GUNS AND AMMUNITION. 



Anybody can keep on shooting all day, but it takes a gentleman to quit when he gets enough. 



GUNS FOR BIG GAME IN THE FAR EAST. 



Editor Recreation 



New York City. 



When I left America for the East my 

 hunting arms consisted of one 50-100-450 

 and 2 30-40 Winchester rifles. I had long 

 studied the question of heavy vs. light 

 rifles, but opinion seemed so divided that 

 I was, after all, left to follow my own 

 judgment. I argued that a small bullet 

 in a vital place was as good as a large 

 one, and guided only by my experience 

 with big game in this country, I chose my 

 weapons as above. 



When I lost an elephant and a rhinoc- 

 eros, and narrowly escaped being gored by 

 a wounded wild ox, I saw my mistake, 

 and quickly procured a double barrel 12- 

 bore rifle, using 120 grains of powder, and 

 an 8-bore, burning 240 grains. In a com- 

 paratively open country, where you can 

 see your game at 100 yards or so and be 

 certain of a clear shot at 50 yards, the 

 50-100-450 is satisfactory. At least it is 

 to me ; though no sportsman in the Far 

 East looks on so light a gun with favor. 

 It would be dangerous shooting, of course, 

 but danger has its attractions. 



I should be satisfied with the 50 caliber 

 in any country open enough to permit 

 picking my shot, as may be done in Amer- 

 ica and in most parts of India and Africa. 

 But in such dense jungle as prevails in 

 Siam, the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, and 

 Java, the sportsman who ventures 

 after elephant, rhino, buffalo, or wild 

 cattle stands a poor chance of scoring 

 and a good chance of losing his life 

 The reasons are not many, but potent. In 

 dense jungle you can rarely pick your shot: 

 you are always at a disadvantage, since 

 you must be prepared for a sudden charge 

 from an animal you can not locate until it 

 bursts on you 30, 20 or even 10 feet 

 away. In the case of elephants or rhino, 

 you are in the thickest jungle, and likely as 

 not sunk half way to your knees in mire. 

 Under such conditions you must have a 

 rifle that will check the charge, at least, 

 until you can get a killing shot. The 

 only ^ vulnerable spot presented by a 

 charging Asiatic elephant is no larger than 

 a saucer ; a rhino must be shot in the eye ; 

 the buffalo holds his nose so high it is 

 impossible, unless you are on a higher 

 level, to send a bullet into his brain ; 

 while wild cattle are most determined to 

 reach an enemy and die hard. To land a 

 fatal shot on any of these animals when 



charging in thick jungle is beyond the 

 average sportsman. 



If you want a fighting chance, you must 

 have a gun shooting sufficient lead with 

 such force that the impact of the ball 

 will bring the charging beast to his knees, 

 and give you an instant's time to put in 

 another ball where it will do the most good. 



It is well enough to talk of the shock 

 and penetration of the small bore smoke- 

 less rifles, but under the conditions I have 

 cited you want extraordinary smashing 

 power. You must get the beast down, and 

 at once. Unless you can put your small 

 bullet into the brain of the elephant you 

 will not bring him down, nor can you in- 

 variably stop either the rhino, buffalo, or 

 wild ox by a well placed shoulder shot. 



The 50-100-450 is undoubtedly the 

 strongest shooting of the comparatively 

 small calibers, yet I put 3 50-100-450 metal 

 patched soft nose bullets into an elephant, 

 2 directly back of his 'fore leg, and he car- 

 ried them off swiftly. He shed some blood, 

 which I tracked 2 days. He may have 

 died eventually, but if so that is only one 

 more argument against the smaller cali- 

 bers. I put 2 full metal patched 50 caliber 

 bullets and 3 30-40 smokeless into and di- 

 rectly behind the shoulder of a rhino 

 swimming across a river. He kept on and 

 disappeared in the jungle on the other 

 side. He got out of the water with some 

 difficulty, and perhaps if I could have 

 crossed the torrent I might have secured 

 him. I put one full jacketed 50 caliber 

 in the shoulder and one soft nose imme- 

 diately behind the shoulder of a bison, and 

 he rushed me so closely I thought my days 

 of big game shooting numbered. 



I was curious about the 30-40 high 

 velocity gun, and made many experiments. 

 Though its execution with soft nose bul- 

 lets was all that could be desired on deer 

 and small bear, it was useless for larger 

 game, unless a head shot offered. It has 

 been claimed that the motion set up in the 

 molecules of tissue of an animal hit by a 

 high velocity small bore continues to tissue 

 contiguous, and so an enormous shock is 

 given; but it is yet to be proven that 

 there is any deadly shocking power due to 

 vibration set up by the small bullet on its 

 way through the animal. 



If the brain could always be reached the 

 30-40 would be as deadly as the largest 

 bore; but the fact is that for the danger- 

 ous game of the East the only reliable 

 weapon is one of the large bores, from 12 

 to 4„ Were I to make another hunt in the 



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