Is Bullet Expansion Necessary for Effecive Killing of Game

[Varminator 911]

I'll take another stab at this. If you are shooting small caliber pointed bullets, then you will need expansion to kill well. But by and large I don't think expansion is as deadly as some might think. If you can kill one of the toughest animals on earth, the cape buffalo, with a 375 flat nose, non expanding solid, then maybe expansion isn't all that critical.

Maybe expansion is mainly needed to compensate for inadequate bullet diameter and/or penetration. I've always been impressed with how well a properly delivered broadhead can kill. No expansion there.

But just to make myself clear, with 338 or smaller pointed bullets, maybe all pointed bullets, they better expand.

 

[bigngreen]

Another way to kill an animal is to put a sufficient enough hole through there chest as to not allow the lungs to function. The chest has to be reasonably sealed to keep the lungs from collapsing, this doesn't involve blood loss and could be done with a bullet that does not expand but it would have to be of sufficient size to make a permanent hole and have enough momentum to make two holes.

Looking back in time at what the buffalo hunters used may help use some, as the buffalo hunter extended there ranges they shot larger diameter heavier bullets. These bullets will mushroom sometimes but not very often so your left with making large holes and momentum.
A side note the buffalo hunter wanted one shot kills, missing or wounding was not an option, I forget the exact dollar amount but it boils down to, after paying the skinners and paying for the ammo shot per buff one miss puts them at the break even point on that buff, if it took three shots to get one hide they owed money!

 

[MontanaRifleman]

If I was carrying a handgun for bear protection it would have heavy, hard-cast, flat-nose bullets. So Fifty Driver made my point. Dangerous game solids are the same. Flat nose penetrates better than round or mushroomed bullets so maybe it is chosen for deep, straight penetration.

Also didn't the buffalo hunters of years past shoot non expanding bullets at some pretty long ranges. My impression is they were the original LR hunters

Varminator, that's all very true, but this discussion is geared toward the pointy high BC bullets that most of us use in LRH.

Thanks,

Mark

 

[Buffalobob]

This is the question you asked

Is Bullet Expansion Necessary for Effecive Killing of Game

Everytime some one gives an answer you don't like, you disqualify their answer.

but this discussion is geared toward the pointy high BC bullets that most of us use in LRH.

The truth is the truth and most of us know what it is.

I will just delete all of my posts and you can go along and only keep the ones that agree with you.

 

[Pdvdh]

This is the question you asked

Everytime some one gives an answer you don't like, you disqualify their answer.

The truth is the truth and most of us know what it is.

I will just delete all of my posts and you can go along and only keep the ones that agree with you.

Well that's the most refreshing post thus far. If nothing else, you're consistent.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

This is the question you asked

Everytime some one gives an answer you don't like, you disqualify their answer.

BB, It has nothing to do with whether or not I like it. What I would like to do is gear this discussion to LRH and in LRH we use high BC bullets. If you go back to the first page you'll see that Kirby made this post...

This DRAMATICALLY depends on the type of bullet being used. For a modern, pointed ogive bullet used in rifles, I say certainly for being most effective at "quickly" and "Cleanly" killing big game.

If your talking about a big bore chambering using bullets with wide flat nose designs, its not nearly as critical and in fact, expansion on this type of bullet can actually decrease effectiveness at quickly killing game.

Since we are chatting on LRH, I assume you are referring to the former with sharp ogive rifle bullet designs.

Caliber also has some role to play in this as well.

I followed with this post before Varminator made his post...

Good point Kirby (no pun intended ), I'm talking about pointy bullets.

Fair enough?

The truth is the truth and most of us know what it is.

I agree completely and I acknowledged what Varminator said as true but it doesn't apply to..."modern, pointed ogive bullet used in rifles"

I will just delete all of my posts and you can go along and only keep the ones that agree with you.

I hope not but that's your call.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

It's the permanent displacement of the soft tissues that the bullet kills with. The square front of the solid dangerous game bullet displaces soft tissue at perpendicular angles to the direction of travel, thus creating a larger permanent wound channel. Bullets that mushroom become larger in diameter to create a larger wound channel. The more round or pointed the front of the bullet the less perpendicular to the direction of bullet travel the soft tissue displacement is. Fragmentation will cause damage also, but will cause loss of momentum and penetration. So there is a give and a take for explosive expansion. FMJ bullets do make things dead. Once it is dead, I guess it was effective. Marginal hits with fmj's will likely cause death, but you may need to have your tracking hat.

JMHO,

Steve

 

[bigngreen]

I don't agree that bullets kill only because of the displacement of tissue thus causing blood loss through a wound channel. I have seen deer die very quickly with a shot that acted like a FMJ, when cleaning them out you can find hardly any damage to the lungs or heart but dead they are.
I know some will hate the idea of shooting deer with a 22lr but it may act as a scale model as to what happens at extreme long range with larger cals. Between my buddy and I we shot around 10-12 deer in high school the 22lr's, all shots were around 100yrs on whitetail does and small bucks. All shots went through both lungs and the bullets were under the hide with very little internal damage. At the shot all the deer jumped and kicked and maybe ran a few steps till they realized no one else was concerned then they stopped and looked around checking things out. Within a minute all deer had tipped over and were dead by the time we walked to them. We would only fire one shot as to not alarm the deer. I have also shot several MT lions this way, all fall out of the tree dead. None of these animals died because of bullet expantion or energy released by the bullet just holes through the lungs or heart. I would think that a 300gr SMK going through a deer at 1200fps at long range would be killing in the same way and the 22lr at 100yrds.
In no way am I saying that FMJ's or none expanding bullets are the cats meyow but there is at least some evidence that at long range they do kill with enough speed for at least me to be comfortable if I ever develop the skills to take such a shot.

 

[Shawn Carlock]

I believe that first and formost that penetration is required. I think everyone will agree that it does not matter what the bullet does if it does not reach vital organs. Once reaching said vital organs rapid expansion even fragmentation works the best to drop blood pressure. In a prefect world the bullet will penetrate expand rapidly and exit falling to the ground beside the animal expending as much energy and dammage as possible inside the animal. Tha would be cool. However, I have seen hits to a deer shoulder at less than 100 yards where the bullet did not penetrate the chest cavity because of to much rapid expansion. This same shot 3 inches back would have had dramatic results. The penetration / expansion ratio if you will is not consistant through out the bullets range. If you have a good low speed expanding bullet for long range "in the crease shooting" then you may not have enough penetration to hit a shoulder and reach the vitals. (I know some are already saying "Well I don't shoot them in the shoulder. I on the other hand have seen a long range shots windage screwed up 10X more than the elevation. We are only talking about the bullet having to drift 3 or 4 inches in the wind the wrong way for this to happen.) When I look at range and bullet performance I look at worst case penetration issues. This would be an elks shoulder, I want to be able to penetrate this are to the heart and lungs or the other shoulder and the resulting fragmentation and bone chips spray penetratin the chest cavity. I tend to be a bone shooter but have had a number of just off the shoulder in the chest hits. These hits were successful and did not result in more than a 20-40 yards trailing effort. Expansion was minimal at these distances 1000-1400 yards but the vital organ destruction was more than enough. We are talking 10-20 seconds at most before hitting the dirt to stay.
Others have had bad experiences with all penetration and no expansion but I just haven't. Maybe in the smaller calibers this could be different as the frontal area is much different but in the 338 realm I just have not had issue with it. I am sure other have had experiences to the contrary but this is just my perspective.

 

[bigngreen]

00000000

 

[Fiftydriver]

Since we are only talking about high BC rifle bullets, it allows us to narrow our opinions and facts on the matter but we need to narrow it a bit more.

You ask if a bullet has to expand to efficently kill big game. What does the term "efficently" mean to us. TO be that means put the animal down QUICKLY and at a relatively short distance from the point that the animal was impacted at.

If you put a rifle bullet through both lungs and exit a big game animal, that animal WILL die. That is nearly a 100% given. Is that efficent, certainly if your only goal is a dead animal. You hear many times of hunters spinning yarns about big game that they hit in "No Mans Land", that area high in the chest where supposedly it does no damage to the animal and they go on to live a healthy life. Personally, I hear these stories and would say 95% of them are simply a means to let the hunter sleep at night and nothing more. When in reality, most of those animals, if actually hit in that area will still die but it will just be in an area where the hunters will not look for them and the animals are generally lost, or they made a bad shot and did not hit any vitals at all and again, the animal is lost but the story they spin allows them to sleep at night and not loose any credit with their peers.

To be Efficently means that the animal is damaged to the point by bullet impact that they are unable to travel far enough to be lost. That means that they have to die quickly or be incapacitated to the point that they are unable to run away, I much prefer the former.

In that case, the most effective way to get this is to displace as much vital tissue as possible as the bullet passes through the vitals. To do this, you want the largest diameter object traveling as fast as possible to do the very most damage possible.

At extreme range, expansion will be limited. For that type of hunting, that is exactly the reason I recommend a larger caliber bullet so that you are not totally dependant on bullet expansion. If you drive a 6.5mm bullet through a deer with little expansion, if its in the right location the deer will die but may cover some ground. If you put a 338 caliber bullet through that same location, MUCH more vital tissue will be damaged resulting in much more blood loose as well as shock to the system of the animal and shock to the nervous system as well, all in all much more trama. The animal in most cases will die much quicker when hit with a 338 then a 6.5mm for these reasons.

Again, put the bullet in the right spot and the animal is dead, make a bad shot and no amount of expansion inthe world will help you

It all comes down to how you define Efficently in the end. Dead is dead but how long it takes for the animal to die is a very important factor in this game, especially at long range.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

Kirby, another good point. The word I used was "effective", but basically the same as "efficient" for this subject. It's a subjective definition in this case and basically impossible to concisely define. So let's just say that effective means killing game fairly quickly, preferably less than a minute or incapacitating them leading to successful recovery in a short period of time. The bottom line being we want to be able to find and retrieve the animal and we want do it without spending a lot of hours or days doing it.

Another word we should add is reliable. I think non-expanding bullets can kill effectively and there is good evidence of that in the posts in this thread. But I question how reliably they will. Is it taking a big chance to shoot game with a bullet that will not, or likely will not expand? There seems to be evidence that there is a chance that it will lead to a bad experience.

Good responses so far guys, keep'em coming.

Mark

 

[T_Bone]

Hi All,

I've been hunting for over 50yrs and will give you some info of what I've seen happen in the field.

My cousin shooting a 30-30 150gnJFN shot a cow elk @250yds on the run (lucky shot) that removed the lower jaw for about 6". He said she continued for about 10yds and dropped like a hammer and never moved.

My Dad dropped a cow elk and cut his finger when cleaning out the lung cavity. He thought he'd cut himself with his knife but then cut himself again then took a close look. In the right rib cage bone was a broadhead stuck into the bone with no shaft. Looking further you could see a lower small portion of the heart that had a huge scar. The broadhead didn't have a cross insert cutter as that was before the time they were a requirement.

My Dad and a friend, Carl, shot a 7-point bull elk, that's 7 points on one side, with my Dad using a 30-06 180gnJSP? ( a factory 180gn round in the 60's). As Dad took the shot, Carl said the bull quickly turned sharply to the right just as my Dad had shot thus had been hit in the backbone. The bull laid down hill about 50yds away. As they approached the bull, the bull got up and started DOWN hill. Since this was in the direction of there pick-up, they continued to follow the bull and downed him with a second shot about 75yds from the truck.

Carl and his wife was hunting antelope when the wife spotted a nice doe at 300yds. Carl was a huge fan of the sierra boattail so I assume that's what she was using as Carl was a reloader. She took a clean one shot kill. When the got there for the cleaning, Carl had too also tag his buck as the wife shot two of them with one shot. Neither of them saw the buck standing behind the doe before the shot. Carl's wife's nickname, Dode, and I have no idea what her real name was. lol

My uncle Pete shot a 5point bull elk at 400yds with a 30-06, unknown bullet but a factory round, that dropped on the spot and never moved. When he approached the bull at 10yds the bull got up and ran for another 100yds before my uncle Pete could down him again, this time for good. The first shot should have been a clean kill but it wasn't.

The guy I bought my first bow from has a mounted moose head above the counter with a arrow struck into the concave of the bone on the right side. He said he stepped out from behind a tree and placed a shot right where he should have and the bull flinched but continued eating. He waited and waited but the bull didn't fall. He got nervous and was thinking he missed his shot placement so he chucked up another arrow and stepped out to take a 2nd shot just as the bull looked up and he cut the arrow loose hitting him in the horn cavity thus toppled over the bull. The first shot had made it's mark but just not enough time had passed.

My point, not every animal responds to being shot the same way. Some animals will go into shock when shot, some will not. In the end they all have to bleed out when they die and that takes time.

 

[liltank]

Not to be disrespectful of our fallen hero's, but I would have to say that all the dead soldiers of the world would argue the fact that non-expanding bullets are not lethal. Yes we are not animals, but it is a proven record that trauma is the mother of death.

Likewise in animals, death comes swiftly to the animal when shot placement is the factor. No deer that I have see has an M.D. in trauma, therefore they will expire. I like these threads. They really open up some good conversation. Thanks MR!!!

Tank