A GUIDE'S NOTES
.416 Remington
A Dangerous Game Rifle from Phil Shoemaker
Hunting large dangerous game is not a lot different than hunting any other game except for the fact the beast might, at some point, decide to attack the hunter. When that happens the bigger the gun one is carrying the better. If bore size were the only consideration, though, everyone would be carrying some sort of portable field artillery piece. Bore size, however, is not, and never has been, a substitute for precise bullet placement, and light rifles and smaller calibers are more comfortable to carry and easier to shoot accurately.
This fact has posed a conundrum for hunters for over a century. D.W.M. "Karomojo" Bell is undoubtedly the most famous hunter whom advocates of light, smallbore rifles and precise bullet placement bring into any argument of bore size. Bell is credited with killing over 1,000 elephants with solid 160-grain bullets in the 6.5 Mannlicher-Schönauer and 175-grain bullets in the 7mm Mauser. He was undoubtedly a superb shot, capable of hitting flying birds with his rifle and, by his own accounts, exceedingly lucky. The argument that since Bell did it on elephants then anyone can do it is hardly convincing. People have fallen from airplanes without parachutes and survived, but the practice is hardly to be recommended.
On the other side of the equation are the large bore fanatics and their paragon Elmer Keith, who once stated the .375 H&H was a pretty good deer rifle. I actually believe there was a bit of tongue-in-cheek to some of Elmer's stories, but he was an honest-to-gosh believer in large bores. Heavy bullets and stupefying energies are directly correlated with brutal recoil, however, and most of us mere mortals cannot shoot to our best abilities knowing each time we close our eyes and yank the trigger we're going to get hammered. Eventually we all migrate toward some sort of compromise caliber depending upon our ability to handle recoil.
I have been hunting dangerous game and experimenting with large caliber rifles for nearly three decades. In this time I have hunted on four continents and, at one time or another, been a firm subscriber to each theory. I have experienced a few spitting distance, blood and thunder, kill or be killed charges, but they were usually a result of poor tactics or planning on someone's part - usually mine.
As a professional hunting guide I get to see numerous hunters shooting various rifles, calibers and bullets. A majority are competent if not good shots, but each year one or two can be counted on to misplace their bullets. I am then required to use my rifle either to assure a humane kill or to prevent the animal from escaping or charging. Very early in my career I learned if I were ready, attentive and in range, I could usually hit the animal solidly before it had recovered, thereby settling the matter. Any caliber and bullet satisfactory for hunting the animal worked fine for this. I completely subscribed to Karomojo Bell's placement-is-all-it-takes theory. I used a .30-06 and 200-grain Nosler Partition pushed to 2,700 fps and was completely satisfied. Experience, however, often has a way of dispelling even the best theory.
Bell hunted by himself and was experienced enough to wait until he was absolutely certain where the bullet was going. He did not have to allow an inexperienced, out-of-shape novice the first shot. Surprise and the unexpected are a main attraction in any form of hunting, but on dangerous game the unexpected can have serious repercussions. When large, dangerous animals are hunted in thick brush or undulating terrain, places where they can disappear with one step, a poorly placed bullet can make life downright fascinating in a hurry. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the accurate placement theory. I have painfully learned, however, that accurately placing a bullet on an erratic, rapidly advancing nightmare with your body pumped full of adrenaline can be problematic at best and fatal at worst. Bore size, bullet weight and kinetic energy (stopping power) might not equal the "killing power" of an accurately placed bullet, but under these circumstances it can be a close, and much welcomed, substitute.
There have been all sorts of theories postulated on how to measure stopping power. I don't have any new formulas. The simple fact is hunters bring about the death of an animal by one of two means. Either a bullet disrupts the brain or spinal cord (central nervous system) and causes instantaneous death or else the animal dies of shock caused by massive blood loss, which results in the brain shutting down. Precise bullet placement will cause this, but so will very large holes. It is an irrefutable fact that large holes bleed more than smaller ones and two holes more than one. Large, heavy bullets are also better at breaking down heavy bones and immobilizing large beasts. Elmer Keith knew this. So do most professional hunters around the world.
Fifteen years ago I built a serious stopping rifle for use in Alaska. Reliability and dependability, of course, were paramount, but power, accuracy, weight, fit and feel were also important factors. I used a .458 Winchester Interarms Mk X Mauser barreled action, a modified fiberglass stock and a Leupold 2x compact scope. The rifle has served me well, but in the past few years there has been a plethora of new calibers, rifles, bullets, sights, mounts and stocks introduced, options that weren't available when the rifle was assembled. I decided to see what was available and to build another rifle.
Other rifles besides the .458 are occasionally used; I have a reproduction Model 1886 Browning/Winchester .45-70 carbine and a Bauska actioned .505 Gibbs. Both are powerful, reliable short-range stoppers, and I see no reason to scope either of them. They are used for special purposes: the Browning daily when guiding salmon fishermen and bear photographers and the Gibbs when someone wants to get up close and personal and stick an arrow in a massive brown bear.
When the .458 was originally built, extensive range testing of the speed and accuracy of various iron and scope sights was done and a low-power scope was settled on. Electronic red dot sights were not then available, and I wanted to try them. My 17-year-old son Taj and I spent an afternoon switching various sights back and forth between our rifles testing for speed and accuracy.
