Will,

I agree with what you say about bigger is better, as I said in a previous post 416 is better than 375 and 458 is better than 416 and so on. But I personally consider a .375 H&H a minimum calibre for a client. However it's nowhere near enough gun for a PH. All a client needs to do is have a calibre big enough to kill the Elephant. The PH however needs enough gun to stop a charging elephant......There's a world of difference between the two things.

From my personal experience a fairly high percentage of clients pitch up on safari without sufficient field experience of shooting their "big rifle". They may well have shot it every weekend for months before their arrival, but very often they've only shot it on a range and from a bench......... they arrive in camp thinking that because they can shoot a 1 inch group at 100 yards on the range and from a bench they know how to shoot. Then I often find that we need to do a little (or often a lot) more work with shooting sticks, freehand and trackers shoulders etc. Also many clients seem to know diddly about bullet drop etc.

If I have a choice of a client shooting a .375 H&H well or a 458 (or bigger) not so well, I always prefer them to shoot the .375 H&H.

I'd also agree with your point about terrain. I've hunted Elephants in the Zambezi Valley (amongst other places) and would heartily agree that the thick bush there would make use of a .375 H&H considerably more difficult than in the more open terrain of somewhere like the Selous or Burigi Reserves of Tanzania.

As I've also said somewhere else, "never say never and never say always" about anything African.