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Should "Thatcher" read "Hatcher", as in General Julian Hatcher? If so, I highly recommend his books.

I find it hard to believe that anyone would say that "foot-pounds" as a measurement of energy is meaningless. It isn't meaningless, and certainly has its purpose and use, but in making a definitive prediction of the elapsed time between gun shot and tipping-over of an animal {"killing power"?}, it comes up somewhat lacking, but then so do other measurements of "killing power".

The problem I have with all these discussions is that they assume there is a direct and progressive correlation between one of these measurements and the elapsed time mentioned above, i.e. 7x57 is quicker killing than the 6.5x55, .30-06 quicker than 7x57, .338 Win Mag quicker than .30-06, .375 quicker than .338, or some such list of calibers. I have not been able to observe any clear and noticeable, consistent and significant progression of "killing power" with the range of calibers I've used on game, using paper ballistics or bullet diameter as a predictor. There are some very interesting surveys and collections of data I have referred to in other posts that belie the use of paper ballistics calculations to predict this elapsed time. These are the Scandinavian materials referred to elsewhere.

I think we can all agree that a .223 with typical varmint bullets is less effective for the general run of shots taken on large game than a .375, but I would suggest that the reason is not so much "energy" or mathematical "killing power" but rather that its bullets cannot be relied upon to get to the vitals of heavy game. It's pretty hard to make a .223 bullet than can. But when the calibers are narrowed, can the .375 be stated to perform substantially better than the .30-06, assuming proper soft point bullets in both? Not according to the extensive surveys I have read, not according to my own experience, and not according to the published opinion of, say, Finn Aagaard. Finn once gave a description of an animal's response to a shot, then went on to ask what caliber the reader thought was used, giving a list from which to pick, about from the 7x57 to .375. He said all such calibers produce results just about indestinguishable from each other for almost all game killing {he was speaking about soft-skinned, large game, not FMJ's and thickskinned DG} and my own observations absolutely concur.

I have read the post link above involving the embedded bone. Very interesting. I have shot many different tests over the years and have also used heavy elk and range cattle bones and I can promise you that the effort is worthwhile as it highlights the different levels of performance between bullets...regardless of caliber/energy. That is precisely why I settled on my own testing media some time ago. With a control bullet of known excellent performance, tests can be set up to compare other bullets and the tests seem to predict very accurately how well a bullet will perform in the field. For game in the elk and deer range of weights, I place far less value on what an energy chart says and far more faith in my own bullet testing procedure.

Beyond the shadow of a doubt the most important single factor governing the speed at which a big game animal dies {"killing power"} is the placement of the shot and if it gets to the vitals. If a bullet does not have the structure to get there it will fail. If the bullet has the structure to get there it is amazingly unimportant what precise diameter it is and what caliber it was fired from. I believe arguments over which energy or "killing power" measurement is most accurate fall apart because they miss this most important factor. And yes, home tests can be set up to test new bullets to make sure they have waht it takes to get inside the critter of your choice.

Another factor that I am convinced goes unnoticed and disregarded in discussions of killing power is related to the importance of shot placement, precedes it, actually. That is the knowledge of the physiology of the animal being hunted and thus where to place the shot! I have had some bad experiences following up wounded game shot by people who really didn't know where the CNS, organ vitals and skeleton were inside the critter they just wounded. This lack of knowledge is common among today's urban hunters and is dramatically demonstrated in Hunter Safety programs, etc. Many hunters just do not have the opportunity to see the insides of many dead animals, to "dissect" them, as it were, and without that knowledge I believe they seek in mathematical formulas some method by which to make their game drop dead, instead of understanding just how easy it is to kill something as long as the vitals are hit well with any of a large number of reasonable calibers. For instance, on the place here we raise various domestic stock and my kids are members of a farm/ranch club. They know how the insides of a deer, elk or steer differ from a pig, differ from a bear, differ from a horse, etc because they study it and because they have their hands inside most of these critters on a routine basis. IMHO, lots of hunters today have no real clue about this stuff. They look at a few pictures in a book and think they have it all down pat, and then aim essentially center mass and hope their gun is "big enough" to get the job done. My kids know where to stick the bullet. Last year my daughter shot her first deer, a monster for these parts, weighing about 220 lb gutted, a heavy-bodied, large-racked trophy. The deer presented itself in a totally different position from any of the targets we shoot for practice. After he was down and gutted, I told her I was impressed with her performance. She responded "It's no big deal, Dad, we study this stuff and I knew where the heart was..." Caliber used; 7.62x39 with a cheap round of WOLF steel-cased HP. Heart pulped. One small anecdote but it makes the point. I could go on...

I am convinced many adults who don't, shall we say, live around a butcher shop, rely too heavily on some mathematical, near-magical perceived ability of their weapon to kill without absolute reliance on precise placement of the shot to get it done. And an argument about mathematical tables ensues.

Ripp, if interested, PM me and I will send you some material regarding the above mentioned statements. I think you'll find it interesting.

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What are the Rosary, the Cross or the Crucifix other than tools to help maintain the fortress of our faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?

Edited by 9ThreeXFifty7 (13/07/07 10:48 PM)