America's First African Cartridge Feature - HuntNetwork

Today, prior-owned plain grade boxlock
double rifles in .405 can be purchased for
USD6-9000, with higher quality sidelocks
costing upwards of twice that. They can
be found from most of the English and
Scottish makers.
The .405 rapidly gained fame and was
used by some of the best known and
proficient hunters of the early 1900s.
Without doubt, Teddy Roosevelt’s praise
of the calibre was its best endorsement.
Well-known as a conservationist,
Roosevelt nearly doubled the size of
America’s national parks and developed
over 50 wildlife refuges. In March of 1909
Teddy put up enough supplies to spend
a year in Africa. He chose not to seek a
third term in office but felt secure with
William Howard Taft as the President;
Taft promising to carry on with
Roosevelt’s progressive domestic and
economic programmes. (That was not to
be, and Teddy developed the Bull Moose
party to later unseat Taft. The Republican
vote in the 1912 election was now split
and the victor was the Democrat, Wilson).
Always having a love of fine firearms,
Teddy ranched and hunted the Badlands
of the Dakotas in the 1880s with, among
others, a .45 Colt Single Action Army
revolver, a .45-75 Winchester Model 1876,
another ’76 in .40-60. a .45 calibre Sharps,
and an English double rifle in .500 Express.
Later, he was to state his favourite rifle
was the .45-90 Model 1886. For his 1909
safari, Teddy’s rifles were a .30 calibre
Springfield which he "...stocked and
sighted to suit myself,” a .500/450 Holland
Nitro Express double rifle, and a Model
1985 in .405. The double rifle was given to
him by a group of English hunters and
conservationists. This big stick of
Teddy’s was recently sold at auction for
a half-million dollars.
The big double, however, did not push
the .405 out of Teddy’s safari picture. “I
cannot say how much I like these two .405
rifles you sent me. Now, my belief is that
in Africa those will be the two rifles my
son and I will habitually carry in our own
hands; the rifles upon which we will most
depend”, Teddy wrote to the Winchester
company before his departure. He did
send at least one .405 back to the company
for the rear sight to be adjusted to his
liking.
Roosevelt’s safari began as a
$75 000(US) expedition (over one million
in today’s dollars). When he ran short of
money, he wired Andrew Carnegie for an
additional $30 000. Carnegie replied to
“rest easy”, that he would take care of the
need. Scribner’s magazine paid Roosevelt
$50 000 for his story, with an additional
20% royalty on the book (a first edition
sits on my desk as I pen this). And it was
in Scribner’s, and other books and
magazines, that Winchester received some
of its finest advertisements. Hunting with
Lesile Tarlton, one of the best
professionals of the day, Roosevelt
commented. “Tarlton took his big double
barrel and advised me to take mine, as the
sun had just set and it was likely to be
close work; but I shook my head, for the
Winchester .405 is, for me personally, 'the
medicine gun' for lion”.
Lion were not the only game that fell to
Teddy’s .405. Rhino and elephant fell too,
as did lesser game, but Teddy preferred
the heavy double for the thick skinned
pachyderms. Of the 4 900 mammals and
2 000 reptiles (plus 4 000 birds and 500
fish) Teddy and Kermit sent to the
Smithsonian Museum, many were taken
with the .405. His son, Kermit also hunted
with a .405.
The .405 rapidly gained
fame and was used by
some of the best known
and proficient hunters of
the early 1900s.
Charles Cottar, the first American to
become a professional hunter in Africa
(1909), chose a .405 as his rifle. This was
a replacement and a better choice than the
.32 Special Model 1894 he brought with
him from his native Oklahoma. Hunting is
a rough and dangerous profession and
Charles was mauled by a leopard three
times, gored by a buffalo, run over by an
elephant in his career, and later partially
paralysed by a stroke. He died in 1940
when his .405 failed to stop a charging
rhino that he shot twice. The rhino gored
Cottar’s femoral artery and he bled to
death along with being crushed as the
dying beast fell on him. As his son raised
a canvas to protect him from the hot sun,
he refused, stating, “No, I want to see the
sky” with his last breath.
In Stewart Granger’s greatest film, and
perhaps the best film on Africa, King
Solomon’s Mines (1950), Granger finds
the rifle of an explorer he has been tracking.
It is a battered Model 1895 with a 24"
barrel he finds on a pile of rocks in
uncharted country with a message carved
into the stock: “Ammunition gone,
heading NW, inform Elizabeth Curtis, 73
Grosvenor Sq., London. Henry Curtis.”
The actual calibre of the rifle is not
mentioned, but it makes a statement that
the Model ’95 was an African rifle.
In the late 1920s, Mr Hurlburd Johnston
and a friend went on safari in Ceylon.
Johnston purchased a used .405 for $25
and proceeded to take buffalo, crocodile,
wild boar and antlered game. He spoke
highly of the performance of the rifle and
calibre.
During the same decade, Martin and
Osa Johnson lived a life of adventure in
Africa and the jungles of Asia and the
Pacific Islands. They chronicled their
experiences in several books and carried
a .405 Winchester with them. “When we
got back to camp she (Osa) had the bullet
cut out to prove that it was my .405 that did
the trick, and not her Springfield (.30-06).”
Belgian hunter Dr. Robert Danis,
speaks quite favourably on the .405 and
other Winchesters in Africa. His 1908
safari in French Central Africa with some
friends put Winchester’s smallest big bore
to a good test. He states the gun was
“...superior to everything by strength,
accuracy, killing power, (and) quick and
easy shoulder repetition...” Danis’ .405
printed two-inch groups at 100 yards, had
“reasonable” recoil, and he stated full
patch bullets must be used for elephant.
Four .405s performed on this safari and
one, used by a woman hunter, was quick
to drop a rhino.
The .405 enjoyed popularity in the
States, too. Perhaps the largest brown
bear taken (body size, not skull size) was
shot by Alaska adventurer and pilot Bob
Reeve on the Alaskan Peninsula at Cold
Bay in 1948. Taken at a distance of 275
yards with an open sighted .405, the bruin
measured 12 feet from front paw to front
paw across the shoulders. A bear this size
would have weighed well over 1800
pounds! And, with this being a spring
bear, by fall it could have weighed nearly
a ton!
American hunter James Purdy wrote,
“For shooting elk in thick, brushy and
timbered country, the .405 shows up a
great advantage, as it is as good a brush
cutter and carries enough weight and
shock... If I could have but one rifle for big
game hunting, I would surely choose my
.405”.
Elmer Keith, arguably the high priest of
American gun writers, had this to say
about the .405 when hunting elk: “...none
of them went over 200 yards... they are
African Hunter Vol. 4 No. 4 Page 11