Nitrox,

There was a thread somewhere, here, AR, ?, about a fellow who shot an elephant bull with a 45/70 using Garrett's hot load for the Speer 500gr tungsten cored AGS. He reportedly had full penetration on a side brain shot. I'd bet that that shot and performance could be repeated - sometimes. I'm willing to bet that a 450 grain hardcast out of a 45/70 at max would do the same - sometimes.

I'm don't think, but I'm not sure, that either would work reliably on a side brain shot. I don't have any experience with either and I doubt the total number of elephants killed with a side brain shot with a 45/70 with 450 or 500 grain bullets in all of history is sufficient to make any case for it.

I do know that the midlin' years of the 458wm, after the initial loading was reduced - and before more modern powders alowed it to be loaded nearly to, or all the way to, or beyond the original specs - depending on the brand of ammo or the reload and the bullet selected - the 458 earned a poor reputation for penetration on frontal shots. It also earned a poor reputation for any "stunning" effect or "knock out" effect.

I also know that at its most anemic, the 458wm possessed substantially more velocity than the most grossly hot loaded 45/70 does today.

So we are back to 500 Grains' great line, "There is no reason to expect superior performance by dropping the velocity another 300 fps."

This would continue to hold true for a drop in velocity of even 1 fps.

No one should write off "stunning effect" or "knockout effect" either. Of the two elephants I killed, I got close enough to the brain to put one of the elephant's hind end on the ground twice, once with a quartering away rear brain shot attempt when she was running full tilt, allowing me to catch up and give her a proper side brain shot; on the other a frontal brain shot, missed an inch or two high, knocked her out absolutely cold, allowing for the insurance shot.

I just don't believe its going to happen with a 45/70. It sure doesn't happen on my side of the rifle! Not that recoil is a sure indication of a load's penetration capabilities, but shooting hard cast loads at what would be hot loaded 45/70 velocities in my rifle doesn't even produce enough recoil to be useful for for building up recoil tolerance for the full loads. I'm better off shooting my 375 or even my 30-06. There just isn't anything there.

Shooting a dry elephant skull only proves that the bullet will penetrate a dry skull. It might lead to the conclusion the fellow you know made, but I think that is a tremendous mistake. I played around with a dry bull elephant skull and it is substantially lighter and quite a bit more brittle than one from a freshly killed cow elephant. There is no fluid and no skin and flesh, no resiliancy and the honeycombs are brittle and flaky. A fresh cow elephant skull is first of all comparatively heavy, wet, has much more resiliance and the honeycomb isn't nearly as brittle or flaky. I know this because we cut open a dry one and the skull of the elephant I knocked out cold. I have been told that bulls' skulls are much tougher than the fresh dead cow skull and contain much more fluid too. In addition, a skull, fresh or not, is missing a whole lot of material that a bullet must penetrate on a live elephant. More so on a bull than a cow.

On AR there is a thread in African Hunting titled something like, "470NE, enough powder?". It was active today so it should be on page one or two. There is a discussion of actual velocity of historic 470 rifles and some input from Ganyana on the topic of what is enough velocity for NE rifles. His take is, IIRC, 2050 - OK, 2000 - maybe, below 1900 - trouble. You should take a look at that thread, and not just because it supports my arguement or 500 Grains' arguement!

Best,

JPK