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Post by gundude on Oct 5, 2005 16:10:02 GMT -5
Got this from the White site. ( Thanks to my good friend weedhopper. He can't shoot to well but knows the technical stuff pretty well ;D) ANYWAY this is a MUST for you muzzleloader guys and slug gun hunters as well. The same principle of physics apply. This is one of the most clear and concise articles I have seen comparing delivered energy vs. velocity. ALOT to be learned here and I encourage all to take 5 minutes and check it out. www.whitemuzzleloading.com/serv01.htmHUNT ON!
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Post by mbogo on Oct 6, 2005 6:57:51 GMT -5
You can't blame Doc White for trying to sell his products and much of what he says is basic fact, but to me the talk of "knock down" power and dropping animals at the shot invalidate the article.
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Post by gundude on Oct 6, 2005 7:08:13 GMT -5
You can't blame Doc White for trying to sell his products and much of what he says is basic fact, but to me the talk of "knock down" power and dropping animals at the shot invalidate the article. Interesting. Tell me more.
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Post by mbogo on Oct 6, 2005 7:56:49 GMT -5
Heavy bullets do retain velocity and energy better than light bullets of the same caliber, but that is only half the story. The other half of the story is the actual transfer of energy to the target. Soft pistol bullets transfer energy much more rapidly than a harder heavier bullet does. While the heavier bullet has more energy, it may actually transfer less of it to deer sized game. It depends on the relative hardness/softness of the particular bullet.
Physically knocking a deer sized animal off its feet is something that simply is not going to happen with anything less than an artillery piece. Deer do drop at the shot sometimes with a heart shot but they are not actually knocked over, they fall more or less straight down. Rifles firing small, light bullets accomplish this just as often if not more so than weapons firing large heavy projectiles. There are some very interesting theories as to the reason for an instantaneous collapse of a heart shot animal but I will not go into unless you are interested.
Lastly the Taylor Knock Out (TKO) formula mentioned in the article was created by professional African hunter/poacher John "Pondoro" Taylor. The formula was originally used to predict how long an elephant would be knocked out by a bullet of particular diameter and weight traveling at a particular speed while passing near but not through the brain. It really doesn't apply to thin skinned animals in the 200 lb. range.
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Post by gundude on Oct 6, 2005 8:24:53 GMT -5
I agree with about 99% of what you are saying. I guess my point is or was, that the basics of balistics as they are shown in the charts are FACTUAL and easy to understand. I think it is a good read especially when I see questions in other threads about Pistol calibers in rifles vs. foster style slugs. ( just one example). For the guy that hasn't studied this subject much, I think there is a lot that can be learned here fairly quickly.
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Post by mbogo on Oct 6, 2005 9:47:14 GMT -5
Yes, I absolutely agree. I think it would be good to post in the pistol caliber rifle thread. I just wish the article hadn't been mucked up by other stuff.
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Post by weedhopper on Oct 10, 2005 18:06:12 GMT -5
I guess the big doe I shot at 45 yards last year through the base of the neck shooting downwards at a 30 degree angle did a "180" to impress me?? I was shooting a 496 gr. NEW Whitworth behind 75gr. of Swiss 3F out of my White Super 91. Almost an artillery piece though... ;D
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Post by gundude on Oct 10, 2005 18:31:06 GMT -5
I gotta agree with the weedhopper here. I have knocked many a deer of their feet and delivered energey does mean something......... IT aint all about how fast you push a projectile. Balance is the key.
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Post by gundude on Oct 10, 2005 18:44:09 GMT -5
Heavy bullets do retain velocity and energy better than light bullets of the same caliber, but that is only half the story. The other half of the story is the actual transfer of energy to the target. Soft pistol bullets transfer energy much more rapidly than a harder heavier bullet does. While the heavier bullet has more energy, it may actually transfer less of it to deer sized game. It depends on the relative hardness/softness of the particular bullet. I think you have made my point here as well.... We are talking about MUZZLELOADERS here. There are no jackets involved, just pure lead and lots of it. Now one could argue over kill here I guess but to say that less energy is delivered to the target due to its rate of expansion and hardness in this case just isn't so....... Hunt on.....
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Post by Woody Williams on Oct 10, 2005 20:01:25 GMT -5
Of all the deer that I have knocked flat 95% of them were hit in a large bone (shoulder blade) or spinal area (including the neck) and sometimes at the junction of both.
Very seldom have I ever knocked a deer flat shooting through the ribs/lungs. That is with MZs and slugs..
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Post by mbogo on Oct 11, 2005 8:58:41 GMT -5
At 45 yards the heavy bullet wouldn't even have gained an advantage over a lighter bullet yet and a deer hit exactly the same with a pistol bullet would've reacted similarly. Again dropping a deer in its tracks is a matter of shot placement not bullet choice and dropping a deer is not the same as knocking it down. From a physics standpoint, it is a difficult proposition for an object weighing nearly an ounce to knock over something weighing 100 lbs or more solely by force of impact. The task becomes impossible when the object completely penetrates the target and fails to expend all of its energy in it as happens with a deer.
Lead bullets come in a lot of different hardness levels, but all are an alloy of some kind, not pure lead.
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Post by randywakeman on Nov 2, 2005 20:41:32 GMT -5
You can't blame Doc White for trying to sell his products and much of what he says is basic fact, but to me the talk of "knock down" power and dropping animals at the shot invalidate the article. I know Doc, and I don't blame him for trying either. I published a rather lengthy interview with him a while back, in five parts: www.chuckhawks.com/muzzleloader_index_interviews.htmHowever, his observations in the link here are flawed-- any time you hear mention of the "TKO Factor" (John Taylor, a famous poacher) it was based on observations of non-expanding bullets on CHARGING African game. Dr. Martin Fackler is considered the world's foremost wounding expert: www.chuckhawks.com/terminal_performance_muzzleloading.htmInterested can compare with the load I'm shooting: members.aol.com/randymagic/ballltd58.htm and decide for themselves. That's 1905 fpe @ 200 yards. 3 in. high @ 100 yards = hold on hair to 220 yards. There is no holdover whatsoever.
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Post by jkd on Nov 28, 2005 14:42:34 GMT -5
Gundude,
Interesting piece, but what I think is missing is what the ballistic coefficient is for these various bullets, and the type of tip involved...
The 8-pointer my son took with the new Optima .50 was taken with 245gr Powerbelt (with ballistic tip) pushed by 2x50gr pyro pellets, hit forward quarter of the shoulder. The buck dropped the front end in his tracks, and pushed forward 10-15 feet and was dead immediately.
Although the bullet didn't enter the chest cavity, his heart was jello... I attribute this to the round compressing the near side shoulder blade, and squeezing the chest cavity, destroying the heart muscle via hydraulic compression. There was NO exit wound, so the round stopped inside the far side shoulder, and transferred 100% of available energy into the target.
I compare this to a 10-point I took with a broadside shot at 65-75 yards back in 2002... Mossberg Slugster 12ga shooting Federal magnum sabots... a perfect heart shot (the heart was just plain gone when I field dressed him), yet he managed to run some 200 yards before he piled up. Like a sprinter in a track meet, an immediate sprint is an anaerobic function... the O2 present in the muscle is what you run on... the body takes time to switch to aerobic operation, where new O2 is brought into play... so even with the heart/lungs gone, the deer is going to run a fair distance on adrenaline before anaerobic debt overcomes him...
I agree with Woody and others... a hit to the spine/shoulders, which either directly severs the spinal cord, or which introduces such CNS shock that the animal is basically stunned instantly, will be the shots that drop him in his tracks. Shots to the heart and/or lungs, will almost always result in an animal running some distance, regardless of the power of the round.
For hits to the breadbasket, I think the ability of the round to open/expand quickly is more important than pure weight/velocity, as this will determine how much energy actually transfers to the deer.
KD
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Post by gundude on Nov 28, 2005 18:06:43 GMT -5
Although the bullet didn't enter the chest cavity, his heart was jello... I attribute this to the round compressing the near side shoulder blade, and squeezing the chest cavity, destroying the heart muscle via hydraulic compression. There was NO exit wound, so the round stopped inside the far side shoulder, and transferred 100% of available energy into the target. KD Well I couldn't agree more and I think a lot of us ( most anyway) are saying the same thing here.... My point ( if I ever had one ) may be be best illustrated by the following story. I hunt with revolver a lot. I was born and raised on them so thats what I like to do. No scopes just a gun and good sights... Anyway, I usually hunt with a .41 mag but I also shoot a .45 from time to time... The .41 I shoot is loaded with a speer 220 grain swchp. ( half the bullet is an exposed full lead hollow point and the the base has a jacket). EVERY deer I have shot with this round drops in his tracks.. One hole in and all energy delivered where it needs to be! Now A few years later I decide to hunt with .45LC with a big nasty 240gr. JHP from Hornady.. Thinking bigger is better ( and at times it certainly is) I made up some loads..... I killed a nice buck with that load that year but all I did was punch a hole in one side and out the other. I recovered the bullet from a tree that was behind the buck a few days later.. So ALL that energy was enough to kill the deer but all of it was NOT transfered to its intended target.( not enough velocity to get proper expansion upon impact) BTW that deer ran more than 100 yards before it was done. SO back to the drawing board...... I again go with a HOT NASTY load for the old .45LC but changed bullets with less of a jacket up front and what do ya know, The first deer I shoot drops in his tracks! One hole and the inside was jello.... The point on my original post here was to get guys to "think" a little and don't buy in to all the hype.. Do your home work and research before you buy ammo. Learn a little about ballistics and delivered energy. AND I can guarantee you that if you are shooting a 496 gr. soft lead bullet from a muzzle loader with the right twist at a deer at 100 yards is gonna drop right there in its tracks!
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Post by wolfhound on Nov 28, 2005 19:50:36 GMT -5
AND I can guarantee you that if you are shooting a 496 gr. soft lead bullet from a muzzle loader with the right twist at a deer at 100 yards is gonna drop right there in its tracks! That's not entirely true. Shot placement matters more than downrange energy. You can hit a deer with all the energy you want but if it's a poor hit you've got a tough tracking job ahead. Personally I think the ideal bullet weight is in the 240-260 gr. range for deer. You get the benefits of both energy and trajectory. Go in either direction too much and you start to sacrifice one or the other. Jacketed bullets in that range give better penetration than pure lead (vs. same weight bullet). Lighter than that gives you less margin for error and more is unnecessary on thin skined game like deer. That's not saying that lighter bullets are poor choices, just that greater care in shot placement must be made. Using heavier bullets make little sense to me for most situations. The only advantage that I can see is that a heavier bullet will have less wind drift.
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Post by gundude on Nov 28, 2005 20:26:20 GMT -5
AND I can guarantee you that if you are shooting a 496 gr. soft lead bullet from a muzzle loader with the right twist at a deer at 100 yards is gonna drop right there in its tracks! That's not entirely true. Shot placement matters more than downrange energy. You can hit a deer with all the energy you want but if it's a poor hit you've got a tough tracking job ahead. Personally I think the ideal bullet weight is in the 240-260 gr. range for deer. You get the benefits of both energy and trajectory. Go in either direction too much and you start to sacrifice one or the other. Jacketed bullets in that range give better penetration than pure lead (vs. same weight bullet). Lighter than that gives you less margin for error and more is unnecessary on thin skined game like deer. That's not saying that lighter bullets are poor choices, just that greater care in shot placement must be made. Using heavier bullets make little sense to me for most situations. The only advantage that I can see is that a heavier bullet will have less wind drift. Shot placement is key without a doubt...... My personal findings were made based on that assumtion...
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Post by wolfhound on Nov 29, 2005 7:48:08 GMT -5
Shot placement is key without a doubt...... My personal findings were made based on that assumtion... Well you know what they say about assumption.
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Post by gundude on Nov 29, 2005 7:53:45 GMT -5
Shot placement is key without a doubt...... My personal findings were made based on that assumtion... Well you know what they say about assumption. Touche! (sp)
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Post by Ahawkeye on Dec 9, 2005 6:26:21 GMT -5
Wow! you guys know your stuff, I'm not about to even act like I know a thing about balistics or any of the above mentioned statistics graphs or whatever (you knew this had to be coming) BUT, I have seen studies by the NRA that have shown on human like targets that the bullet that passes through a 200 lb target that is easilly pushed with the push of a hand will only move an inch or two even with a steel plate to absorb the full impact and power of the bullet. Now that being said, a study from a doctor who loved to hunt African game found that the knock down effect was achieved when all of the blood vesils in the brain exploded giving him reason to believe that the timing of the shot was the exact moment of blood being pushed by the heart into the veins causing a super increased blood preasure when the bullet passed through the heart. I think the doe at 30 yards with what ever angle could have been nerves or momentum from the deer it self.
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Post by randyb on Jan 3, 2006 19:53:10 GMT -5
I might get my ears pinned back for saying this, (and please take this as a friendly disagreement with most of the posts mentioning energy and speed). IMHO the thing that kills is shot placement. A bullet through the heart kills. A bullet to the guts kills, but its going to take a lot longer. The whole concept of speed vs. energy does not make any sense to me at all. The mass and contruction of a bullet has to be there to penetrate deeply enough to destoy vital organs, speed can assist in expanding the bullet and creating more tissue damage. If speed alone killed, then a .17 HMR would be a fine deer gun. If weight alone killed we would only need to load our MZ with 10 grains of FF in a .75 smoothbore. (ok in know a bit extreme). The fact is a .243 shot with a adequately penetrating bullet, will kill a deer just a dead as a 45/70 if both hit the vital organs. The whole idea of energy knocking a deer off its feet is physically impossible. That explosion that sends a bullet out the barrel is sending that rifle butt into your shoulder with the same amount of force. Going to the point of slowing down to arrow speeds, the arrow kills in ths same manner as a bullet, tissue disruptment, with a resulting loss of red stuff that sustains life (Unless a CNS hit occurs of course).
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