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Ripp,

I would question that conclusion. Not from experience with shooting an elephant with a .577 shooting bullets at 1800 fps, but from a gut feel.

Also the 2300 fps, most, if not all, of the big NE cartridges, shoot at the muzzle slower than this, usually around 2000 fps to 2100 fps, and have always seemed pretty effective to me.

A lot of magazine articles always seem to me to have a lot of "writer's licence" inserted in them.

JMO.

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John,
The article I was referring to was written by Boddington--think it is in either Shooting Times or Sports Afield-current edition..also the elephant hunts described in the article were shown on Tracks Across Africa--you could see the bullets hit the head--actually looked like a good hit, but no effect other than the bull turned to leave but was put down with multiple follow up shots..

As to the 2300 fps..when I was last in Zim in '08--had Len (PH) from Chifuti, who had done quite a bit of hunting in Botswana, tell me the bulls there were noticeably larger than in some other areas..told me in his experience, the preferred fps to penetrate from ALL angles was the 2300 fps..Two other PH's sitting in camp agreed with that statement...I should have been more specific...

I have only shot one elephant in my life..can tell you using a Barnes solid at 2440 fps out of a custom bolt in .416 Rem it blew out of her head behind the opposite ear, hit a small tree, come out the other side and kept going..Obviously plenty of penetration...

Ripp