more insurance. Great shooting on a great bull!

Anton how big around were the tusks and how long were the exposed portions. I am trying to learn in anticipation of my hunt later this year.
 
Thanks for sharing the video!!
 
Thanks for confirm what I wrote Anton.

Furthermore the bull moving from right to left, on 100 yards with a 400 gr bullet at 2300 fps you will get that 5 inch "delayed" impact.

Austin, if you still are arguing that's the first shot is where the brain is located I friendly recommend that you study this before you do the hunting, Kevin Robertson (the perfect shot) do not really have some good illustration when it's comes to side brain shots. On Brickburn's illustrated photo I will say that two (red shots) slightly above the gray dot is the magic place. Simply draw a line from the eye to the top of the ear and put the bullet in the middle of that line.

Frontal shot is more easy only between the eyes, and if you are close up 10-20 yards make that line between the eyes and aim 3 inch lower, But can also depend of how the head is hold, sometimes when you get close up and the elephant know that something is there, he lifting up the head even more... then wait until It's come down again or it will be a more difficult shot to take.

By the way, you change to the double rifle on the trophy photos, yes that's probably looks a little more classic ;)

Cheers for a good hunt !

G
 
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