At 40 yards and full steam, there ain't no such thing as a warning shot! Shoot until the animal is down!

My elephant took a .577 nitro to the head. Missed the brain by less than an inch. He went down, then, 30 seconds later, got up. The second bbl took care of that. The problem was his Askari who took a strong dislike to Mother Murphy's eldest son (replete with an empty rifle). No running, but a damn fast reload. I found out later that the game scout, photog and #1 wife had run like blue hell the other way. This may have added some sort of provocation to the oncoming elephant.

We REALLY didn't want to shoot him, so the PH dropped a .470 in the dirt in front of him. This stopped him at about 30 yards and we were able to back him up with no problems. Whew. Botswana 1998.