Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles So what do you actually gain with more velocity?

" So what do you actually gain with more velocity?"

Maybe nothing useful - it depends on what you are doing and what you want.

For close range work, additional velocity may be detrimental to achieving your goals due to increased recoil and additional but unnecessary meat damage. For longer ranges it again depends. Are you banging steel, in which case a hit counts the same regardless of velocity or energy? Are you hunting elk where higher velocities help ensure bullet expansion and where retained energy/momentum helps ensure greater tissue/bone damage and penetration?

Take the bullet given, a 155g Scenar, B.C. .508, at the given velocities. Further, assume a MPBR zero for a target 6" in diameter. For purposes of discussion we will also assume you want an impact velocity of 1800fps or greater to ensure bullet expansion and 1200fpe or greater to help ensure adequate damage and penetration. (The actual numbers don't matter much but we have to start somewhere.)

Under those conditions, every additional 100fps yields an extra 10 yards or so to MPBR and 7-8 yards to Zero ranges. If you are hunting dinky southern deer in the swamps where 50 yards is a long shot, this is a big 'don't care'.

But what if you are sitting on a knoll, as I've done numerous times, with a clear shot in every direction and the possibility that game could come from any of them? (The math here doesn't care if your shooting area is a full or partial circle, the results are the same.) In that case, every additional 100fps adds about 20% to the area you can shoot and still retain the desired 1800fps and 1200fpe. Going from 2800fps to 3300fps more than doubles the area.

While I've stumbled on game in their bed, unaware they were there until they jumped up and ran or flew away, it has been much more common for me to notice game at a distance and either wait for the game to close the gap or stalk to closer ranges. The important thing is that such game - most - is first noticed at the edges of my awareness. How does an extra 100fps increase chances of getting game? In a circle, every 100fps adds 3 football fields worth of ground that can covered with either MPBR or Zero range. Moreover, going from 2800fps to 2900fps adds 39 football fields worth of coverage if using 1800fps as the limit and 34 fields if using 1200fpe. Those numbers grow to 48 and 41 respectively as velocity is increased from 3200fps to 3300fps. Could game be hiding in an area as large as 39 football fields? Going from 2800fps to 3300fps those numbers are 206 and 189 football fields. How much game could hide in an area that large?

The point is that extra velocity is not a useless commodity, depending on circumstances. I personally don't practice past 600 yards (and don't use Scenar bullets either) so much of the above is intellectually interesting but, for my purposes, not worth a lot from a practical standpoint. In 32 years of elk hunting my longest three shots have been 487 yards (2013), 400 yards (2012) and 350 yards (1999 or so). A .308 Win could have done it all.

In general, though, I believe higher velocity can and often does result in faster incapacitation.

REALLY good post, Coyote hunter. I know that your arrival velocities were just numbers pulled from a hat or maybe numbers at which most reasonable bullets will still expand and penetrate adequately, but one of the reasons I try to get my muzzle velocities up to around 3500fps or better is so that my IMPACT velocities can be 2500fps or greater. IT is at this speed that tests and my own experience show that there is a great liklihood of extensive hydraulic overload or distant from the bullet path tissue damage.

Fun thread, for me anyway as I am a total velocity fan(with GOOD bullets). And, a two holes in the critter believer as well.

I don't know how I ever killed one.

10/4 on that........




if you poke him at night and he ain't DRT,

and you have to track him on your hands and knees through the brush with a flashlight in one hand, and a pistol in the other,




it sure helps to have a good blood trail to follow.



best,

GWB

Sounds like a good job for my Marlins in.45-70 or .375Win.

Let me know if you need help.

45/70's and 375 Wins are not exactly velocity kings, friend (the topic of this thread). They generally make two holes, and kill stuff for sure, but if you really want to see the clockwork come unglued and leave a nice mess for you to follow, shoot them with a medium bore at really high speeds and a Barnes or similar.

My nastiest two hole makers are my 338 Wildcat that pushes a Barnes 225 at 3100, and if the game is fairly close up then my 416 Rigby with 350gr TTSX's at 2750 is hard to beat for a trail that Stevie Wonder could follow.

Coyote Hunter.....

Excellent post you made a few posts back. Its down to earth realistic untainted replies like that....that make it worth showing up to the fire to learn something useful. Thanks!

Shod

[quote=safariman]45/70's and 375 Wins are not exactly velocity kings, friend (the topic of this thread).:

I've personally had less than stellar results hunting with a 45/70 I used to own taking lung shots. I had to learn the hard way that lung shots with a bullet moving that slow meant the animal would run several mountains over with no blood trail. Now if I shot through shoulders there was nothing I couldn't pick right off the ground and pile it up about 10 feet from where it was standing. Results with this method were great out to 200 yds or so.

I eventually found myself interested in killing game beyond 200 yds and thus have sold my 45/70 and moved on to calibers that kill just fine....on one end....not BOTH!

Shod

Interesting read well said coyote

And faster degradation of barrel life..