The Green Hills of Africa

[fortress49]

I am reading this book by Ernest Hemingwayfor the first time.  Maybe some of you have already read it.  In this book he uses a "springfield" with "solids" for a lot of his hunting.  I just read a chapter where he shot a rhino with this combination.  This book is supposed to be a true account of some of his hunts in Africa.  I take this combination to mean that he was hunting with a 30-06 springfield with solid bullets.  And, he used it to kill a rhino!

Does anyone have any comments on this?  I know that using a 30-06 is not acceptable now for such game, but it is quite impressive what they did with "small" calibers in the old days and what they are really capable of.

I just thought it was interesting.  I sure would not want to face any dangerous game with "just" a 30-06!

Matt

[GEMSBUCK]

Though there are those whom would have you believe that calibers for DG start at .45 and go up from there many many elephants,lion,leopard,buffalo,hippos and rhinos were killed with the 30-06 and 220 gr solids in years past. And unless the animals have recently discovered a method to steel plate themselves if it was still legal to do so today with modern propellents and bullets there is no game animal in Africa that couldn't be harvested with it still.
 The 7.62x39 has probably killed more DG than all other calibers combined in Africa.

[JJHACK]

The difference is that many years ago with the game unmanaged it was shot and when not found more were shot until they were found. A key bit of information here is the stories about Bell shooting elephants with a 7mm rifle.

Yep he sure did and killed plenty. But the rest of the story is needed to understand this. He was a poacher, so shooting them and departing was a key to his long success. Then retuning later to collect the ivory with a wagon train.

You see ivory does not come out too easy from a freshly killed elephant. However after a week or two in the sun they slide right out. So going on a 150 mile hunt with a staff of local blacks and shooting 30-40 bulls was a round trip loop effort. Once to the end of the trip they backtrack looking for the vultures and hearing the lions and hyena to locate the elephants. Then they can easily slide out the tusks and load them to the wagon. It's one reason that elepahnt charging seemed to be so much more common 100 years ago then today. There are far less of them today with bullets lodged in their skulls to piss them off.

You see there needs to be a perspective on what the "old days" provided the hunters, or poachers then what the international sport hunter has today.

Today you have a couple weeks and maybe a single shot, back then you just shoot away and when you find the game great if not...... well not to worry there's plenty more. Using the analogy that something was fine 100 years ago so unless game has become armour plated is a silly notion at best. Today when a spot of blood is found you have paid for that animal.

At least to me that is quite a difference from the "old days" and using marginal tools which were all that was available in some places, compared to the current situation and cost structure. Even if the money were no object, the permits are also limited. But what the heck its your hunting experience take the advice of whomever you like and use the cartridge you choose. It's your money!

[curdog]

i don;t get over on dg hunting very often, but i do injoy the storys and info.keep up the info guys ,thanks

[Grumulkin]

I've read some of Peter H. Capstick's books.  Some items of interest:

1.  Two elephants were killed with a single shot each from a 22 LR.
2.  A cape buffalo was killed with a single shot from a 22 Hornet.
3.  One of the old big game hunters (maybe Karamojo Bell but I forget) thought 22 centerfires (it didn't say specifically which one) were just the thing for cape buffalo.

I wasn't planning on trying any of the above but it does help to put the magnum mania (even for deer) into some perspective.

[Graybeard]

While I have no real first hand knowledge of Capstick it has been said by many that he did more of his hunting in a bar than in the field. Maybe, maybe notl, dunno. BUT I seriously doubt an elephant has been killed with a single shot from a .22LR. I just don't think it has the penetration to do the deed no matter where placed. I don't even think you could gut shoot one and hope it would eventually die of lead poisoning. Sorry but I just don't believe this one is truthful. Comments Jim?

A hornet on buff? Again this seems unlikely. More possible for sure than the LR on elephant but still unlikely unless they found a solid to use. Still there might be a path to the brain it could manage but to try it would be sheer lunacy.

I've never heard of Bell using .22s, his rounds of choice were the 6.5 and 7mm I believe. But again he wasn't a hunter but a poacher and it was less important to him whether the animal died immediately or a few days later or for that matter at all.

I think Capstick had a real vivid imagination brought on by too much alcohol and too much time in bars and not enough in the field.

[JJHACK]

My opinion of Peter is this:

He took a tremendous amount of factual information, and an incredible level of writing skill, stirred in with a very good imagination to create stories that would sell books.

He was a mid 30's Stock broker in NYC when he made his first trip to Africa. He fell in love with it. Moved there and worked as a travel agent when he wrote the first book, He was not a PH, and did not work in any capacity within the hunting industry at the time.  He was going to come to the USA on a book tour but his publisher said he would have a big problem promoting what he had written when eventually people were going to find out about his background. As an author with a lot of fame regarding his book, it was easy for him to mix with Outfitters and PH's. He eventaully hooked up with an outfit in Botswana and over the years became a PH and really figured out what he was doing and even wrote about true things that happened. Ofcourse there is a bit of a blurry line between chapters that are true, and those that are written to sell books. Kind of a cross between Ruark and Stephan King where fact and fiction were concerned. He died in his 50's so he had about 20 years in Africa. Think just for a minute about the events that he has written about and all of them had to have happened much less then a 20 year span.

I'll say this, he's probably responsible for more Americans dreaming of Africa then any other single writer in history regardless of the reality of his writing. I for one enjoy the books but don't mistake the stuff I'm reading for 100% spot on truth in every detail. It's entertainment, not a documentary type of fact book.

As it has been stated by countless people over the years, If he killed half the DG he claims he would have to be 500 years old. And if he were charged a fraction of the times he claimed he would be the unluckiest PH in the history of the world.

Great story teller.........no question.............Certified PH ......yes sir..........The champion of safari marketing........absolutley

Everything single thing he wrote 100% factual...............Not a chance!

[Demonical]

FYI the 220gr .30 cal. bullet is #3 on the list of highest sectional density, behind only the 500gr .458 cal and the 400gr .416. Therefore it is a bullet that is capable of killing any darn thing that walks on earth, when properly placed.

I have also read Green Hills of Africa (several times). It is one of the best hunting stories ever written.

Hemingway shot several Rhino as well as Cape Buffalo that died from a single 220gr .30 cal bullet.

One of the things you need to understand is that Hemingway did carry a large double rifle on this hunt. A .465NE I think but I don't have the book here for reference so indulge me a bit. Whatever the caliber was, Hemingway despised the rifle. It was not all that accurate and kicked him to death, so he preferred the .30-06 bolt action, which he shot very well.

At the time (1935) there were no restrictions on caliber size. The animals were shot at longer ranges also. I think if you read the book you will find he killed his Rhino at something like 200+ yards, so there wasn't a situation in which he was shooting these that required a large DG rifle.

Read the book. It is excellent!

[flyboy]

While I have no real first hand knowledge of Capstick it has been said by many that he did more of his hunting in a bar than in the field. Maybe, maybe not, dunno.


*****************

There's this guy that owns a premium gun store in town, along with his dad, and they have been there and done that.  Nice people.

The son calls  Capstick "The Archbishop of BS"  (Dunno if that's allowed on the fourm, being a family plot and all. If not, please edit as necessary.)
Ross Seyfried referred to Peter H's books as "novels", and I once had a natter with a publisher from San Francisco, who was at a book showing, touting a $100 tome by john  Kingsly-Heath.  I couldn't afford it then, either, but as the publisher held his tea mug in one hand, and preened his mustache with the index finger of the other, he raised one eyebrow almost to the brim of his beret, and said, in a very confidential tone;"Capstick  borrowed some of his stories, you know!" 

Could be a bit of jealousy, could be a some truth mixed in. Probably both. 

Well, that is as may be. Some knowledgeable people seem to be of that opinion.  I never liked Hemingway, read all I could find of Ruark, Corbett, Bell, and the others, but, like the prior poster,  the guy that set my imagination racing was Peter H. Capstick.  My meager collection of his works has been read almost as much as  my Jack O'Connor.  I mean, really, WHO would believe the imagery of; "The sunset hemorrhaged redly on the horizon."??

A generation or two of readers have been excited by his prose, and like the other greats,  there don't seem to be many today who have the touch of the "old masters".  Like a line from the movie "Merlin", the storyteller says; "If I told it the way it happened, NOBODY would listen!"  May they be welcome in Valhalla!

[deltecs]

FYI the 220gr .30 cal. bullet is #3 on the list of highest sectional density, behind only the 500gr .458 cal and the 400gr .416. Therefore it is a bullet that is capable of killing any darn thing that walks on earth, when properly placed.

I have also read Green Hills of Africa (several times). It is one of the best hunting stories ever written.

Hemingway shot several Rhino as well as Cape Buffalo that died from a single 220gr .30 cal bullet.

One of the things you need to understand is that Hemingway did carry a large double rifle on this hunt. A .465NE I think but I don't have the book here for reference so indulge me a bit. Whatever the caliber was, Hemingway despised the rifle. It was not all that accurate and kicked him to death, so he preferred the .30-06 bolt action, which he shot very well.

At the time (1935) there were no restrictions on caliber size. The animals were shot at longer ranges also. I think if you read the book you will find he killed his Rhino at something like 200+ yards, so there wasn't a situation in which he was shooting these that required a large DG rifle.

Read the book. It is excellent!

I beg to differ on the comment that the 220 grain bullet is third highest sectional density.  The 275 gr Swift or Speer in .338 is higher, so is the 350 Woodleigh .375, the 450 grain .404, 310 gr for .358, 320 grain for .366, 400 gr .411, 250 gr .323, and the grand daddys 300 grain .338 and 550 grain .458 at .375 each.  Even the little 160 gr in .264 is almost as good with .328 compared to the .331 of the 06 220 grain.  Also, the .416  using a 400 gr does not have a higher sectional density than the 220 gr .308 bore.  It is .330 to the .331 of the 220 grain.  Not enough to argue about, but it is an error.  Now the .416 using a 410 gr bullet is higher with a sectional density of .338 and using the 450 gr is at .371.   The 220 grain bullet in .308 bore is extremely well liked and most effective on game size animals intended.  But so are a lot of others having higher sectional density bullets available for them.  They too are effective and well liked.  I don't know of any bore that has a bad reputation using good bullets of high sectional density pushed at moderate velocity.

[rex6666]

I think i own every book Capstick wrote about Africa. I don't remember all that many charges
I do know he resarch other hunters and told their stories seems like more than his. I can't recall the stories about 22lr killing elephants or 223 killing anything. I do know he can write
a book better than most i have read, no boring chapters.
Maybe some people want to do a little writing and would like to put others down, so they can look better.

[Dusty Miller]

Anybody who coin an expression like "bonded Kentucky drain opener" is an OK guy in my book!!

[mcwoodduck]

I've read all of Capstick's books, some a few times.
I do not recall anything about a 22LR and a Pachyderm.  But will start through them again this month when I get some free time.
The story of the 22 Hornet and the Buff was from "Last of the Ivory Hunters"  where Wally Johnson was telling of a friend of his sons on holiday from school went hunting and the kid brought his 22 hornet.  Wally though they could use it for small antelope.  He later saw the kid shoot a buff from the side and "pile" him up with a single shot.  If I remember right it was a shot to the neck.  The kid was on a bluff over looking a small herd of Buffalo that ran by.
Other than that I do not remember him mentioning any of the 22CF other than as a small antelope gun.  Most of the time he talked about using too much gun.
I remember Capstick using a 470 NE in most of his stories and when he was not holding an Evans double in that caliber he had a bolt action 375H&H, and professed it for most to use on the big five.
Speaking of Capstick's books, Do any of you have a copy of "Maneaters" you would like to sell?  I'm missing mine and it is out of print.
I don't know weather to believe that all of his stories of being charged are true.  There are some police that never draw their gun and others who are in multiple shootings.  I'm going to err on the side that he actually did most of what he wrote he did.  He did tell a lot of stories about other men as well and sometimes the line gets blurred as to who is doing what. 
Also his job was to promote Africa and sport hunting.  He did work for Winchester.
I have not been able to get through "Green Hills of Africa".  But when you say combo gun are you talking about a drilling or Cape gun? 

[SDS-GEN]

22 and elephants.  I think the book you want is "Safari, the Last Adventure", by Capstick.

 For what its worth I kind of got the feeling that most of his stories were based on an actual event, then sensationalized to sell.  Can't blame a writer for that. 

If one of his chapters on buff hunting went.

Once on safari in Botswana I was charged by a wounded buffalo, I shot it in the head and it died.  The end.

Would you buy one of his books?

[WL44]

I recall the .22 LR and elephant - as I recall a shot just behind the foreleg in the forward position through the "thin" skin. Not saying it's true, but that's the story as I recall.

Many say that Capstick related the experiences of many other PH's and that may be true. I wouldn't call it BS, but some sounds a little sensationalist I suppose. THat said I still need to but a few of his books to fill my collection!

Woodduck you got mail....

[mcwoodduck]

Yes
Thank you,