Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles killing efficiency

ok, not energy, or "knockdown" or "Taylor theory" or bullet weight/diameter question exactly.

does a 30-06 with a 150 grain cup and core bullet at 2900 fps have a decided edge over a 6.5x55 with a 140 partition, or a 257 weatherby with a 100 ttsx at 3500fps?

I am kicking around some ideas and the energy figures are close, and the "mythic power" of the "kills better than it should on paper" type observations are all there.

and let's say elk or bear. does the diameter of the 06 offset the velocity of the 257, or the penetration of the swede come in higher or lower on the "what's important in killing efficiency" scale?

to boil it down...does it make sense to have the recoil and possibly the weight of a larger rifle, or is it just as effective to use something else?

and yes, we will be putting each bullet in the right place and using a decent bullet.

I am showing my ass here and admitting I don't know much. which is ok, because I don't know much

you guys with decades of experience putting holes in animals tell me how to quantify this stuff.

Overthinking it. Just go shoot [bleep].

Actually we are all waiting for a definitive case study on this very issue. All we need are tens of thousands of hunters to keep detailed statistics of their kiltkritters, and send them in.

My vote for most efficient killing machine is; any human worried about being eaten by their wounded prey. That person will almost certainly succeed..., those who don't succeed, of course, their votes will not be counted.

+1 on the reply above

well people here obsess about such gack all the time. and some cite science and bc and sd and spindrift and Doppler and some say daddy's old 06 is all that's ever needed.

wouldn't we all like to know the unknown, unexplained in this question?

and shooting damn near any animal in the lungs or heart with any of those, would lead to it dying. but what of stopping a charge, or keeping it from crossing a property line or etc?

so we are, in effect, measuring efficiency, not whether they will lead to the end, specifically, killing an animal.

so, if we are talking about efficiency...how do we measure it and what variables actually matter?

Mostly about where you put any decent bullet. miles

Basically I have come to believe that most of the midsized rounds we have shooting 100-200 gr bullets have plenty of power to kill the game we normally hunt in North America that weigh up to 600 lbs or so. This covers 90% of the game we kill so most of the variations you see depend on the individual animal or circumstance. In other word when someone shares that he had a deer run off with a 243 thats probably true as is the story from the guy using a 30-06 or 7x57 or 270. But so are the ones where the individual has dozens of DRT stories. In other words you probably won't see much difference between rounds effectiveness as all are more than adequate. If you begin to shoot a lot of game larger than 600 lbs as in moose, bears, or large bull elk then you might want to look to the heavier end of the range and up as deeper penetration may help on the heavier bodied animals

Most of the "dead right there" animals I have seen have been shot with higher velocity rounds with most of those being from a 257 weatherby. Either way those animals aren't any more dead than ones shot with 6.5 swede or the 30-06 that stumbled for 40 yards. Put the bullet in the right place and good things happen.

A study by a game biologist in Sweden including over 8000 moose taken with cartridges, from the 6.5 X55 Swede to the 375 H&H Magnum showed that the 6.5X55 swede was competitive with all the usual big game cartridges including the 30/06, 300 win mag,and 338 Winchester Magnum.

My own personal experience over the last three years is I have consistently produced quicker kills with my 270 with 150 partitions than my brother has with his 338 win mag and a 225 gr barnes when hunting together. The kills include mule deer,elk, and black bear. In fact I've produced faster kills with my 270 and the 150 partition than any other rifle I've hunted in the last 30+year's.

From what I hear the 6.5 Swede is rather impressive with the 140 partition. I've not tried it yet but I did recently aquire a 6.5 Swede. My 270 works so well for elk sized critters I'll likely use my Swede for a different task. I'm planing to use my Swede for Eastern Montana antelope and deer out to 600 ish yds.







Shod

Jack O'Connor wrote an article in an old Gun Digest titled "It's where you hit'em, not what you hit'em with" or something like that. When questioning an Indian guide of some experience about which guns work best, the Indian replied, "any gun good gun shoot'em good!"

I agree with those sentiments 100%.

I don't have the experience of sheer numbers of many here but have dropped a few head of game over the years. From what I've observed, bullet placement is far and away the biggest factor in killing efficiency - that's assuming any of a number of decently constructed bullets with sufficient ability to penetrate to the vitals.

A 270 grain Swift A-Frame from a .375 H&H in the guts of an impala lets it run away to die overnight. That same bullet in the right place on a larger zebra drops it within seconds. A 180 gr. Nosler Partition from a .30-06 too far back on a deer lets it run a ways, that very same bullet from the very same rifle at the juncture of the neck and body drops a much larger elk on the spot. I could cite example after example of this where animals large and small displayed very different reactions and longevity after the hit by the exact same bullet brand and type from the exact same rifle at similar impact velocities, all based on where the bullet entered and what it hit on its path.

Certain uncontrollable factors may influence the rapidity of anchoring the animal - whether it was breathing in or out, perhaps, but that's just conjecture, I couldn't prove it by empirical evidence. Bullets that expand very rapidly in the heart/lung region do tend to produce more visible reactions.

But day in and day out, put the bullet where it's supposed to go and you won't see a lot of difference in killing efficiency between most of them.

In that moose study IIRC they measured to the best of their ability how far the animals went after being hit. Over thousands of examples there wasn't but about 15 yards difference between the .375 and the 6.5x55, it all came down to good bullet placement.

In my late teens, from ignorance, I thought that the 6mm sierra 85 bthp was a varmint bullet, due to the hollow point. And i used it well on a lot of coyotes, a few fox, and a couple of Carolina whitetails. One time on leave from Ft. Bragg I killed a pretty fair sized hog that was rooting up rice levees at home.

I mentioned this to a shooting mentor who told me that the 85 bthp was actually a bullet meant for game. From that point thru my early 30s I blithely used it for all kinds of whitetails, mulies, pronghorn, and even one black bear. And a fair few more hogs, too...

IMO/IME it is a super accurate bullet which drops game quickly and cleanly. If well used...
Eventually I read enough and heard enough from other sources that I was convinced that i needed tougher bullets for game.

I can actually recall one instance where a tougher bullet was to my advantage, and I started using them nearly 30 years ago.

What was the question???

This has often been the accepted philosophy on the Campfire, more so than the cartridge. As much as shot placement is vital, there is more to killing than light bullets with high BC and fast twist.

The Campfire does seem to push fast twist and fails to recognize that heavier bullets with high velocity does provide more killing energy. Where the threshold of enough is, doesn't ever seem to be a consensus.

I will still stick with medium bullets with velocity, as heavy slow bullets can provide lots of momentum, a 405 grain bullet from a 45-70 doesn't kill as well as a 30 caliber 165 grain bullet at 2900 fps. I also hold to the idea that same 165 grain bullet at 2900 fps is a better killer than a 22 caliber 75 grain bullet from a fast twist twist 223 at 2900 fps.

If larger caliber bullets weren't better killers, there wouldn't be caliber limitations on African game...

Too many variables, impossible to quantify.

Worry about somethng else.

Shrapnel...common sense laws are an oxymoron lol

There was a good article a few years ago which documented the results of several seasons worth of deer at a club somewhere in the south. Someone will be along shortly with more specifics.

The results showed fast 25 cals to kill quickest. Can't remember shot placement that was most efficient for quick kills. Cup & cores killed faster than monos.

I've had great experiences with deer-sized game and the 30-30, 30-06, 338-06, 6-250, 257 AI, and a couple others but my favorite is the 257 AI.

The Bob or a 25-06 would be close enough. Probably significant that I shoot my 257 AI a lot and am totally confident that I can hit when the trigger is pulled.

I tend to think Shrap's are great points if we're speaking as broadly as all of NA or it and African plains game. If we're just talking deer you're heard my (very) limited experience.

It takes a lot of experience to determine what a cartridge can do in a lot of hunting situations. After many experiences with hunting with a variety of calibers it comes down to the size of game and the typical distances that one expects to shoot at. I have grown found of using the largest caliber whose recoil is the easiest to handle. Whitetail deer can be taken down with a 243 and a 95 to 100 grain bullet. Shoots flat - and will reach out there for 300 yards and possibly more. The 30-06 is best with a 165 grainer and will provide velocity, carry and relative flatness of trajectory to 325 yards. A 300 WM and 180 grainer has sufficient power to knock down a bull moose out to 600 yards. So there are variables that come from experience and one can learn such things by way of real life experience. I study ballistics on a regular basis to provide additional data to my hunting experiences. Lots of calibers for given conditions, and using a tuned rifle and ammo goes a long way in bettering ones successes out in the field.

OK an example. A 2506 for instance shows the same energy at 500 yards that a 3006 does. So does that mean the 100 grain bullet is equally a good killer regardless of the game? Or is a 150 grain bullet with a bigger diameter but less SD better even at that range and if so why and how?

Many years ago I asked at least a hundred hunters who hunted more than two continents over more than twenty years with different calibers. I asked if there was any noticeable killing difference in different calibers. The general consensus was there is not much difference between 6.5 up to .375. Above the .375 things change drastically. Back then about the only good bullet was the Nosler.

Yeah but given equal energy and experience would you shoot a charging bear with a swede and feel as good as if you had an 06? Now is there an edge? And why