GUNS Magazine March 1958

square in the flat of the
saw a big cloud of hair
jumped and went around
ountain. He stopped again
aw at 250 yards, and this
time I hit him in the heart; blowing it to
shreds. But examination proved that the
first shot had penetrated not over an inch,
blowing out a crater of meat and hair and
hide and leaving the shoulder blade exposed
A magnificent trophy killed by Kern
at long range with .300 H&H Magnum.
but not breaking the bone. Though I saw
110 grain bullets used on big game after
that, but I never again used them myself.
About this time, the 270 caliber was all
the rage. One fall while guiding, I saw
four bull elk each take a shoulder hit from
the 130 grain .270 bullets, each breaking the
shoulder but not even getting into the chest.
One fall, Charley Snook guided five Cali-
fornians, each armed with a .270, down on
Moose creek in the cedar forest, where vis-
ibility is none too good and the trees so huge
(many of them from ten to fifteen feet in
diameter) that shots are nearly all at close
range. Those five hunters each hit and
knocked elk down, some of them as many
as three each; but they came home empty
handed. Snook told them to stop and see me
and get my recommendation for an elk rifle
before they came back another year. They
did so, and I told them to get .375 Magnums
and use 300 grain soft nose bullets. The next
year they all came out happy, each with an
elk and each elk killed with a single shot.
In 1927, I watched George Bates empty a
.300 Magnum with 180 grain open point
boattail bullets into a sow grizzly at reason-
ably close range. The big bear took them
all before going down, and was very mad.
She never did locate us or I would have seen
a good foot race. Bates' sixth shot put her
down with a broken back, but Jim Ross
made him shoot her again for safety.
I once watched an old mountain goat take
six 130 grain .270s, the first shot broadside
behind the shoulder, the next five in the seat
of his pants as he ran straight away from us.
He then took a 180 grain '06 from another
rifle, stopped, looked us over for a time, and
decided to commit suicide by jumping into
space and onto slide rock a quarter-mile
below.
Another time, in 1939,I watched H. Nelson
Busick empty his .30-06 with 225 grain am-
munition into a small sow grizzly in Alaska.
Busick is a good shot, but she would get
up after each hit. She finally located us and
charged. Nelson's last shot stopped her, but
entirely too close for comfort. Those 225
grain bullets, instead of blowing up with
insufficient penetration as so many light
bullets do, had gone clear through the bear
without doing enough damage to anchor her.
They worked well on larger bear, but were
no good foi blacks or small grizzly.
I
could write another 20 pages of personal
eye-witness accounts of failures of small
bore, high velocity rifles on American big
game. I have also seen many phenomenal
kills from the same calibers when the bullets
expanded properly, were placed right, or
when they struck brain or spine. The .300
H & H Magnum, the .285 O.K.H., and similar
rifles, with not less than 180 grain bullets,
are very deadly on game up to around 350
pounds weight, will also kill the larger stuff
when perfectly placed if all goes well with
bullet expansion. But they will also give
many miserable failures if they do not hit
just right; and at extreme range, when
velocity has dropped off until the small bore
bullet do not expand, they are all done as
killers unless brain or spine is shattered. I
do not recommend the 300 magnum for game
heavier than about 400 pounds weight.
In comparison, rifles of heavier caliber and
with heavier bullets have shown a marked
superiority in killing power on all game over
the years. Rifles from .333 up to .40 caliber
have proven by far the best for all our
heavier game, and will not damage as much
meat of a small deer as will a small bore,
high velocity bullet that explodes on impact.
When we turn to heavier game such as
moose, elk, big bear, bison, or walrus, much
heavier calibers and heavier bullets are
needed for sure, deep penetration. I watched
H. Nelson Busick shoot a big grizzly at about
30 yards range with my old 3.33 O.K.H. and
a 300 grain steel jacketed Kynoch bullet
backed by 60 grains of 4350. The slug struck
square in the shoulder as he stood broadside
in a small salmon stream.
At the shot, his front legs simply flopped
out sideways and he came down in the
BOINK
stream on his nose. All he ever did was
wiggle his ears. That 300 grain bullet had
tom an entrance hole almost an inch in
diameter, as it had started to expand on his
heavy wet pelt. It had then smashed a two-
inch wound channel through the heavy shoul-
der bone, removed the aorta from the heart,
and lodged, perfectly expanded, in the right
or off lung.
A big Alaskan brownie of the record class
took two 250 grain thin-jacket 250 grain 3 3 '
O.K.H. slugs broadside in the shoulder and
chest area, and both simply blew up under
the skin. Then one of the 300 grain steel
jacketed Kynoch slugs broke a shoulder,
went on through the heart and brought the
big bear down for keeps. Even the big bore
rifles, when used with fragile, thinly jacketed
bullets speeded up to 2600 to 2700 feet, may
blow up their bullets and cause only surface
wounds. The bullet must be heavy enough
and jacketed heavily enough for the job.
Even a 35 Whelen can blow up its bullets
on heavy game.
On the other hand, I used a 400 Whelen
for years on elk, still have it in perfect con-
dition, and have yet to see a better or more
reliable elk rifle. It never lost an elk for
me in the 12 I shot at with it. No elk ever
went over 100 yards after taking a body hit
from that rifle with 350 grain W.T.C.CO.
bullets and 63 grains of Dupont 17%. I also
killed a lot of mule deer with that rifle and
it damaged far less meat when properly
placed than a .270 or '06 with 150 grain
bullets.
Walrus are probably the heaviest game on
this continent, and only head shots for the
brain should be used on them. A frontal
brain shot would be next to imnossible even
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