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Twenty Years with Elmer Keith
Elmer Keith was a fixture in shooting for more than 60 years. His recorded thoughts on shooting go back to the teens and his experiences led him to remarkably consistent opinions. Below are selections from Keith's output throughout those years.
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JHPS VS. HARD-CAST
Last fall, Eddie Schaller and a lad named Young were hunting elk. They killed one bull and wounded another, which they trailed some two miles before finding him. The bull tried to get to his feet and Schaller shot him in the middle of the forehead with a 6 1/2-inch Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum and a hand load of 22.3 grains of 2400 and a full-jacket soft hollow-point bullet. The slug ricocheted off the bull's skull, hit a tree limb, ricocheted again and hit Young in the leg.
Moral of this experience is: Don't use hollow-point bullets where penetration is needed. This fine bullet was intended for shooting pests and blowing them up, not for penetration of a big bull elk skull and the heavy skin of its forehead.
Of all the bullets I have tried for extreme penetration on big 1,600 to 2,000 pound bulls in forehead shots at the slaughterhouse, the Keith 250-grain--cast fairly hard--has given the best performance and often goes through the heavy skin on the frontal plate which, on old bulls, is often as much as 2 1/2 inches thick from their fighting and butting over the years, then through the entire skull and into the neck. The soft hollow-point bullet killed the bulls for me, but opened a hole nearly an inch across in he frontal plate cartilage, and never went deeper than the brainpan. The steel-jacketed soft point, with the end of the jacket open but no extra lead exposure, gave best penetration of all the factory soft point .44 Magnums, but even it expanded to the size of a quarter and stopped in the skull in the rear of the brain pan. My heavy, hard bullet showed less deformation and expansion than any and opened only .50 caliber holes in the frontal plates of these bulls, hence penetrated so much more.--September 1963
PENETRATION OF SOLIDS
Right after World War II, Kynoch turned out some solids or full patched bullets for most of the big double rifle calibers that had very brittle steel jackets. These tended to blow up and rupture on the land cuts and gave very poor penetration. A .600 double Nitro Express failed to penetrate to the brain of a wounded elephant with six side shots well placed. The bull had been stopped with a spine shot just over the tail, but those steel-jacket solids would not penetrate even from the heaviest modern double rifle.
After a lot of kicks, Kynoch then turned out some very fine solids with steel jackets and in many different calibers. The .416 has long been noted for its tremendous penetration. A rhino took me on in Africa at just 18 paces and I could not get a shot at his shoulder to break it and aimed at his chest for a heart shot when he turned and faced me. But just as I started the trigger squeeze, he ducked his head and charged. Heavy tree boles covered both shoulders, so I hit him in the end of the nose right under the front horn at ten paces. The 520-grain cupro-nickel solid from my .476 Westley Richards shattered all the upper jaw teeth on the right side and he went down on his chin with front feet folded back, but continued to kick toward me. I was well caught in a wait-a-bit thorn, so waited for him to regain his feet for my second shot. When he came up on all fours, I shot for his right shoulder. But just as I fired he fell on his nose again with his hindquarters still erect from the effects of the first slug.
My second slug went in over the shoulder in the ribs and penetrated through to the right hindquarter. The bull continued to kick himself toward me at a few feet range as I was reloading the big double, so I yelled at John Lawrence, my white hunter, to take him on. John did so instantly, giving him a slug from his .416 just back of the bone in the right shoulder that we found later, penetrated clear through to the left flank, which we measured as a full 60 inches of penetration from this 410-grain, steel-jacketed solid. That rhino bull took it, but jumped to his feet and swapped ends and departed from the heavy thorn. Had John not hit him when he did, he would have been on me in another second, and before I could possibly have reloaded.
I remember once a doctor asked me to test his high grade Fox Magnum 12 double. My daughter put up a pattern paper at 40 yards from the big irrigation ditch at the back of my house. Standing on the ditch bank, which was a measured 40 yards from the pattern board on which I tested shotguns, I loaded both barrels with 3-inch No. 4 shot in 15⁄8-ounce loads. I was careful to put the safety on. Taking aim at the center of the pattern paper, I squeezed the single trigger with the idea of first testing the safety. At my pull on the trigger, the safety moved forward and both barrels went off. I was walked backward and toppled into two feet of cold water, gun and all. Little Druzilla sat down and laughed until she cried. I shook the water out of the gun, loaded both barrels again and had Dru put up another piece of pattern paper. Again I put the safety on and--braced this time--I aimed at the center and pulled the trigger. Again both barrels went off and the gun rose high in the air.
The bull then barged out into the open and John hit him again through top of the withers. I found an opening and tore myself out of the wait-a-bit thorn and gave him one square in the shoulder. That broke both shoulders and spine, but the 520-grain shattered in the spine in tiny fragments. It killed the bull however, and I then poured the other barrel down into the brain between the ears at close range when he fell on his side with the top of his head toward me. John's .416 showed much better penetration than my .476 Westley with cupro-nickel, jacket solids.--February 1964
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