page_title: 4 bore
section_title: Golden Age and later usage
hierarchical_section_title: 4 bore / History 1750–1880 / Golden Age and later usage
caption_attribution_description: Afrikaans: 'n Illustrasie uit Maiwa's Revenge van 1888, een van 'n reeks novelle deur skrywer H. Rider Haggard. 'n Wedervaring van die hoofkarakter, die grootwildjagter Allan Quatermain, word voorgestel in die illustrasie deur de Thulstrup. Quatermain gee sy zoeloekrygers opdrag om te vuur op aanstormende oos-Afrikaanse stamlede in 1859. English: Illustration from H. Rider Haggard's Maiwa's Revenge, Chapter VII, by Thure de Thulstrup. The scene shows Allan Quatermain ordering the men to fire, after getting them to wait until the most opportune moment: “"Now they are going to begin," I thought to myself, and I was not far wrong, for in another minute the body of men divided into three companies, each about five hundred strong, and, heralded by a running fire, charged at us on three sides. Our men were now all well under cover, and the fire did us no harm. I mounted on a rock, so as to command a view of as much of the koppie and plain as possible, and yelled to our men to reserve their fire till I gave the word, and then to shoot low, and load as quickly as possible. I knew that, like all natives, they were sure to be execrable shots, and that they were armed with weapons made out of old gas-pipes, so the only chance of doing execution was to let the enemy get right on to us. On they came with a rush. They were within eighty yards now, and as they drew near the point of attack, I observed that they closed their ranks, which was so much the better for us. "Shall we not fire, my father?" sung out the captain. "No—confound you!" I answered. "Sixty yards — fifty — forty — thirty. Fire, you scoundrels!" I yelled, setting the example by letting off both barrels of my elephant gun into the thickest part of the company opposite to me. ” Français&#160;: Illustration du chapitre 7 de Maiwa's Revenge,un roman de H. Rider Haggard, par Thure de Thulstrup. Dans cette scène, le héro Allan Quartermain ordonne à ses hommes d'ouvrir le feu, après leur avoir fait attendre le moment opportun, par le cri: «&#160;Tirez, tirez, mes affreux&#160;!&#160;»
context_page_description: Four bore or 4 bore is an almost obsolete black powder caliber of the 19th century, used for the hunting of large and potentially dangerous game animals. The specifications place this caliber between the larger two bore and the lesser six bore. This caliber was the quintessential elephant gun caliber of the black powder safari rifles. The caliber was also used for the Coffman cartridges used for starting large aero engines such as the Rolls-Royce Griffon as used in the later Marks of Supermarine Spitfire.
context_section_description: This caliber was used heavily by the European hunters, notably so the British and Dutch Boers, in tropical climates of Africa and India.  A single barreled smoothbore percussion cap musket of between four and six gauge called a "roah" was the standard weapon among Boer hunters, until the common acceptance of breechloading rifles among their ranks in the 1850s.  Many of the earliest British hunters adopted this practice from the Boers, with Selous being the best known among them.
  Meant to be used with black powder due to its size, it was unpopular due to the problem of thick smoke and a powerful recoil. Notable hunters that used the rifles included Sir Samuel White Baker and Frederick Selous, who used it consistently in his career as an ivory hunter of African elephants between 1874 and 1876 until the advent of the lighter, more accurate and less cumbersome Nitro Express calibers and cordite propellant. In the mid-1870s, Selous favoured a four bore black powder muzzleloader for killing elephant, a 13 lb (5.9 kg) short barreled musket firing a quarter pound bullet with as much as 20 drams (540 grains) of black powder. He could wield it even from horseback. Between 1874 and 1876, he slew exactly seventy-eight elephants with that gun, but eventually there was a double loading incident together with other recoil problems. He finally gave it up, due to it "upsetting my nerve".
  Although a weapon of immense power, the four bore was far less effective than its Nitro Express successors because of the low penetration of its projectiles and its immense recoil. The huge lead slugs fired by the gun were sometimes capable of stunning a charging African elephant to stop it on its tracks, or turn its charge (causing it to change direction to avoid the hunter) but it was generally unable to kill the creature outright with a frontal brain shot. Chest and broadside shots were effective killers, as was the side shot on brain where the skull is thinner on elephant, however once again this did not help for instantly stopping an enraged elephant charging the hunter. On the other dangerous game species such as the Indian elephant, buffalo species and Rhino it was considered an excellent killer.
  Henry Morton Stanley carried a 4 bore rolling block single-shot rifle on his expedition to find David Livingstone.
caption: Allan Quatermain, having waited until the last minute while holding his elephant gun, orders his men to fire in this illustration by Thure de Thulstrup from Maiwa's Revenge (1888).
exif: {}