As we have nothing bigger than a red deer in a state of nature, all the
big game has to be looked for abroad. There is really no country which
can easily and quickly be reached where big game is to be shot.
Somaliland and British East Africa probably afford the best chances for
African species, Wyoming the best for wapiti in the United States. India
and the adjoining countries is now, as it always has been, the greatest
big-game shooting arena in the world. It might have been challenged by
South Africa in the days of Gordon Cumming, but that district was soon
shot out by the Boers. However, South Africa at that time will for ever
remain a lesson to game preservers. It swarmed with an enormous variety
of big game, against the increase of which the unmolested lions and
other beasts of prey were powerless for harm. They had no effect
whatever in restricting the increase of buffalo, antelopes, and zebra.
Yet the fashion inclines to believe that a few peregrine falcons would
seriously damage the stocks of grouse in Scotland and Yorkshire.
Probably, if the truth were known, there were as many grouse in Scotland
before anyone ever thought of killing vermin as there are now. It is
very often forgotten that vermin eat vermin as well as other creatures.
The question of rifles for big game would occupy more space than the
whole of these pages to treat of it adequately. Briefly, it may be said
that for each animal there is a best rifle, and for hardly any two
species is the same weapon the best. A compromise is effected by using
different bullets for the same rifle, and the principle on which to
choose weapons is to go for a thoroughly effective weapon for the most
important species to be hunted, and by altering the bullet make it do
moderately well for other less important beasts. In hunting for
elephants and buffalo, it is necessary to be able to stop a charging
beast with a temple hit. Both the elephant and the buffalo of Africa are
particularly hard to bring down with a forehead shot, or they were
before the days of high velocity rifles of from .500 to .600 bore. Those
of .303 bore and less are not to be trusted unless they smash the brain,
and themselves smash up in the brain, and not before or after piercing
it. A No. 6 shot pellet is about one five-thousandth the weight of a
partridge, and has no immediate effect on the bird unless it enters a
vital spot. The 215 grain bullet of the .303 weighs about one two
hundred-thousandth the weight of an elephant, and yet there have been
those who advise the use of such bullets for these beasts. It appears to
the author, who has never shot an elephant, but has listened to all
views of those who have shot them, that the small-bore men trust a great
deal to the natural timidity of the big beasts, and believe that they
will not charge even if they are wounded. Of course elephants differ in
temper at various times more than most animals, and a charging African
elephant at close quarters is possible, to say the least.
The big bore solid bullet has been displaced to a great extent by high
velocity bullets of less weight and diameter but more length. These
bullets are trusted to pierce farther than the old 4 bore bullet, and to
give as severe a shock. The object is to do as much damage within the
head as possible, and not merely to pierce it. Expanding bullets are not
to be trusted for this business, because the bone of an elephant’s head
from the frontal shot makes all bullets tend to flatten up too much,
unless they are very hard. In other words, for these hard-skinned,
hard-boned animals the biggest bullet makes the biggest hole, and any
expanding of the bullet tends to break it up and prevent an entry into
the vitals. For soft-skinned animals it is very different. An expanding
bullet is in every way preferable to a hard bullet, whether from big or
small bore. The latter has a tendency to go through the animal and
expend its energy on the other side, and the former tends to flatten out
and smash up large portions of the internal organs and to remain in
them.
But every prospective big-game hunter will be wise to go to some of
those who make it a business and a specialty to fit out expeditions, and
there he will not only hear the latest views of those who have returned
from expeditions, but see the very latest designs for increasing the
effectiveness of rifles. If the author were going for big game, and
especially dangerous game, the first persons he would consult are Mr.
Henry Holland (whose opportunities of hearing the latest views of
sportsmen returned from expeditions are unique), Messrs. Rigby, Purdey,
Westley Richards, and Gibbs of Bristol, for the last new thing, because
rifles cannot be said to have reached finality, and are being evolved
and improved every day, as is also the powder to be used with them.
There is at present considerable difference of opinion as to whether
.450 high velocity rifles are equal to the task of dropping an African
elephant by a frontal shot.
Mr. Naumann believes that they are equal to anything, and he has had
experience; but then he may have been lucky in not having his bullet
deflected from the brain by the mass of bone it has to break through. A
great deal would certainly depend upon the angle at which the bullet
first struck the bone. Steel cores to the bullets prevent expanding or
breaking up of that part of the bullet, but not of the leaden covering,
and this expansion necessarily would greatly retard the speed and
distance of penetration.