Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
Articles
Latest reviews
Author list
Classifieds
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles and first posts only
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Forums
Hunting
Long Range Hunting & Shooting
What's the best Caliber?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="MontanaRifleman" data-source="post: 261208" data-attributes="member: 11717"><p>Kabang, hello and welcome.</p><p> </p><p>First off, let's take the term "humane" out of the discussion. I dont see anything humane about hunting and killing animals. Humane applies to humans and not animals. Don' take that as a slam... That's my philosophy and the philosophy of a lot of others. You can apply etheics and morals to hunting, but here again you will find some disagreement. My guess is that you want to kill your game quickly.</p><p> </p><p>Trauma that shuts down life functions is what kills. The more catastrophic damage you do to vital organs and tissue, the quicker they will die. So usually, the bigger the bullet you use the more damage you will do depending on the design and construction of the bullet.</p><p> </p><p>There has been a lot of debate on the effect of "energy", i.e., KE in killing game. KE effect can probably best be described as shock effect and I think there is little evidense of "shock" killing large game animals. That could be debated with explosive highly frangible bullets *grenading* in vital areas, but here again, much of the damage might be attributed to shrapnel. For the most part, penetration and wound channels through vital areas is what kills game, especially larger game. Momentum is what drives penetration, KE really has nothing to do with it.</p><p> </p><p>If you shot a large animal in the shoulder with a 130 gr 6.5 mm bullet @ 3500 fps generating 3597 ftlbs of of KE and the bullet exploded without penetrating to vitals, it would not die very quick. The energy is expended immediately and the 3597 ftlbs does not kill the animal. Take that same size bullet of different construction, that maintains it's mass, expands in a controlled manner, and it will penetrate and likely pass through, taking a certain amount of KE with it out the exit hole... and the animal will die relatively quickly. This may be a little over simpliifed but it illustrates the difference between KE and momentum.</p><p> </p><p>So in short, if you want to look at down range numbers, I suggest looking at momentum and not energy. IMO energy doesn't mean squat (I can feel the heat already) Momentum is what will drive your bullet through the animal.</p><p> </p><p>To support my opinion a little more, the formula for energy = KE = 1/2 m (v squred) You can see that in this equation, that much more emphasis is put on velocity than mass. In the equation for momentum, mass and velocity are given the same weght, p = mv, where p is momentum.</p><p> </p><p>IMO, most bullets that have the velocity to open, also have the momentum to penetrate deer size animals. For larger game like elk, I like to see a minimum of 40 lbft/sec of momentum. But, the size and design of the bullet will affect how much momentum is required to provide adequate penetration. It is very difficult to come up with hard and fast rules.</p><p> </p><p>Last, if you push your bullet to the edge of it's performance, you can expect slower kills. Bullets that penetrate at slower speed tend to make less "permament" wound channel damage. In other words, they *push* through more than they *tear* through.</p><p> </p><p>Just something to think about.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MontanaRifleman, post: 261208, member: 11717"] Kabang, hello and welcome. First off, let's take the term "humane" out of the discussion. I dont see anything humane about hunting and killing animals. Humane applies to humans and not animals. Don' take that as a slam... That's my philosophy and the philosophy of a lot of others. You can apply etheics and morals to hunting, but here again you will find some disagreement. My guess is that you want to kill your game quickly. Trauma that shuts down life functions is what kills. The more catastrophic damage you do to vital organs and tissue, the quicker they will die. So usually, the bigger the bullet you use the more damage you will do depending on the design and construction of the bullet. There has been a lot of debate on the effect of "energy", i.e., KE in killing game. KE effect can probably best be described as shock effect and I think there is little evidense of "shock" killing large game animals. That could be debated with explosive highly frangible bullets *grenading* in vital areas, but here again, much of the damage might be attributed to shrapnel. For the most part, penetration and wound channels through vital areas is what kills game, especially larger game. Momentum is what drives penetration, KE really has nothing to do with it. If you shot a large animal in the shoulder with a 130 gr 6.5 mm bullet @ 3500 fps generating 3597 ftlbs of of KE and the bullet exploded without penetrating to vitals, it would not die very quick. The energy is expended immediately and the 3597 ftlbs does not kill the animal. Take that same size bullet of different construction, that maintains it's mass, expands in a controlled manner, and it will penetrate and likely pass through, taking a certain amount of KE with it out the exit hole... and the animal will die relatively quickly. This may be a little over simpliifed but it illustrates the difference between KE and momentum. So in short, if you want to look at down range numbers, I suggest looking at momentum and not energy. IMO energy doesn't mean squat (I can feel the heat already) Momentum is what will drive your bullet through the animal. To support my opinion a little more, the formula for energy = KE = 1/2 m (v squred) You can see that in this equation, that much more emphasis is put on velocity than mass. In the equation for momentum, mass and velocity are given the same weght, p = mv, where p is momentum. IMO, most bullets that have the velocity to open, also have the momentum to penetrate deer size animals. For larger game like elk, I like to see a minimum of 40 lbft/sec of momentum. But, the size and design of the bullet will affect how much momentum is required to provide adequate penetration. It is very difficult to come up with hard and fast rules. Last, if you push your bullet to the edge of it's performance, you can expect slower kills. Bullets that penetrate at slower speed tend to make less "permament" wound channel damage. In other words, they *push* through more than they *tear* through. Just something to think about. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
Hunting
Long Range Hunting & Shooting
What's the best Caliber?
Top