I didn't want to get into a discussion of wound channels here, becauseevery time anything like it is brought up, all the mistaken homemade hunter-theories get trotted out.
But the "shock wave" stuff set me off. This is the same sort of superstitious stuff that hunters talk about with no real knowledge.
First, as somebody already pointed out, there is no such thing as hydrostatic shock. The term should be hydrodynamic, because it involves moving liquid, not "static" liquid.
Second, this movement (not "shock") of liquid only takes place for a very short distance around the bullet. It can damage some very soft tissue, such as lungs, around the actual tearing of the bullet, but if this damage is severe enough, it is ALSO part of the permanent wound channel.
In addition, pieces of the bullet can make the permanent wound channel bigger. This is what happens when chunks of jacket and lead fly off--and the reason the permanent wound channel averages bigger from a "soft" bullet than one that retains all or nearly all of its weight.
The reason people die from massive internal injuries in car wrecks has nothing to do with bullet wounds. They die from getting crushed against car parts. Skin is highly flexible, and often doesn't break even though thee's massive damage internally.
And we ARE talking about the way bullets do their job. I never said that ONLY the hole made by the bullet is the permanent wound channel. But the permanent wound channel ISN'T bloodshot meat; that is mere bruising. The permanent wound channel is severely damaged vital tissue.
This can also be deceiving in some kinds of test media, notably gelatin. Yes, a bullet can tear gelatin for 6 inches or so around the hole. But this isn't the permanent wound channel. It's just the gelatin tearing because something pulled on it. Animal organs don't react in the same way. An elk's heart, for instance, doesn't tear because a bullet passed within 6 inches of it.
One of the best test materials for retaining the permanent wound channel is the soft wax used in the Bullet Test Tube. This gives a much better overall look at the permanent wound channel, since the wax doesn't tear like gelatin does.
Yes, bullets create a lot of "goo" inside the chests of animals, especially if the bullet is a semi-fragmenting type. This goo is blood that is starting to congeal, mixed with a little soft lung tissue. It is not harder tissues that have somehow magically been transformed into something vastly different by the magic of "shock waves."
There is a lot of imformation on the science of bullet wounds on the Internet, easily accessed by anybody who's interested. This is a lot more informative than the typical arguments we get here about hydrostatic shock waves and foot-pounds. Geez, according to some hunters these days, a bullet has to retain ALL its weight to kill quickly, which exactly the opposite of the truth.
Hunters have been the victims of manufacturer BS for many decades. Among them are the theoriesabout high velocity that got trotted out in the 1950's. This is when the entirely contradictory term "hydrostatic shock" was invented.
The early promoters of this theory claimed that high velociy pushed blood through veins and arteries like brake fluid goes through the brakelines in a car. This meant (they said) that you could shoot a big game animal anywhere with a high-velocity bullet, and the blood zinging through the blood vessels would short-circuit the brain, causing an immediate stroke.
Trouble was, the biggest promoter of this theory had only killed about a dozen deer when he came up with it. He went to Africa a little later to prove it extensively, and failed. Yet because it had been stated in print, thousands of hunters believed it long afterward.
I'll also state, once again, that my point wasn't that a bigger bullet doesn't make a bigger hole, but that thinking a .325 WSM is a major step up from the .30-06 is a similar byproduct of all the articles some gun writers have written over the years about how kinetic energy is the entire key to "killing power," and how some magic level of X foot-pounds is "required" for killing any big game animal, and that somehow tipping the KE factor from just under 2000 foot-pounds to just over 2000 will make a vast and noticeable difference.
And when concrete evidence is called for, there are plenty "examples of one" trotted out. Well, here's another. The three biggest bull elk I've killed were shot with a .300 Winchester Magnum and a 200-grain bullet at 75 yards, a .300 WSM and a 180 at 100 yards, and a .30-06 and a 180 at 250 yards. All were shot solidly in the chest. The two shots with the .300 magnums hit major bone, which supposedly helps things along considerably.
The bull that traveled the least distance was the one shot with the .30-06. No major bone was hit, and the kinetic energy was under 2000 foot-pounds. The kinetic energy from the 200-grain bullet at 75 yards was over 3500 foot-pounds, and the energy from the 180 at 1800 yards was just under 3000.
None of these bulls went very far, but the one shot with the .30-06 (also the biggest bull of the three) traveled the least distance after the shot, about 20 feet. So there are three examples of one, which contradict the theory of 2000 foot-pounds neatly.
