Bullet failures

[RockyMtnMT]

"Energy dump" is not a real thing. It gets brought up regularly as a quality for hunting bullets. Energy for that matter is a very secondary figure when it comes to choosing bullets. Impact vel and what the bullet does on impact is what matters. If energy actually mattered then a bullet that came undone on impact and "dumped" all of it's energy without penetrating would not be an issue. Well, we know that it is an issue that none of us want to see. So the question is; What makes a bullet kill? Bullets kill by shutting down the cns of the animal targeted. In most instances this happens by making the animal bleed out causing the cns to shut down. Bullet cause bleeding by tearing a hole in vital organs that have a heavy supply of blood going to them. In comparison a broadhead on an arrow does the same but by cutting the vital tissue. Cuts bleed much faster than a tear. Thus, the efficiency of a sharp broadhead placed in the vital organs. The size of a permanent wound channel created by a bullet is a function of the shape of the projectile and the vel that it moves through the vital tissue. The bigger the permanent wound the faster it will leak blood, until the cns is shut down. Bullets do not have sensors in them that tell them at what point of penetration to deform, nor do they have a sensor in them to tell them to stop on the far side of an animal. All bullets lose vel as they pass through an animal due to the resistence. As the bullet slows it does less and less damage the slower it gets. So, a bullet that stops inside of an animal has done less and less damage to the vital tissue until it stops, where it no longer does any damage. There is no dispute for this. Now a bullet that maintains its pointed shape and loses very little vel as it passes through also does very little permanent wound damage. This is almost as bad as the bullet that "dumps all of its energy without penetration". With that said there are two wounding theories for bullets that are effective. The 1st is the bullet that achieves decent penetration and comes apart significantly creating a large initial wound that will bleed well. Hope here is that the impact vel was slow enough that the massive shedding of weight did not take place too soon and not to slow that it is unable to shed the weight. The second is a bullet that will rapidly deform into it's terminal form and penetrate through the animal with little loss of speed creating the longer wound channel. The sum of the square inches of permanent wound of the longer narrower wound channel vs the shorter wider wound channel is certainly up for debate. Both will kill by the blood loss. When odd angles are encountered I think the longer wound will give you better chance of success more quickly. The shape of the retained portion of the bullet after the deformation on impact becomes very important. The classic double caliber rounded mushroom that we all grew up thinking was the best actually is not. The rounded shape will part its way through the soft tissue letting it "stretch" elastically and come back to shape. This is a temporary wound that does not bleed well. A bullet that takes on a flat square frontal area on the retained shank will displace soft tissue perpendicular to the direction of travel and actually tear a larger hole than the bigger rounded shape. Also the larger round mushroom slows more rapidly reducing its ability to tear the soft tissue. To add to this, the shed weight of lead becomes, more or less a liquid and has little penetration value. The shed weight of a few petals from the nose of our bullet will maintain vel and also create their own permanent wound channels as they pass through vital tissue.

There is another aspect to bullets killing. It is what I call "shock" which is technically not accurate. It is the pressure that is created when the bullet suddenly deforms. This shock is what will cause the phenomenon where the impacted animal dies instantly even though the cns system was not actually impacted. Such as the spine or the brain. This is somewhat a luck of the draw impact. Animals have a varying blood pressure depending on where they are in the cycle of heart beat. If the impact and shock of shedding hits at the right moment of high blood pressure it can stroke the animal out instantly killing it. Often we see animals drop to the shot only to get back up a few seconds later only to travel some distance until they bleed out. This happens when the shock is sufficient enough to knock the animal out but they regain consciousness before enough time has passed for them to bleed out.

When we set out to make bullets our goal was to make a bullet that would consistently shed it's nose on impact and change from its ballistic form as quickly as possible into its terminal form and straight line penetrate fully ensuring a permanent wound all the way through the animal. We want that massive shock from the shed with the large initial wound and then the retained shank to then continue to create a permanent wound all the way through the animal keeping the vel necessary to tear the biggest hole possible. We reached that goal with high vel impacts as well as low vel impacts. It is the best of both worlds.

Energy dump does not exist. Bullets that pass through did not "waste" energy. With proper deformation they create greater wound channels. I hope this is helpful and makes sense.

 

[WildRose]

"Energy dump" is not a real thing. It gets brought up regularly as a quality for hunting bullets. Energy for that matter is a very secondary figure when it comes to choosing bullets. Impact vel and what the bullet does on impact is what matters. If energy actually mattered then a bullet that came undone on impact and "dumped" all of it's energy without penetrating would not be an issue. Well, we know that it is an issue that none of us want to see. So the question is; What makes a bullet kill? Bullets kill by shutting down the cns of the animal targeted. In most instances this happens by making the animal bleed out causing the cns to shut down. Bullet cause bleeding by tearing a hole in vital organs that have a heavy supply of blood going to them. In comparison a broadhead on an arrow does the same but by cutting the vital tissue. Cuts bleed much faster than a tear. Thus, the efficiency of a sharp broadhead placed in the vital organs. The size of a permanent wound channel created by a bullet is a function of the shape of the projectile and the vel that it moves through the vital tissue. The bigger the permanent wound the faster it will leak blood, until the cns is shut down. Bullets do not have sensors in them that tell them at what point of penetration to deform, nor do they have a sensor in them to tell them to stop on the far side of an animal. All bullets lose vel as they pass through an animal due to the resistence. As the bullet slows it does less and less damage the slower it gets. So, a bullet that stops inside of an animal has done less and less damage to the vital tissue until it stops, where it no longer does any damage. There is no dispute for this. Now a bullet that maintains its pointed shape and loses very little vel as it passes through also does very little permanent wound damage. This is almost as bad as the bullet that "dumps all of its energy without penetration". With that said there are two wounding theories for bullets that are effective. The 1st is the bullet that achieves decent penetration and comes apart significantly creating a large initial wound that will bleed well. Hope here is that the impact vel was slow enough that the massive shedding of weight did not take place too soon and not to slow that it is unable to shed the weight. The second is a bullet that will rapidly deform into it's terminal form and penetrate through the animal with little loss of speed creating the longer wound channel. The sum of the square inches of permanent wound of the longer narrower wound channel vs the shorter wider wound channel is certainly up for debate. Both will kill by the blood loss. When odd angles are encountered I think the longer wound will give you better chance of success more quickly. The shape of the retained portion of the bullet after the deformation on impact becomes very important. The classic double caliber rounded mushroom that we all grew up thinking was the best actually is not. The rounded shape will part its way through the soft tissue letting it "stretch" elastically and come back to shape. This is a temporary wound that does not bleed well. A bullet that takes on a flat square frontal area on the retained shank will displace soft tissue perpendicular to the direction of travel and actually tear a larger hole than the bigger rounded shape. Also the larger round mushroom slows more rapidly reducing its ability to tear the soft tissue. To add to this, the shed weight of lead becomes, more or less a liquid and has little penetration value. The shed weight of a few petals from the nose of our bullet will maintain vel and also create their own permanent wound channels as they pass through vital tissue.

There is another aspect to bullets killing. It is what I call "shock" which is technically not accurate. It is the pressure that is created when the bullet suddenly deforms. This shock is what will cause the phenomenon where the impacted animal dies instantly even though the cns system was not actually impacted. Such as the spine or the brain. This is somewhat a luck of the draw impact. Animals have a varying blood pressure depending on where they are in the cycle of heart beat. If the impact and shock of shedding hits at the right moment of high blood pressure it can stroke the animal out instantly killing it. Often we see animals drop to the shot only to get back up a few seconds later only to travel some distance until they bleed out. This happens when the shock is sufficient enough to knock the animal out but they regain consciousness before enough time has passed for them to bleed out.

When we set out to make bullets our goal was to make a bullet that would consistently shed it's nose on impact and change from its ballistic form as quickly as possible into its terminal form and straight line penetrate fully ensuring a permanent wound all the way through the animal. We want that massive shock from the shed with the large initial wound and then the retained shank to then continue to create a permanent wound all the way through the animal keeping the vel necessary to tear the biggest hole possible. We reached that goal with high vel impacts as well as low vel impacts. It is the best of both worlds.

Energy dump does not exist. Bullets that pass through did not "waste" energy. With proper deformation they create greater wound channels. I hope this is helpful and makes sense.

Steve you're saying a lot of things that make a lot of sense there but you might want to go back and break that first paragraph up a little, it's really hard to follow without some breaks at least for my aging eyes.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Lol. It's not easy to try and collect the thoughts with proper grammar. For that I apologize.

 

[Teri Anne]

"Energy dump" is not a real thing. It gets brought up regularly as a quality for hunting bullets. Energy for that matter is a very secondary figure when it comes to choosing bullets. Impact vel and what the bullet does on impact is what matters. If energy actually mattered then a bullet that came undone on impact and "dumped" all of it's energy without penetrating would not be an issue. Well, we know that it is an issue that none of us want to see. So the question is; What makes a bullet kill? Bullets kill by shutting down the cns of the animal targeted. In most instances this happens by making the animal bleed out causing the cns to shut down. Bullet cause bleeding by tearing a hole in vital organs that have a heavy supply of blood going to them. In comparison a broadhead on an arrow does the same but by cutting the vital tissue. Cuts bleed much faster than a tear. Thus, the efficiency of a sharp broadhead placed in the vital organs. The size of a permanent wound channel created by a bullet is a function of the shape of the projectile and the vel that it moves through the vital tissue. The bigger the permanent wound the faster it will leak blood, until the cns is shut down. Bullets do not have sensors in them that tell them at what point of penetration to deform, nor do they have a sensor in them to tell them to stop on the far side of an animal. All bullets lose vel as they pass through an animal due to the resistence. As the bullet slows it does less and less damage the slower it gets. So, a bullet that stops inside of an animal has done less and less damage to the vital tissue until it stops, where it no longer does any damage. There is no dispute for this. Now a bullet that maintains its pointed shape and loses very little vel as it passes through also does very little permanent wound damage. This is almost as bad as the bullet that "dumps all of its energy without penetration". With that said there are two wounding theories for bullets that are effective. The 1st is the bullet that achieves decent penetration and comes apart significantly creating a large initial wound that will bleed well. Hope here is that the impact vel was slow enough that the massive shedding of weight did not take place too soon and not to slow that it is unable to shed the weight. The second is a bullet that will rapidly deform into it's terminal form and penetrate through the animal with little loss of speed creating the longer wound channel. The sum of the square inches of permanent wound of the longer narrower wound channel vs the shorter wider wound channel is certainly up for debate. Both will kill by the blood loss. When odd angles are encountered I think the longer wound will give you better chance of success more quickly. The shape of the retained portion of the bullet after the deformation on impact becomes very important. The classic double caliber rounded mushroom that we all grew up thinking was the best actually is not. The rounded shape will part its way through the soft tissue letting it "stretch" elastically and come back to shape. This is a temporary wound that does not bleed well. A bullet that takes on a flat square frontal area on the retained shank will displace soft tissue perpendicular to the direction of travel and actually tear a larger hole than the bigger rounded shape. Also the larger round mushroom slows more rapidly reducing its ability to tear the soft tissue. To add to this, the shed weight of lead becomes, more or less a liquid and has little penetration value. The shed weight of a few petals from the nose of our bullet will maintain vel and also create their own permanent wound channels as they pass through vital tissue.

There is another aspect to bullets killing. It is what I call "shock" which is technically not accurate. It is the pressure that is created when the bullet suddenly deforms. This shock is what will cause the phenomenon where the impacted animal dies instantly even though the cns system was not actually impacted. Such as the spine or the brain. This is somewhat a luck of the draw impact. Animals have a varying blood pressure depending on where they are in the cycle of heart beat. If the impact and shock of shedding hits at the right moment of high blood pressure it can stroke the animal out instantly killing it. Often we see animals drop to the shot only to get back up a few seconds later only to travel some distance until they bleed out. This happens when the shock is sufficient enough to knock the animal out but they regain consciousness before enough time has passed for them to bleed out.

When we set out to make bullets our goal was to make a bullet that would consistently shed it's nose on impact and change from its ballistic form as quickly as possible into its terminal form and straight line penetrate fully ensuring a permanent wound all the way through the animal. We want that massive shock from the shed with the large initial wound and then the retained shank to then continue to create a permanent wound all the way through the animal keeping the vel necessary to tear the biggest hole possible. We reached that goal with high vel impacts as well as low vel impacts. It is the best of both worlds.

Energy dump does not exist. Bullets that pass through did not "waste" energy. With proper deformation they create greater wound channels. I hope this is helpful and makes sense.

Rocky, while I do not question your expertise on the design of bullets I do question your theory on how they kill. No doubt that damage to the internal organs, primarily the heart and lungs will shut down everything as the animal bleeds out. That is simple. Blowing a hole out the other side only to allow for blood flow to track the animal means that the shot one took did not immediately kill it, missing it's mark and letting the animal run terrified until it does eventually bleed out. I don't use Hammer Bullets. Actually never heard of them until I started reading and posting here. Listening to the accolades here one would think that there is no other bullet than Hammers. This is not the case. I have been deer hunting for some 52 years and at last count have been the cause of the demise of some 78 deer, both bucks and does. (One of the advantages of living in Wisconsin, a lot of deer and deer tags) My bullets of choice are Nosler Partitions or Sierra GameKing in either 130 gr in my 270 or 165 gr in both the .308 and 30-06. (I don't hunt deer with the 300WM.) Probably 85% or more of those deer fell to the Model 70 in .308 with the 165 gr Partitions leaving the muzzle around 2500 FPS and 90% or more dropped in place at 200 yards or less, the others maybe moving 25 to 50 feet. Very few of those bullets went through, mostly those shot at 50 yards or less. The point here is that there is much to be said about a bullet dissipating its energy, causing the elastic wound channel to balloon out then snap back while all of that energy of the bullet moving at supersonic speed then stopping abruptly causes massive shock to the central nervous system which shuts down all bodily functions. (Think about you driving your car at 70 MPH then hitting a bridge abutment that does not give immediately. You come to a stop in very few feet. Keep in mind that 2400 fps equals 1636 MPH. Imagine going almost Mach 2 and stopping in 18 inches. Think that might just be a bit of shock to your system?) This in turn causes the animal to drop in place or only move a few feet. The only time this didn't happen was when my Boyfriend (Now Ex) convinced me that an AR shooting a 62 grain bullet was the answer to a deer hunters prayers. I tried it. The deer ran some 100 yards across my hunting field then halfway up to the ridge-line across from my stand. Yes it was dead, heart and lungs torn apart, but no exit hole simply because the little bullet tumbled once it entered the deer and tore things apart as it tumbled around without any semblance of the little bullet imparting anything but ripping and tearing the insides of the animal and causing it to bleed to death internally. Never made that mistake again.

We can and most likely will continue to debate this topic for all eternity. Is there a final and definitive answer. Nope. It's kind of like, "Who is the best Quarterback of all time?" There have been great ones over the years, who is the best? I don't think that SHE has been born yet. Yes I said, SHE!" Think about it as you watch boys winning in girls athletic competitions.

 

[WildRose]

Lol. It's not easy to try and collect the thoughts with proper grammar. For that I apologize.

Hey man the grammar was great, extra paragraphs and spacing sure makes for a smoother read though. You said a lot worth reading there.

 

[WildRose]

Lol. It's not easy to try and collect the thoughts with proper grammar. For that I apologize.

With your permission.

Compare this:

"Energy dump" is not a real thing. It gets brought up regularly as a quality for hunting bullets. Energy for that matter is a very secondary figure when it comes to choosing bullets. Impact vel and what the bullet does on impact is what matters. If energy actually mattered then a bullet that came undone on impact and "dumped" all of it's energy without penetrating would not be an issue. Well, we know that it is an issue that none of us want to see. So the question is; What makes a bullet kill? Bullets kill by shutting down the cns of the animal targeted. In most instances this happens by making the animal bleed out causing the cns to shut down. Bullet cause bleeding by tearing a hole in vital organs that have a heavy supply of blood going to them. In comparison a broadhead on an arrow does the same but by cutting the vital tissue. Cuts bleed much faster than a tear. Thus, the efficiency of a sharp broadhead placed in the vital organs. The size of a permanent wound channel created by a bullet is a function of the shape of the projectile and the vel that it moves through the vital tissue. The bigger the permanent wound the faster it will leak blood, until the cns is shut down. Bullets do not have sensors in them that tell them at what point of penetration to deform, nor do they have a sensor in them to tell them to stop on the far side of an animal. All bullets lose vel as they pass through an animal due to the resistence. As the bullet slows it does less and less damage the slower it gets. So, a bullet that stops inside of an animal has done less and less damage to the vital tissue until it stops, where it no longer does any damage. There is no dispute for this. Now a bullet that maintains its pointed shape and loses very little vel as it passes through also does very little permanent wound damage. This is almost as bad as the bullet that "dumps all of its energy without penetration". With that said there are two wounding theories for bullets that are effective. The 1st is the bullet that achieves decent penetration and comes apart significantly creating a large initial wound that will bleed well. Hope here is that the impact vel was slow enough that the massive shedding of weight did not take place too soon and not to slow that it is unable to shed the weight. The second is a bullet that will rapidly deform into it's terminal form and penetrate through the animal with little loss of speed creating the longer wound channel. The sum of the square inches of permanent wound of the longer narrower wound channel vs the shorter wider wound channel is certainly up for debate. Both will kill by the blood loss. When odd angles are encountered I think the longer wound will give you better chance of success more quickly. The shape of the retained portion of the bullet after the deformation on impact becomes very important. The classic double caliber rounded mushroom that we all grew up thinking was the best actually is not. The rounded shape will part its way through the soft tissue letting it "stretch" elastically and come back to shape. This is a temporary wound that does not bleed well. A bullet that takes on a flat square frontal area on the retained shank will displace soft tissue perpendicular to the direction of travel and actually tear a larger hole than the bigger rounded shape. Also the larger round mushroom slows more rapidly reducing its ability to tear the soft tissue. To add to this, the shed weight of lead becomes, more or less a liquid and has little penetration value. The shed weight of a few petals from the nose of our bullet will maintain vel and also create their own permanent wound channels as they pass through vital tissue.

To this:

"Energy dump" is not a real thing. It gets brought up regularly as a quality for hunting bullets. Energy for that matter is a very secondary figure when it comes to choosing bullets. Impact vel and what the bullet does on impact is what matters. If energy actually mattered then a bullet that came undone on impact and "dumped" all of it's energy without penetrating would not be an issue. Well, we know that it is an issue that none of us want to see. So the question is; What makes a bullet kill?

Bullets kill by shutting down the cns of the animal targeted. In most instances this happens by making the animal bleed out causing the cns to shut down. Bullet cause bleeding by tearing a hole in vital organs that have a heavy supply of blood going to them. In comparison a broadhead on an arrow does the same but by cutting the vital tissue. Cuts bleed much faster than a tear. Thus, the efficiency of a sharp broadhead placed in the vital organs. The size of a permanent wound channel created by a bullet is a function of the shape of the projectile and the vel that it moves through the vital tissue. The bigger the permanent wound the faster it will leak blood, until the cns is shut down.

Bullets do not have sensors in them that tell them at what point of penetration to deform, nor do they have a sensor in them to tell them to stop on the far side of an animal. All bullets lose vel as they pass through an animal due to the resistence. As the bullet slows it does less and less damage the slower it gets. So, a bullet that stops inside of an animal has done less and less damage to the vital tissue until it stops, where it no longer does any damage. There is no dispute for this. Now a bullet that maintains its pointed shape and loses very little vel as it passes through also does very little permanent wound damage.

This is almost as bad as the bullet that "dumps all of its energy without penetration". With that said there are two wounding theories for bullets that are effective. The 1st is the bullet that achieves decent penetration and comes apart significantly creating a large initial wound that will bleed well. Hope here is that the impact vel was slow enough that the massive shedding of weight did not take place too soon and not to slow that it is unable to shed the weight. The second is a bullet that will rapidly deform into it's terminal form and penetrate through the animal with little loss of speed creating the longer wound channel. The sum of the square inches of permanent wound of the longer narrower wound channel vs the shorter wider wound channel is certainly up for debate. Both will kill by the blood loss.

When odd angles are encountered I think the longer wound will give you better chance of success more quickly. The shape of the retained portion of the bullet after the deformation on impact becomes very important. The classic double caliber rounded mushroom that we all grew up thinking was the best actually is not. The rounded shape will part its way through the soft tissue letting it "stretch" elastically and come back to shape. This is a temporary wound that does not bleed well. A bullet that takes on a flat square frontal area on the retained shank will displace soft tissue perpendicular to the direction of travel and actually tear a larger hole than the bigger rounded shape.

Also the larger round mushroom slows more rapidly reducing its ability to tear the soft tissue. To add to this, the shed weight of lead becomes, more or less a liquid and has little penetration value. The shed weight of a few petals from the nose of our bullet will maintain vel and also create their own permanent wound channels as they pass through vital tissue.

No picking on you, I actually used to get paid pretty well to write professionally and had to be sure I made my articles palatable and easily digestible for the consumer.

Hope you don't mind the "edit" but it's just a suggestion.

 

[WildRose]

Rocky, while I do not question your expertise on the design of bullets I do question your theory on how they kill. No doubt that damage to the internal organs, primarily the heart and lungs will shut down everything as the animal bleeds out. That is simple. Blowing a hole out the other side only to allow for blood flow to track the animal means that the shot one took did not immediately kill it, missing it's mark and letting the animal run terrified until it does eventually bleed out. I don't use Hammer Bullets. Actually never heard of them until I started reading and posting here. Listening to the accolades here one would think that there is no other bullet than Hammers. This is not the case. I have been deer hunting for some 52 years and at last count have been the cause of the demise of some 78 deer, both bucks and does. (One of the advantages of living in Wisconsin, a lot of deer and deer tags) My bullets of choice are Nosler Partitions or Sierra GameKing in either 130 gr in my 270 or 165 gr in both the .308 and 30-06. (I don't hunt deer with the 300WM.) Probably 85% or more of those deer fell to the Model 70 in .308 with the 165 gr Partitions leaving the muzzle around 2500 FPS and 90% or more dropped in place at 200 yards or less, the others maybe moving 25 to 50 feet. Very few of those bullets went through, mostly those shot at 50 yards or less. The point here is that there is much to be said about a bullet dissipating its energy, causing the elastic wound channel to balloon out then snap back while all of that energy of the bullet moving at supersonic speed then stopping abruptly causes massive shock to the central nervous system which shuts down all bodily functions. (Think about you driving your car at 70 MPH then hitting a bridge abutment that does not give immediately. You come to a stop in very few feet. Keep in mind that 2400 fps equals 1636 MPH. Imagine going almost Mach 2 and stopping in 18 inches. Think that might just be a bit of shock to your system?) This in turn causes the animal to drop in place or only move a few feet. The only time this didn't happen was when my Boyfriend (Now Ex) convinced me that an AR shooting a 62 grain bullet was the answer to a deer hunters prayers. I tried it. The deer ran some 100 yards across my hunting field then halfway up to the ridge-line across from my stand. Yes it was dead, heart and lungs torn apart, but no exit hole simply because the little bullet tumbled once it entered the deer and tore things apart as it tumbled around without any semblance of the little bullet imparting anything but ripping and tearing the insides of the animal and causing it to bleed to death internally. Never made that mistake again.

We can and most likely will continue to debate this topic for all eternity. Is there a final and definitive answer. Nope. It's kind of like, "Who is the best Quarterback of all time?" There have been great ones over the years, who is the best? I don't think that SHE has been born yet. Yes I said, SHE!" Think about it as you watch boys winning in girls athletic competitions.

She's got a million years of natural selection and genetic to overcome to get there. I somehow doubt we'll see that in our lifetimes, or that of our great grandkids without some hormonal or genetic enhancement.

Women tend to have more power and greater stability from the waist down but lack the upper body strength and proportional limb length to be competitive against males in those types of sports.

Soccer, well, that's a different equation.

 

[Hard rock]

Lol. It's not easy to try and collect the thoughts with proper grammar. For that I apologize.

Don't fill bad I'm more guilty of that than anyone on this forum. You just described what I thought I knew too the T , just have a hard time articulating it . I know you really have passion for what you do ,too take the time too explain your product . Thanks and keep making bullets even better if that's possible.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Rocky, while I do not question your expertise on the design of bullets I do question your theory on how they kill. No doubt that damage to the internal organs, primarily the heart and lungs will shut down everything as the animal bleeds out. That is simple. Blowing a hole out the other side only to allow for blood flow to track the animal means that the shot one took did not immediately kill it, missing it's mark and letting the animal run terrified until it does eventually bleed out. I don't use Hammer Bullets. Actually never heard of them until I started reading and posting here. Listening to the accolades here one would think that there is no other bullet than Hammers. This is not the case. I have been deer hunting for some 52 years and at last count have been the cause of the demise of some 78 deer, both bucks and does. (One of the advantages of living in Wisconsin, a lot of deer and deer tags) My bullets of choice are Nosler Partitions or Sierra GameKing in either 130 gr in my 270 or 165 gr in both the .308 and 30-06. (I don't hunt deer with the 300WM.) Probably 85% or more of those deer fell to the Model 70 in .308 with the 165 gr Partitions leaving the muzzle around 2500 FPS and 90% or more dropped in place at 200 yards or less, the others maybe moving 25 to 50 feet. Very few of those bullets went through, mostly those shot at 50 yards or less. The point here is that there is much to be said about a bullet dissipating its energy, causing the elastic wound channel to balloon out then snap back while all of that energy of the bullet moving at supersonic speed then stopping abruptly causes massive shock to the central nervous system which shuts down all bodily functions. (Think about you driving your car at 70 MPH then hitting a bridge abutment that does not give immediately. You come to a stop in very few feet. Keep in mind that 2400 fps equals 1636 MPH. Imagine going almost Mach 2 and stopping in 18 inches. Think that might just be a bit of shock to your system?) This in turn causes the animal to drop in place or only move a few feet. The only time this didn't happen was when my Boyfriend (Now Ex) convinced me that an AR shooting a 62 grain bullet was the answer to a deer hunters prayers. I tried it. The deer ran some 100 yards across my hunting field then halfway up to the ridge-line across from my stand. Yes it was dead, heart and lungs torn apart, but no exit hole simply because the little bullet tumbled once it entered the deer and tore things apart as it tumbled around without any semblance of the little bullet imparting anything but ripping and tearing the insides of the animal and causing it to bleed to death internally. Never made that mistake again.

We can and most likely will continue to debate this topic for all eternity. Is there a final and definitive answer. Nope. It's kind of like, "Who is the best Quarterback of all time?" There have been great ones over the years, who is the best? I don't think that SHE has been born yet. Yes I said, SHE!" Think about it as you watch boys winning in girls athletic competitions.

Problem is most of what you said is simply not true. Don't take my word for it. There is a physics research paper on the subject that proves pretty much every point you made to be false. Here is the link. http://www.rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/ballistics/wounding.html

I am not trying to call you out personally. I used to think the same things that you do. Those theories were handed down from generations without root in physics. There is no denying your success on game. How it happened though is not what you think. It is a tall order to read a physics paper. It is ok if you don't. If you, or anyone else, are truly interested in how it works, it is very worth the difficult read.

 

[cornshank]

I frequently use some pretty soft, traditional bullets when I set up on a trail know the elk will be herded up passing my ambush point. Obviously over penetration is the concern with an unseen cow or calf behind the target animal. In all cases the Game King or Ballistic Tip is a wreck. Generally only find the base of the jackets cup. But both lungs are also a wreck, and the elk falls within 20-30 yards. Put the pill where it belongs after launching it at a velocity within it's performance envelope, at an ethical range. It'll do it's duty.

Nice, bullet performance.

 

[WildRose]

Problem is most of what you said is simply not true. Don't take my word for it. There is a physics research paper on the subject that proves pretty much every point you made to be false. Here is the link. http://www.rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/ballistics/wounding.html

I am not trying to call you out personally. I used to think the same things that you do. Those theories were handed down from generations without root in physics. There is no denying your success on game. How it happened though is not what you think. It is a tall order to read a physics paper. It is ok if you don't. If you, or anyone else, are truly interested in how it works, it is very worth the difficult read.

Not to start all that again but there's a hole in Rathcombe's theories. Velocity.

Today we're working with much greater velocities than the rounds he was testing and the permanent damage done due to hydrostatic shock is very real.

You're getting the best of both worlds in a way with individual petals shedding and making separate wound tracks and a large shockwave head of the blunted remainder of the bullet that is still traveling at a very high velocity because the petals shed so easily.

 

[FEENIX]

@adam32+P, I warned you. LOL!

 

[venatic]

I will let y'all decide.
My elk rifle is a 20 inch barreled 1/10.5 twist 300WSM and this season My load was 152gr Hammer Hunters running 3125fps with H4350.
ELK #1 Cow Broadside 345 yds hit behind shoulder saw dust fly as bullet passed thru. About dime sized in and out with nice blood spray at point where elk stood. No blood at all until elk fell about 35 yds away then lots of blood. Lungs had some damage not shredded though.
ELK#2 Nice Bull uphill 320 yds sharp quartering away but looking back at me. Getting late last day of hunt. Laying across rocks on bipod put crosshairs on shoulder shoot partner watching seeing trace calls good shot elk slowly walks away. No blood nothing found that night or next morning looking for hours.
Came back a week later found Bull about 900 yds away thanks to coyotes. I assume it was bad shot too far back but not enough left of elk to determine exactly.
The next two are why I am bothering to type this as they kinda freaked me out.
ELK#3 Slipping along Bull walks out broadside at 75/80 yds I drop to sitting position put the crosshairs on shoulder shoot loud smack elk drops struggles to get up then rolls over and quit moving. I sit for a few seconds then pull my glass to look down the mountain to see where my partner was and when I look back elk is going in timber and next time I see him he is going over high ridge at about 800 yds away.
Very slight blood trail for about 1000 or so yards never found elk.

Elk#4 See 5x6 elk coming for over a mile away public land in Colorado. I move into position so I can intercept before he gets my wind. I coyote howl to get him to stop at 40 yds but wouldn't you know it he turns towards me right behind a fence post so I can't shoot the neck shoulder junction so I lean as far as I can and shoot him behind the shoulder with him quartering to me. He drops in his tracks BUT as I stand up he jumps up and hauls it across the sage brush and I make a running shot that makes him skid on his nose which was quite the sight. But then he raises up and started trying to get his feet under him but he was broken down. I moved around until I could get a good angle into his lungs crossways up thru his body and shoot again.He rolls over and lays there breathing for what seemed like forever. I finally ease around to the other side so I could see his eyes and he raises up and looks at me.... what the heck. I walk right up to him and put one low right behind the shoulder and finally his dies.

Not really sure what to think honestly because of all the circumstances involved. Been debating over even putting this on the forum but I figured I would get some feedback...

 

[WildRose]

I will let y'all decide.
My elk rifle is a 20 inch barreled 1/10.5 twist 300WSM and this season My load was 152gr Hammer Hunters running 3125fps with H4350.
ELK #1 Cow Broadside 345 yds hit behind shoulder saw dust fly as bullet passed thru. About dime sized in and out with nice blood spray at point where elk stood. No blood at all until elk fell about 35 yds away then lots of blood. Lungs had some damage not shredded though.
ELK#2 Nice Bull uphill 320 yds sharp quartering away but looking back at me. Getting late last day of hunt. Laying across rocks on bipod put crosshairs on shoulder shoot partner watching seeing trace calls good shot elk slowly walks away. No blood nothing found that night or next morning looking for hours.
Came back a week later found Bull about 900 yds away thanks to coyotes. I assume it was bad shot too far back but not enough left of elk to determine exactly.
The next two are why I am bothering to type this as they kinda freaked me out.
ELK#3 Slipping along Bull walks out broadside at 75/80 yds I drop to sitting position put the crosshairs on shoulder shoot loud smack elk drops struggles to get up then rolls over and quit moving. I sit for a few seconds then pull my glass to look down the mountain to see where my partner was and when I look back elk is going in timber and next time I see him he is going over high ridge at about 800 yds away.
Very slight blood trail for about 1000 or so yards never found elk.

Elk#4 See 5x6 elk coming for over a mile away public land in Colorado. I move into position so I can intercept before he gets my wind. I coyote howl to get him to stop at 40 yds but wouldn't you know it he turns towards me right behind a fence post so I can't shoot the neck shoulder junction so I lean as far as I can and shoot him behind the shoulder with him quartering to me. He drops in his tracks BUT as I stand up he jumps up and hauls it across the sage brush and I make a running shot that makes him skid on his nose which was quite the sight. But then he raises up and started trying to get his feet under him but he was broken down. I moved around until I could get a good angle into his lungs crossways up thru his body and shoot again.He rolls over and lays there breathing for what seemed like forever. I finally ease around to the other side so I could see his eyes and he raises up and looks at me.... what the heck. I walk right up to him and put one low right behind the shoulder and finally his dies.

Not really sure what to think honestly because of all the circumstances involved. Been debating over even putting this on the forum but I figured I would get some feedback...

In all honesty I'd say in those cases the problem was the shot placement with respect to the bullet used. This is why I do not take lung shots at all personally.

Yes, I may waste a whole pound maybe even pound and a half putting one through the shoulders and spine but nothing gets up and runs off with that shot. It also helps maximize your room for errors.

Same with the heart shot. They may run a few hundred yards but no matter what other conditions exist when the BP hits zero you're seconds away from cells burning off their remaining oxygen.

If I were going to shoot lung shots I'd use something frangible like the Berger, NBT, Hornady SST or Amax so I could guarantee maximum damage and hopefully a big exit as well.