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Massive elliptical galaxies are typically observed to have central cores intheir projected radial light profiles. Such cores have long been thought toform through `binary scouring' as supermassive black holes (SMBHs), brought inthrough mergers, form a hard binary and eject stars from the galactic centre.However, the most massive cores, like the ~3kpc core in A2261-BCG, remainchallenging to explain in this way. In this paper, we run a suite of dry galaxymerger simulations to explore three different scenarios for central coreformation in massive elliptical galaxies: `binary scouring', `tidal deposition'and `gravitational wave (GW) induced recoil'. Using the Griffin code, weself-consistently model the stars, dark matter and SMBHs in our merginggalaxies, following the SMBH dynamics through to the formation of a hardbinary. We find that we can only explain the large surface brightness core ofA2261-BCG with a combination of a major merger that produces a small ~1kpc corethrough binary scouring, followed by the subsequent GW recoil of its SMBH thatacts to grow the core size. We show that this same model can also explain thebright `knots' observed in the core region of A2261-BCG. Key predictions ofthis scenario are an offset SMBH surrounded by a compact cluster of bound starsand a non-divergent central density profile. We show that the bright `knots'observed in the core region of A2261-BCG are best explained as stalledperturbers resulting from minor mergers, though the brightest may alsorepresent ejected SMBHs surrounded by a stellar cloak of bound stars.

Formation of the largest galactic cores through binary scouring and gravitational wave recoil