Was a fly on the wall the other night, while 2 gents debated "shock /knock down" power, or myth of said power.
#1 party said he uses heavier bullits for the additional knock down umph, superior to lighter projectiles.
#2 says physics state every action has an equal but oppisite reaction, thus the prey feels aprox on impact what you feel in your shoulder via recoil.
I had enough sense to stay the hell out, and remaim a fly on the wall, but got my curiosity going. How much validity do you gave shock power?

Very little. I put the bullet in a place where the animal will not run off and live. They may still run off, but they usually leave lots of blood and are pretty easy to find. I tend to use heavy for caliber bullets, but I'm shooting mostly factory cup and core bullets and feel that I'm better off with heavier bullets of this construction.

I'll be a fly on the wall as well, but atleast I'll have my popcorn....

I can guarantee that contestant #2 has never been shot.

I don't think that the nock imparts any energy at all; it's just there to keep the arrow on the string.

+1

I've never been shot either. Do tell.

Was thinking the same thing...and it shouldn't matter if the nock is down.....or up.

Course...gettin' nocked up is entirely different....

We talkin 'bout the thing on the butt end of an arrow?

Hmmmmmm, What's gonna leave a bigger mark a Chevy Aveo at 80 MPH or a Peterbilt tanker truck at 65 MPH when it hits something? The only way a lighter, smaller bullet can make up for size is velocity combined with quality construction.

Nope, ethnic slurs...

Use a 338 Lapua Mag and it wont matter

Ingwe's talking about the after effects of when an arrow penetrates the target.

I have

It's funny how a misspelled word can lead to endless blather.

But I think Phil nailed it pretty well.

Bob

www.bigbores.ca

The one thing that the original poster said I have to take a little harder look at. The animal feels the same recoil as the shooter, due to physics. First the shooter has the mass of the rifle and size of the recoil area to slow then disperse the recoil. Second we add the adzorbing power of the material in the recoil pad and the fact that the excess gasses leave the barrel behind the bullet. It is another thing when the bulllet and gasses cannot escape the barrel, but that is another story.

Momentum of the rifle is slowed by it's extra mass as compared to the mass of the bullet and the velocity it travels...an object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by a force. The bullet is accerated up to it's speed, say 2800 fps, the stock due to it's mass, 150 grain bullet vs @ 52,500 grains to a 7.5 pound rifle, the velocity of the stock is much less (thank god) so we get a push or a slap or next to no recoil depending on the round fired. Could you imagine the "knock down" power of a 7.5 pound rifle at 2800 fps? Talk about a dangerous game gun.

To sum it up, I would much rather be on the rifle side of the equation, than the bullet side. Even with the diminutive .223, which some feel is inadequate for anything but small varmints, is a destructive force to be respected with out to hundreds yards yet leaves the rifle with a gentle push to the shooter. No matter what anyone says about it, there are mountains of dead game and combatants that this diminutive round has taken with ease. I do not think the rifle firing it has taken any lives due to it's recoil forces.

If you want knock down power , then forget a rifle and use your truck , this is the only way to get real knock down power on the spot. The only reason any animal drops right there is a brain , spine or i should say nervous system shutdown from the bullet, other wise the brain will need a few min's to run out of O2 and a deer or other big game animal can cover a few yards before this happens. They are dead while running but just don't know it.

Go on...

Or many little bitty aroows finding their mark.

Nope, recoil is the reaction of the force needed to get the bullet out of the barrel. The impact energy is the momentum of the bullet which starts to decrease as soon as it leaves the barrel.
Force = mass x acceleration
Momentum = mass x velocity

Nope, I used a 50 bmg a couple of times. Thats the least amount of blood and animals running probably 100 plus yards at a minimum.

Vs a 257 wtby and 100 tsx where they often don't run on rib shots, but if they do its a very short distance.

IMHO if you want DRT besides a CNS shot, the closest to that is going to be rapid bullet expansion and the faster that bullet is going the better it is going to be at "knockdown"

Me, I don't really care, I prefer to shoot a bullet and round that will get it done at whatever my max distance is for the largest animal I"m hunting if I"m serious. If I don't care, then I often may hunt with some really small rounds... 32-20 being one... and love the challenge and the fact that you have to pass up shots all the time...

That's very true for deer. They really react to bullet speed and expansion.

Moose, on the other hand, seem to be bothered by the noise. They'll die on their own schedule...Them rascals can soak up some punishment.

Ingwe,
I liked your point about "nock" down versus up.

I took a #6 pellet in the face one time, about as close to my eye as one could get without actually hitting the eyeball. It's surprising how much power one of them little things carries. I bled like a stuck hog.

Took one of those shotgun pellets, @ BB sized, to my right leg from a small game hunter once. It went through two layers of cloth and drove @ 1 1/2 inches into my leg from about 50 yards away. Bled pretty good for a non vital hit.

Only one pellet hit me out of the pattern. I got lucky the tree I was leaning against took most of the load.

Why was he shooting at you???

OP,

If you want knock down power, bust as much bone as you can

.................If a casual observer in such a debate, I just might ask party #1 to explain for example, how the relatively "lighter" hunting VLD bullets in the 264 and 7mm calibers immediately drop big elk at extended long ranges?

I would then ask party #2. How would having more recoil necessarily increase knock down power? Party #2 is thinking that the more the recoil the more powerful the round, therefore equaling superior knockdown power. Well yes,,,and no.

I say to both. Sufficient bullet speed along with sufficient bullet weight is needed for any given bullet to do its job upon and after impact. But what determines better knock down power capability, depends more on "what" the bullet does internally "after" impact assuming the bullet is well placed.

A heavier bullet does not always translate into better knockdown power and is not necessarily superior to lighter projectiles. Depends on the game hunted and how the bullet reacts internally in the game.

Setting lighter vs heavier bullets aside, better shock/knockdown power imo, hinges more on the amount of internal damage and wound channel destruction. I wonder if that was later discussed in their debate.

My understanding, FWIW, is that animals drop due to wound reaction, not 'umph'. A heavier bullet might be more 'effective', however, if so it would have to do with inflicting a larger wound channel etc. - not simply because it was more 'massive'.

Shot at a squirrel without checking his background in all of the excitement. We made up, but needless to say, I have never hunted with him again.

.................If a casual observer in such a debate, I just might ask party #1 to explain for example, how the relatively "lighter" hunting VLD bullets in the 264 and 7mm calibers immediately drop big elk at extended long ranges?

A heavier bullet does not always translate into better knockdown power and is not necessarily superior to lighter projectiles. Depends on the game hunted and how the bullet reacts internally in the game.

These 2 points are what I was primarily thinking. Party #1 is my FIL, whom is ALWAYS right. He swears by heaviest projectile for a given round. I have debated him in the past saying we both have taken deer with 1oz slugs, deer didn't flinch, ran off like the big bang skeered it. Not far mind you, but body language didn't say "I've been hit". My good buddy last year took a nice doe with his Savage 99 in 22HP. Bang-Flop. So I don't subscribe to the "shocking power" theory.
I think party #2, who knows him fairly well was trying to pizz him off. But he made enough sense for me to want to some google stuff when I think I have the right questions in mind.

The 2 points are quotes from bigsqueeze, but my efforts on a segmented quote were an utter failure

Nock down power is real or a .22 would hit as hard as a .375 H&H but it doesn't,does it?

Take a 243 and a 375 H&H and pick a bullet that penetrates equally between them,,Which one has the most "Nock Down Power"

Jayco

Someone on the forum has a sig line that says something along the lines:

Foot pounds don't kill game; leaky holes and broken bones do.

hahaha. 24HCF NEEDS A LIKE BUTTON FOR POSTS LIKE THIS

Is this about shooting people and the pain it inflicts or getting fragged with the burn shrapnel inflicts, or hunting big game?

Hunting 100 pound gooks is quite different than big game...

Dinky Dow!!!!!!!

Jayco

........By your example "if" the 243 bullet by chance did give a wider and more destructive wound channel given the same distance of penetration on the same game, then imo, the 243 might have the quicker knock down power, even though all the energy #s on paper favor the 375 bullet.

It`s not as much as to the weight and diameter of the bullet, but rather the pattern of internal destruction that is made.

Given the same distance of penetration if that were the case, a lighter 264, 7mm or 30 cal hunting VLD or similar bullet, will cause a greater defect in terms of wound channel width and overall destruction vs a 375 bullet, which characteristics of expansion after impact cannot match the width of internal destruction of some lighter bullets.

Bullet expansion internal characteristics after impact play a greater role imo where knock down power is concerned rather than just bullet weight and bullet diameter alone.

That doesn`t mean I`d use a VLD on a caped buff should I ever go to Africa someday. Girthy beasts require more bullet penetration.

But the 375 H&H is legal in Africa.

I sure don't have the answer but in whatever terms a guy wants to look at it,larger calibers have more nock down power than smaller,all thing being equal....

Maybe that's why Phil Shoemaker loves the '06 with heavy partitions but chooses to use the 458 Win Mag for backup.

Jayco

No shoulder-fired rifle has the power to "knock down" an animal. You must destroy their ability to stand. A bullet placed in selected spots is capable of that as long as it penetrates sufficiently.

..............Yes the 375 is legal in Africa. But all things aren`t all equal imo.

I put more emphasis on knock down power in what the bullet does after impact vs the automatic assumption of more knock down power based on more bullet weight along with more diameter.

for real nock down try this

I have shot a lot of deer with callers ranging from a 223 to 45-70. They all killed but the visual effect goes to the 45-70.

Who cares about nock down power. I want to hear about "nocked up" power!

Wish I'ld of thought of that. Best use of verbage I've seen in a while, which I totally agree with.

Use both to shoot an Elk in the leg. Which has more 'nock [sic] down power' then? Take a .375 caliber bullet in your hand, and throw it at the Elk. Then fire a relatively heavy .22 caliber bullet from a 22/250 at high velocity. Which has more 'nock down power' then? Obviously the the .375 H&H has a significantly greater ability to inflict damage (i.e. wound channel) than a 22, if the animal is hit in the right location. Again, it has to do with the amount of damage inflicted. If 'nock down power' is something else, then try to construct an example where the larger heavier projectile has less ability to inflict damage, yet still provides greater 'nock down power'.

After posting that I remembered its a matter of scale. A 22-250 certainly has enough power to knock down a PD. In fact, it will knock different parts of him in various directions, all ending up "down" eventually.

"What goes up must come down."

Who hit harder..Mike Tyson or Roberto Dur�n?Who would win if they had fought?

Nock down power is there..A good big fighter will always beat a good little fighter and a good larger bore will always have more effect than a smaller bore regardless of the science of it, with the same placement.

Call it shock/energy/nock down or whatever..It's there.

Jayco

This is not punching someone, this is shooting something. Your analogy would be true if bullets didn't shoot through an object and just smacked into the side of them. But its a little more complex than that.

Not all bullets exit....

Jayco

I never bough the business of knock down power or knock out values or pounds feet or any of the other math nonsense applied to cartridges suitable for shooting big game. What do it big game is the same thing that dose in human beings since this thread when there, put a bullet in the brain or in the lungs or heart and death comes quickly. How quick will it depends on how hopped up you are on crystal meth.

Definitely not true, on either count.

Knock down power comes from kinetic energy and momentum of the projectile, but the projectile must also transfer the the energy and momentum. Increasing the mass and velocity of the projectile increase the potential if it can be transferred.

Transfer is determined by the bullet diameter and expansion characteristics.

Potential is easily calculated, but transfer and actual knock down is not.

I"ve used 50 beowulf quite a bit, which is similar to the 45-70. For me it has one of the least visual effects period. It does kill well, but I've yet to see a DRT, never seen an animal go more than 50 yards though either....

I've shot deer with a 243, and a 9.3X62, and several other cartridges they all went into the freezer. As long as I put the bullet where it belonged they were equally dead. As a choice I prefer the big ones. Less meat damage with the larger slower rounds, bigger bloodshot holes with the small fast ones.

WPAH is the first poster on this thread I believe to mention the words momentum which is really what heavy for caliber bullets are all about; the ability to keep on truckin' once they hit the target animal with the goal of reaching and damaging/destroying vital organs upon contact.

I realize the discussion is centered around elk but in general terms it seems the bigger the critter the heavier the bullet. For instance, why do the ultra velocity rounds find little favor when hunting elephants? Because ther is a lot of animal to go through to get to the goodies.

Correct me if I am wrong but taking the 375 H&H as an example someone ought to compare the 250 ttsx and the 300 tsx at say 300 hundred yards which I venture is a long ways for most of us, internet experts aside. While slower, the 300 overtakes the lighter bullet at a certain distance and arrives with more momentum at its target offering more momentum and, at least theoretically, more opportunity to reach vital organs. If a mono is not to your liking compare a 260 and 300 NP both of which are designed to shed weight upon impact while allowing the rear section to keep driving through.

That's what all bullets are all about. The transfer of momentum is what allows bullet/pieces of bullets to destroy tissues.

It's a lot more complicated than that. If it was all about momentum, the shooter would be heavily damaged as well.

I believe my point was to say it appears those who favor high velocity want a flat trajectory at long distance and I was merely pointing out some sacrifice in trajectory is the tradeoff for a greater momentum upon arrival with a heavier bullet.

Here are two examples:

1. http://www.handloads.com/calc/quick.asp

by my math that is a momentum difference of 5.5% in favor of the heavier bullet.

2. http://www.handloads.com/calc/quick.asp

using a ridiculously heavy bullet for the caliber the math yields a much different spread of 17% in favor of the heavier bullet.

I recognize two utterly different applications for such bullet weights is most likely true. In fact, I'd be curious to see what the trajectory differences may be with these two loads at 300 yards assuming say a 100 or 200 yard zero.

The only way to get "nock" down power is with one of these ;

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=276529640



Mike

There is always a trade off. I"m in the heavy/long bullet camp, simply because in bad situations and longer distances thats teh correct, IMHO, choice.

Up close where most folks actually shoot or can hit anything, lighter doesn't suffer as much and I've always seen more DRT stuff with lighter faster bullets.

But I don't care for the damage done by those bullets. Barnes changes that a bit. I can run a 100 out of the 257 wtby, and get both the "shock" value and less destruction. That being said I still tend to grab other rounds instead. Generally larger rounds/bullets.

Over all the years though I've shot deer with anything from a 22lr to finish them( yes illegal here in TX but instead of shooting em again with a deer rifle) up to 50 bmg. The highest percentage of DRT non CNS hits I've ever seen was with my 243s... go figure....

Well, of course it's a lot more complicated than that. I was simply trying to point out that momentum applies to the terminal performance of all bullets, since momentum is conserved (while kinetic energy is most certainly not). Of course, impulse is a large factor when considering how much force the bullet/fragments apply to the surrounding tissues, as well as several other factors.

In saying that the shooter would be damaged as well, you're confusing two separate events: the interaction between the bullet, rifle, and shooter when the gun is fired (internal ballistics), and the interaction between the bullet and the animal upon impact (terminal performance), which is what I was referring to.

The first event involves forces generated by the impulse of the bullet being accelerated down the bore and out the muzzle, as well as the force generated by the rocket effect from the rapidly expanding gases that are released out the muzzle. If using a perfectly efficient muzzle brake, the only lateral force in play would be generated by the impulse of the bullet, which is why recoil is significantly reduced by a good muzzle brake.

I was more specifically referring to the second event, which is the collision between the bullet and the animal. I probably should have used the word "impulse", rather than "momentum", but most people have a better grasp on the meaning of momentum, so I left it at that. Now the impulse obviously varies, depending on how deep the bullet penetrates, whether it exits or not, and if it does exit, how much velocity and mass it retains upon exiting. The radial displacement of the bullet fragments, as well as the extent to which the bullet fragments, also impacts how much tissue the bullet destroys. My point was simply that when the bullet (whether light or heavy) impacts the animal, momentum is transferred to the animal's tissues and organs. The force that the animal feels is directly related to the amount of momentum that is transferred, and the time over which that momentum is transferred to the animal from the bullet. If the bullet comes to a stop within the animal, then all of the bullet's momentum was transferred to the animal. The quicker the bullet stops, the more force is exerted on the tissues and organs, and obviously the greater the radius of the bullet's fragmentation, the more tissue that is reached and damaged by the bullet/fragments.

I mentioned that penetration depth and radial fragmentation were two of the factors involved in tissue destruction, which therefore implies that the effect that impact velocity has on bullet performance is another factor at play here. Not only does velocity partially determine momentum, but it also affects how the bullet responds to the impact.

FWIW there are scholarly articles on this that somewhat disagree. It seems energy is a better predictor than momentum of the wound channel, although other bullet characteristics are also critical. Sure, energy isn't 'conserved', but then that's not really a problem, since it goes into deforming the bullet and creating the wound channel etc. Momentum does seem to be the better predictor of penetration, all else being equal. But that's part of the problem. There are so many factors to consider that it cannot really be 'summarized' in terms of a single physical quantity such as momentum, or energy.

Perhaps, however, what matters is if they 'enter'. 'Knock down power' would only be relevant if you were considering a projectile that did not penetrate, but simply impacted on the surface. In that case your boxing analogy might be relevant too. However, we're not really considering something like getting punched, but more like getting stabbed. It is the internal damage that matters, not how hard it hits the surface.

Shouldn't this be on the bowhunter's board?

Not too hard to figure out.Have some one hit you on the back of the head with a looseley rolled up newspaper.Then have them hit you with a ball bat.You can figure it real quick that way.
Bet you won't care if the bat penetrated or not.

Yes, it is very complicated. The bullet's energy is not all being used to destroy tissue, as you pointed out, and some of it goes to deforming the bullet, heat, friction, etc, which makes it a very complicated thing to scientifically quantify a bullet's destructive ability. Momentum is easier to work with, since we know that all the bullet's momentum will be transferred to the animal (assuming the bullet doesn't exit), in one way or another. Some of the force generated by the impulse will be used to deform the bullet, and most of it will be used to displace tissue.

As bad as the batball bat may be, it is still preferable to an icepick. Again, that distinction is key. If an icepick were thrust into the back of your head, would you really notice relatively small differences in how fast it was moving? The mechanism for wounding animals with hunting bullets is much closer to the icepick than the baseball bat. Hard to imagine what would be required to take down an Elk or such with something akin to the baseball bat method of inflicting injury.

I was reading this thread and was reminded of a few things. The first was watching my .54 Cal Hawken take down a small doe one night. I was using lead Powerbelts in those days. The round picked her up spun her about the X axis 270 degrees and deposited her dead as could be in her own tracks. The process seemed to be in slow motion, with the already-lifeless legs flying about as they rolled past 180 degrees. I found the slug flattened out and pasted to the inside of the hide on the far side. That is probably the best example I've seen of what a big bullet can do.

The second thing I'll bring up is the story I remember of a buddy of mine that took a round mortar fire during Vietnam. He was picked off from behind with a quarter-sized steel fragment that hit him in the right shoulder blade. He said he did not remember the blast, nor any pain, nor much of anything save the experience of being picked up and hoisted through the air, flying about 15 feet in the process and then falling to the ground in a heap. He said his first impression was that someone had grabbed him by the shoulder and thrown him.

My third anecdote comes from one of the years I let Mooseboy use the M1 Garand to hunt deer. Mooseboy saw a small buck come out at about 25 yards and put the sites right where he should and touched it off. A mark appeared on the chest of the animal, showing a direct hit to the heart and lungs. There was a shower of red stuff on the bush directly behind the buck. The buck stuck his head up and looked at us, but showed no sign recognition. Mooseboy asked me what to do next. I told him to try again. He asked where, and I told him a tad further back.

Mooseboy overestimated what I meant by "a tad further back." His next round was somewhere south of the diaphragm. This time the buck took off and ran about 60 yards before piling up dead. He was not hard to find. We followed a trail of organs. The second shot had opened up the abdominal wall and everything had spilled out. The deer was completely eviscerated and we had nothing but a stump of trachea, and some of the rectum to remove.

These three anecdotes are probably the three best examples I can give of what happens when we shoot a game animal. These aren't exacting descriptions, but if you take them and roll them around in your head a while, you can get a decent picture of what goes on.