Carry A Big Stick (And Use It Well)

[FIELD ETHOS]

Carry a Big Stick (And Use it Well) | Field Ethos

By Caleb McClain “I walloped him smack through the heart with a .375 magnum, and he went over…

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By Caleb McClain

“I walloped him smack through the heart with a .375 magnum, and he went over like a toppled oak.”

— Robert Ruark, “Use Enough Gun”

I have always been a proponent of the belief often ascribed to Robert Ruark in using enough gun. Don’t believe me? I shoot Mississippi whitetails with a .300 Win Mag — the Lord’s caliber, as it is known to the Field Ethos crowd. The truth is, Ruark did not invent the notion of using sensible calibers for the game being pursued, but rather is the collective understanding of hunters for hundreds of years.

Modern discussions on shooting elk, moose, and brown bears with .223s, the new so-called “hot rod .22s” like the .22 ARC, and other undersized rounds bore me. The argument of shot placement over lead weight gets hammered by modern hunters in every Facebook group, online forum, and hunting magazine out there, trying to convince us that magnum rifles are only for boomer fudds who can’t let go of the past.

Always Use Enough Gun​

Conventional wisdom tells us that showing up on an elk hunt with a .22 Creedmoor is like showing up to pour a concrete driveway with 5-gallon buckets, and a pallet of Quikrete. It might work, but it’s just not the right tool for the job, even if some anonymous guy on Rok… er, um… Concrete-slide says it’s the most effective cement setup ever made. But there was once a man named Wally Johnson who had a chance occurrence that defies all conventional ballistic knowledge, proving there will also always be merit in perfect shot placement.

Wally Johnson was an outlier in modern humanity. An Australian by birth, he traveled to Africa sometime between Roosevelt and Hemingway. As a young teenager, he began hunting, quickly pursuing elephants for the then-legal ivory trade. Later in life, he became a professional hunter, where he guided Bwana Bob, himself. His life was cataloged in what I believe to be Peter Hathaway Capstick’s greatest work, “The Last Ivory Hunter: The Saga of Wally Johnson.”

"Wally Johnson, the famed “last ivory hunter.”

If you have not read this book, seriously, just put down this article and go over to Amazon to order it—it’s much better than anything you’ll read from me. And say what you want about Capstick, but the entire safari industry owes a giant debt of gratitude to him for inspiring thousands of hunters to travel in search of the deadly beasts he described so many years ago.

But I digress.

Carry A Big Stick​

Wally recalled back to a hunting trip in the 1950s, where he took his son and some of his friends into the bush for a few days. One of the kids brought along a .22 Hornet, firing a 45-grain bullet that I would not be comfortable shooting more than a coyote with. They got to the hunting grounds, where they soon fell into a herd of Cape buffalo. After a long stalk, Wally and the boys were now in shooting distance. He raised his .375 H&H to his shoulder and found a nice buff behind the iron sights. The bull dropped the moment he pulled the trigger.

Chaos erupted, and the buffalo began a stampede straight towards the group.

“Lord above, but the kid with the .22 Hornet took a shot at a buff and astounded the lot of us when it fell stone-dead! He’d hit it, whether by accident or design, right behind the ear, flattening it. Well, maybe it was just a lucky shot,” Johnson tells us.

But that’s all it was, luck. Just because it can work does not mean South Africa should make .22 Hornet the minimum caliber for dangerous game.

In the end, Wally’s kill from the story shows that this is what ethical hunters should aim for: use enough gun, and hit it where he drops at the sound of the trigger.

 

[Frederik]

Thanks for posting one of my favorite books.

Still to need to find that lengedary proof that someone killed a full grown elephant with a .22 rimfire.

 

[mark-hunter]

His life was cataloged in what I believe to be Peter Hathaway Capstick’s greatest work, “The Last Ivory Hunter: The Saga of Wally Johnson.”

When I think of African snakes, I always remember a story from that book, how Wally Johnson cured him self of Gabon viper bite.

Yes, I am in all agreement with your post. Use enough gun, by all means! Bigger hole bleeds better on marginal shots. That is scientific undisputable fact.