Wdm bell biography examples

Bell preferred smaller calibers because they recoiled less, were lighter to carry, and in his estimation killed elephants just as well as the bigger bore cartridges. With meat shooting and supplying hundreds of hides for sandals, donkey saddles and trade goods, this rifle was probably the busiest of all and with it he shot everything from antelope to giraffe.

When the Great War (World War I) broke out, he immediately headed back to England and joined the fledgling Royal Flying Corps, becoming a pilot and flying in Tanganyika (Tanzania).

Bell found that German 7x57 and English .303 military ammunition was the most reliable, which also encouraged him to use the smaller calibers.^[20] His favourite rifles were bespoke Rigby-made 7×57mm Mausers with which he shot the majority of his elephants, a 'wand-like' Mannlicher–Schoenauer 6.5×54mm^[11] carbine, which he abandoned due to failure of the available ammunition, a Lee–Enfield sporting rifle in .303 British and Mauser rifles chambered in .318 Westley Richards.^[21]

He disliked the double rifles considered archetypal for the African hunting of his time due to what he considered recoil so heavy as to be detrimental to accuracy, their delicacy in the field, their weight, and the unreliable sporting ammunition of the day.

He particularly praised a Mannlicher M1893 rifle chambered in 6.5×53mmR from George Gibbs that he used for most of his buck meat hunting in the Karamojo.^[22] On one occasion in West Africa in the midst of a famine he killed a herd of 23 forest buffalo using a .22 Savage Hi-Power rifle with lung shots, in order to feed a local villagers who were starving.

Bell used the brain shot on elephants extensively, as it did not disturb the herd as much when the elephants were killed instantly, whereas body shots would mean the animals would run and upset the rest, causing them to stampede.

That was a vast sum of money and converted to today�s currency equivalent it would make your eyes water. It is reputed that in the early days he sometimes flew without an observer so that he could take pot-shots at the enemy with his hunting rifle. Another of Bell's hunting companions was New Zealander Harry Rayne, who accompanied him on a safari to Sudan and the Karamojo in 1907, and who later become District Commissioner in British Somaliland where he became the official responsible for apprehending ivory poachers.

978-1-59228-490-0. He believed that this co-operation with the local tribes was the main reason for his great success as an elephant hunter. 2006. After a winter of shooting moose and deer with a .350 Farquharson single-shot, his partner cheated him of his earnings, leaving him nearly penniless. He swore by this as the perfect round for red deer, due to its lightning kills with a neck shot.

He made it clear in a magazine article published in American Rifleman in 1954 what he would use if he returned to Africa.

Interestingly, it is a half stock, take down rifle with a trap made out of the grip cap to store cleaning gear. He later wrote that the .318 Westley Richards was more of a reliable killer for certain shots, while the 7x57 was a "surgeons" rifle.