Hunting and understanding bullets reading?

Actually closer to 400 yards in both instances. Both have a little gas left in the tank at that distance for sure.

Or if you meant would I shoot elk or bears out to 550 yards, I would.
Yeah, I figure both are going to be close to that 1800 fps mark around 550. After that, the velocity and the energy retained will be marginal for a 700-800 bull elk. Black bear maybe a little farther.
I don't think I've ever shot an elk beyond about 400 yards. The vast majority of the deer I have taken were inside 250 yards. I feel very confident in the equipment that I use and my ability to make a clean shot out to around 750 yards but I will always try to be as close as reasonable...I'm not going to try to be within archery range when I am using my 300 WINMAG.
 
I have seen the 7mm Remington loaded with 180 grain scenars perform well on elk and bears to 800. That was with my son and a friend shooting. Those with a muzzle velocity starting at 2950 fps. I used the 7 using 180 ELD to take whitetails to 650. Very effective.

I have started liking a lot less recoil and just try to choose my shooting spots a bit more carefully than previously. I can still cover a lot of ground though with either of the above rifles. The 300 Win is certainly a solid choice. I must admit I've considered a 300 PRC a couple of times just for grins.
 
Fake news. Such has never been military doctrine in any country I'm familiar with, least of which ours.
philosophy, not doctrine


consider, if you were tasked with procuring a rifle and ammunition system to reliably and humanely kill a 200lb+ critter on the first shot 95% of the time ..... would you pick 5.56? there are are more considerations for a battle rife than "first shot kill every time", on the other hand a sniper rifle thats your goal - how many 5.56 sniper rifles are there?

also consider - when you are training the average rank and file soldier to shoot, where are they trained to aim? head, heart, no.... center of seen mass. why, because hits matter more than outright kills. otoh, that would be considered terrible performance for a hunter of animals.
 
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philosophy, not doctrine


consider, if you were tasked with procuring a rifle and ammunition system to reliably and humanely kill a 200lb+ critter on the first shot 95% of the time ..... would you pick 5.56? there are are more considerations for a battle rife than "first shot kill every time", on the other hand a sniper rifle thats your goal - how many 5.56 sniper rifles are there?

also consider - when you are training the average rank and file soldier to shoot, where are they trained to aim? head, heart, no.... center of seen mass. why, because hits matter more than outright kills. otoh, that would be considered terrible performance for a hunter of animals.

There's just no reasoning with those who believe urban legends
 
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There's just no reasoning with those who believe urban legends
or is there just no reasoning with people who believe that they are the font of all knowledge and if they dont know it then it must be "fake news" or "urban legend". if I'm wrong, show me why I'm wrong instead of "I never hard of that must be fake news!".

if you were designing a battle rifle, what cartridge/bullet would you pick and why?(dont forget to keep it hague convention compliant) why do you believe 5.56 was picked?
if you were designing the ultimate hunting rifle for 2-300 lb thin skinned game, what cartridge/bullet would you choose and why?
 
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or is there just no reasoning with people who believe that they are the font of all knowledge and if they dont know it then it must be "fake news" or "urban legend". if I'm wrong, show me why I'm wrong instead of "I never hard of that must be fake news!".

if you were designing a battle rifle, what cartridge/bullet would you pick and why?(dont forget to keep it hague convention compliant) why do you believe 5.56 was picked?
if you were designing the ultimate hunting rifle for 2-300 lb thin skinned game, what cartridge/bullet would you choose and why?
If I am wanting the rifle for battle, fuck the various conventions. I'd take a fast 6mm and some hollow point expanding bullets. The 243 comes to mind first. Partly because many current issued weapons really only need a barrel swap.
5.56 was chosen to lighten the load out.
2-300 lb light skinned game....280 Ackley Improved. Good selection of 7mm projectiles and the 140 Berger VLD can be loaded to 3250 fps for phenomenal point blank shooting to 350 yards.
 
Offhand, I’m not sure I can think of a cartridge that better fills the roll than .223 Rem / 5.56x45. It could be that I’m weak, and every time someone talks about cartridge selection I think about humping a double basic load worth and how much that will weigh before I toss my share of the 7.62 link on top of it... because I sure as shit don’t want less ammo (unless drowning or on fire, as they say). Perhaps I’m thinking about cost over time, barrel wear and replacement, or cost per round. It might be that I’m considering the folks I’ve seen damn near every time I’m on the range and how more recoil simply isn’t a challenge many of them need. I think that’s the concept of system lethality - generally. The more lethal and effective system isn’t necessarily the one with the most energetic cartridge. Now, if we could just pull the GP force out of the early 00s for weapon configuration…
 
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Offhand, I’m not sure I can think of a cartridge that better fills the roll than .223 Rem / 5.56x45. It could be that I’m weak, and every time someone talks about cartridge selection I think about humping a double basic load worth and how much that will weigh before I toss my share of the 7.62 link on top of it... because I sure as shit don’t want less ammo (unless drowning or on fire, as they say). Perhaps I’m thinking about cost over time, barrel wear and replacement, or cost per round. It might be that I’m considering the folks I’ve seen damn near every time I’m on the range and how more recoil simply isn’t a challenge many of them need. I think that’s the concept of system lethality - generally. The more lethal and effective system isn’t necessarily the one with the most energetic cartridge. Now, if we could just pull the GP force out of the early 00s for weapon configuration…
If you were doing the assessment on the new .277 fury cartridge how would you look at it?
 
If you were doing the assessment on the new .277 fury cartridge how would you look at it?
My gut tells me that a 6 CM (or modernized .243) would be a better choice. I don’t think it makes much sense for a “normal” bolt gun when I can simply use more case capacity and MUCH lower pressure (with quality brass that likely cost a lot less per round). It sort of begs the question “in what scenario would this be a meaningful improvement over an existing capability?”

What‘s weird about the Fury is the choice of 6.8 mm AND a somewhat low mass projo. It puts the cartridge at odds with itself in terms of design brief/use. You could keep everything the same but the bore size and see an instant gain in performance with a 6.5 mm Fury. If you feel strongly compelled to further increase performance and avoid Le System Internationale you could do a quarter bore - won’t help the barrel life any, but .257 is arguably THE bore size to optimize performance of a 130-135 grain projo.

The Fury as designed isn’t an especially hard kicking cartridge in the grand scheme, but it does possess a level of recoil that will demand more of the shooter when used in a carbine (similar to M80 ball) - it’s the M14 versus M16, but were going in reverse this time.
 
My gut tells me that a 6 CM (or modernized .243) would be a better choice. I don’t think it makes much sense for a “normal” bolt gun when I can simply use more case capacity and MUCH lower pressure (with quality brass that likely cost a lot less per round). It sort of begs the question “in what scenario would this be a meaningful improvement over an existing capability?”

What‘s weird about the Fury is the choice of 6.8 mm AND a somewhat low mass projo. It puts the cartridge at odds with itself in terms of design brief/use. You could keep everything the same but the bore size and see an instant gain in performance with a 6.5 mm Fury. If you feel strongly compelled to further increase performance and avoid Le System Internationale you could do a quarter bore - won’t help the barrel life any, but .257 is arguably THE bore size to optimize performance of a 130-135 grain projo.

The Fury as designed isn’t an especially hard kicking cartridge in the grand scheme, but it does possess a level of recoil that will demand more of the shooter when used in a carbine (similar to M80 ball) - it’s the M14 versus M16, but were going in reverse this time.
Yeah it's hard to know... I got hacked when they changed our pistol because I already done countless hours and rounds on the M9. Now I've got to work to get My muscle memory and sight picture and everything back to the Stone Cold on the sig.
It'll be interesting to see if they field this new round.

I also hate the safety lever on the new SIG
 
I was shooting the P320 before we fielded the M17/M18, so I was used to the feel. As a guy with small hands, I vastly prefer the SIG's handling characteristics... not so much the using customers to beta test the gun approach, though. That safety lever is the worst I've used. I'd never had a callous build up on the top of my thumb from engaging the safety before. The amount of effort is just absurd. My thumb has a little bend from a break when I was younger and that's not helping me any. At least it's positioned on the frame and swipes off without difficulty.
 
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Back on track…


It’s an older video - TTSX versus Amax from a .308 at “extended” range. I’d simply draw your attention to the wound produced by the TTSX (at a closer range, on a slightly heavier animal) shown towards the end of the video.
 
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Offhand, I’m not sure I can think of a cartridge that better fills the roll than .223 Rem / 5.56x45. It could be that I’m weak, and every time someone talks about cartridge selection I think about humping a double basic load worth and how much that will weigh before I toss my share of the 7.62 link on top of it... because I sure as shit don’t want less ammo (unless drowning or on fire, as they say). Perhaps I’m thinking about cost over time, barrel wear and replacement, or cost per round. It might be that I’m considering the folks I’ve seen damn near every time I’m on the range and how more recoil simply isn’t a challenge many of them need. I think that’s the concept of system lethality - generally. The more lethal and effective system isn’t necessarily the one with the most energetic cartridge. Now, if we could just pull the GP force out of the early 00s for weapon configuration…
I think you’re right - lethality of a single round wasn’t really a consideration for a battle rifle, but it does do it’s job reasonably well, whereas a much more powerful round would be bigger and heavier (so you can’t carry as many) and be harder on the weapons systems (higher wear, potentially lower reliability) so all in all 5.56 does pretty well - far from perfect but pretty good. It can be a great target round. Otoh it’s not that great a hunting round for things bigger than maybe a hundred pounds or so….
 
Also: https://www.nrafamily.org/content/terminal-ballistics-how-to-choose-the-right-ammunition-pt-3/

"
As a high-velocity bullet penetrates living tissue, it produces two kinds of deformation:

  • Temporary wound cavity: The projectile's shock wave violently forces target material outward from the projectile path, creating a temporary cavity. The temporary cavity may be quite large, and its size is directly related to impact velocity.
  • Permanent wound track: After a fraction of a second, the temporary cavity collapses, leaving a permanent wound track. This is the permanent deformation or destruction produced by the projectile as it plows through the target. The size of the permanent wound track is related to the bullet diameter and weight.

Because of the above, two separate schools of thought on bullet wounds have emerged. Heavy, large-caliber, low-velocity bullets that penetrate deeply are best for transferring kinetic energy to the target. This group believes the permanent wound track is the most dependable mechanism for incapacitating the target.

Low-velocity bullets, such as those from revolvers and semi-automatic pistols, do not produce a large temporary wound cavity. Instead, they depend on the permanent wound track to cause damage in the target. For this reason, large-caliber handgun bullets are a better choice than small-caliber handgun bullets for hunting and self-defense, as their larger diameter causes a bigger permanent wound track.

The other school of thought holds forth the belief that high-velocity, lightweight bullets that can create a large temporary wound cavity are the best mechanism for quick, dependable incapacitation of the target. Many exports believe that the temporary wound cavity caused by the shock wave of a high-velocity bullet creates a temporary cavity large enough to cause damage at a considerable distance from the permanent wound track. This could mean tissue damage, nerve disruption or the breaking of bones that lie near but not directly in the path of the bullet."



🤔🤷‍♀️
Both schools of thought are correct.
There are thresholds for acceptable formulas for either to work consistently enough though.
I'd expect a visual representation to look something like a nonlinear sort of graph where X & Y are velocity & weight and the consistent effectiveness falls on the outskirts of of the line drawn.
A different line would need to be drawn for different game and of course there are many other factors at play. This is an oversimplification.
0913FA23-1157-4B33-A059-312A8E9DCF2D.jpeg


For example a 223 has a lot of velocity, but the projectile is too light to use that velocity to produce sufficient terminal effects which a hunter may desire for larger game.

On the other side it is known that guys who try and take deer with, say a 44mag or 45LC lever gun, are likely not going get a "drop em in their tracks" kind of shot. Those rounds will kill a deer just as dead, but you may be tracking it further than a 30-06.

Being in FL where I hunt in thick swamps, I don't like the risk of having to track too much for fear of losing an animal. So I don't tend to hunt with heavy slow "pistol" calibers for the above reason. Speed, weight, or both tends to be my friend as I've seen what it does on the game down here.

There are of course exceptions, I shot an excellent FL swamp whitetail in the neck with a 10.3" 223 55gr GD this past season and he dropped in his tracks. The cartridge was able to do enough damage abruptly enough just underneath his neck vertebrae that it shut off his CNS. I wouldn't bet on that happening every time, but it was an impressive show of what even a 55gr projectile moving at ~2500fps "could" do in the right place.
1E694C05-6139-496E-A9DD-72F4383DE901.jpeg


Forgive the rudimentary explanation. I was a liberal arts major.

Cheers
 
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Both schools of thought are correct.
There are thresholds for acceptable formulas for either to work consistently enough though.
I'd expect a visual representation to look something like a nonlinear sort of graph where X & Y are velocity & weight and the consistent effectiveness falls on the outskirts of of the line drawn.
A different line would need to be drawn for different game and of course there are many other factors at play. This is an oversimplification.
View attachment 8074347

For example a 223 has a lot of velocity, but the projectile is too light to use that velocity to produce sufficient terminal effects which a hunter may desire for larger game.

On the other side it is known that guys who try and take deer with, say a 44mag or 45LC lever gun, are likely not going get a "drop em in their tracks" kind of shot. Those rounds will kill a deer just as dead, but you may be tracking it further than a 30-06.

Being in FL where I hunt in thick swamps, I don't like the risk of having to track too much for fear of losing an animal. So I don't tend to hunt with heavy slow "pistol" calibers for the above reason. Speed, weight, or both tends to be my friend as I've seen what it does on the game down here.

There are of course exceptions, I shot an excellent FL swamp whitetail in the neck with a 10.3" 223 55gr GD this past season and he dropped in his tracks. The cartridge was able to do enough damage abruptly enough just underneath his neck vertebrae that it shut off his CNS. I wouldn't bet on that happening every time, but it was an impressive show of what even a 55gr projectile moving at ~2500fps "could" do in the right place.
View attachment 8074348

Forgive the rudimentary explanation. I was a liberal arts major.

Cheers
Exactly!
 
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