...Caliber...or Shot Placement?...What's More Important?...You Decide...

[ParadiseRoad]

...Bella Twin, an Indian girl, and her friend Dave Auger were hunting grouse near Lesser Slave Lake in northern Alberta. The only gun they had was Bella's single-shot bolt-action .22 Rimfire rifle. They were walking a cutline that had been made for oil exploration when they saw a large grizzly following the same survey line toward them. If they ran, the bear would probably notice them and might chase, so they quietly sat down on a brush pile and hoped that the bear would pass by without trouble. But the bear came much too close, and when the big boar was only a few yards away, Bella Twin shot him in the side of the head with a .22 Long cartridge. The bear dropped, kicked and then lay still. Taking no chances, Bella went up close and fired all of the cartridges she had, seven or eight .22 Longs, into the bear's head. That bear, killed in 1953, was the world-record grizzly for several years and is still high in the records today...

 

[zelda]

lts like real estate. Location. Location. Location.

 

[JH1951]

Yes, location / placement.
All calibers are capable, some require a bit more placement than others.

 

[walkin jack]

If you can't hit what yer a shootin' at it don't make no diffunce how Big or fast the bullet. The young lady in the pic didn't kill that bear because of the caliber of her rifle, she killed it because she hit what she aimed at.

That was a no brainer.

 

[Bill Bates]

I have to go with bullet placement all the way. D. M. Bell killed over 1000 elephants with the .275 Rigby (7x57mm Mauser).

Years ago I can remember watching a TV show where some elephants were tearing up some local villagers farm plots. They tried repeatedly to haze them out of the area. Finally the local authorities decided to cull the small but troublesome group. I young man stocked into what looked like a corn field with 5 or 6 elephants. His rifle was an M1 Garand. He popped up in the middle of the small herd and at scary close range put them all down in seconds. I'm sure it took nerves of steel and a complete understanding of where to place those slugs.

A .30-06 or .275 Rigby would never be my choice of caliber for big bears, lions or elephants but in the right hands all are deadly.

 

[GatorFarmer]

Technically, when you get into large enough calibers, you no longer have to hit the target, close becomes good enough. Take for example a 16 pound Napoleon and a double charge of cannister or a 16 inch Naval gun firing Volkswagen sized projectiles. Then there were those nuclear shells for 155mm howitzers....

 

[RJJ 1971]

Placement - plus a bigger caliber to put a bigger hole in something, never hurts.

 

[tops]

Bell used a 175 gr. solids in his rifle and I'll bet the young man had surplus ball in his Garand. It leads me to believe that tacteacool super heavy duty critical defense soft point hollow points are not always needed and may not be the best all the time. Larry

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

If you're talking about handgun calibers like 9mm vs 45.... shot placement wins.

But if you're talking about something like a 5.56 compared to 50cal... as the shooter says... When you hit a person they just rip apart. The wall just turned red.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHQqD48dhCE[/ame]

 

[DWalt]

I have read that there are records of elephants having been killed with a .22 RF. For certain, a great many have been killed by the 7.62x39 from an AK-47. I remember seeing some years ago a TV show showing government depredation hunters killing elephants using L1A1 military rifles (FN-FAL). And remember Stalin's official executioner. He used a .25 Walther pistol to kill tens of thousands of Joe's enemies. Actually, he carried a briefcase full of them.

 

[Rustyt1953]

Captain Bell took 300+ elephants with a 6.5x54 MS.

 

[msinc]

It aint rocket science...22 short to the eyeball trumps a 44 magnum in the little toe!!!!

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

.22 kills more people than any other caliber. It is the choice of professional assassins delivered at point blank range. "Placement" trumps caliber.

 

[GatorFarmer]

.22 kills more people than any other caliber. It is the choice of professional assassins delivered at point blank range. "Placement" trumps caliber.

The gun magazines have said things like that since at least the time of the Vietnam war - Guns and Ammo circa 1967 is a fascinating read. However, there are not that many professional assassins in the world and I doubt anyone took a survey.

From my prison pen pals and unsavory people I knew over the years, they seemed to use whatever gun they happened to have available. I do recall being told of one guy who did have a preference. He liked store brand single shot shotguns from the days before serial numbers. He would cut a few inches off the barrel to open up the choke and undo the hand guard allowing it to be broken down into two pieces. Using a high brass number 4 or number 5 load, the window went down a bit when driving up on someone and then bam. After the shoot the gun would be broken down and tossed on the floor as he drove off. Yard sales, classified ads (pre internet) etc yielded the guns.

The source of the story was a guy I went to law school with. Years later, when he was Realtor Bobs court appointed lawyer - Bob was caught indulging in the crack rock again - Realtor Bob described the guy as the sleazy person he had ever met. To earn that appellation from Realtor Bob was no easy task, thus I suspect the story was true.

As luck would have, Realtor Bob himself at one point worked for a mob run pizza parlor. He claimed that an unknown make .38 snub was used by one od the fellows to pistol whip someone who was stealing.

 

[rwsmith]

I mentioned this before but.....

There was a guy who killed elephants with a small caliber rifle because he knew WHERE to hit it. Quartering shot behind the ear. In SD, caliber is important, but placement is more important.

 

[williamlayton]

IMO---jest from looking at the picture of the girl---bear died from fright !
Just sayin
Blessings

 

[sheepdawg]

I'd have to go with caliber. Meet Atomic Annie. This 280 mm. cannon fired a 15 KT nuclear device. All it takes is close as in 1/2 a mile.

 

[Arik]

This is an extreme example. Luck also played a roll. That bullet could have deflected off the bear's skull. I work with a guy who was shot in the back of the head point black with a 9mm. Typically that should have been it for him but he was lucky that the angle the gunman held his gun was just enough for the bullet to graze off his skull. He doesn't remember anything about it only waking up in the hospital but here is an example of a what should have been a kill shot that wasnt.

 

[Arik]

Bell used a 175 gr. solids in his rifle and I'll bet the young man had surplus ball in his Garand. It leads me to believe that tacteacool super heavy duty critical defense soft point hollow points are not always needed and may not be the best all the time. Larry

I'll make sure to not have supper tacteacool hollow points next time just in case I need to defend my self from a herd of Elephants in Southeastern Pennsylvania

 

[Arik]

I'd have to go with caliber. Meet Atomic Annie. This 280 mm. cannon fired a 15 KT nuclear device. All it takes is close as in 1/2 a mile.

Neh that don't work. Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived both atomic bombs. He was in Hiroshima on business the day it was bombed and was taken back to his home town of Nagasaki. So, clearly that doesn't work