Is Bullet Expansion Necessary for Effecive Killing of Game

[Nikolakangrga]

I do not know much about much when it comes to this type of stuff but I can share a story that happened to me.

I was hunting hogs here in California with my T/C Pro Hunter .50 Muzzleloader. Had it loaded with 110gr of Blackhorn 209, and a 250gr Barnes Spitfire TMZ. I have had 100% performance with this setup and every animal I have shot at with this setup.
I shot a 100lb sow at about 8 yards which was truly amazing. the force lifted this sow off her feet and she rolled down a hill. the shot was right behind the shoulder breaking 2 ribs on either side. This sow rolled 30 yards down hill and laid still. As my buddy and I celebrated the harvest, The sow gets up and begins trotting away. Mind you, not a run but a trot. We go down to where she laid to investigate and found NO BLOOD! We are shocked! We dont know what to think. 30 min later we begin to trail her and NO BLOOD what so ever. We followed her tracks for about 75 yards and found her dead. After further inspection inside the chest cavity, we found that the barnes 250gr spitfire TMZ DID NOT EXPAND! she has a perfectly clean hole all the way through her. Granted it was a .50 cal so the whole was decent size but no expansion.

 

[theodore]

If you are talking about "cop killer" bullets that are non-expanding with high bc. They are completely worthless for hunting. I personally think game will most likely have a really really long slow death or great deal of pain through healing...

 

[sniperjwt]

nope as long as you hit them in the head no expansion is required

 

[theodore]

nope as long as you hit them in the head no expansion is required

+1 and perfect spine shot would work.

 

[mike33]

I hope im not jumping from the thread but have read some interesting posts and would like feedback from my question. This is new to me ( larger bullets ) im an eastern whitetail hunter and have mainly used my whole life for deer what most would say is varmiant bullets. My only rifles has been 25's shooting 100 gr. ( vel. 3500-3600 ) 87 gr. ( vel.- 3400 ) 250 ackly, 25-284, and 257 whby. Also 223 / 50 grain hornady sx 3200 fps. Hunting 3 states and helping with crop damage i have killed a lot of deer and mainly 1 shot kills. Mostly shoulder shots. I heard when i wass young high velocity is needed for quick kills. Most did not exit but had devasting results of quick kills. I used to laugh at a lot of hunters in my area there main gun was a30-06 pump 180 gr. round nose, most of the time they became good trackers. I have killed many deer with my 223 with the bullet listed good 1 shot quick kills and you better get the hide off quick for the blood clotting mess that you would have. Now most of these shots was under 200 yards. What is the reason for these results, none of these was a high bc or a bullet ever discussed? Question # 2, at 49 years old i got the chance to go to Co. last fall on my first elk hunt. A friend who invited me that i respect so much has only huunted with a 6mmx 284. This guy since 1978 has taken 22 bull elk with this gun and only shoots a 100 gr. bullet. Now he is one of the best off hand shooters i have ever seen. His theroy is high vel. hydro-static shock , bullet fragmintation staying inside does the job. Now his longest shot was 750 yards and has only lost one. This year i was with him taking one hell of a 6x7 at 640 yards walking, he didnt allow enough windage and gut shot it twice. But he said itwasent pretty but dead is dead this is how well this 6mm performs killing this elk with a poor placed shot. He also told me guys go out and miss or cripple an animal they go the wrong way buying a biger gun. Also he claims the bigger bullets dont have the velocity to open up and do the job. Now i have been impressed here and started my build of a 338 edge going with the 300 smk's. However its hard to argue with a man that has 22 elk under his belt. Hope i stayed in bounds of the thread but find it very interesting. Can i have some comments on this.
Mike

 

[wasgas]

I have seen many people make the argument that a pass thru with an entrance and an exit wound is better as they will bleed out faster. I have had the quickest kills with bullets that fragment thru the vital areas and did not pass thru.

I have only had one pass thru with good expansion on a elk bullet passed thru vitals with good expansion he ran another 100 yards and expired soon after. All of my instant kills have been fragmented bullets in the vitals. To me it's most important on game animals to make a quick kill with minimal meat damage.

 

[edge]

I have seen many people make the argument that a pass thru with an entrance and an exit wound is better as they will bleed out faster. I have had the quickest kills with bullets that fragment thru the vital areas and did not pass thru.

SNIP.

IMO a bullet, or the shrapnel it produces causes injury by moving FAST!
A bullet that stops may as well be placed on the deer's back because it stopped doing damage!
It also stopped doing significant damage some time before it actually stopped and might as well be an arrow with a blunt tip as that is all it is...but lighter

If you will never make a bad shot and you will never hit a leg on the way in, and you will only shoot at a broadside animal then a bullet that will only penetrate through a rib and then fragment may well be your fastest killer, but if your only shot is a raking one then either you pass or have a very long tracking job...IMO.

edge.

 

[bigngreen]

One thing to keep in mind is the frangible bullets, that a lot use for long range, have slowed down to the point they act more like premium hunting bullets because they have lost the speed to blow. They can essentially extend your range range before turning to solids over say an Accubond which will loose performance well before the min of 1800 in som chamberings.

 

[theodore]

And I heard of a guy take a bull elk 1100+ yards with a 6x284 with 105 VLD. Two shots, one of the bullet did a complete passthrough with good vital damage, other shot dropped it by breaking the shoulder. Shots were few seconds apart, good sized bull elk.

But I wouldn't recommend a 6mm to anyone for elk hunting, bigger is better with the right bullet.

 

[406pat]

It seems like the one common thing that everyone can agree on is that the bigger the hole in the animal, the more effective it is at killing quickly and efficiently. I would find it hard to argue against the theory that as the size of the hole increases, survivability decreases. I'm talking about hits to the heart/lung area and not shoulder or nervous system hits. Ideally, we would shoot flat nosed slugs the size of our thumbs to accomplish this. I feel that is why typical "woods guns", pistols and safari type rifles come chambered in large calibers with massive, non-aerodynamic slugs.

The problem starts when hunters want to reach out and touch things. Air is a fluid and, at 70% water, one could say animals are also a fluid. So what flies with minimal disturbance through air is going to have minimal disturbance to an animal.
By the same token, the slug that causes the most fluid disturbance to an animal is going to fly like a bathtub.

Enter the expanding bullet. Here's a projectile that flies through the air well and then mushrooms out to a big, flat frontal area in the animal to make the big wound channel. Suddenly you have the capability to fly like a 7mm but hit like a .45. This expansion also acts like a parachute as the bullet travels through the chest cavity.

Shawn made the comment along the lines that ideally we want the bullet to just fall out the other side of the animal. In this case, the animal is the "equal and opposite force" we learned about in high school science. If a bullet stays inside an animal then all the energy that the explosion of the powder put into the bullet is transferred to the animal. If it passes through then a portion of that energy is wasted. Simple physics.
If a bullet expands, the "parachute effect" results in an increase in frontal area causing increased drag on the projectile leading to more energy transferred to the animal. If it doesn't expand then the aerodynamics that we crave for long range shooting work against us as those same aerodynamics work to get a clean pass-through on an animal.

So from all this babble we can say:
1) What flies well through air will also fly well through soft tissue.
2) What hits hard and transfers energy well flies like a bathtub
3) The bigger the hole through the animal, the more likely it is to die quickly
(still talking about soft tissue hits)

From this it's logical to say that for a soft tissue hit, a pointed bullet that is designed to expand and works as designed will cause a bigger hole in soft tissue and (all things such as hit location, etc being equal) therefore is more likely to kill more efficiently.

(I'm really sorry for the length but this is what happens when you get an engineer talking about things like this )

After all of that you would probably expect me to say that expansion is necessary, not true.

First off, I would say that regardless off what it is or how it's made, most things penetrating the heart or lungs of any animal are fatal. I know there's plenty of survival stories out there but for every one of those there's 10,000 that didn't make it.

Secondly and along the same lines, the nervous system is extremely fragile and doesn't take a whole lot to put out of commission.

Third, any sort of bone contact completely changes the aerodynamics of a projectile. All of the sudden our carefully crafted precision ogive hits a rib and the front is bent at 90 degrees or maybe it fragments into a thousand little pieces. Either way, it's not so aerodynamic any more.

So what is to conclude from all of this?

A) That I need to find someone to pay me for wasting everyone's time by typing rants.
And
B) That the decision for which to use is an ethical and moral decision up to the person pulling the trigger. It's a hunters responsibility to research and use equipment that they know to be adequate for the task.

Given the number of case studies on this site, I would not hesitate to use a 300g .338 SMK out of an edge for hunting.

In my mind, as long as you can justify your choice in projectile intelligently and are confident in its performance I will never judge that negatively.

This debate, like so many in the field of hunting, comes down to personal responsibility. It's you pulling the trigger and it's you who should click the safety back on if the shot's not right or a little too long or, as sometimes happens with our specialty, a shot is too close. Know your limits and those of your equipment.

Again sorry about the length.

-PJS

 

[elkaholic]

I've posted so much on this subject that everyone is probably tired of hearing it There have been a lot of great comments made here and I think most agree that expanding bullets do more damage than non expanding, (all else being equal). Everything has a qualifier, however; and a case in point would of course be, a bullet that expanded "or blew up" so fast that there wasn't adequate penetration on the intended target. I'm a big believer in a bullet that expends most if not all of its energy in the critter. It is nice to have a blood trail from a pass through, but I would much rather have a bullet pass through with 100 fps left than 1000! I think we defeat "some" of the purpose of using "big" magnums for killing power when we don't select the proper bullet as described above. Another obvious analogy "for you archery hunters" is the reason broadheads are used for hunting instead of field tips! With a bullet , of course, you also have hydrostatic shock which I think can have a great affect with certain shot placements. I often find that the long range bullets that I manufacture end up just under the hide of al elk sized animal with double or more expansion and have 80-90% retained weight. That's just the way I like it. Great job guys! Isn't talkin' bullets fun

 

[liltank]

I often find that the long range bullets that I manufacture end up just under the hide of al elk sized animal with double or more expansion and have 80-90% retained weight. That's just the way I like it. Great job guys! Isn't talkin' bullets fun

Aren't you the one building 338 bullets out of 223 brass? If so, how is it coming in your initial design?

Tank

 

[theodore]

A broadless arrow is almost as ineffective as a non-expanding high bc bullet.

An arrow with a broadhead is effective.

338 Edge with 300SMK cut and wrap deer in one shot. LOL (Butcher joke)

 

[elkaholic]

Aren't you the one building 338 bullets out of 223 brass? If so, how is it coming in your initial design?

Tank

Not me.......