Talk:Frederick Selous

/* Death and legacy */ looking for reliable cite for note from German commander.
It's often stated that the German commander "wrote a personal condolence note, apologizing for the "ungentlemanly death" of Selous at the hands of the German Army". However, most of the cites that I could find online are just copies of the Wikipedia article or similar. Is there any reliable historical account of this, prefereably a contemporty one. I've been looking, but hard to find anything amongst all the online mirrors.--Dmol (talk) 21:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've removed the info, as six months later there's still no contempory references. I asked the same question on another board and they too could not support this. Removed pending reliable cites.--Dmol (talk) 05:50, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Rifles
Where is it written that Selous shot with a .461 No 2 Gibbs Farquharson rifle? My reading of his works show he shot extensively with a "single .450 Express by George Gibbs of Bristol",, whish in later works he describes as a ".450-bore Metford by Gibbs of Bristol", which fired, among other bullets, "a 540-grain bullet propelled by only 75 grains of powder." The only reference to the .461 Gibbs No 2 cartridge I can find in his writings is in the chapter "Merits of different rifles" in Travel and adventure in Africa, in which he talks about the effect of the .450 caliber and "such a rifle as Mr Gibb's 461-Metford, taking the No 2 cartridge ... [which] shoot either a 570-grain bullet propelled by 80 grains of powder or a 360-grain bullet propelled by 100 grains of powder." Given these bullet weights are consistent with other sources for the .461 Gibbs No 2 cartridge, I think they should be seen as accurate. Given the bullet weights of the for the ".450 Express" align with other .450 caliber rounds of the era, I think it far more likely the rifle was actually chambered in this round.

Does anyone have any evidence to the contrary? Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 02:07, 20 October 2017 (UTC).


 * I think I have solved the riddle, the .461 No 1 Gibbs seems to have shot a 540 grain bullet, the terminology of the day must have been ".450 Express" for .461 No 1.  Cavalryman V31 (talk) 06:08, 20 October 2017 (UTC)