The elephant gun was generally a rifle with a very, VERY large calibre,
throwing a heavy bullet at high velocity. It kicked like a mule, and
you didn't often need a second shot. One example was popularized in the
opening chapters of "The Man of Bronze," the first chapter of the Doc
Savage series of pulp adventures in the 1930s. It was the .577 Nitro
Express rifle, a round from which was fired from the top of a skyscraper,
flew across twenty city blocks, through an armored glass window and into
a bank vault door before stopping.
metlay