100%
There could be VERY predictable and repeatable results on paper/steel/other homogeneous media. But nobody really cares beyond whether its an X or am 8.
It's when the tip of the bullet hits hair then skin then bone then organ....or maybe it misses a hair next time, or the angle is different when it contacts bone...that we care about. No way to account for every possible scenario. Maybe with some fantastic dedicated AI shit...doubt it.
When the bullet hits the bone, this is when any ethical hunter desires to have as predictable terminal ballistics as possible.
Hunting bullets begin to deform the instant they make contact with ANYTHING. Their flight may be altered. The jacket may begin to come apart.
I'll boil it down.
@232593
The magic velocity number for hunting bullet performance is 1800 fps. Sure, give or take 200, maybe, depending on the bullet, the game, whatever...but if you choose 1800 fps, you will be JUST FINE. Now...where does that 1800 fps matter?
AT THE TARGET. Your hunting bullet needs to impact the target animal at about 1800 fps or more. Less and bullet deformation is severely compromised.
Not to say that a straight up 45 caliber hole won't create enough loss of blood pressure to make that animal stop living.
Ethics come into play.
So does the critters will to live. I know I have had to pump some lead into deer and elk and most would seem to have been kill shots individually. I hate that shit, too.
Now...bullet choice DOES matter. For example, a 50 grain varmint bullet hitting a bull moose at 1800 fps is not likely to create an ethical one shot kill.
Ok, so which bullet?
Choose a bullet that will have AT LEAST as many foot lbs of energy at 1800 fps as the target animal live body weight. Better to err on the heavy side, too. Bullet weight retention and shit matters according to how fast you may need that critter to stop, especially if it might be coming for some payback.
Shot placement counts. If you kneecap a whitetail, you may never find it. A kneecap just might save your life from a Cape Buffalo but you are still going to need some follow up shots. Terminal ballistics and bullet performance be damned. Heart and lungs. Mammals need those. Real bad. And those things make a pretty large target, even when the adrenaline is pumping. 1800 fps with an appropriate sized hunting bullet in the lungs and heart and that mammal is not going to take many steps nor many more breaths.
There are, even on this forum, citations for these numbers from people who others respect and not some old jarhead from the oilpatch. I don't care to go dig them up.
And, even tho all this talk about water hammer and hydraulics and fluid dynamics and linear algebra and Laplace transformations actually COULD matter. It doesn't.
