Riflehunter, you really do want to put words in my posts that I didn't type. So I'll just post the chapter from GUN GACK II mentioned earlier:
OPINIONS OF KILLING POWER
Breaking heavy bone is a far more concrete example of physics than several hundredths of an inch in bullet diameter, whether expanded or unexpanded. Yet true believers in caliber often don’t differentiate between bone shots and bullets that only hit ribs, preferring to believe caliber made the difference when an animal flinches, or falls quickly. Since this is America, everybody’s entitled to an opinion (and even entitled to tell the rest of the world on Facebook), but that still doesn’t turn selective examples of one into real evidence.
Thank you for the outstanding post. I wanted to add one more factor - luck. Every animal is different and reacts differently to being shot.
Last year, I got invited to a game management harvest at a West Texas ranch. Basically, the rancher wanted to reduce the number of does on the property and we got some meat out of the deal. The second day, I got set up in a blind 87 yards from where we put out some feed.
Shortly, after sunup, a nice sized doe came out of the thicket and I placed a 143g ELD-X from my 6.5CM right behind the shoulder. She dropped DRT. Since I didn't have to track her, I decided to stay in the blind while my friend continued his hunt in a different blind about 1/2 mile away.
About 45 minutes later, I was shocked to see another doe wander out and start eating the corn near where the first doe was laying down. I ended up taking the exact same shot with the same equipment. She ran about 30 yards before she passed. When we gutted them out, I swear the entry and exit wounds were within a 1/2 in of each other and no "big" bones were broken.
Why did one doe drop DRT and the other run off bleeding? Luck. On that first shot, the hydrostatic shot from the bullet must have impacted the central nervous system whereas it didn't on the second.
Bradford, That is a very interesting story and excellent food for thought. Since the conditions of the two shots were just about identical, I am wondering what factors (besides "s*#t happens", which indeed it does) might come into play. Since these were both behind-the-shoulder double lungs, I am thinking of two possible factors: 1) You didn't mention ribs hit or not. I wonder if smashing right through a rib on entry could transfer enough energy right up to the spine to invoke the DRT, when a hit 1/2" away that sipped between the ribs might not? 2) I wonder if where the animal is in its respiration cycle has anything to do with how much shock get transferred to the CNS when a double lung hit occurs. IOW, if the critter has just drawn a breath, and its lungs are full and chest cavity fully expanded, might the effects of an identical shot be different than if it had just completed its exhale, with the chest cavity in the opposite state? It kind of makes sense to me that it might, though I've never heard it discussed.
Not germane to the OP but your story was really thought provoking. All that said, animals are individuals, and s*#t does happen.
