Hunting & Fishing Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

[littletoes]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

Have to say, if you notice studies done in WWII on "live and dead things", plus the many reports done by the FBI, you'll notice that <span style="font-style: italic">Hydrostatic Shock</span> is <span style="font-weight: bold">NOT</span> the killer so many report on.

The Temporary wound cavity that is produced does not do as much permanent damage as previous thought. Living tissue is much more forgiving and can return to shape/position.

It is the actual damage done to said tissue by the projectile, AND the secondary projectiles, the actual cutting of tissue caused either by the bullet AND bone chips or any other material that is sent through major organs causing damage, and BLEEDING.

IF there are two openings made in said target, ALL THE BETTER. There then is a route for bleeding. Said bleeding out is what kills, that or hitting a major bone that prevents any further mechanical use. Spine hits for example.

The one organ that is very subject to Hydrostatic Shock is the brain though, and possibly the lungs, although "holes" in the lungs cause them to collapse, more so than hydrostatic shock.

Good Luck.

 

[Phil1]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: littletoes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Have to say, if you notice studies done in WWII on "live and dead things", plus the many reports done by the FBI, you'll notice that <span style="font-style: italic">Hydrostatic Shock</span> is <span style="font-weight: bold">NOT</span> the killer so many report on.

The Temporary wound cavity that is produced does not do as much permanent damage as previous thought. Living tissue is much more forgiving and can return to shape/position.

It is the actual damage done to said tissue by the projectile, AND the secondary projectiles, the actual cutting of tissue caused either by the bullet AND bone chips or any other material that is sent through major organs causing damage, and BLEEDING.

IF there are two openings made in said target, ALL THE BETTER. There then is a route for bleeding. Said bleeding out is what kills, that or hitting a major bone that prevents any further mechanical use. Spine hits for example.

The one organ that is very subject to Hydrostatic Shock is the brain though, and possibly the lungs, although "holes" in the lungs cause them to collapse, more so than hydrostatic shock.

Good Luck. </div></div>

Agree but why let scientific research and medical evidence get in the way of speculation, advertising and fluff.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0803/0803.3051.pdf

http://www.firearmstactical.com/wound.htm

http://rkba.org/research/fackler/wrong.html

 

[littletoes]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

That first one is a good read, for sure.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Phil1]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: TresMon</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
[I have been at the PC for 5 hours writing this article. I MUST get away from the computer. i will edit for grammer etc. later. -TM ]

Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman.
A fun but educational look at terminal ballistic science.
by “TresMon”( ‘net name) Tres Monceret

[I received the following question in e-mail and it turn it sparked an article.Around here “articles happen.”]

“”Out of curiosity, how can a game warden tell if a deer was shot with a muzzleloader or a rifle?””


Well besides the obvious anybody would know- the entry wound size & shape- it's forensics.  A low velocity big bullet is more of a mauler internally; it's just kind brute force mashing its way through the meat.  A high velocity rifle bullet kills more actually by hydraulics than hemorrhage (blood loss/circulatory damage.) Most modern hunter knows that "energy kills" that is energy is the biggest baddest killer.  They just don't know how to explain it.  

All animals are mostly water. So think of this. Imagine hanging a water proof full sized punching bag up outside thats full of 3 day old mash taters. You know the ones that have increased their Viscosity some.  Now shoot a scalpel through it. 

What did we observe?  The bag did not move/swing much. It was not a dramatic looking event.  We have a hole through both sides of our bag that is leaking pretty fast. And if we were to dissect the bag and Mash Taters we would see merely slits through the wound "CHANNEL". But the "hole" or wound channel is tight. Meaning from the elasticity of the M.Taters "meat" the channel drew back up on itself, not 100% but mostly.

There's your broad head,spear & Atlatl killed deer. (Yes spearing is STILL legal and actually STILL done in a few states. A few of my hard core wilderness survival friends do it.) This is  death by hemorrhage alone, or bleeding out, internally & a little externally. Sure the deer experienced some energy, but no more than a major league batter getting beamed in the shoulder by a fast pitch. Not enough to kill or long term injure.

So now let's move to big bore pistols & muzzle loaders. So we shoot our hanging tater bag with a .357mag, .41 magnum .44 Magnum Etc. or a Front Stuffer.  

Now we have energy doing some amount more of the killing than hemorrhage. And we have not just a wound channel now but also wound cavity. What did we observe? The front of the bag was displaced or caved in a good bit from the energy. The whole bag is swinging some back and forth.  We have a small hole all the way through our bag that did not seal back up. This is our wound channel. But the front side of the hole or entry side is where our channel is larger than bullet diameter  and it slowly tapers down as we move deeper through the channel.  This is the PERMANENT wound cavity. To explain Temporary & Permanent wound channel I need to explain the hydraulic effect of a bullet.

The hydraulic effect of a bullet hitting the watery meat and core of a animal: Newton's law says "reckin for every tough lick thar's a equal &  opposite nuther tough lick."  So we observed in our Front Stuffer shot on the bag the surface of the bag was displaced. Thats energy from the bullet being dispersed into our target. So lets say we were shooting a .451"  45 cal. slug.  If we shot a basically 1/2" piece of metal at the tater sack how come the displacement on the surface was so much larger in diameter than the slug? Energy!

Energy does amazing things. Enter the temporary wound cavity.  When a moderate to very high energy round enters our taters (meat/flesh) the energy damages and destroys tissue far larger than the bullet diameter. Initially energy from the bullet "blows" a quite large cavity or space in the tissue.  But it does not stay this size of a space. The immediate size of the empty space or cavity is called the Temporary cavity. From the amazing engineering God designed into flesh- due to the elasticity of the flesh it will attempt to shrink back down and come back together. So this big hole or cavity we blew into the near side of our tater sack will immediately begin to shrink. And again we learned this is temporary cavity. But we transferred such a large amount of energy into the flesh that we destroyed much of it. Due to this though it will shrink back down a good bit, it will not shrink all the way back down to the actual bullet diameter hole the bullet drilled into the meat. This is called the PERMANENT wound cavity.  Here's a pretty good example of a temporary, permanent wound cavity and wound channel: [I'm referring to wound "channel" as the small bullet diameter hole that goes beyond the cavities.]

So why does the permanent cavity exist far larger than the actual diameter of the bullet that created it? Why does the Temp. Cavity not shrink all the way to the physical bullet diameter that passed through? Well we already said because the immediate tissue was destroyed but lets take a closer look. We'll recap for a second.

We shot a scalpel through our 100 lb. Mashed Tater filled punching bag. We ended up with a snug little leaking hole. This will kill the tater bag, but slower and it certainly will not be dramatic.

We shot our bag with a front stuffer.  Cool. For a split second we caved in the front of the bag. The whole bag is swinging. More Cool. Now we got a  little bitty "junior sized" foot ball shaped hole in the near side of the bag/taters and a 1/2" hole all the way through. Way cool.

Now let's shoot our tater bag deer simulator with an American favorite: the .270 Winchester.  If we could see the hit in slow motion we would see the waves of energy rippling the surface of the bag. It literally look's like the concentric rings coming from a stone dropped in still water. We significantly displaced the surface of our tater sack. It's swinging pretty good overall.  We go examine and see we have a full sized+ football shape "wound cavity" in the near side of tater sack and a bullet diameter hole the rest of the way through.

 [cavity dimensions and "football size" references are not literal, nor dimensionally accurate nor have I ever shot “mashed taters.” They are merely used to illustrate to the readers mind familiar mediums and sizing/shapes, while conveying whats happening on/in target accurately overall. It's hard to draw a series of pictures in a readers mind, but in doing so with these familiar shapes/references I feel I have transferred the actual science and ongoings to the reader accurately.]

So what is happening in that instant the bullet transfers energy into the medium? That's the hydraulics we were talking about. Essentially a violent water column radiating out from the bullet entry point. 

From scalpel to bullet "energy wand":
So the scalpel made no real cavities at all. Our high velocity rifle round made a serious temporary and permanent  wound cavity. So let me illustrate what this hydraulic water column does. Back to our hanging 100lb. mashed tater filled punching bag. This time we hang our tater sack in the bay of the high pressure car wash. We again are armed with our .270 Win but let's dump out our taters and fill our bag with well cooked green peas. These green peas represent cells. The individual cells tissue is made of.  When we introduce energy into tissue from a blow the water contained goes the equal & opposite direction, vilonetly! Think of if we dropped $1.50 into the slot to activate the high pressure sprayer of the car wash. We stick the wand down into the peas and pull the trigger. What happens? The water pressure basically makes the immediate peas seemingly vanish, the closest mangle and the furthest effected by the water burst and leak.

Thats a good verbal picture of what is happening to tissue when massive amounts of energy are transferred from a bullet to flesh due to hydraulic energy forces, and it's quite understandable that as amazing as bodies are- some tissue, i.e. the permanent wound cavity does not recover.

So thus is the ways we actually kill targets. So what do we do wit this information? We wish we our military could shoot terrorists with expanding hunting type bullets! We can use our new found knowledge of energy transfer from bullets to mash taters to better select the weight and style of bullet we shoot. Bullet selection all depends the on the average size, weight and range of the mash tater sack we are hunting.

You see there are three schools of thought with hunters. The first is the antiquated and Neanderthal thought: "make the biggest "hole" [wound CHANNEL] you can -all the way through the animal to produce maximum amount of (blood) leakage."

And the second sounds so clean, sterile & harmless on the printed page:

-Transfer all the energy.-

Sounds ho-hum,boring.(But it’s incredibly devastating & violent!!!)

The third school got high in the bathroom and don’t care. &#8232;They just like to hunt.

Think of this. A bullet moves because energy has been imparted to and into it. Once it leaves the bore pressure is relieved from the firing system and the bullet got what it gets and is now leaking energy slowly to the really low viscosity water we shoot through called air. If  you ever have a conversation with a bullet it will refer to same as drag. If it runs out of energy it would stop forward motion in place, spent. (If there were no gravity.)  There! You get it!  Wait, you look uncertain. I'll give it to you: you want the bullet to stop. IN the target. Why? Transfer. Energy transfer. 100% wicked violent energy transfer.  You see if your bullet regardless of caliber, diameter, weight or speed passes through the target and travels beyond, it did not give you it's all. Any energy  the bullet had to travel beyond our tater sack was wasted, we could have dumped that left over energy into the mashed taters as well for even more/bigger car wash wand effect!!

So there it is- with a high velocity high energy round we want a complete energy dump into our wild free range 12 tined Tater Sac we so carefully stalked. Thats why there are so many bullets to choose from for a given caliber. Enter bullet (a.) design & (b.) weight...

Real world example. I know a well meaning green horn who was new to shooting, new to rifles and new to hunting. He went on a coyote sized furry predatorial tater sack hunt with a friend and was hooked. So he decides he needs a good rifle, camo and a few calls.  Talking about his new love on the job a co-worker offered to sell him a like new ultra- light weight 300 Win Mag complete with scope, for a incredibly low price. "Because it will kick yur teeth out the guy said." So our young green horn figured 1. "He could take it" and two all that power would for sure blast a dog sized fur covered flea infested mange pocked Mashed Tater Sack into the next Siriometer or so. He took the rifle.

So Mr. G. Horn went and bought some 300WM ammo, on sale.  Winchester 180 grain Power Point factory loads. A real world MOOSE load. (He did not do the math I'm sure, I'll do it for him: 3500 ft. lbs. of car wash wand effect at the muzzle.) Looking at the big shiney menacing ammo I'm sure Mr. Horn was sure it would blast the doggish creature for at least a siriometer!!

So after a while he calls me. “Man this thing really-REALLY kicks!” I chuckled having been there done that in my youth. I threaded his barrel and installed a nice muzzle break. He was really happy with the recoil reduction and off he went. Soon enough he made his first “I got one!” phone call to a buddy. But he was quick to tell me the critter just limped about 20 paces and died. No siriometer. I chuckled having been there and done that in my youth and explained bullet selection.

You see had if Mr. Horn had hand loaded him some little bitty 110 grain Sierra hollow points at a anemic (for the Win Mag with this bullet) 3200 fps, he would have opened up that critter like a book displaying it’s most every deep and inner thing, literally. True the little bullet would had a good bit less energy: 3200 lbs. But it would given Mr. G. Horn it’s all!
The little bullet would have disintegrated in the critter for a 100% energy dump, where as the Moose bullet that was actually used likely zipped right through with no “upset” commonly called expansion or mushrooming on behalf of the bullet in the 35 lb. target. After all that load was designed to hold together, burrow deep and energy dump in a dangerous big boned hardy built massive Tater Sac weighing upwards of 1700 pounds for the Alaskan-Yukon variety.

Speaking of bullet upset, their is fascinating engineering that goes into bullet design. You see that dumb piece of metal we call “bullet” has no intelligence nor on board computer but must juggle the depth-of-penetration/ energy dump act to perform it’s best. And to compound this complexity it must do it anywhere in an extreme velocity spread. If we shoot our massive moose tater sack and the bullet disintegrates on the shoulder muscle we have wounded him, he’ll run off and we may have lost him and wasted the meat & and if he succumbs to the wound the life. If it zips through him without hitting a vital organ we again have wounded him and likely lost and wasted him. Enter bullet engineering.
A bullet upsets and begins to expand. This ever increasing blunt frontal diameter increase increases the difficulty for the bullet to penetrate. This rate of expansion must be carefully controlled through inherent design to allow the bullet to expand slow enough so it can burrow 1. deep enough to get past the near side muscle and into the vital organs but 2. fast enough to not completely pass through the animal thereby wasting energy. That would be a feat of engineering if the bullet hit the mash tater sac at the same speed every time. But it’s always impacting at differing speeds. If we engage our 1700 pound marsh wading mashed tater sac at 220 yards the bullet will impact at far greater velocity than it will if fired from a long range hunter engaging our swamp tater at 1106 yards. Either way, the bullet must not under or over expand to penetrate sufficiently and energy dump. And amazingly they get It right most of the time!

In conclusion bigger is not always better in regards to quick, clean ethical kills wether the subject of discussion be “which cartridge” or “which bullet.”

Regards,
“TresMon”

<span style="font-size: 8pt"><span style="font-style: italic">This article took considerable time & effort. It is presented here for free. Enjoy! However if anyone feels motivated to express appreciation a donation can be sent to the paypal account [email protected].
Thanks!
Tres</span></span></div></div>

Sir:

Your theory(s) written in a colloquial language which I take to illustrate your thinking on this subject, lacks scientific basis. You in fact use a illustration by Mr. Martin L. Fackler M.D., rightly credited to him. To make your positions of "leaking energy" and "hydraulic effect" on a "tater bag".

Mr. Fackler in fact has lectured at West Point, the F.B.I.,etc. presenting his scientific papers and books to argue in fact that the common concept of "Hydrostatic shock", the commonly used term in this discussion for "hydraulic effect".Is bunk. Energy transfer (your term "leaking energy")is also bunk.

The scientific references made in my earlier post in this thread are attributed to Mr. Fackler and others. All experts in this field of wound ballistics.

I quote him,...""Cavitation is a ballistic phenomenon associated with very high velocity missiles" (7), is easily disproved."..."Cavitation is nothing more than a transient displacement of tissue, a stretch, a localized "blunt trauma." It is not surprising that elastic tissues such as bowel wall, lung, and muscle are relatively resistant to being damaged by this stretch,..."

and

"Serious misunderstanding has been generated by looking upon "kinetic energy transfer" from projectile to tissue as a mechanism of injury. In spite of data to the contrary (1, 63), many assume that the amount of "kinetic energy deposit" in the body by a projectile is a measure of damage"

Hopefully reading these articles and more like it can dispel the widespread mistaken concepts of wound ballistics on living tissue.


Additional Reading:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0701/0701268.pdf
Re above "Dr. Martin Fackler, IWBA president, reviews the authorless "Strasbourg Tests," a purported study of the reaction of several hundred live unanesthetized "human-sized" goats that were allegedly shot to test the "one-shot stopping power" of various handgun cartridges. Fackler explains the many incongruities, inconsistencies and absurdities which lead him (and most other wound ballistics experts) to conclude that the "Strasbourg Tests" are a hoax."

 

[silentbushmaster]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

Good info.

 

[Rhinomax]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

nice read!!!!

thanks

 

[M700]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

It appears that there is some disagreement with the article by TresMons.

My disagreement stems largely from my experiences and observations as a hunter, and I'd wager that my friend Littletoes has the same reservations about the article, for the same reasons. Littletoes is a very experienced hunter of game large and small, as well as a long-time student of the rifle and ballistics.

Worth discussing perhaps, but the article cannot be considered absolute truth. Put me in the camp with Littletoes, believing that actual tissue damage is more important than any theoretical "shock" which may be delivered by the bullet striking game.

Regards, Guy

 

[flyrodder]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

Interesting. Sifting through all the variables makes definitive conclusions difficult, and there are plenty of stories of exceptions. I have been experimenting with this a bit myself. Since I am setting up loads and rifles for 3 others - my wife and twin 13-year-old sons - I am looking for moderate recoil, so they can stay on target more easily for followups if nothing else since they don't mind recoil much. I am also looking for flat shooting, since this year we each took a mule deer, with ranges varying between 375 yards (mine), 295 yards (my wife), and 140 to 120 yards for the boys. So, I have three .270 Winchesters with 110-grain Sierra Pro-Hunters at 3,395 fps, with a maximum point blank range of 322 yards. Handy, since there is no holdover to worry about until we get way out there.

I was curious to see how the 110-grain bullet would do relative to the old 130-grain standard. My shot was in through the ribs and out through part of the shoulder at 375 yards. The small buck turned, made two or three jumps, and tumbled. My wife's shot was straight through the heart and out the other side at 295 yards and the big buck simply dropped in his tracks. No kicking or anything. One son hit a doe at about 120 in the lower neck (he needs to calm down a bit still) and she would have died from massive hemorrhaging had he not finished her with a 22 to the head, but that bullet went all the way through. The other boy shot a massive buck in the base of the neck (bush blocking the chest) and it dropped and kicked but died quickly. That bullet shed the jacket and broke up, staying just under the skin on the far side.

So, I have to say these "little" bullets worked just fine. Unfortunately, I am seeing flattened primers and some cratering, and I would like to take advantage of a better bc, and part of me just has to tinker, so I am going to play around with 130 SSTs and some different powders over the winter, but I keep flipping back and forth on this. If you have any thoughts on this I would like to hear them.

Thanks!

 

[TresMon]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: M700</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Put me in the camp with Littletoes, believing that actual tissue damage is more important than any theoretical "shock" which may be delivered by the bullet striking game.

Regards, Guy </div></div>

Hydraulic Shock DOES "damage" tissue- it DESTROYS it. Glad you agree.

 

[M700]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

Tres - I asked earlier if you had much actual hunting experience. Just curious. Somehow your post indicates to me that you've done a lot of reading about hunting, but maybe not so much actual killing. I could be wrong. Just the way I'm reading it. Looks long on theory, and short on practical experience.

I'm reasonably experienced on mule deer, coyotes, varmints & several variety of bird hunting, but not so much on elk or bear. Have only taken one bear and one elk. A few other head of game including some wild pig and whitetail too. Nothing noteworthy.

Have to tell you that on mule deer, I've seen absolutely no difference in killing power with a wide variety of cartridges and bullets, from the little 6mm Rem & .243 Win up through the .308/.30-06 class of cartridges, the high velocity magnums, and even the big slow rifles like my old .45/70 Marlin and the .50 traditional muzzle loader. Placed well, all of them kill quickly. I don't think the ol' .50, with 385 grains of soft lead lumbering along at under 1400 fps produces much "shock" but it sure drops mule deer quickly.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the high shoulder/spine shot - so maybe that's why most of my game drops real quick. It tends to take out their mobility and their lungs all at once.

Regards, Guy

 

[X-fan]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

Allow me to offer some personal experience and insight...take it or leave it as you like.
For the purpose of this discussion I am assuming perfect bullet placement in the heart lung region.


It is my foremost experience that bullet performance has more of an effect than the speed of the bullets impact. What I am suggesting is a 300Win with a 180gr TSX will far out perform a 30/378 with a conventional 180gr Hornady. The larger the game the bigger the difference.

Higher velocity (some call it hydraulic shock) certainly can assist in the process of tissue disruption. For instance I see more tissue damage in dead animals with my 338Edge as compared to my 338 Winchester while both are using 225gr TSX bullets. Same thing with the 375H&H and 375 Rum.
Here is the strange part. I can see no difference on game with higher impact velocities using 225 and 300 grain (respective) Nosler Partitions....Don't shoot the delivery man I'm just telling you what I see.
Once again my observations indicate (for some unknown reason) that the Barnes TSX is using the extra velocity to its advantage.
Either way dead is dead.

So the counterpoint here is if hydrostatic forces are so important why does my 416 Rem (less energy than the 338/378) do more damage inside game? Same thing with a 45/70 and a 7mag...No contest 45/70 leads the way.
I don't know, but I can assure you the bigger bullet sure as hell hits game harder.

If you ever doubt penetration kills go to Africa.
All you PH will care is 1) you can shoot and 2) your bullet(s) of choice are super perpetrators and heavy weight at that. Your PH will have little concern about your cartridge of choice (unless you are after dangerous game).

From my experience I would rather have a 5 inch pipe completely thru an animal from my angle of choice than a 15 inch hole thru half the animal broadside. For sure as shit is brown that bullet will let you down at some oblique shot angle.

No disrespect to anyone intended.

Peace

 

[Vereor]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: TresMon</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
[I have been at the PC for 5 hours writing this article. I MUST get away from the computer. i will edit for grammer etc. later. -TM ]

Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman.
A fun but educational look at terminal ballistic science.
by “TresMon”( ‘net name) Tres Monceret

[I received the following question in e-mail and it turn it sparked an article.Around here “articles happen.”]

“”Out of curiosity, how can a game warden tell if a deer was shot with a muzzleloader or a rifle?””


Well besides the obvious anybody would know- the entry wound size & shape- it's forensics.  A low velocity big bullet is more of a mauler internally; it's just kind brute force mashing its way through the meat.  A high velocity rifle bullet kills more actually by hydraulics than hemorrhage (blood loss/circulatory damage.) Most modern hunter knows that "energy kills" that is energy is the biggest baddest killer.  They just don't know how to explain it.  

All animals are mostly water. So think of this. Imagine hanging a water proof full sized punching bag up outside thats full of 3 day old mash taters. You know the ones that have increased their Viscosity some.  Now shoot a scalpel through it. 

What did we observe?  The bag did not move/swing much. It was not a dramatic looking event.  We have a hole through both sides of our bag that is leaking pretty fast. And if we were to dissect the bag and Mash Taters we would see merely slits through the wound "CHANNEL". But the "hole" or wound channel is tight. Meaning from the elasticity of the M.Taters "meat" the channel drew back up on itself, not 100% but mostly.

There's your broad head,spear & Atlatl killed deer. (Yes spearing is STILL legal and actually STILL done in a few states. A few of my hard core wilderness survival friends do it.) This is  death by hemorrhage alone, or bleeding out, internally & a little externally. Sure the deer experienced some energy, but no more than a major league batter getting beamed in the shoulder by a fast pitch. Not enough to kill or long term injure.

So now let's move to big bore pistols & muzzle loaders. So we shoot our hanging tater bag with a .357mag, .41 magnum .44 Magnum Etc. or a Front Stuffer.  

Now we have energy doing some amount more of the killing than hemorrhage. And we have not just a wound channel now but also wound cavity. What did we observe? The front of the bag was displaced or caved in a good bit from the energy. The whole bag is swinging some back and forth.  We have a small hole all the way through our bag that did not seal back up. This is our wound channel. But the front side of the hole or entry side is where our channel is larger than bullet diameter  and it slowly tapers down as we move deeper through the channel.  This is the PERMANENT wound cavity. To explain Temporary & Permanent wound channel I need to explain the hydraulic effect of a bullet.

The hydraulic effect of a bullet hitting the watery meat and core of a animal: Newton's law says "reckin for every tough lick thar's a equal &  opposite nuther tough lick."  So we observed in our Front Stuffer shot on the bag the surface of the bag was displaced. Thats energy from the bullet being dispersed into our target. So lets say we were shooting a .451"  45 cal. slug.  If we shot a basically 1/2" piece of metal at the tater sack how come the displacement on the surface was so much larger in diameter than the slug? Energy!

Energy does amazing things. Enter the temporary wound cavity.  When a moderate to very high energy round enters our taters (meat/flesh) the energy damages and destroys tissue far larger than the bullet diameter. Initially energy from the bullet "blows" a quite large cavity or space in the tissue.  But it does not stay this size of a space. The immediate size of the empty space or cavity is called the Temporary cavity. From the amazing engineering God designed into flesh- due to the elasticity of the flesh it will attempt to shrink back down and come back together. So this big hole or cavity we blew into the near side of our tater sack will immediately begin to shrink. And again we learned this is temporary cavity. But we transferred such a large amount of energy into the flesh that we destroyed much of it. Due to this though it will shrink back down a good bit, it will not shrink all the way back down to the actual bullet diameter hole the bullet drilled into the meat. This is called the PERMANENT wound cavity.  Here's a pretty good example of a temporary, permanent wound cavity and wound channel: [I'm referring to wound "channel" as the small bullet diameter hole that goes beyond the cavities.]

So why does the permanent cavity exist far larger than the actual diameter of the bullet that created it? Why does the Temp. Cavity not shrink all the way to the physical bullet diameter that passed through? Well we already said because the immediate tissue was destroyed but lets take a closer look. We'll recap for a second.

We shot a scalpel through our 100 lb. Mashed Tater filled punching bag. We ended up with a snug little leaking hole. This will kill the tater bag, but slower and it certainly will not be dramatic.

We shot our bag with a front stuffer.  Cool. For a split second we caved in the front of the bag. The whole bag is swinging. More Cool. Now we got a  little bitty "junior sized" foot ball shaped hole in the near side of the bag/taters and a 1/2" hole all the way through. Way cool.

Now let's shoot our tater bag deer simulator with an American favorite: the .270 Winchester.  If we could see the hit in slow motion we would see the waves of energy rippling the surface of the bag. It literally look's like the concentric rings coming from a stone dropped in still water. We significantly displaced the surface of our tater sack. It's swinging pretty good overall.  We go examine and see we have a full sized+ football shape "wound cavity" in the near side of tater sack and a bullet diameter hole the rest of the way through.

 [cavity dimensions and "football size" references are not literal, nor dimensionally accurate nor have I ever shot “mashed taters.” They are merely used to illustrate to the readers mind familiar mediums and sizing/shapes, while conveying whats happening on/in target accurately overall. It's hard to draw a series of pictures in a readers mind, but in doing so with these familiar shapes/references I feel I have transferred the actual science and ongoings to the reader accurately.]

So what is happening in that instant the bullet transfers energy into the medium? That's the hydraulics we were talking about. Essentially a violent water column radiating out from the bullet entry point. 

From scalpel to bullet "energy wand":
So the scalpel made no real cavities at all. Our high velocity rifle round made a serious temporary and permanent  wound cavity. So let me illustrate what this hydraulic water column does. Back to our hanging 100lb. mashed tater filled punching bag. This time we hang our tater sack in the bay of the high pressure car wash. We again are armed with our .270 Win but let's dump out our taters and fill our bag with well cooked green peas. These green peas represent cells. The individual cells tissue is made of.  When we introduce energy into tissue from a blow the water contained goes the equal & opposite direction, vilonetly! Think of if we dropped $1.50 into the slot to activate the high pressure sprayer of the car wash. We stick the wand down into the peas and pull the trigger. What happens? The water pressure basically makes the immediate peas seemingly vanish, the closest mangle and the furthest effected by the water burst and leak.

Thats a good verbal picture of what is happening to tissue when massive amounts of energy are transferred from a bullet to flesh due to hydraulic energy forces, and it's quite understandable that as amazing as bodies are- some tissue, i.e. the permanent wound cavity does not recover.

So thus is the ways we actually kill targets. So what do we do wit this information? We wish we our military could shoot terrorists with expanding hunting type bullets! We can use our new found knowledge of energy transfer from bullets to mash taters to better select the weight and style of bullet we shoot. Bullet selection all depends the on the average size, weight and range of the mash tater sack we are hunting.

You see there are three schools of thought with hunters. The first is the antiquated and Neanderthal thought: "make the biggest "hole" [wound CHANNEL] you can -all the way through the animal to produce maximum amount of (blood) leakage."

And the second sounds so clean, sterile & harmless on the printed page:

-Transfer all the energy.-

Sounds ho-hum,boring.(But it’s incredibly devastating & violent!!!)

The third school got high in the bathroom and don’t care. &#8232;They just like to hunt.

Think of this. A bullet moves because energy has been imparted to and into it. Once it leaves the bore pressure is relieved from the firing system and the bullet got what it gets and is now leaking energy slowly to the really low viscosity water we shoot through called air. If  you ever have a conversation with a bullet it will refer to same as drag. If it runs out of energy it would stop forward motion in place, spent. (If there were no gravity.)  There! You get it!  Wait, you look uncertain. I'll give it to you: you want the bullet to stop. IN the target. Why? Transfer. Energy transfer. 100% wicked violent energy transfer.  You see if your bullet regardless of caliber, diameter, weight or speed passes through the target and travels beyond, it did not give you it's all. Any energy  the bullet had to travel beyond our tater sack was wasted, we could have dumped that left over energy into the mashed taters as well for even more/bigger car wash wand effect!!

So there it is- with a high velocity high energy round we want a complete energy dump into our wild free range 12 tined Tater Sac we so carefully stalked. Thats why there are so many bullets to choose from for a given caliber. Enter bullet (a.) design & (b.) weight...

Real world example. I know a well meaning green horn who was new to shooting, new to rifles and new to hunting. He went on a coyote sized furry predatorial tater sack hunt with a friend and was hooked. So he decides he needs a good rifle, camo and a few calls.  Talking about his new love on the job a co-worker offered to sell him a like new ultra- light weight 300 Win Mag complete with scope, for a incredibly low price. "Because it will kick yur teeth out the guy said." So our young green horn figured 1. "He could take it" and two all that power would for sure blast a dog sized fur covered flea infested mange pocked Mashed Tater Sack into the next Siriometer or so. He took the rifle.

So Mr. G. Horn went and bought some 300WM ammo, on sale.  Winchester 180 grain Power Point factory loads. A real world MOOSE load. (He did not do the math I'm sure, I'll do it for him: 3500 ft. lbs. of car wash wand effect at the muzzle.) Looking at the big shiney menacing ammo I'm sure Mr. Horn was sure it would blast the doggish creature for at least a siriometer!!

So after a while he calls me. “Man this thing really-REALLY kicks!” I chuckled having been there done that in my youth. I threaded his barrel and installed a nice muzzle break. He was really happy with the recoil reduction and off he went. Soon enough he made his first “I got one!” phone call to a buddy. But he was quick to tell me the critter just limped about 20 paces and died. No siriometer. I chuckled having been there and done that in my youth and explained bullet selection.

You see had if Mr. Horn had hand loaded him some little bitty 110 grain Sierra hollow points at a anemic (for the Win Mag with this bullet) 3200 fps, he would have opened up that critter like a book displaying it’s most every deep and inner thing, literally. True the little bullet would had a good bit less energy: 3200 lbs. But it would given Mr. G. Horn it’s all!
The little bullet would have disintegrated in the critter for a 100% energy dump, where as the Moose bullet that was actually used likely zipped right through with no “upset” commonly called expansion or mushrooming on behalf of the bullet in the 35 lb. target. After all that load was designed to hold together, burrow deep and energy dump in a dangerous big boned hardy built massive Tater Sac weighing upwards of 1700 pounds for the Alaskan-Yukon variety.

Speaking of bullet upset, their is fascinating engineering that goes into bullet design. You see that dumb piece of metal we call “bullet” has no intelligence nor on board computer but must juggle the depth-of-penetration/ energy dump act to perform it’s best. And to compound this complexity it must do it anywhere in an extreme velocity spread. If we shoot our massive moose tater sack and the bullet disintegrates on the shoulder muscle we have wounded him, he’ll run off and we may have lost him and wasted the meat & and if he succumbs to the wound the life. If it zips through him without hitting a vital organ we again have wounded him and likely lost and wasted him. Enter bullet engineering.
A bullet upsets and begins to expand. This ever increasing blunt frontal diameter increase increases the difficulty for the bullet to penetrate. This rate of expansion must be carefully controlled through inherent design to allow the bullet to expand slow enough so it can burrow 1. deep enough to get past the near side muscle and into the vital organs but 2. fast enough to not completely pass through the animal thereby wasting energy. That would be a feat of engineering if the bullet hit the mash tater sac at the same speed every time. But it’s always impacting at differing speeds. If we engage our 1700 pound marsh wading mashed tater sac at 220 yards the bullet will impact at far greater velocity than it will if fired from a long range hunter engaging our swamp tater at 1106 yards. Either way, the bullet must not under or over expand to penetrate sufficiently and energy dump. And amazingly they get It right most of the time!

In conclusion bigger is not always better in regards to quick, clean ethical kills wether the subject of discussion be “which cartridge” or “which bullet.”

Regards,
“TresMon”

<span style="font-size: 8pt"><span style="font-style: italic">This article took considerable time & effort. It is presented here for free. Enjoy! However if anyone feels motivated to express appreciation a donation can be sent to the paypal account [email protected].
Thanks!
Tres</span></span>




















</div></div>




Umm... no. Sir, I highly suggest that you do some research on credible terminal ballistic studies, and then go kill something. As Guy (M700) said, not only is your post full of "issues" but it seems that you have a distinct lack of experience spilling blood.

 

[Alaskaguide]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

TresMon That is one very well written post with a lot of good info. There are a few things that I do not agree with but you make many very good points. I appreciate the time you spent putting it together and admire how well you can explain things. I have been lurking on this sight for years and your post got me motivated to at last Join the Hide and submit my first post.

Jerry Jacques
Alaska Master Guide #110
Licensed Professional Hunter Africa

The following is what I send my hunting clients before they hunt with me.


Hunting Bullets & Terminal Ballistics For Big Game
The following is my opinion based on 30+ years making a living as a guide & professional hunter in Alaska and Africa. Between clients shooting game and cull hunts I have personally seen over 7,000 animals die from gunshots. I have formed my opinions on terminal ballistics from this experience

For dangerous game the most important thing a bullet needs to accomplish is knocking the target off it’s feet so it cannot get up.

Killing the target is secondary. If the target cannot get up and is still alive a kill shot is easy

The Biggest Myth that I hear for big game animals is faster projectiles (Velocity) kills better than slow ones. As long as the bullet impacts at a velocity above supersonic it will kill big game effectively with the proper bullet.
Second Biggest Myth is that more foot-pounds of energy = better killing/stopping power. Foot pounds of energy is just a mathematical figure and has very little to do with stopping or killing power. Bullet diameters and bullet design has more to do with killing/stopping power than speed. The best hunting bullets are the ones that perform over the widest range of velocities, leave the largest permanent wound channel, will not brake apart when they hit heavy bone and will consistently exit the animal.

Many big game animals have died instantly without an exit wound and many more animals will drop in their tracks without an exit wound. For the first 1/3 of my career I thought that perfect bullet performance was to find the bullet in the hide on the far side. That way all the energy has been absorb by the animal. After guiding over 140 days a year for 11 years I changed my opinion for the following reasons

1. Exit wounds tend to leave a lot better blood trail
2. Granted most shots taken are broadside but if a bullet cannot punch through an animal with a broadside shot and exit then it does not have enough penetration to go end to end on an animal. You do not always get broadside shots while hunting and rarely get a broadside shot on a charging or fleeing critter.
3. To be reliable big game bullets must to be able to break heavy bone and continue to penetrate deeply afterwards.
4. I no longer believe that it is the energy that kills but the size of the permanent wound channel, On big game larger heavier bullets kill better than smaller faster ones.

At close range a flat nosed 540 grain bullet fired from a 45-70 at 1550 FPS has way more stopping/ killing power than any 338 or .375 magnum. But at the same time a .30-06 is easer to make good hits at longer ranges than the 540 grain slug from the 45-70.

Faster bullets do give better trajectory and extend the range we can make good hits at. A good hit with a smaller caliber is always better than a poor hit with a larger caliber providing there is enough bullet mass to give full penetration. For consistent kills on big game the larger caliber bullet the better and the heaviest bullet for a given caliber will have the best knock down power. More velocity will give you a better trajectory and that is in itself is worth a lot but velocity alone does not knock things down.

There is no BEST bullet (or caliber) for hunting even the best designed bullet will occasionally fail to do the job it is intended to do, Poorly made or poorly designed bullets will conversely give spectacular killing results from time to time.

It is the trend that is important in bullets. From my point of view a half dozen cases of good bullet performance is not much of a trend. Around a 100 is what I want to see before I consider it a trend.

I once witnessed a Kudu shot at 40 yards with a .416 Rigby using a 400 grain swift a frame. The bullet hit the Kudu broadside in the shoulder. It ran off and we had to track it for 2 days. The shot placement was good the cartridge and bullet excellent but it still failed. Same client shot a cape buff with all the same conditions/shot placement and the buff fell over dead with the one shot. The bullet exited after breaking the shoulder. Neither of these isolated cases proves anything. All bullets are a compromise
No Spire point bullet has as good of terminal ballistics as a flat meplat bullet and no flat nosed bullet has as good of aero dynamics as a spire point.

The best killing and the best knock down bullets for big game have a large flat nose with a sharp edge (large meplat). Elmer Keith and JD Jones have both promoted this concept in bullets. The best example for a rifle is Randy Garrett’s 540 Grain .45-caliber bullet loaded in his +P 45-70 ammo. Up close this round has more stopping power than conventional hunting bullets loaded in the factory 458 win mag. Now the Garrett 540 grain bullet is fantastic at close range but not what I would recommend for long range situations and it will not feed reliably in most bolt actions. Check out the Garrett ammo web site, read the data how his 45-70 ammo out penetrates factory 458 win mag.

I have had clients make clean kills on big game using every thing from .223 to .50. All of my career I used one of 4 calibers, .308, .375 HH, .416 and .470. For cull hunts and wolf hunting I used .308. Every 7.62 bullet kills. Military ball was supplied for most cull hunts. Ball is the worst but it works in a pinch. The best killing bullets I found in that cal was the Fail Safe and barns X-bullet. There other very good bullets but the Barnes and Failsafe stand out in my mind.

For guiding in Alaska and for African plains game I used 375 HH. with Barns, Swift A-frame, Nosler or Trophy Bonded are all wonderful and usually hold together at close range.
I use the bullet that shoots the best in a particular rifle barrel. The .375 diameter 300-grain Sierra is a wonderfully accurate bullet but at close range it comes apart and sheds it’s Jacket fairly often so I do not recommend it for big Bear.

The minimum legal caliber for African big 5 is .375. For Buffalo, Hippo or Rhino I’m not a fan of the .375. The .416 or .458 with the Barns X or trophy bonded for me have been the most consistent killer on the thick skinned game. A 470 or .500 Nitro double rifle may be best for the big stuff but not many can justify spending $9,000.00+ for a double rifle and at least $10.00 per round of ammo. In reality the cost of the ammo for a double rifle keeps most people from practicing enough to be proficient. I recommend a good bolt action chambered in at least .40 caliber for thick skinned game in Africa. 30-06 is the minimum for Alaska Grizzly or Brown Bear


Enough of my rambling this is the bottom line.
For big game use the largest cal with the heaviest bullet that you can shoot accurately. I would rather a client show up on a Grizzly hunt with a 30-06 that he can shoot well than a have him bring a .375 H&H that he does not shoot accurately. Use premium hunting bullets not target bullets for big game. Remember shot placement is everything so the more you shoot before the hunt the better shot you will be. Lastly the one shot kill theory is total BS. The formula I use is one shot after you are sure the animal is dead. The perfect shot knocks the animal down and cleanly kills it then you make another shot to make sure it never gets up. Don’t worry your taxidermist has lots of thread for the extra bullet hole.

 

[Vereor]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

That does in fact read like a list for Africa. And solid information, for AFRICA. Depending on what your definition of "big" game is. For deer (200+/-lbs) it would certainly change. As you wrote, the size of the permanent wound channel is what damages tissue. For pure killing I want a bullet that will destroy the absolute most tissue possible while still being able to reliably exit on most quartering shots.

Below, is an extreme example of that. It is a 178gr Amax out of a 300WM.

No Barnes is going to produce a wound like that (which is what most people want...), but it did that and still penetrated the diaphragm.

Now I don't shoot the 300WM and Amaxes much at deer for that reason, as it's just not necessary. I mostly use 243's and 308's now, but still use "softer" bullets in them , i.e.. Ballistic Tips and Amaxes.

The size of the game and range at which they are going to be hunted should be the primary consideration in regards too which bullet characteristic is desired.

 

[Alaskaguide]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

I have no experience with whitetail or mule deer and do not have any idea what works best for them.. My experience is Alaska, Africa and some in Australia. I consider the deer in the USA to be medium sized game not big game. My personal definition of big game is at least 250 lbs. Please correct me if I am wrong but I assume most deer shot in the USA are 200 lbs or les

Vereor I think we are on the same page. You stated

“”I want a bullet that will destroy the absolute most tissue possible while still being able to reliably exit on most quartering shots””.

Any bullet that can reliably do that on it’s intended game is a good choice in my opinion.

The Barns bullets do fail on ocashion, when they fail they do not expand enough but they always give full penetration. I personally would rather have that kind of failure on big game than a bullet failure that hits a large bone and fragments without full penetration.
Now that I am mostly retired I spend 5 months a year (the winter) in Idaho. If I can stop being so cheep and buy a non resident tag for dear or antelope I will use my .260. My .260 loves the Berger 140 match VLD’s so I am considering trying the Berger 140gr Hunting bullets. Anyone have first hand experience with that combo?

 

[pprochnow]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

In North America, all you need is a reliable performing bullet - bonded, partition, soft point, cast lead etc shot at velocities that the bullet was <span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-style: italic">designed</span></span> to reliably expand but not explode...NOTHING trumps ethical shot placement within the minimum energy range of your equipment.

My experience with solid expanding bullets has been less than impressive. In one instance (6.5mm 130gr barnes tsx moving 2900 fps @ 75meter impact VS. bull elk)the barnes bullet hit both lungs and heart, complete pass through missing all bones. It left behind a wound channel like it was shot with an arrow w/o a broadhead. If your shot is off a few inches you may end up wandering the woods in search of the animal with a hole in it.
Happy hunting

 

[Vereor]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Alaskaguide</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I have no experience with whitetail or mule deer and do not have any idea what works best for them.. My experience is Alaska, Africa and some in Australia. I consider the deer in the USA to be medium sized game not big game. My personal definition of big game is at least 250 lbs. Please correct me if I am wrong but I assume most deer shot in the USA are 200 lbs or les

Vereor I think we are on the same page. You stated

“”I want a bullet that will destroy the absolute most tissue possible while still being able to reliably exit on most quartering shots””.

Any bullet that can reliably do that on it’s intended game is a good choice in my opinion.

The Barns bullets do fail on ocashion, when they fail they do not expand enough but they always give full penetration. I personally would rather have that kind of failure on big game than a bullet failure that hits a large bone and fragments without full penetration.
Now that I am mostly retired I spend 5 months a year (the winter) in Idaho. If I can stop being so cheep and buy a non resident tag for dear or antelope I will use my .260. My .260 loves the Berger 140 match VLD’s so I am considering trying the Berger 140gr Hunting bullets. Anyone have first hand experience with that combo?

Jerry Jacques
Alaska Master Guide #110
</div></div>


I agree. I tend to think of NA deer as medium game. Yes, most deer are under 250#'s, however West, mid-West, and Northern bucks can and do run over 250#'s all the time.


I agree with you completely on true big game. As far as the 6.5 Bergers, we haven't killed anything with them, but have with 6mm 95's and 105gr, 7mm 168 and 180gr and 30 cal 190 and 210 gr. They are spectacular for medium game like deer. That 140gr VLD out of you 260 would be a complete rock star on deer.

 

[M700]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

Vereor - If I ever had a deer look like that, I'd be very unhappy. Serious waste of good meat. Wow... I really enjoy cooking and serving meat from the game I kill, and have no other reason to kill a doe other than to get the meat, so that shot would not make me happy. On the other hand, yes, that's one heck of a destructive bullet. Am thinking though that maybe it could have been placed better.

Alaskaguide - good thoughts. I've hunted deer quite a bit, mostly mule deer, but haven't got a lot of experience on larger game.

Thanks all - this is an interesting discussion.

Regards, Guy

 

[worldhunter]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

Thanks for the informative post

 

[Infinity]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

So much here, difficult to bring myself to read it all. Thanks for taking the time: interesting read.

 

[tommy13gun]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

Bump

 

[armorpl8chikn]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

I first want to say that Tres and I are good friends. We have shot matches together and visited about many subjects on several occasions. Having been the Marksmanship Competition director for the IHMSA news for the past 3 years I can tell you writing an article is a thankless job. Not everyone will agree with everything you have to say. I have been wrong plenty.

That said I cannot agree fully with a blanket concept on this subject. I have shot more deer than I can reliably count in my hunting career due to extremely liberal limits in the southeast. I have told many people who were not happy with their bullet performance,"did you inspect the wound?" Then obviously you can say the bullet did its job....but some do their job better than others.
My most recent kills were on a doe and a buck two consecutive days last year. My FIL on the spur of the moment wanted me to go with him down on the back 40 and sit a spell. He has been like a father to me since my Daddy died and I jumped at the chance, though I hadn't spilt game animal blood in several years.
We got ready to go and I said just take the R700 30-06 and if there is 2 I will take the second shot. He insisted I should take one of his other guns and I declined, knowing I sighted them in and the 700 was the only one I really trusted. I know that two of his Bushnells are junk and I had told him I knew those scopes were not tracking correct.
We had been in the hedgerow for 20 minutes and well before dark I saw a doe in the edge of the woods 200yds out. I nudged him and after she got 20 yards in the field he finally saw her. He handed me the rifle and I gave him gestures indicating it was his shot but he looked determined so I took the rifle. I let her cross the field until she was ~90yds out. Two others had come into the field and I wanted to let them get well in the field as I thought if I could drop her they would not leave or soon return for his shot. She never stopped moving, and when I figured she would not give me anything beyond the quartering shot I held just forward of her shoulder to clip her heart and lungs and hopefully get a bit of her backbone as it curves down between the shoulders. I hit just an inch below perfection. She ran straight back to the woods and I watched through the scope as she hit the ground and kicked twice. Handed the rifle back to FIL and told him get ready. Sure enough teh other two were back within 5 minutes and to make a long story short he severed a small tuft of hair off of that one(headshake).
Upon retrieval and inspection teh Core-Lok had turned toward the gut and skidded to a stop just under the skin 4 inches behind her last rib. I was a bit disapointed but that can happen on a quarteing shot. The bullet performed flawlessly and would have given me a bloodtrail a blind man could track if it had been broadside. She was litterally DEAD within seconds but there was no bloodtrail, again not the fault of the bullet but the angle of the dangle.
Having killed between 70 and 80 deer and tracked and recovered well over 100, I can attest that a heart shot deer will run straight when hit and I mean straight. He or she will be in a low flat out run until the stumbling starts and there ain't much stumbling until the oxygen runs out, and that is pretty much where you will find em.
If you massively take out the heart it doesn't matter what you hit them with they are going down soon. I want an exit wound even with,maybe especially with, a heart shot if I am hunting woods or something like swamp.
I have killed deer with shotguns,pistols, and more rifle calibers than I care to name. They all kill. Some better than others and certainly bullet selection is very important. I care nothing for the speed at which my bullet hits an animal if I have placed my shot correctly and have enough energy for the bullet to EXIT.
I toyed with super speed bullets that didn't exit once with my 243 when I was much younger and dumber. I think I had read an article about energy dump and was convinced that 3400fps with a 70gr SMK would be hell on wheels. To tell the truth it killed light skinned eastern whitetails with the efficiency of Thors hammer. There was one very important problem though. Hit a bone of any size and you were in for a long day of tracking that would confound the greatest mountain man of yore. No blood trail. After a phenominal failure on a buck of a lifetime I switched to a better bullet and eventually moved on from the 243 to bigger cartridges. Don't get me wrong I will still hunt with a 243 and list it among the top for eastern whitetails.as long as you use a good penetrating bullet.
I want the bullet to pass through after wreaking havoc on everything in its path. Though I may not need a blood trail its better to have it and not need it....you get the picture.
I do not ever advocate shooting a deer in the head. I have seen 2 deer that survived with their lower jaw shot off, emaciated and in need of putting out of their misery.
I have never seen a deer shot with anything except directly in the shoulders that was DRT. I prefer the heart/lung 3 for one pass through, I happen to like shoulder meat. No excessive meat damage and it KILLS leaving a blood trail.

A bullet that does not exit is a trackers nightmare, and sad to say I have met many hunters who couldn't track a combine across a wheat field.

Hydrostatic shock exists and creats a greta deal of damage but a simple entry wound closes quickly and without the exit, if your shot was less than great(liver) you may not find your deer.

 

[Khavic]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

This has been a great read.

I have killed elk and deer with rifles and archery and have come to much the same conclusion as many of you. It does not matter what you are shooting it is about the placement of the shot.

I have killed elk with a bow that did not go 30 yards and were stone dead as soon as they hit the ground.

I have killed several elk with 180gr CoreLok 30-06 and .300WSM Balistic Silvertips.

I have found that the balistic tip bullets will kill faster even though they do not pass all the way through. With proper bullet placement they also destroy less meat which means more to the table.

The "hydraulic shock" to the heart lungs is devastating and stops the flow of blood to the brain faster. I have removed lungs from an elk shot with balistic tipped bullets ,that did not pass all the way through, that look like spckled Easter eggs because the blood was forced out of them so violently. I have also removed lungs from elk shot with CoreLok bullets with 2" holes through them. The big difference was that the all of the elk with the 2" holes and complete pass throughs went 100 - 200 yards before they died, whereas the elk shot with the balistic tips went 35 (2 were hit high in the lungs just below the spine and fell immediately)at the most.

Hydrostatic or hydraulic shock, whichever you prefer to call it, does assist in killing the game faster in my practical field experience.

 

[KYpatriot]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Khavic</div><div class="ubbcode-body">This has been a great read.

I have killed elk and deer with rifles and archery and have come to much the same conclusion as many of you. It does not matter what you are shooting it is about the placement of the shot.

I have killed elk with a bow that did not go 30 yards and were stone dead as soon as they hit the ground.

I have killed several elk with 180gr CoreLok 30-06 and .300WSM Balistic Silvertips.

I have found that the balistic tip bullets will kill faster even though they do not pass all the way through. With proper bullet placement they also destroy less meat which means more to the table.

The "hydraulic shock" to the heart lungs is devastating and stops the flow of blood to the brain faster. I have removed lungs from an elk shot with balistic tipped bullets ,that did not pass all the way through, that look like spckled Easter eggs because the blood was forced out of them so violently. I have also removed lungs from elk shot with CoreLok bullets with 2" holes through them. The big difference was that the all of the elk with the 2" holes and complete pass throughs went 100 - 200 yards before they died, whereas the elk shot with the balistic tips went 35 (2 were hit high in the lungs just below the spine and fell immediately)at the most.

Hydrostatic or hydraulic shock, whichever you prefer to call it, does assist in killing the game faster in my practical field experience. </div></div>

I must disagree with both Khavic and Tres on hydrostatic shock. I don't believe that hydrostatic shock does much at all. I respectfully submit that if Khavic looks at the practical data that he has collected that he will see that he is misinterpreting his results.

For instance, he talks about the very effective kills he has had with his bow. An arrow imparts, for all pratical purposes, zero hydrostatic shock. Yet with proper shot placement, the arrow will kill as quickly as a rifle, as most bowhunters have noticed. The arrow kills by hemorrhage alone, unless it hits the spine. Massive hemorrhage quickly drops the blood pressure to zero, and when the oxygen in the existing, non-circulating blood in the brain is used up the animal goes down.

I believe this is exactly how bullets kill as well.

When a bullet expands it crushes/tears/cuts all the tissue in the permanent wound channel. This causes lots of hemorrhage, sometimes quite a bit more than an arrow, especially if the bullet fragments. Then each fragment is producing another wound channel. This is adds to the hemorrhage effect and the quickness of the kill so long as the main body of the bullet still has enough mass and momentum to penetrate deeply enough along the main wound channel. I like passthroughs for the same reason armor stated above...you have another exit for blood which helps with a trail and creates that much more area for blood to drain to help get that BP down to zero quickly.

I agree 100% that there is a temporary cavity caused by a hydrostatic effect...its just that I dont believe it really does anything. All the tissue inside the body of any animal is extremely flexible. Sure it may cause some damage, at the least would certainly cause bruising if the animal lived long enough, but that energy is easily absorbed by a large game animal and the animal will certainly die from the primary wound channel well before any damage by hydraulics could do the job.

It is undisputed fact that hemorrhage kills everytime if unchecked. So the question is whether or not hydrostatic shock is adding anything significant to speed with which the animal dies. Now I have heart shot whitetail with 308 with 165 Accubonds, which usually exit with at least a fist size exit wound at the ranged I usually shoot. Energy abounds, and the wound cavity is impressive. I have seen a heartshot buck run 90 to 100 yards. I have also had shots in which the permanent wound channel misses the heart by a couple inches. In the case I am thinking of, a 60 yard shot, the wound channel was just off the heart, placing the heart well within the area affected by the temporary wound cavity. It had to be subjected to as much hydrostatic shock as a 308 can muster, yet the heart was completely undamaged. That deer was anchored because both front shoulders were broke but it kicked for 15 seconds or so. I guarantee with good shoulders it would be running.

My point is, hydrostatic shock didn't do anything in either case...a deer ran with the entire top half of its heart unattached...a deer lived a similar time with a shot right next to the heart that should have damaged that organ severely if the shock effect was significant, but it didn't.

The only exception I can think of would be a bullet that barely misses the spine in which the temporary wound cavity stretches or stuns the spine. It would have to be very close, I dont have any shots where I have done that so I'm not even sure that would work. Otherwise, I believe the permanent wound cavity does 90% of the damage and 100% of the killing, and that the mechanism is hemorrhage.

 

[Khavic]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

I agree 100% that it is the loss of blood that kills. One of the two elk I dropped in their tracks was a long shot that I fired high on. (I have since purchassed a range finder) The other was on a steep hill facing away. I would assume that you are correct and that the jolt to the spinal cord is what dropped them. My assertion is that the rapid expansion of the ballistic tipped bullet is what caused the extra shock and turned what could have been a difficult track into a simple recovery.

The point is that there is plenty of room inside the body cavity and internal organs of an animal for it to bleed out entirely into it's own body. A bruise is formed because of blood traveling to an injured area to heal. The more injured area the more blood being channeled away from the brain. The bigger hole you punch on the inside the more veins/arteries you disrupt.

As for having two holes for blood to leave the body that is fine for tracking, but has no effect on the loss of blood within the system. There are few veins and no arteries running along the outside of the ribs of a big game animal. The exit wound does little to bring the game down faster. Rapid expansion and fragments passing through soft internal organs does much more to cause the desired loss of blood.

 

[gutshot53]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

Very nice!

 

[MK75]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

Another great post, thanks again for your time and effort.

 

[Zen Archery]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

Great visual reading. I'll pass this article on.

 

[JohnnyC]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Zen Archery</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Great visual reading. I'll pass this article on. </div></div>

You should pass on the quoted text from DocGKR, littletoes post, and phil1's post. TresMon's original post is absolutely incorrect. The idea that hydrostatic shock is the primary mode of incapacitation has been disproven several times over and it is laughable as anything other than shady marketing when companies try to use it as a feature of their product. The only place hydrostatic shock has been shown to be any significant contributor is cranial trauma.

Seriously, read the stuff on the net that DocGKR has written on the subject, you know, since he has degrees and actual empirical data and is all scientific and is an internationally recognized expert on terminal ballistics....

No offense intended to TresMon, he obviously spent some time on his post, but like his signature says, he's a machinist and a gunsmith. Maybe I missed the line about being an internationally recognized ballistics expert?

 

[armorpl8chikn]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Khavic</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

With all due respect. I am not a doctor nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night or any other night. That said I have personally witnessed on not just a few but on well enough to call a good statistical sample that you are fundamentally wrong in your observations.

Red:
Inside a body cavity things are quite tight. Tight enough to cause pressure. A simple entry wound no matter how terrific can and will quickly plug or close and allow the blood pressure to equalize enough to slow its descent to zero. I can only postulate on this due to actual kills and the fact that EVERY time I did not have an exit wound the game left little to no blood that escaped from the body cavity. I shot one particular 7 pointer with the 70grSMK that litterally blew out a hunk of lung from the entrance wound as big as a jumbo hen egg. That deer did not bleed a drop and staggered 50yds before he fell. Others shot with that bullet ran twice as far and bled little to none, that 7 pointer was an exception. The tales of my 70gr experiment finally ended with a high shot on a large buck that ultimately survived to be killed two weeks later by another hunter, a story I am not proud of nor particulary fond of, due to the fact that it was a once in a lifetime buck. As I say I was young, dumb and easily impressed by the pablum of the monthly gun rags touting the need for speed. My opinions have been shaped by many years of my success and failure.

Blue:
I really have no scientific data to back this up, and I can only assume neither do you. I will clarify my blood trail theory. If two deer are shot and both run 100yds into thick cover, which will be easier to track and recover? The one with an exit wound or one with simply an entry wound? I can tell you without a shadow of doubt a simple entry wound, even if it is large enough to blow out lung pieces at the moment of impact, will bleed very little to none. I have seen it, experienced it and tracked them down with little to guide me. It made me one of the best trackers in eastern NC, even inducing late evening calls from veteran hunters like my late uncle, to find a deer they couldn't. Some were bad shots to begin but many were very good shots with heavy cartridges using fast bullets that were intended to dump energy inside the target. Most of these late forays were in search of a large trophy size deer for our region.

Green:
From my experience I have to respectfully disagree. When seconds count I prefer to err on the side that the faster I get the blood OUT of the body the better. A deer can run a long way in a few seconds on that I think we can agree...yes? Now elk are a different can of worms all together as far as I know. I never shot one but would imagine them to be rather tough if judging by nothing beyond size and hide thickness.
I will retell this story as best I can.
A good friend went to Montana a few years ago to hunt elk. He took his 308 loaded with 168gr AMax bullets. They have proved devastating on whitetails here and he had been told by folks out there they would be fine if he could shoot. His walls that are lined with shooting trophies will attest to the fact that he indeed can shoot. He got the opportunity for a bull at about 150yds ~700lbs on the hoof. He took the shot and it was perfect broadside in the boiler room, heart and lungs. The elk staggered and made a couple steps and stopped. He hit him again, he staggered and fell. He began to pack up and the bull stood back up, he put another one in him, the elk went down. He said well he is down now. He gathered his gear and the elk stood back up, he said the hell with this and put two more in him....he was down for good. Upon inspection all shots were within an 8 inch circle all in the vitals, no exit no blood. Had this elk run like hell at teh first shot this elk may have been found, but with grizzlies and wolves in the area I am betting it would have been a tense tracking job. In this case finding him fast would be PARAMOUNT.
If you ask him today he will tell you a passthrough is absoluetely imperative. He has always been a pastrough proponent but now...even more so.

 

[bluezx14]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

TresMon is correct for light game and powerful high velocity firearms (I.E. for every 30lb of game animal weight you have somewhere in the order of 1000f/lb of energy).

Alaskaguide is correct for large game.

The confusion seems to be the bias from one side to the other on medium game. Here, unless you use a cartridge/bullet combination that provides a large deep permanent wound channel and has lots of spare energy to create a large temporary stretch cavity which creates brain aneurisms/nervous system damage, then Alaskaguide's theory is the most reliable. This is from a guy who was a "fast and light because it kills like lightening" guy who over time has shot under less than ideal circumstances and misplaced a shot or two, if it is a choice of one or the other I will take big, tough and slow first. That said big tough and fast is ideal if you are not shooting for meat and are not trying to take multiple animals in a short space of time.

 

[shorthairs]

Re: Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman

I am a believer in matching the bullet to the game hunted. I have a 6xc and started off shooting 115 DTAC bullets for coyotes. The bullet would zip through as if the dog was not hit. Changed to a ballistic tip 87 and they stay where shot.

I have had the same experience with deer and elk.

Thanks for the thread.

 

[SavageSlayer]

TresMon is correct for light game and powerful high velocity firearms (I.E. for every 30lb of game animal weight you have somewhere in the order of 1000f/lb of energy).

You do realize by using that math (1000 ft./lbs. for every 30 lbs. of game) that a 200 lb. whitetail would require 6,666 ft./lbs. of energy, right? Can anyone here name one popular North American hunting cartridge that can produce those numbers? How about any of the "big" popular African hunting cartridges? A 500 NE can put out around 5,000 ft./lbs. at the muzzle. Apparently that's not going to produce enough energy to drop that 200 lb. whitetail.

Energy is the ability to do work, and work is moving something against a force, like gravity or tissue. Tissue destruction is what important. Ceasing brain function is what results in death. That can be accomplished many ways (i.e. loss of blood flow/pressure, lack of oxygen, paralysis, or massive trauma to the brain tissue). To accomplish these examples one needs to put a bullet of adequate construction into the brain, heart, lungs, spine, or other vital organs. Shot placement is priority #1, bullet construction is #2. Everything else is arbitrary.

Think about this...it takes anywhere from 4,000-6,000 ft./lbs. of energy to crank a 90 mph fastball out 400 ft. Imagine that same baseball bat smacking you in the thigh. Is the tissue in your leg going to explode? Are your blood vessels going to explode? No!

 

[hlee]

You do realize by using that math (1000 ft./lbs. for every 30 lbs. of game) that a 200 lb. whitetail would require 6,666 ft./lbs. of energy, right? Can anyone here name one popular North American hunting cartridge that can produce those numbers? How about any of the "big" popular African hunting cartridges? A 500 NE can put out around 5,000 ft./lbs. at the muzzle. Apparently that's not going to produce enough energy to drop that 200 lb. whitetail.

Energy is the ability to do work, and work is moving something against a force, like gravity or tissue. Tissue destruction is what important. Ceasing brain function is what results in death. That can be accomplished many ways (i.e. loss of blood flow/pressure, lack of oxygen, paralysis, or massive trauma to the brain tissue). To accomplish these examples one needs to put a bullet of adequate construction into the brain, heart, lungs, spine, or other vital organs. Shot placement is priority #1, bullet construction is #2. Everything else is arbitrary.

Think about this...it takes anywhere from 4,000-6,000 ft./lbs. of energy to crank a 90 mph fastball out 400 ft. Imagine that same baseball bat smacking you in the thigh. Is the tissue in your leg going to explode? Are your blood vessels going to explode? No!

And, there are plenty of people taking eland and other big game (including Cape Buffalo) with archery equipment that delivers less KE than a 22lr at equivalent distances. Excepting brain hits, shot animals die from blood loss [PERIOD] Some drop quicker than others (even within a species). Animals are individuals like humans.

 

[bluezx14]

You do realize by using that math (1000 ft./lbs. for every 30 lbs. of game) that a 200 lb. whitetail would require 6,666 ft./lbs. of energy, right? Can anyone here name one popular North American hunting cartridge that can produce those numbers? How about any of the "big" popular African hunting cartridges? A 500 NE can put out around 5,000 ft./lbs. at the muzzle. Apparently that's not going to produce enough energy to drop that 200 lb. whitetail.

Energy is the ability to do work, and work is moving something against a force, like gravity or tissue. Tissue destruction is what important. Ceasing brain function is what results in death. That can be accomplished many ways (i.e. loss of blood flow/pressure, lack of oxygen, paralysis, or massive trauma to the brain tissue). To accomplish these examples one needs to put a bullet of adequate construction into the brain, heart, lungs, spine, or other vital organs. Shot placement is priority #1, bullet construction is #2. Everything else is arbitrary.

Think about this...it takes anywhere from 4,000-6,000 ft./lbs. of energy to crank a 90 mph fastball out 400 ft. Imagine that same baseball bat smacking you in the thigh. Is the tissue in your leg going to explode? Are your blood vessels going to explode? No!

You do realize by using that math (1000 ft./lbs. for every 30 lbs. of game) that a 200 lb. whitetail would require 6,666 ft./lbs. of energy, right? Can anyone here name one popular North American hunting cartridge that can produce those numbers? How about any of the "big" popular African hunting cartridges? A 500 NE can put out around 5,000 ft./lbs. at the muzzle. Apparently that's not going to produce enough energy to drop that 200 lb. whitetail.

Energy is the ability to do work, and work is moving something against a force, like gravity or tissue. Tissue destruction is what important. Ceasing brain function is what results in death. That can be accomplished many ways (i.e. loss of blood flow/pressure, lack of oxygen, paralysis, or massive trauma to the brain tissue). To accomplish these examples one needs to put a bullet of adequate construction into the brain, heart, lungs, spine, or other vital organs. Shot placement is priority #1, bullet construction is #2. Everything else is arbitrary.

Think about this...it takes anywhere from 4,000-6,000 ft./lbs. of energy to crank a 90 mph fastball out 400 ft. Imagine that same baseball bat smacking you in the thigh. Is the tissue in your leg going to explode? Are your blood vessels going to explode? No!

Understand what was written and why. This is the difference between a "varmint" and a "medium game" animal, unless you are producing varmint like terminal ballistics velocity itself is not the answer and can't be due to the impracticality of delivering the required amount of energy. The larger animals get the more that shift is away from velocity (and consequently energy) and towards sectional density combined with momentum. Velocity is still a factor in momentum, so can't be discounted entirely, though it's relevance is greatly diminished as the size of animal goes up. There is no golden formula and depending on the circumstances both "light and fast" or "slow and heavy" may be correct but in most circumstances the best option lies somewhere in between them. With a high velocity rifle round unless you can deliver somewhere in the order of that 30ft/lb of energy per lb into the animal (and keep most of it there) you need something more than shear energy dump and the resultant hydraulic effects, throughout the body, to kill reliably. As has been covered previously the primary one of those other things is to drop blood pressure through hemorrhage.
Oh with your baseball bat yes blood vessels in your leg will rupture when it hits you, that is what a bruise is, ruptured blood vessels. For the bat to impart 6000ft/lb of energy to the ball your baseball would need to be approaching super-sonic as it left the bat, that I would not want to be in-front of.

 

[SavageSlayer]

Oh with your baseball bat yes blood vessels in your leg will rupture when it hits you, that is what a bruise is, ruptured blood vessels. For the bat to impart 6000ft/lb of energy to the ball your baseball would need to be approaching super-sonic as it left the bat, that I would not want to be in-front of.

1) The ruptured blood vessels would be the result of blunt force trauma (the bat physically crushing tissue) from actual contact. You are not going to bruise on the back side of your thigh because of "hydraulic shock" energy transfer. Energy is the ability to do work, and work is moving something against a force. Power is the rate at which energy is being transferred from one object to another.

2) Can you show me the math that backs up your claim for 6000 ft/lbs of energy being imparted to a baseball traveling 90 mph in the opposite direction also incorporating the distortion of both bat and ball upon contact resulting in said baseball approaching 1,126 ft/sec or 768 mph and what atmospheric conditions must exist for this to be so?

Hydraulic shock is a nice idea, but unless that energy is imparted to dense, heavy tissue that is not very elastic (i.e. brain, liver, kidney) it will not have much effect because non-dense tissue (i.e lungs, heart, muscle) is elastic and can stretch and expand and return to its normal state. Please see previous posts that link to actual scientific studies of terminal ballistics.

And, what’s more, the 30 ft/lbs of energy per lb. of animal or 1000 ft/lbs per 30 lbs of animal is completely bogus and ridiculous. Since when does it take 6000 + ft/lbs of energy to drop a 200 lb whitetail? There is no popular hunting cartridge in the world that can produce those numbers, and if we use that math a 2000 lb. Cape Buffalo would require 60,000 ft/lbs of energy. I guess since most everything on the planet, including elephant, has been killed with 22 lr (100-200 ft/lbs) and archery equipment (55 ft/lbs) the argument for "hydraulic shock" or "it takes x amount of energy per lb." pretty much collapses on itself.

Tissue destruction is what kills. Bullet placement is #1 and bullet construction is #2. Everything else is arbitrary.

 

[EasternNChunter]

I have been an obsessed whitetail deer hunter for 25 years now and taken over 100 deer with both rifle and bow. I have read most of the last two pages. To the OP, I do NOT want a bullet that stops or "dumps 100% of its energy in the animal." I want a bullet like an Accubond that will pass all the way through the animal leaving a large exit hole. Some/most animals do not drop instantly after being shot with ANY bullet and if there is no exit (larger) hole then you are relying on the smaller entry hole for your blood trail. I also no longer use Barnes TTSX (Tipped Triple Shock) as I have had too many "Pencil" through deer without opening. The standard TSX (hollow points) have always expanded and performed flawlessly. Two years ago, I shot a stud 213 lb 8 pointer with a Barnes TTSX at 100 yards broadside right through the lungs. The buck ran 75 yards not leaving a drop of blood. He ran through a thicket with dozens of different trails running through it. The only way we found that buck was by walking every trail in the area the next morning. Had there been a blood trail, I would have taken that buck home saturday night instead of sunday morning as I looked for hours without success. If a bullet won't leave at least a quarter sized exit hole in a deer, I won't use it. I won't as much blood loss as possible as quickly as possible. Bergers may work great 95% of the time and drop more game than any other bullet but if they don't ALWAYS leave an exit hole, I won't hunt with them. I plan on hunting whitetails in Alberta in 2014 and my "overkill" 300 win MAGNUM will be shooting 180 grain Accubonds. In talking to the outfitter, this is also his recommended .30 bullet on 250-300+ lb deer. I think this bullet is the perfect hunting bullet on everything from whitetails to moose but thats just my opinion.

 

[Josie]

Hey TresMon,
Newb here so pardon any ignorance. I'm elk hunting in Colorado and using a .300WIN. The 3 bullet options I have are a 208g AMAX, 210g Accubond L/R, and a 230g Berger Hybrid. Aside from picking the one that my rifle shoots best, which should I choose for the best terminal ballistics insuring a good, clean, quality kill? That was a great article, thanks for the education.
~Josie

 

[RetMSgt]

Excellent read, thank you!

 

[Wyzrd]

Very informative and interesting read, thanks!

 

[DetroitRearView]

I have killed plenty of deer, antelope and Elk DRT that were not shoulder shots/head shots etc with all kinds of calibers, distances and bullet type. Not a bone touched (exception rib on or offside/or my bull this last Fall offside elbow). Do not know what to tell you, but I simply have not had to deal with that 100 yard blood trail. When I say DRT, I mean “not a step”.

I have purposefully put Elk down with high shoulder shot long range with hard match bullets in order to scatter the bone and it is a very useful shot at times.

However under 600 yards I go for the double lung behind the shoulder and try to hedge into the heart plumbing if the angle allows.

This year I took 2 antelope with my 300N 230 berger otm, one at 550, the other 485. Double lung, DRT. No pics of them. The whitetail buck, 8 yards and walking towards me - fortunately he turned left - I knew I could only get one lung but didn’t want blow out his offside shoulder so I chose to come in behind his last rib and take out his offside lung. He did run 20 yards before pilling up. Muley buck 150 yards, slightly quartering facing me, entry RF chest just inside his left shoulder, exit RR just in front of his ham DRT> The WT doe was 15 yards, perfect broadside both lungs, flop DRT. This Bull 571 yards, 11 degree down slope asleep in his bed facing away from me. Entry behind left shoulder through top of right lung, plumbing off top of the heart, lower left lung and bullet lodged in his left offside elbow. He didn’t get up, he didn’t kick. He simply dropped his head to the ground, picked it up, rolled over and showed me his brown back stripe. Didn’t move. 300 win mag 21” 190 GMM Factory. Not exactly recommended by most but I have killed a lot of animals with it the last few years.

230 otm’s, 250-300 Scenars/SMK’s, 139 scenars, 175 SMKs, 190 SMKS probably account for my last 50 critters. No blood trails to follow, no lost animals. Not one of these animals can you find anything but a pencil thin whole upon entry, but a good exit hole with blood on the ground. Bullet placement.

 

[skierhs]

Nice write up!

 

[paparockcal]

I like controlled expansion bullets that my personal rifles shoot well. First is accuracy, then placement, then bullet construction, then dead animal. That said for dangerous game I have to admit I am an Elmer Keith throw back type of guy. I lean toward big bore guns and heavy controlled expansion bullets. For black bear I shoot a fully rifled bull barreled 12 gauge shooting 870grain solid hardened slugs at over 1250FPS because I hunted heavy dark timber where the shots would be close and I wanted something that would make a .72 caliber hole through both sides of the biggest bear. Bears are notorious for not leaving blood trails.

When I hunted elk in Wyoming I carried a custom .375 H&H magnum again I hunted blow down timber not wide open parks. Choose the weapon that suits the conditions you hunt under.

 

[RNWRKNP]

Just my 2 cents to the OP article (great read TresMons). A glaring example of “hydrostatic pressure” is a prairie dog shot with a bullet with a velocity in excess of 3400 feet per second. Not eneough left over to use as a spread on a sandwich. The greater the speed the more dramatic the effect becomes. Those who choose to criticize the OP would be better served to pull up a seat and take notes from someone extremely knowledgeable in the way of the gun who is kind eneough to share what he knows. TresMons.......your a rockstar amigo and thank you?

 

[LunaCustomGuns]

This is excellent thanks!

 

[LunaCustomGuns]

I like controlled expansion bullets that my personal rifles shoot well. First is accuracy, then placement, then bullet construction, then dead animal. That said for dangerous game I have to admit I am an Elmer Keith throw back type of guy. I lean toward big bore guns and heavy controlled expansion bullets. For black bear I shoot a fully rifled bull barreled 12 gauge shooting 870grain solid hardened slugs at over 1250FPS because I hunted heavy dark timber where the shots would be close and I wanted something that would make a .72 caliber hole through both sides of the biggest bear. Bears are notorious for not leaving blood trails.

When I hunted elk in Wyoming I carried a custom .375 H&H magnum again I hunted blow down timber not wide open parks. Choose the weapon that suits the conditions you hunt under.

I like your priority order, accuracy then placement. I also liked your statement about choosing the weapon for your use. For me a similar thing I tell people is know YOUR limits which is what you are essentially saying. It does not matter that 6.5 will shoot a mile, if you can’t hit a paper plate at 400 then you better not be shooting at a deer past 3. We’ve all had buck fever, so I know how hard it is to stand down, but we have to be ethical hunters.

 

[Bwells]

Nice write up. Thanks

 

[Berkman1981]

Great info thanks

 

[JG26_Irish]

Good read and good input by others as well. I have been shooting mashed tater sacks for years of various sizes and shapes. But of all of the larger game, the ones with the antlers and white tails on them are the ones I have shot the most. I have had lots of success with various bullets from 50 cal flintlock to 44mag to high vel rifle like the 270 & 308 in the OP's analysis. I have shot them perfect broadside shoulder shots, neck shots, head on chest shots and rearend ass shots. All of them dropped. Some faster than others. But I have also had a few spectacular failures. Large, slow slugs are less forgiving in my opinion than the faster high energy bullets. Their ballistics are not as flat and they simply drill large bore hole thru the tgt most of the time. Without a well placed shot, you will wound the tater sack and it will run away forcing a long tracking session. Or miss it altogether. Large, slow bullets work fine with a good shot but you have to hit the tgt and thus are not well suited for 400y shots. I used to hunt deer shaped tater sacks with a 308 and always loaded 165g Nosler ballistic tips for this job. They never failed. Be patient enough for a good broadside shoulder shot and they did not tear up too much of the taters either. One year, I used a factory load that had this fancy smancy "X" bullet thing. It failed to expand at all and drilled a 30cal hole in a large sack of taters with a large rack. I had to shoot that thing 5 times to finish it. Not good. These days I am using a 270 and for deer have stuck with the ballistic tips but any well designed expanding bullet will work for these light skinned sacks of taters.

If I was going to hunt Grizz, I would be more likely to use a partition or other less frangible option to insure deep penetration from any angle and I would plan on shooting it more than once from the git go. I once shot a large wild boar from 5ft with a 30cal Nosler ballistic tip. It was a perfect shoulder shot and the slug penetrated into the vitals and wrecked both lungs and heart and exited the opposite shoulder. The hog never flinched and ran nearly 30yds before it realized that it was DRT. I was glad it ran in the other direction at the time. That same day a friend shot a larger boar with a 230g 45acp from about the same distance with a similar shoulder shot. The bullet expanded and bored a hole thru the vitals and into the opposite shoulder where it lodged. The boar dropped in its tracks. The 45acp did its job in a totally different manner than my 308 but both were equally effective. In fact in some ways the bigger, slower bullet was more effective in those close range circumstances where the less accurate nature of the big slow option was not a handicap.

Moral of that story is, choose the bullet, and gun to suit your chosen target and expected shooting conditions and know it well enough to ensure a well placed shot every time and you are highly likely to meet with success most if not all of the time. If you are shooting large, slow moving targets at 5 feet and need them to drop right there, then perhaps a large, slow bullet is a good choice. If you are shooting prairie dog sized sacks of taters at 600 meters and want them to violently explode like party poppers, you will need a rifle that holds 1/4moa consistently and a decent optic and a high velocity load topped with a frangible bullet such as the Hornady Vmax or Nosler BT or other similar hollow pt or vudoo tipped options. If you use this same ammo on a large up close menacing sack of taters you may only piss it off and leave a baseball sized hole in the front surface. These are two extremes of the spectrum. If you don't know what is coming around the next bend or how large or close it may be, then a mid range option that is big and heavy enough and fast and flat enough and accurate enough is going to be your likely go-to. I know my choice. What is yours?

Irish

 

[DrBoz]

[I have been at the PC for 5 hours writing this article. I MUST get away from the computer. i will edit for grammer etc. later. -TM ]

Killin Science and bullet selection for the layman.
A fun but educational look at terminal ballistic science.
by “TresMon”( ‘net name) Tres Monceret

[I received the following question in e-mail and it turn it sparked an article.Around here “articles happen.”]

“”Out of curiosity, how can a game warden tell if a deer was shot with a muzzleloader or a rifle?””


Well besides the obvious anybody would know- the entry wound size & shape- it's forensics. A low velocity big bullet is more of a mauler internally; it's just kind brute force mashing its way through the meat. A high velocity rifle bullet kills more actually by hydraulics than hemorrhage (blood loss/circulatory damage.) Most modern hunter knows that "energy kills" that is energy is the biggest baddest killer. They just don't know how to explain it.

All animals are mostly water. So think of this. Imagine hanging a water proof full sized punching bag up outside thats full of 3 day old mash taters. You know the ones that have increased their Viscosity some. Now shoot a scalpel through it.

What did we observe? The bag did not move/swing much. It was not a dramatic looking event. We have a hole through both sides of our bag that is leaking pretty fast. And if we were to dissect the bag and Mash Taters we would see merely slits through the wound "CHANNEL". But the "hole" or wound channel is tight. Meaning from the elasticity of the M.Taters "meat" the channel drew back up on itself, not 100% but mostly.

There's your broad head,spear & Atlatl killed deer. (Yes spearing is STILL legal and actually STILL done in a few states. A few of my hard core wilderness survival friends do it.) This is death by hemorrhage alone, or bleeding out, internally & a little externally. Sure the deer experienced some energy, but no more than a major league batter getting beamed in the shoulder by a fast pitch. Not enough to kill or long term injure.

So now let's move to big bore pistols & muzzle loaders. So we shoot our hanging tater bag with a .357mag, .41 magnum .44 Magnum Etc. or a Front Stuffer.

Now we have energy doing some amount more of the killing than hemorrhage. And we have not just a wound channel now but also wound cavity. What did we observe? The front of the bag was displaced or caved in a good bit from the energy. The whole bag is swinging some back and forth. We have a small hole all the way through our bag that did not seal back up. This is our wound channel. But the front side of the hole or entry side is where our channel is larger than bullet diameter and it slowly tapers down as we move deeper through the channel. This is the PERMANENT wound cavity. To explain Temporary & Permanent wound channel I need to explain the hydraulic effect of a bullet.

The hydraulic effect of a bullet hitting the watery meat and core of a animal: Newton's law says "reckin for every tough lick thar's a equal & opposite nuther tough lick." So we observed in our Front Stuffer shot on the bag the surface of the bag was displaced. Thats energy from the bullet being dispersed into our target. So lets say we were shooting a .451" 45 cal. slug. If we shot a basically 1/2" piece of metal at the tater sack how come the displacement on the surface was so much larger in diameter than the slug? Energy!

Energy does amazing things. Enter the temporary wound cavity. When a moderate to very high energy round enters our taters (meat/flesh) the energy damages and destroys tissue far larger than the bullet diameter. Initially energy from the bullet "blows" a quite large cavity or space in the tissue. But it does not stay this size of a space. The immediate size of the empty space or cavity is called the Temporary cavity. From the amazing engineering God designed into flesh- due to the elasticity of the flesh it will attempt to shrink back down and come back together. So this big hole or cavity we blew into the near side of our tater sack will immediately begin to shrink. And again we learned this is temporary cavity. But we transferred such a large amount of energy into the flesh that we destroyed much of it. Due to this though it will shrink back down a good bit, it will not shrink all the way back down to the actual bullet diameter hole the bullet drilled into the meat. This is called the PERMANENT wound cavity. Here's a pretty good example of a temporary, permanent wound cavity and wound channel: [I'm referring to wound "channel" as the small bullet diameter hole that goes beyond the cavities.]

So why does the permanent cavity exist far larger than the actual diameter of the bullet that created it? Why does the Temp. Cavity not shrink all the way to the physical bullet diameter that passed through? Well we already said because the immediate tissue was destroyed but lets take a closer look. We'll recap for a second.

We shot a scalpel through our 100 lb. Mashed Tater filled punching bag. We ended up with a snug little leaking hole. This will kill the tater bag, but slower and it certainly will not be dramatic.

We shot our bag with a front stuffer. Cool. For a split second we caved in the front of the bag. The whole bag is swinging. More Cool. Now we got a little bitty "junior sized" foot ball shaped hole in the near side of the bag/taters and a 1/2" hole all the way through. Way cool.

Now let's shoot our tater bag deer simulator with an American favorite: the .270 Winchester. If we could see the hit in slow motion we would see the waves of energy rippling the surface of the bag. It literally look's like the concentric rings coming from a stone dropped in still water. We significantly displaced the surface of our tater sack. It's swinging pretty good overall. We go examine and see we have a full sized+ football shape "wound cavity" in the near side of tater sack and a bullet diameter hole the rest of the way through.

[cavity dimensions and "football size" references are not literal, nor dimensionally accurate nor have I ever shot “mashed taters.” They are merely used to illustrate to the readers mind familiar mediums and sizing/shapes, while conveying whats happening on/in target accurately overall. It's hard to draw a series of pictures in a readers mind, but in doing so with these familiar shapes/references I feel I have transferred the actual science and ongoings to the reader accurately.]

So what is happening in that instant the bullet transfers energy into the medium? That's the hydraulics we were talking about. Essentially a violent water column radiating out from the bullet entry point.

From scalpel to bullet "energy wand":
So the scalpel made no real cavities at all. Our high velocity rifle round made a serious temporary and permanent wound cavity. So let me illustrate what this hydraulic water column does. Back to our hanging 100lb. mashed tater filled punching bag. This time we hang our tater sack in the bay of the high pressure car wash. We again are armed with our .270 Win but let's dump out our taters and fill our bag with well cooked green peas. These green peas represent cells. The individual cells tissue is made of. When we introduce energy into tissue from a blow the water contained goes the equal & opposite direction, vilonetly! Think of if we dropped $1.50 into the slot to activate the high pressure sprayer of the car wash. We stick the wand down into the peas and pull the trigger. What happens? The water pressure basically makes the immediate peas seemingly vanish, the closest mangle and the furthest effected by the water burst and leak.

Thats a good verbal picture of what is happening to tissue when massive amounts of energy are transferred from a bullet to flesh due to hydraulic energy forces, and it's quite understandable that as amazing as bodies are- some tissue, i.e. the permanent wound cavity does not recover.

So thus is the ways we actually kill targets. So what do we do wit this information? We wish we our military could shoot terrorists with expanding hunting type bullets! We can use our new found knowledge of energy transfer from bullets to mash taters to better select the weight and style of bullet we shoot. Bullet selection all depends the on the average size, weight and range of the mash tater sack we are hunting.

You see there are three schools of thought with hunters. The first is the antiquated and Neanderthal thought: "make the biggest "hole" [wound CHANNEL] you can -all the way through the animal to produce maximum amount of (blood) leakage."

And the second sounds so clean, sterile & harmless on the printed page:

-Transfer all the energy.-

Sounds ho-hum,boring.(But it’s incredibly devastating & violent!!!)

The third school got high in the bathroom and don’t care. &#8232;They just like to hunt.

Think of this. A bullet moves because energy has been imparted to and into it. Once it leaves the bore pressure is relieved from the firing system and the bullet got what it gets and is now leaking energy slowly to the really low viscosity water we shoot through called air. If you ever have a conversation with a bullet it will refer to same as drag. If it runs out of energy it would stop forward motion in place, spent. (If there were no gravity.) There! You get it! Wait, you look uncertain. I'll give it to you: you want the bullet to stop. IN the target. Why? Transfer. Energy transfer. 100% wicked violent energy transfer. You see if your bullet regardless of caliber, diameter, weight or speed passes through the target and travels beyond, it did not give you it's all. Any energy the bullet had to travel beyond our tater sack was wasted, we could have dumped that left over energy into the mashed taters as well for even more/bigger car wash wand effect!!

So there it is- with a high velocity high energy round we want a complete energy dump into our wild free range 12 tined Tater Sac we so carefully stalked. Thats why there are so many bullets to choose from for a given caliber. Enter bullet (a.) design & (b.) weight...

Real world example. I know a well meaning green horn who was new to shooting, new to rifles and new to hunting. He went on a coyote sized furry predatorial tater sack hunt with a friend and was hooked. So he decides he needs a good rifle, camo and a few calls. Talking about his new love on the job a co-worker offered to sell him a like new ultra- light weight 300 Win Mag complete with scope, for a incredibly low price. "Because it will kick yur teeth out the guy said." So our young green horn figured 1. "He could take it" and two all that power would for sure blast a dog sized fur covered flea infested mange pocked Mashed Tater Sack into the next Siriometer or so. He took the rifle.

So Mr. G. Horn went and bought some 300WM ammo, on sale. Winchester 180 grain Power Point factory loads. A real world MOOSE load. (He did not do the math I'm sure, I'll do it for him: 3500 ft. lbs. of car wash wand effect at the muzzle.) Looking at the big shiney menacing ammo I'm sure Mr. Horn was sure it would blast the doggish creature for at least a siriometer!!

So after a while he calls me. “Man this thing really-REALLY kicks!” I chuckled having been there done that in my youth. I threaded his barrel and installed a nice muzzle break. He was really happy with the recoil reduction and off he went. Soon enough he made his first “I got one!” phone call to a buddy. But he was quick to tell me the critter just limped about 20 paces and died. No siriometer. I chuckled having been there and done that in my youth and explained bullet selection.

You see had if Mr. Horn had hand loaded him some little bitty 110 grain Sierra hollow points at a anemic (for the Win Mag with this bullet) 3200 fps, he would have opened up that critter like a book displaying it’s most every deep and inner thing, literally. True the little bullet would had a good bit less energy: 3200 lbs. But it would given Mr. G. Horn it’s all!
The little bullet would have disintegrated in the critter for a 100% energy dump, where as the Moose bullet that was actually used likely zipped right through with no “upset” commonly called expansion or mushrooming on behalf of the bullet in the 35 lb. target. After all that load was designed to hold together, burrow deep and energy dump in a dangerous big boned hardy built massive Tater Sac weighing upwards of 1700 pounds for the Alaskan-Yukon variety.

Speaking of bullet upset, their is fascinating engineering that goes into bullet design. You see that dumb piece of metal we call “bullet” has no intelligence nor on board computer but must juggle the depth-of-penetration/ energy dump act to perform it’s best. And to compound this complexity it must do it anywhere in an extreme velocity spread. If we shoot our massive moose tater sack and the bullet disintegrates on the shoulder muscle we have wounded him, he’ll run off and we may have lost him and wasted the meat & and if he succumbs to the wound the life. If it zips through him without hitting a vital organ we again have wounded him and likely lost and wasted him. Enter bullet engineering.
A bullet upsets and begins to expand. This ever increasing blunt frontal diameter increase increases the difficulty for the bullet to penetrate. This rate of expansion must be carefully controlled through inherent design to allow the bullet to expand slow enough so it can burrow 1. deep enough to get past the near side muscle and into the vital organs but 2. fast enough to not completely pass through the animal thereby wasting energy. That would be a feat of engineering if the bullet hit the mash tater sac at the same speed every time. But it’s always impacting at differing speeds. If we engage our 1700 pound marsh wading mashed tater sac at 220 yards the bullet will impact at far greater velocity than it will if fired from a long range hunter engaging our swamp tater at 1106 yards. Either way, the bullet must not under or over expand to penetrate sufficiently and energy dump. And amazingly they get It right most of the time!

In conclusion bigger is not always better in regards to quick, clean ethical kills wether the subject of discussion be “which cartridge” or “which bullet.”

Regards,
“TresMon”

<span style="font-size: 8pt"><span style="font-style: italic">This article took considerable time & effort. It is presented here for free. Enjoy! However if anyone feels motivated to express appreciation a donation can be sent to the paypal account [email protected].
Thanks!
Tres</span></span>

Good read.