They are gonna drop more sooner when you start shootin' em with that new Swift.

I used to use a 22-250 for feral hog control. The object was to kill the animal humanely, but in some cases you want the animal to move away from the point that it is standing. I stopped using the 22-250 for this because it usually made them DRT, even when you shot them "a little far back".

johnw

I'm sorry, Noslers weren't popular in KS that early because we had no deer.

About the Roy Weatherby military tests. My memory is not what it used to be, but I think that I read it in a gun mag interview. It is my understanding that bullets break up, not from velocity, but from the propellant and 5-6,000fps is max before bullet break up. Roy's group created a pipe like barrel, maybe 100's of feet long, and fired charges along the barrel as the bullet exited to reach the super velocity. I Googled, but could not find support. Maybe someone else on the Fire remembers reading about it. Good luck.

there is no gunpowder propellant which will reach such velocities... i've read about the weatherby tests, and if i recall correctly the top velocities were in the neighborhood of 5000 fps in a 30-378 shooting a bullet of approximately 50 gr...

the most energetic military explosives that i'm aware of reach a maximum outward expansion rate of around 8000 fps which compresses the air surrounding the explosion to the point where it is harder and denser than any steel... firearms engineering and internal ballistics will need a big technology jump to reach the 10,000 fps mark...

the weatherby tests had to be a blast (literally) and it's a pretty well known phenomenon that the average 22-250 will penetrate plate steel better than the average 30-06... i've read the explanation for this, and seen it discussed here... it doesn't figure into my day to day shooting so i ignore such odd facts...

speed kills, and for most purposes 2400 fps muzzle velocity (PDQ) with an appropriate bullet will get the job done for most of us out to a couple of hundred yards or so...
in my experience, properly tweaked bullet design and weight, along with added velocity allows quicker and more spectacular kills on most light game such as deer and hogs...

i have experienced this with several types of bullets started with a muzzle velocity in the neighborhood of 32-3400 fps... the sierra game king is perhaps the most common and cost efficient in my experience having used it in .24, .28, and .30 diameters on game...

It was slightly angling. Sometimes animals just don't know they're dead...

John

Sarcasm or serious? Have shot enough animals to know the animal gets a vote no matter what caliber you are shooting them with...

John

A very high velocity bullet WILL kill quicker 95% of the time, but it will also fail to penetrate on ocassion or rather sooner or later...It will also destroy a tremendous amount of meat.

By the same token a big heavy bullet will not normally kill'em in their tracks, but it will kill every time without fail, and it will leave a good blood trail and it won't destroy a lot of edible meat...

I have shot a number of deer size animals with the 220 Swift, 22-250 adn 243 with light bullets, mostly on cull hunts and at one time worked for the Texas Parks and wildlife shooting deer in Black Gap Game Reserve for the stomach content studies, and the meat damage is horrible and uncalled for in the hi-vel calibers if you took a shoulder shot..

I have witnessed and had happen total bullet explosion on the hide with 0 penetration and big sauser size wounds more than a few times, and these always ended up in a long and hard tracking job, and some without recovery. I am not a fan of the hi vel 22s except under very controlled circumstances.

I much prefer the 180 to 200 gr. bullets in a 30-06 or even a 170 gr. 30-30 for deer hunting over the speedy small bores.

hahahya unfortunatley no, it was not sarcasm.

Well - a lot of old timers loved the 85 hpbt's in the 243\6mm's, many reported it killing like lightening. I decided to load them but just can't bring myself to trust it more than the standard 100 grains or either my 270Win or 260Rem on deer. Now, I have killed only three deer with the 260Rem but using 140 grain (rather heavy for caliber) Sierra Gamekings (rather soft) bullets at modest speeds I am seeing perfection shooting deer around 100 yds and three straight drops. The vast majority of deer shot with my other two calibers have run -normally 70 yards. No problem but.....my current thinking is the more you increase the speed the bigger the liklihood of something failing. An exit the size of a nickel makes me happier than an exit (or an entrance) the size of a grapefruit.

Years and years ago, one of my friends went to CO, with some older guys from his small town, on a mule deer hunt. He had a .270Wby, that was a great elk rifle. On that trip he shot 5 mulies. I know, but he helped fill some of the older fellow's tags. He shot the last two deer with his 30-30 because the .270Wby was blowing up too much meat. I have a Ruger #1 in .270Wby and I picked up 3 boxes of factory 100gr SP's, very cheap. I may try them on deer from my blind someday. It's hard for me to get away from that Sav 99 in .308Win.