African Elephants with a .22LR

[Molly]

I once bought a Winchester M43 from an old backwoodsman in Ga, It came with the 20 year old sales receipt from when he'd bought it, and the remainder of the original box of shells. He'd shot a deer with it every year for 20 years, and only had to shoot one of them twice. There were 29 rounds left in the box.

Granted, he'd shot them at rock-throwing distances as they came in to a salt block on the edge of his property, but the .22 Hornet did a fine job nonetheless.

[bowhunter]

i hunt mostly these days with larger vintage calibers but all through the late 70s and the 80s and early 90s i used 22-250s i killed more deer than i can remember each year. i lost only one deer ever with that caliber and that was my fault not the rifle. i would never advise anyone to use a lite round that diden't feel comfortable with it. i have read many tales by those who say the lite boolits will explode on impact, well the truth is they may not penetrate like a heavy caliber but they deliver all there energy inside the target with devastating results. shot placement my friend that is the key. i have lost deer that was hit wrong with 30-06............

[82nd airborne]

I have no idea where or when I read it, but I HAVE read that the biggest grizzly bear ever taken in a western state (don't recall which one) was shot by a squaw running a trap line. IIRC, she found the bear with ONE TOE caught in one of her traps. She walked up to it and shot it in the eye with a black powder .22 short. The bear fell over dead as a doornail, so she rolled it onto a travois or sled (don't recall details) and took it into town, where it created quite a stir.

You tell me: Author's embellishment, primitive urban legend, or fact?

I have heard this too. In the version I heard, she had 3 shots. Killed the bear with one, gave it a finisher to be sure.
She kept the third for the trip home.

[leadloader]

around here a 22lr is the weapon of choice for so called road hunters(illegal) the game warden said that most deer are taken from the road with a .22lr rimfire. impresive no a well placed shot from a bb gun can be deadly.... a gun is only as deadly as the markman behind it...

[DHB]

[QUOTE=bowhunter;1110319]i hunt mostly these days with larger vintage calibers but all through the late 70s and the 80s and early 90s i used 22-250s i killed more deer than i can remember each year. i lost only one deer ever with that caliber and that was my fault not the rifle.

Here in South Texas we have a doe only season in January. Deer hunting in South Texas is BIG business. The reason for doe only is to thin the herd. Land owners will take does in February if not enough have been taken in the annual doe hunt to balance the herd. It's been 20 years ago when I went on a "guided" doe hunt. We (2 of us) got 7 does and it cost us $50.00 each. The guide (land owner) wouldn't use anything except a 22-250, and suggested his hunters should also. His thought: one shot one kill. Of course bullet placement was important, but in his opinion not critical. His opinion not mine as to bullet placement. I have a cousin who killed many deer with a Savage 340 in 22 Hornet. He'd put the bullet in the ear every time. One accurate little rifle.
D

[JSnover]

I have heard this too. In the version I heard, she had 3 shots. Killed the bear with one, gave it a finisher to be sure.
She kept the third for the trip home.

Sounds like it could have happened. I wonder if she was a large squaw or she killed a small bear. Dragging it out must have been... a real drag!

[Four Fingers of Death]

I checked all of the posts and no one has mentioned it, but they have mentioned the book I saw it in. Taylor's African RIfles.It was either Bell or Seluous who was camped in a tree (to be away from the beasties) and he was woken up by an elephant butting the tree, almost unseating (unbranching/unbedding???) him. He drew his 22 Short pistol (used for pot animals I suppose) and fired a shot to scare it off. When he awoke apparently, there was a dead elephant slumped against the tree. The bullet had reportedly penetrated the skin at the base of the large cracks and lodged in the spine.

There was also a report of a photographer killing a rhino by accident. He set up his tripod and camera, the animal was standing with it's head turned away from the camera and was not cooperating. He then fired a round from a 22 revolver to make the rhino turn around and the bullet penetrated the skin at the base of a crack in the hide which was stretched open and lodged between two vertebre that were also stretched apart to allow the neck to turn away. As the animal swung its head back to check the sudden sound, the bullet lodged between the vertibrae, which then came together rapidly, levering them apart as a result of the great momentum generated by the swinging head and neck.

I think form memory that he reported these a stories that were doing the rounds, but I can't be sure, been a long time since I read the book. I must dig it out and have a look again.

[Molly]

I checked all of the posts and no one has mentioned it, but they have mentioned the book I saw it in. Taylor's African RIfles.It was either Bell or Seluous who was camped in a tree (to be away from the beasties) and he was woken up by an elephant butting the tree, almost unseating (unbranching/unbedding???) him. He drew his 22 Short pistol (used for pot animals I suppose) and fired a shot to scare it off. When he awoke apparently, there was a dead elephant slumped against the tree. The bullet had reportedly penetrated the skin at the base of the large cracks and lodged in the spine. ...

I once read a similar account in one of the adventure magzines like Outdoor Life. Seems the guy was a game control officer, and had stopped in at a local village to spend the night. They put him up in one of those little huts on stilts, but warned him that warthogs sometimes visited the huts and scratched their sides by rubbing against the stilts. During the night, his hut began swaying back and forth, so he took a colt woodsman and put a couple of 22 LR through the floor. Things got quiet, so he went back to sleep. Next morning, he was awakened by the hub-bub of natives outside his hut. When he went out to see what was up, he found a very dead elephant under his hut, with no marks except two 22 holes in the top of its head.

Knowing that there was absolutely no way for a 22 to have penetrated the massive skull of an elephant, he oversaw a detailed autopsy by the villagers. Seems one of the slugs had penerated a large vein and created a substantial blood clot, which was apparently caried to the heart and killed the elephant.

I can't say it's not true, for strange things DO happen. But _I'M_ not going elephant hunting with a colt woodsman.

[LazyJW]

I have no idea where or when I read it, but I HAVE read that the biggest grizzly bear ever taken in a western state (don't recall which one) was shot by a squaw running a trap line. IIRC, she found the bear with ONE TOE caught in one of her traps. She walked up to it and shot it in the eye with a black powder .22 short. The bear fell over dead as a doornail, so she rolled it onto a travois or sled (don't recall details) and took it into town, where it created quite a stir.

You tell me: Author's embellishment, primitive urban legend, or fact?

Not sure about that story, but a young Indian girl named Bella Twin killed what was at the time the world record inland grizzly bear back in the 1950's. Her weapon: a single-shot 22 rifle using Longs. She and a friend were out picking berries near Lesser Slave Lake in Canada when a large grizzly came too close, she shot it in the side of the head and it fell. She then shot the rest of her ammo into it, five or six rounds IIRC.

Her bear is still on the record books, not a long ways down from the top either.
Joe

[Molly]

i hunt mostly these days with larger vintage calibers but all through the late 70s and the 80s and early 90s i used 22-250s i killed more deer than i can remember each year. i lost only one deer ever with that caliber and that was my fault not the rifle. i would never advise anyone to use a lite round that diden't feel comfortable with it. i have read many tales by those who say the lite boolits will explode on impact, well the truth is they may not penetrate like a heavy caliber but they deliver all there energy inside the target with devastating results. shot placement my friend that is the key. i have lost deer that was hit wrong with 30-06............

FWIW, I once purchased a M. 43 Winchester in .22 Hornet from an old fellow in Georgia, who had gotten too old to hunt, and was going to live with his kids. It came with the original bill of sale, and (IIRC) 23 rounds still in the original box of ammo. He claimed to have taken 26 deer with it, only one requiring a finishing shot. However, he also mentioned that the typical deer was taken at a range of 15 or 20 feet as it browsed in his front lawn. (He lived WAY back in the pines!)

[lcclower]

I picked off a number of deer with a .22, back when I was a kid we ranched in north Texas right on Red River.
There were quite a few deer on the river bottom then, I'd just ride right up on 'em horseback, pop the deer in the forehead, I never lost one.
Had a heckuva time getting horses to put up with the blood smell, it was easier to hang the deer and come back with a pickup.

[Hickory]

Had a heckuva time getting horses to put up with the blood smell.

A little Vicks near the nose of the horse and the horse can't smell the blood.

[Multigunner]

Not sure about that story, but a young Indian girl named Bella Twin killed what was at the time the world record inland grizzly bear back in the 1950's. Her weapon: a single-shot 22 rifle using Longs. She and a friend were out picking berries near Lesser Slave Lake in Canada when a large grizzly came too close, she shot it in the side of the head and it fell. She then shot the rest of her ammo into it, five or six rounds IIRC.

Her bear is still on the record books, not a long ways down from the top either.
Joe

The story has been repeated many times with variations of the circumstances. The way I read it was the bear was breaking in her cabin door and she shot it in the eye.
I was looking at bear skulls on several sites awhile back. The structure of Brown Bear and Grizzly skull would probably allow for a bullet in the eye to reach the brain, but the Black Bear skull is somewhat different. The eye socket of the Black Bear doesn't line up with the brain case in a head on shot. A shot to a Black Bears eye socket would have to be at a steep angle to reach the brain case.

I've read that trapped Grizzly were routinely dispatched by .22 RF shots to the point were the spine meets the skull. Any internal bleeding in this area can crush delicate nerve tissue that controls breathing , its a common cause of death due to strokes.

The Daisy company made changes to their 880 BB gun after at least a dozen youngsters died from penetrating wounds to the spine or brain. This is a fairly powerful BB gun, the problem was kids thinking the gun was empty and playing with it pumped up as if it was a blank or cap gun.
It doesn't take much damage in the right spot to cause death. The only reason why rifles are as powerful as they are is getting the bullet into that right spot from a distance. That and ensuring a quick enough kill that the animal doesn't pass away peacefully after having eaten the hunter or being long gone in the brush never to be found.

[bowfin]

I read the versions LazyJW has offered. The young woman was picking berries...

[Markbo]

Well when I finally make it to Africa, I now know what I am going to take!

[Jim]

Well when I finally make it to Africa, I now know what I am going to take!

Hey, you could buy a new one there and leave it with the PH!

[josper]

I was reading a book by Peter Hathaway Capstick the other night and he mentioned an event where a fellow PH told him of accidentally killing an elephant with a .22LR. The friend took Pete out into the bush and proved it by doing it again. With a broadside shot, the shooter waited 'till the elephant stepped forward and then shot into the chest immediately behind the front leg. The skin is thin and soft at this point and the bullet pierced the heart and the elephant collapsed within a minute.
Placement and penetration.

I too enjoy reading Capsticks books ,but anyone that wants to try killing an elephant with a.22 has some sort of death wish and is someone that I don't want to be around,lol.

[gandydancer]

triple u ranch south dakota, ON a buffalo hunt in 1997 I watched the owner shoot 21 buffalo in the course of a day with a ruger single action 22 mag 21 shots 21 buffalo up the shute with the man standing on top of the shute one shot in the back of the head. I got mine with a C Sharps 1874 in 45/70 460 grain LBT mold cast 105 yards off the hood of a bronco. back then cost was $1000.00 now its $2700.00 had some steaks and they where great. GD