Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Game - and ballistics

Can animals understand ballistics? Do they carry a Chronograph? Wear Kevlar?

So much obsession is on the headstamp, fps, ft. lbs, B.C., etc.....yes it matters in terminal performance, but truth be told, most animals WILL die when vitals are punched with a decent bullet.

Marksmanship comes before ballistics = hit vitals and it does not make as much difference as folks debate, after that happens. All bullets drop, drift, and slow down. Yet they still kill - when punching vitals. KNOW where your rifle will hit, and use a POA that will give a POI on vitals.

One merely has to look at the field results on say the 6.5 Grendel forum to realize most any standard round is plenty sufficient on most non-dangerous North American Game, at typical field ranges.

Shot placement + bullet selection.

Now about that ideal caliber... Lol

Understanding ballistics, using a chronograph, etc., makes that all important POA/POI that much easier.

I'm not near as obsessed most, but knowing and understanding a few things about what you're shooting, just makes hitting those vitals that much easier.

Ballistics is just part of the fun. It is also a legitimate part of getting a rifle to hit the intended target. Marksmanship is where it is really at! I'd love to see more discussion on techniques for field position shooting.

Bullets are most effective if they are delivered within their designed terminal velocity range. Also within that range there seems to be a range that imparts the greatest effect on living tissue. Hit a deer with a blazing fast bullet and it is liable to shed its jacket (or petals from a monometal) and whiz right through, seemingly with very little effect on the animal. Too slow and lack of penetration comes into play.
Ballistics helps you deliver the bullets where you want with the amount of desired energy. And yeah, it's fun.

I agree. After the gack, we need to shoot.

I think one good way to practice field positions is to make it hard on yourself. For example, does anyone practice from the off hand position at 200-300 yards? Point is not that you will take that shot on an animal, but that it makes the same shot at 100 yards seem relatively easy.

Variations on this same theme are endless because BG animals show up in all kinds of conditions and circumstances,and the ability to hit from field positions can make a difference in your success.

I agree PRM and Bob. Good posts..

1) Hunting = Break the shoulders with a good bullet, take a few pics and grab a sharp knife.
2) At camp = Talk the BS about BC FPS OAL POA POI MOA PBR bla-bla-bla� and drink good whiskey.

I do and all the BR guys at the range look at me like I left my pizzle hangin out and mumble a lot.


But, it does work. The forkhorn buck I killed at 150 yards off hand opening day last Fall was a whole lot easier shot to make because of the practice.

There ya go!


Gunnut that's a good pic!

WTF, you don't play cards? How many of you guys practice from your weak shoulder? gunnut's post reminded me of the rifle I sold to him and the shot I took on my '11 mulie buck with that rifle. Had to shoot right handed that time off my pack. It pays to practice every imaginable position, left and right handed....

Camp-drink-poker-dominos-
Bullshitt, its whats for dinner...

I hear ya..

Pretty sure it was 'Stick that said "If you can shoot, everything works. If you can't, nothing does".

That being said, there isn't any pffuukking way I'm bringing a 6.5 Grendel on a timberline elk hunt.

Now see what you're done? You've done and ruined cartridge discussion/debates by bringing in logic where there ain't no place for it. And you could have single-handedly destroyed basis for mega-magnums.

Fact is put a bullet from any reasonable cartridge into any animal's heart and/or lungs, and it will die. Cartridge is immaterial. That oxygenated blood flow to any animal's brain has been permanently interrupted will kill every animal every time.

I had a poster try to tell me that elk can keep going sans their hearts pumping oxygenated blood. I think he was watching too much "Walking Dead".

BTW, it took me some wisdom gaining before I figured out that a .308 Win will kill big game just as surely as a .300 Win Man as long as bullets from each destroy pumping parts or the oxygenation parts.

And it took me even more wisdom before I figured out that gun/hunting magazines are entertainment, and most gun/hunting writers that come up cockamamie formulae for determine perfect gun for each species of big game are really full of bull.

I was done with hunting magazines when Boddington came up with cockamamie scheme for assigning best cartridge for each species of North American big game. Madonna's. "Like a Virgin" made more sense.

Good posts all, figured I'd get some juices flowing.

My first rifle and deer kill was using a 7RM, since then I have dropped deer at a 1/4 mile w/a 6BR.

I get FAR more practice using smaller rounds that beat me up less, and my ears are thankful as well.

Miss vitals and things do not work out so well. Yes, I too have poursed over tables and used calculators to ad nauseaum, but it often boils down to placement using a good bullet, as MOST animals are shot at distances that any legal reasonable cartridge is very capable.

Tanner, a Grendel would not be my first choice on elk, nor if in canyon country, but if it was all I had, I would proceed. Recall our LR specialist - J. Burns, dumping elk at 1/2 a mile using a 243......a Grendel is more than capable using the right bullet.

But why not use a 6.5BR

Keep in mind the 6.5G reference was intended to illustrate that a good amount of game has been cleany dropped using a round most people view as anemic. The amount of speed/energy needed is likely far less then what most hunters are carrying. Nothing wrong with using more than minimum, just illustrating what happens when using a GOOD bullet thru vitals can do. Same thing happens when guys plink/poke at animals at double and triple the distance of what most consider a long shot.

Again, good feedback by all. Love to see Mule Deer do an article on field shot placement, and use random shooters using rifles from low powered scoped rifles in modest recoiling rounds, to the hubble scoped magnums. Results would be interesting on vital hit scores from field positions.

I shared with a friend how I wanted to take a head of big game with my old Winchester 401 Self Loader. He immediately began to admonish me about the extremely low BC of the bullets available for that old round. I knew he had gone too far around the bend when he was so concerned about the BC of a stubby little 40 caliber bullet in a round best suited to tree stands and still hunting with 50 yard or less shots.

I practice off hand at ranges to 150 nearly every time I shoot. But I like to shoot just to shoot, without the desire to just prep for a hunt. It turned out that on the last hunt of last season I had to either take an absurdly long shot offhand or watch them run away and climb back down the mtn I had just about killed myself getting up. I opted to shoot, and with one sighter to get the distance right, I drilled the heart/lungs of the doe. Never worked so damned hard for a doe in my life, nor have I attempted such a long off-hander at an animal. Was it irresponsible? Hard to say, as it felt right at the time and worked out perfectly. I am supremely confident at shots I shoot at animals anymore, or I don't shoot. Certainly, I have heard much condemning here on the fire of what I attempted. But it was my shooting, and I accepted responsibility for the outcome, whether it was favorable or not. Turned out I grew even more confident in my ability to buckle down and do it right when it matters.

Oh, and I love the gack. Its exhaustive study has made me a far better marksman than I was, and I dig the numbers and what they mean. I don't believe the hype anymore when the next greatest thing comes along, and I understand better now that it is the wound that kills, rather than the bullet, or its energy, or its weight, or velocity.

Gee........doesn't bullet weight, mass,diameter, expansion characteristics,penetration,impact velocity,rpm's, bone breaking (immobilizing effect),deep and wide wound channels, count for anything?


By the time we finish with this ballistic relativism and reach its highly illogical conclusion, the 243 will be as good a Cape Buffalo or brown bear cartridge as a 375 H&H....and we know that ain't gonna happen.

The reason we get so mixed up with this stuff is that we shoot a lot of game of 400 pounds and under with a bunch of cartridges of pretty comparable ballistics and bullet weights; don't see much difference,and conclude that bigger is never better. I doubt this holds true if game is 2-4 times bigger.

In the long run,and against a wide range of game, I don't think that dog will hunt.