Terminal performance..... velocity vs energy vs retained weight

[RH300UM]

+1 on what Steve said.
I believe in them so much my guide rifle now uses them. Bears need what Hammer bullets deliver

I have spent a lot of time and resources working on terminal performance. Like many, my quest for better bullets started when I started reloading. I shot bullets that were highly frangible and just could not get over the meat loss, even when the meat was not directly hit. In my quest I found mono bullets. This was the ticket for me as the collateral meat damage is minimal. We shot several diff brands of all copper bullets and had different issues each of them. It was never our intent to become bullet makers, but it just kinda fell in our laps. We wanted to get into the firearms industry and it seemed like a good way in. We soon figured out that there were current patents that we did not want to violate, nor did we want to pay to make bullets. We were able to take our thoughts on what was needed to solve the issue that lead free bullets have and design a bullet that we received a patent on. Our radius drive band design that we call PDR. This allows us to seal the rifle bore without increasing pressure. Turns out it is extremely accurate and forgiving to load for. At this point we thought we were done, now we are bullet makers. All we gotta do is get some copper and turn it down. Not that easy. Terminal performance and accuracy are our top priority. Accuracy was taken care of, but terminal performance we were still chasing. Not all coppers are created equal. And you can't just get a piece of a less common alloy to try. It comes 1k to 2k lbs at a time. We could have used the same copper that other companies do and just been done with it. Again we could not live with the sacrifices in terminal performance at different impact velocities. Lots of impact testing and copper research got us to the alloy that we are currently using. It does what we want regardless of the impact vel. Regardless of the shot placement on bone or no bone. We were after a specific bullet deformation that leaves a flat frontal area on the retained shank that then continues through the animal displacing soft tissue perpendicular to the line of travel. Our bullet is almost fully deformed just under the hide on entrance and makes a large permanent wound channel all the way through the vitals. The old timers in AK used to load bullets backwards for the big bears. That flat frontal area is what gives good deep wounds.



This is what our bullets will do. Middle bullet was a frontal shot that missed the mark and went through the wildebeest right leg, exited, then entered again and recovered by the right hip. The far right bullet was a clean frontal shot recovered in left side hind quarter. The glancing shot on the leg bone did give the typical flat front that the bullet on the right shows. Usually bone hits don't look any different than the bullet on the right.

Creedmoor. If you are in doubt about the stability of your chosen bullet for terminal performance you can test it with some milk jugs. Set them up in a straight line, 6 of them should do, and see if you can catch a bullet. If stability is good the bullet should track straight through the jugs. Poor stability it will veer off line and exit the side of a jug. It is difficult to catch bullets in milk jugs. The more jugs you get through before the bullet turns the better.

I have posted this link before. It is a long read but goes into the physics of how a bullet works. For anybody that is really interested in the subject it is worth the read. http://rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/ballistics/wounding.html

I have a lot of passion for this subject and am more than happy to talk about it. Lets see where this thread goes before I jump too far into the weeds.

Steve

 

[uncle_motorhead]

Well I am 100% opposite of the heavy slow moving rainbow bullet. I love the Barnes TTSX's. In 7mm I send the 120 grainers out just over 4000 fps from my Firebird and 3800 from the 7 Rem mag. In the Warbird and 30-378 the 130"s also break 4000. Anything out to over 400 yards I hold dead on. No need for drop tables, though at 500 I do hold very close to the top of the hairline. Meat damage is not a problem because I salt soak the bloodshot meat and eat it. There is no lead poisoning. At the 300 yard mark and beyond the bullets I have caught weighed 95%. Under 100 they were pass throughs.

 

[Pdvdh]

Civil is our middle names.

 

[RH300UM]

I try to be but it's not in my nature lots of times. Cilvility is for ......... those who have the time to be civil. I see what I want. I go for it.

 

[Pdvdh]

Sic'm!

 

[Country5175]

Yes I'm bringing this up.... I'm sure this is a dead horse, but I want to discuss this anyway. Alittle back ground on me. I'm a whitetail/black bear hunter as that's all we really have here in NH for medium game. I grew up killing most every deer I shot with a remington corlockt until I got into reloading. I tried nosler partitions which I didnt care for(not enough expansion), hornady sst, and other hunting bullet types. Over the past few years, I gravitated to match bullets, specifically the old a-max and now eld-match. They all killed the deer dead. However, at high velocity(over 3000 fps) I had meat loss and to be honest, didnt seem to kill them any deader than a bullet that held its weight.

So here's what I'm wondering. Does speed kill? Lighter faster bullet? Or does a heavy for caliber and a slower velocity kill better? What about retained weight? 100%? 80%? 50%? none?

I guess I fall in the category of heavy for caliber, and shedding about 50%-75% of its total weight, or whatever needs to remain to give me reliable pass throughs without completely wrecking the meat. I dont do shoulder hits as that tends to ruin alot of meat.

I've been thinking alot about this lately as I need some hunting bullets for my 7mm this year. Just want to hear everyone's thoughts. Let's please keep this as civil as we can fellas.
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The short of it is yes speed kills. I read an article by Jack O'Connor years ago about this very subject. I'm not quoting him by any means, but sharing what I remember of his article and he loved speed in hunting rifles/bullets for its incredible ability to kill deer dead on the spot. He claimed to get more drt deer from high velocity rounds than any other combination of rifle and bullets. He was a fan of the high velocity bullets whereas others like Townsend Wheeler(I think) held to the slower bigger bullet theory. So this subject has definitely been thrown around for years by even the biggest names in hunting and outdoor writers, lol. I have been wanting to get a .257 Weatherby mag for a while now because not many rounds hit as fast as this caliber. With the high speed from a .257 Weatherby mag though, you have to load tough bullets because a target bullet will probably come apart before reaching the animal/target because they can't withstand the extreme velocities produced by this type of caliber. Load a tough bonded bullet at 3600 fps out of the .257 and O'Conner claimed the bullets to the chest killed like lightning out of these ultra fast rounds. Just what I remember from his article and he had about as much experience behind a rifle as anyone. Certainly something i want to experiment with someday.

 

[Pdvdh]

O'Connor should have adopted the .280 rather than the .270. A real rifleman's cartridge.

Yes, speed can kill like lightning with bullet weights and speeds matched to the size and temperament of the animal. Deer are power puff. Even 220 Swift and 22-250 will flatten them with broadside rib shots.

Bet O'Connor didn't kill Cape Buffalo with that pesky little 257. Or rhino, hippo, elephant, and brown bear. They'd have added him to the other piles of scat laying around on the landscape, unless his guide came to the rescue.

 

[Country5175]

No he didn't because he claimed there wasn't a round big enough to produce the kind of velocity and energy needed to kill large dangerous game that a man could shoot from the shoulder. O'Conner was talking about non-dangerous deer sized game animals in the article I referenced.

 

[Pdvdh]

Yeah, that's all I was commenting on. Speed alone has limitations. Caliber, bullet weight, bullet construction, and targeted animals all have to be considered in addition.

The proper balance produces the proper result - pressure relief valve on both sides.

 

[Creedmoor shooter]

I'm not entirely sure that speed kills. I think it's a combination of speed, energy, and bullet construction. After shooting whitetails with my 6.5 creedmoor and my 7mm rem mag, the deer didnt act any different despite the creeds 300fps slower projectile. I'm sure SD fits into that equation as well.

 

[Pdvdh]

High speed impacts by frangible bullets with sufficient mass to reach into the center of mass of the animal can generate breathtaking lights-out kills. If the bullet comes unglued explosively, the bullet energy is released over a very short time frame - instantaneous to us. A cavernous permanent wound channel can be created by the tremendous hydrodynamic pressure wave. Simply too much energy imparted for the physiology, structure, and nervous system of the animal. That's my opinion. They can go down fast as the blink of an eye.

The larger the weight of the animal, the more difficult it becomes to generate this combination with a shoulder fired weapon. It's nothing to plan on with the larger sized game animals. Especially at the longer ranges this Forum places emphasis on, where bullet velocity has greatly diminished. But it's highly impressive to witness when it happens.

I had a 10'5" brown bear go down like that. 225gr Trophy Bonded Bear Claw impacting at around 3,100 fps from a 338 Imperial Magnum. Broadside center of ribs. I thought I must of accidentally brained him. Nope. Center of ribs. No exit thru off-side ribs.

 

[Country5175]

I'm pretty sure O'Connor stated that the 3100fps or faster impact velocities were around the point that he noticed the dramatic lighting bolt type kills seemed to occur, but once velocity dropped below that speed, the drt rate dropped significantly. Interesting that you were able to even get that result on a large bear when your round impacted at that velocity. Personally I have shot and not lost any deer with 130 grn hornady interlock bullets in my 270 as long as I did my part. I have recently started experimenting more with bullets, bullet weight, and bullets of different construction just for the sake of it, but certainly not because any lack of effectiveness of the interlock bullets on game. And it hasn't seemed to matter what caliber, 243, 270, 7mm mag, 30-30, 30-06, and 300 mag all gave equally impressive results, dead deer. Now the 150 btsp in the 300 mag did drop every deer I shot on the spot for what it's worth. The rounds were loaded to about 3350fps and all shots were within 300 yards. Still excited to test other bullets for hunting and long range but just for the fun of reloading and trying different things.

 

[HARPERC]

O'Connor also wrote he had more one shot in the tracks kills with the .375 H&H.

 

[WildRose]

O'Connor should have adopted the .280 rather than the .270. A real rifleman's cartridge.

Yes, speed can kill like lightning with bullet weights and speeds matched to the size and temperament of the animal. Deer are power puff. Even 220 Swift and 22-250 will flatten them with broadside rib shots.

Bet O'Connor didn't kill Cape Buffalo with that pesky little 257. Or rhino, hippo, elephant, and brown bear. They'd have added him to the other piles of scat laying around on the landscape, unless his guide came to the rescue.

I almost hate to point it out but all of Africa's dangerous game and all of the big bears around the world have been taken with the measly ole 6.5x55.

I too favor the "bring enough gun" mentality but in truth the proper placement of a proper bullet ends in a dead animal consistently.