Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Hearing the shot and the bullet impact

I have two related questions--

First, it's often noted that people don't hear the shot when firing at big game. My experience has been a little different, in that I usually do hear the shot, though quite muffled--as if I were wearing ear plugs.

On my recent hunt in Africa, this held true for the first six animals I shot, all with full-power loads from a .375 H&H; but on the seventh (a blue wildebeest, although I'd be surprised if the species made any difference) the shot was shatteringly loud and left my ears ringing for a good 15-20 minutes.

I can't think of any reason this shot was any different. Like nearly of the others, it was from a supported position at about 100 yards (one had been about 50 and another 150, and I'd made an offhand 10-yard follow-up shot on a kudu the previous evening). So there shouldn't have been anything much different mentally that would have caused me to have a different adrenaline reaction. (If anything, I should have been more excited, since wildebeest had been giving us the slip for days but here I finally had a chance.)

To add to the puzzle, the next day I shot a warthog from an enclosed, metal-roofed blind. While the muzzle was outside the structure, I still figured it might seem a little louder than standing on the ground; but I didn't hear that one at all.

Second, I always read in hunting stories about people hearing the bullet strike. I have never heard this on game, though I've heard it when shooting a .223 at steel targets 200-600 yards away. I always figured the sound of impact was drowned out by the shot if the shot was close, but didn't hear it on the 150-yard shot either.

In your experience, how far does the animal have to be before you can hear the bullet strike? Or are there other factors that come into play?

As for hearing the bullet impact on game I think it is a time distance thing.Enough time for the sound of the shot to disapate and the sound of the impact to return and sometimes in hunting we hunters just get caught up in the moment and don't hear the shot or the impact.

I almost always hear it when shooting antelope on the Montana prairie. BANG....KAWHOP.

Lovely sound.

Steve

Some times I hear it � some times I don't. Never thought much about it. But in the 1970s, I thought that I'd seen, many years before, a way to calculate midrange velocity by finding a point, perpendicular to the shooter's line of fire, where an observer heard the muzzle blast and the sound of the impact at the same instant.

Couldn't remember where I'd seen it.

Couldn't find it even mentioned in "the literature."

So I figured it out. Did the physics (speed of sound, air temperature, etc). Did the trig. Figured the math. Made the tables. Still have 'em somewhere, I reckon.

Still can't remember where I'd seen it, so long ago.

That is fascinating-- love to see that stuff written up here sometime Ken.

If u've ever done much pr. dog shooting, the "meat report" is often quite distinct. I've shot with guys before, that just by the sound of the MR u could tell if he got a head shot or not, as the sound of the bullet striking bone is different than the sound of bullet striking flesh.

My old hunting buddy Earl used to be able to tell if i'd made a long shot on a coyote or not, and he actually got pretty good at determining how far away the shot was just by the interval between rifle report, and meat report (this with the little .17 cals.)

I always listen for a meat report when coyote hunting, as that's instant communication, and often quite gratifying.

Actually that brings up an interesting point. When we put on a silhouette shoot, if a guy's shooting at long-range, i don't relay a hit to him before the report comes back to us, as i know i like to hear it, and the shooter even more so (that's one of the fun parts of shooting silhouettes really, and could, in fact contribute to it's popularity). Often other spotters will yell out, "HIT," and drown out the report. That's disappointing, IMO.

It's in Sharpes "Complete guide to handloading".
Ken you shouldn't put out a teaser like that, I remember seeing it also, couldn't rest until I found it.
Take Care!

Thanks!

A tickle on the edge of my brain told me "Sharpe's CGH" back then, and I thought that I'd looked there first and hadn't found it, in my cruise through the books and old magazines. I hadn't read Sharpe's Complete Guide since 1953 or so (twenty or more years earlier). I either didn't check Sharpe's book at all in the 1970s or did so too hastily.

At any rate, for whatever reason, I hadn't confirmed my memory as to where I'd seen it and had to figure it out to learn how it'd work. A number of brainy folks told me that it wasn't possible, but I believed that it was.

When I unpack my books and reshelve 'em, I'll check Sharpe's again. (For what some old wag long ago called "the fish-market reason" � just for the halibut.)

Again, thanks!

This past December i shot a very large bodied WhiteTail buck at a distance of 120 yards with my 6mm and heard a most definite bullet impact.
A couple of days before i killed a big feral hog that weighed close to 300 pounds and again i heard both bullets from my .308 hit him.
The shot distance was around 100 yards.
Both of these animals were killed from the same tower blind on a long and wide open sendero.
Perhaps the openness of the sendero made the sound of bullet impact possible for me to hear as these two times were the only time in 45 years of hunting that I have heard my own shots impact.
Now when someone is hunting oh say within a half mile or so away from me and shoots i can generally tell if the shot was good or not by the sound of "Thwack..Boom" heard a half a second apart.
Interesting thread.

We usually call or radio each other after a shot and ask "how it sounded" on our small lease. At close range, I seldom heard the impact of my own shots. But at longer range, especially hogs, it is a reassuring sound. On my longest shot ever, it was amazing to see the hogg drop and moments later heard the thump.

pepaw

I listen for the sound of the hit. IME, if the shot is more than about 100yds, I can hear it. If the shot is a long one, maybe 250 yds or more, you can hear the sound of the bullet in the air prior to the hit. It's a comforting sound after you have made your shot! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Anyone have any thoughts on why my one shot seemed so much louder than the other 8 fired at game in the same week?

It depends on how high I have my hearing aids turned up..sorry coulden' help my self. as I am 75% deaf. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I shot at a coyote in Montana last fall at about 75 yards in the dying light and could not find him. Thought I had missed for a while but a partner on a rise easily a mile an a half away said he heard the whack of the hit! I heard zip. Never found him, including during a search the next AM. Go figure. A mystery.

1B

Back to the OP...Your ears always respond to the shot (and always get damaged if not protected) but quite often the brain simply ignores that input because it's expected but the brain is "busy" doing more important stuff. It's why we don't feel hunting recoil, or why people in gunfights don't hear the shots, even indoors. The brain just tunes it out - most of the time.

With electronic protection, you not only hear better before you shoot, but are protected from the shot, and then hear the bullet strike. With good plugs, you can hear the bullet go through the paper at 100 yards on the range.

For the most part, distance from the game, shot placement and lastly type of round/slug used dictates this for me.

Like DZ said for lopes I hear it quite often, especially when I shot them past say 250 and especially when I use my 7 Mashburn.

And Steve is right, it is such a lovely sound!

Mark D

Yeah, that's my understanding and my usual experience. I'm just trying to figure out this one startling exception. I don't think I was any less amped up than usual at this shot.

I once shot a running Jackrabbit at about 50 yards, with a .45 colt carbine, loaded with 200 gr. jhp's.
The sound was like slapping a watermelon, only magnafied many times.
Seems to me, that wind, blowing the gun sound away, might have something to do with hearing the bullet "smack" <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
as there was a stiff crosswind when I shot.
Virgil B.

For me its much easier to hear the hit if I am some distance from the shooter. Like if you hear a partners shot and he is over the hill from you or on the next ridge over. Or if the animal is over 200 yards away from me when I shoot. I've also noticed its easier to hear the impact with low recoiling rifles and more rapid expanding bullets and like Mark mentioned shot placement. BT's GK's seem to make more of a meaty THWOP! than a Partition to my ears when I am doing the shooting. Shooting over light fluffy snow on a overcast day seems to muffle the shot compared to shooting over hard frozen ground or snow. A wet fall day also seems to muffle the shot somewhat to my ears.

Normally if I do get the ears ringing its on the second shot, either to pick up the second coyote, or put the kill shot into a game animal.

Lonny-I've taken quite a few lopes at long range with my Mashburn using the 150 NBT, and another highly accurate 150 bullet that will remain nameless or else this thread may digress quickly.

My point is that using these slugs at long range on lopes to me kind of reminds me of what it would sound like if you tee'd off on a gopher with a 9 iron!

It makes and effect and it makes some noise, like DZ says I just love the sight and sound of it!

Mark D

Flat-nosed cast bullets make a heck of a 'whop!' when they hit.... at 100 yards or so, the .444 Marlin impact is pretty loud!

That one is slow enough to clearly hear the thump. Usually, I don't hear the thump with the bottlenecks under 100 yards, although the 338 Win Mag going into a pig shoulder makes a pretty good noise too.

I almost always shoot with earplugs in (shooting from blinds or roadhunting pigs at night) and rarely hear the bullet hits at short range.

Hit a mule deer in the neck in CO on a long shot (luck, mine good, his bad...). Made quite a loud crack! when it hit.