although i agreed with most of the info you put out in the article, cant agree with it all.
although theory is nice, long bullet holes in vitals is nicer.
energy alone is NOT what kills. all of your commentary on how bullets work was correct, but, i would rather have a bit of energy going out the other side of the animal for a couple reasons, even if it means wasting some.
first, it means the critter has 2 holes to leak out of. now, ever since i was little i was taught to put 2 holes in a juice can.
second, it means that my bullet got all the way thru the animal and the vitals i was aiming for.
what actually kills an animal is a shutting off of the central nervous system or they suffocate. they suffocate due to blood loss, not energy absorbtion. they lose blood, does not feed the brain and other parts oxygen and they shut down due to hypoxia (fancy way to say lack of oxygen). again, energy can be the vehicle of that suffocation (blood loss) but not the reason they died.
i have shot what is becoming lots of deer, moose, caribou, dall sheep, mt goats, elk, black and brown bears and have seen even more shot. energy does not kill larger animals especially bears. (been guiding in ak for last 11 years).
saw one brown bear shot 5 times with a 300 ultra mag. that bear soaked up lots of energy, but evidently the bullets were not getting thru to the vitals. hunter shot it once with a 300 um, the guide broke its back as it ran off with a 375 h & h, the hunter continued to shoot the bear 4 or 5 more times (was watching the show from a fishing boat) and talked verified everthing with the guide later.
holes thru the vitals kills stuff. now if the bullet gets to the vitals and dumps a bunch of energy and destroys lots of tissue, the more tissue wrecked means the quicker an animal is killed. but, if hit in the vitals with a barnes x or a berger of same caliber, both animals are just as dead.
a hole thru their lungs and shoulders does it every time. now i am not saying that a barnes bullet is better or worse than a berger or a max bullet. i just wanted to clarify that energy by itself does not kill stuff. heck, otherwise would not even matter where we hit the critters.
a good article, thanks for writing it,
birdman