The stability with respect to kink modes of a high&bgr;straight screw pinch with elliptical cross section is examined using sharp boundary theory. No restriction is placed on the ellipticity or&bgr;. It is found that the criticalqneeded for stability is no longer unity but is a strongly increasing function of ellipticity. There are indications that large ellipticity in toroidal systems is too strongly destabilizing to allow such equilibria to be useful; however, small ellipticity may be useful for achieving higher&bgr;.