How Much energy is too little?

[memtb]

and you never hear about how many shots needed or how many ran off and died somewhere else and never recovered. thank god most hunters are better educated now.

As a whole……are we? memtb

 

[FEENIX]

and you never hear about how many shots needed or how many ran off and died somewhere else and never recovered. thank god most hunters are better educated now.

Amen to that!

 

[Berrnard]

 

[asd9055]

I like big holes (.30 cal or larger) on big game placed properly. I follow the bullet manufacture's suggested minimum impact velocities. I seem to have full freezers post-hunting season using this method.

Energy is a side metric for me that doesn't influence me all that much. Everything above trumps an energy stat.

I am just curious, what do you thnk goes into consideration when a manufacturer makes a recommendation?

 

[3chester]

Hit that North Dakota Buck with a nearly 2,288,000 grain slug ( 1997 GMC K-2500 Suburban ), that was traveling around 110FPS (75mph). A guy would think 61,468 ft lbs of energy would a stopped him, nope, not even a decent blood trail.

 

[memtb]

I am just curious, what do you thnk goes into consideration when a manufacturer makes a recommendation?

It seems that anymore, it requires a catchy acronym such as PRC, or a name that takes you back into shooting history….aka Creedmore!

It's mostly advertising! memtb

 

[asd9055]

It seems that anymore, it requires a catchy acronym such as PRC, or a name that takes you back into shooting history….aka Creedmore!

It's mostly advertising! memtb

My most modern cartridge is the 300AAC subsonic suppressed for fun and a Lapua. Everything else's is 60 years old
Or older

 

[FireFlyFishing]

I am just curious, what do you thnk goes into consideration when a manufacturer makes a recommendation?

Manufacture's certainly do physics calculations to derive their recommendations. They also physically test their bullets. Cool.

I'm not producing bullets. So ft/lbs of energy isn't a huge factor for terminal ballistics for me. I can let those folks figure it out…and follow their recommendations. I never said it is a worthless metric. However, as a consumer it is somewhat inadequate as a primary terminal ballistics determining factor for my hunt shot determinations.

So for example. I shot a cow elk with a 300WM last year using a 190 grn ABLR (2975 fps muzzle velocity) @418 yards. Nosler recommends at least 1300 FPS for adequate terminal performance. I was well within the recommended envelope. The result was a well placed shot and a bang flop. With all that being said…energy was not considered by me and…it didn't matter in the end.

 

[FireFlyFishing]

Don't shoot the messenger on this one. I let you folks make your own determination on this podcast.

 

[asd9055]

It's no different than driving a car. I don't need to know all the equations that make it do what it does. I just follow the recommendations and I go from A to B. It's when someone wants to do something different when those equations need to be considered. Someone else's has done the work for us for almost everything we do in life. And with that, I am out! Enjoy!

 

[bigred1]

While terminal energy isn't the only concern we should have in mind, it is definitely a very important one. A friend of mine tried to finish off a cow elk with a point blank shot from a 357 mag to her neck and the bullet didn't get past the thick neck hair. I shoot a large caliber with heavy bullets so when my lung shot goes wrong the bullet can get through thick hair, skin and break heavy bones if needed. The old buffalo hunters knew that hair and bone were the enemies of good penetration and therefore used heavy bullets to ensure penetration.

 

[ObiWanKannoli]

Energy isn't meaningless, but it's far from the most meaningful attributes that cause a bullet to kill something.

I'll take speed, bullet construction, shot placement, and size of the hole before I worry about energy.

 

[FEENIX]

Hit that North Dakota Buck with a nearly 2,288,000 grain slug ( 1997 GMC K-2500 Suburban ), that was traveling around 110FPS (75mph). A guy would think 61,468 ft lbs of energy would a stopped him, nope, not even a decent blood trail.

It's all about placement. LL! Perhaps the buck had internal damage/bleeding and died elsewhere.

Last year, a friend hit one at about the same speed, and his relatively 2022 F-350 sustained $15,000 in damage. UCH! The buck was lodged under the hood dead, where most of the damage was.

 

[WeiserBucks]

How much energy did it take to create this mess?