page_title: Elephant gun
section_title: Nitro Express rifles
hierarchical_section_title: Elephant gun / Nitro Express rifles
caption_attribution_description: English: 585Gehringer 585 Gehringer .585Gehringer .585 Gehringer Karl Gehringer CZ550 Elephant Gun Stopper Rifle
context_page_description: An elephant gun is a large caliber gun, rifled or smoothbore, originally developed for use by big-game hunters for elephant and other big game. Elephant guns were black powder muzzle-loaders at first, then black powder express rifles, then later used smokeless powder cartridges.
context_section_description: The Nitro Express line (c.1895), so named because the composition of the early smokeless powders such as Poudre B, ballistite and cordite, were the first of the new order of elephant guns. With smaller metal-jacketed projectiles ranging from .400 to .620 inch caliber and velocities around 2,000 ft/s (610 m/s) they possessed vastly improved trajectory and penetration over their black powder forebears. Within a few years the mighty bore guns of the previous era largely disappeared from the gamefields. The safari heyday of the early 20th century 'Nitro era' records much literature on such calibres as the .577 Nitro Express, .375 H&H Magnum, .416 Rigby, .404 Jeffery, .505 Gibbs, .450 Nitro Express, .470 Nitro Express and many others. These rifles came out in single shot, bolt action, and double rifle configuration and continued to be used up until ivory hunting died off in the mid 20th century. Thereafter, they largely switched roles to tools for game wardens and as back-up firearms for professional hunters guiding international hunters.
  The American gun market produced several famous dangerous game cartridges around this time, such as the .458 Winchester Magnum, .378 Weatherby Magnum and .460 Weatherby Magnum and many of these were 'wildcatted' (to modify an existing case and rifle to fire a different caliber bullet). The rest of the old Nitro express calibers had faded to obscurity until a recent resurgence in safari hunting came about in the 1970s and 80s. This prompted a new boom in elephant gun development and calibers such as the .416 Weatherby Magnum and .416 Remington Magnum arrived in factory offerings. The late 1980s and 1990s produced the .700 Nitro Express and the new brass manufacturers allowed even more powerful elephant guns such as the .585 Nyati by Ross Seyfried, .577 Tyrannosaur by Colonel Art Alphin and .585 Gehringer by Karl Gehringer to be made by wildcatters. The .600 Overkill made by Rob Garnick represents at this moment the greatest power available from a standard hunting action. Other wildcats based on the heavy machine gun .50 BMG and similar anti-materiel rounds have been devised which are much more powerful, though they are not generally considered useful hunting arms as their weight usually exceeds 25 lb (11 kg).
caption: CZ 550 .585 caliber rifle
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