What I can't figure out is why so many match/LR shooters have this aversion to shooting animals with bullets designed specifically for that purpose?
Puzzling.
When you do it this way, you don't need a stupid Barnes X solid copper bullet. Soft points, Ballistic Tips, etc result in animals that drop right there most of the time.
If you load heavily constructed bullets in preparation that you will take any shot regardless if the animal is going away and showing his A$$, there's some problems that probably should be addressed in the "When Hunting Becomes "Shooting"" thread.
A-Frames, Barnes, and other bullets constructed similarly I have no use for unless I go to Africa or plan to hunt something that can kill me.
Nothing like a good ol' terminal ballistics discussion to get the CampFire crackling...
rc I was not directing my comment to you; just making a general inquiry. Sorry if you got the wrong impression. But as long as you answered, thanks for the viewpoint.
The reason for my asking is that bullets intended for target shooting seem to have been designed with a singular purpose in mind, which is great accuracy and for punching paper, along with high BC profiles. You know all the stuff...
Jackets and cores are not designed and tempered and drawn for fully reliable expansion and penetration; they are frequently hard, and brittle due to the materials used for jackets and cores, tend to shatter and fragment,instead of expanding to good frontal areas and still have the construction to retain enough weight to penetrate well. (Retained weight in a bullet may not be what kills animals; but it's inherent in their design to ensure penetration in game to withstand the stresses associated with traveling through animal flesh and bones after they have expanded)....the same way that target bullets are "designed" for extreme accuracy...basically different functions, so different designs.
Sometimes, we see these bullets do a good job, and sometimes they most assuredly ....don't. We see examples of it all the time.
Given all this, and notwithstanding their other sterling qualities, when these bullets do a good job on BG animals, I really can't regard it as anything other than a fortuitous accident....simply because the makers themselves did not intend them for that purpose. Not that they can't be useful for some purposes, like shooting at extreme ranges, but as general purpose hunting bullets, I think they are lacking.
Your elk kill might be an example....from what I can see of the wound channel through the lungs I have to admit it is about what I would expect of a Berger at 700-800 yards based on what I have been told to expect of them; not at 270 yards where velocity was still relatively high from a 264 Win Mag. I thought the wound channel was rather small, indicating to me that the bullet had little frontal area, and that advertised fragmenting did not create all that much of a wound damage. I have seen far larger wounds in elk chest cavities from bullets designed for hunting, at similar distances, that don't "fragment" at all, lose virtually no weight, but expand to broad frontal areas. There was nothing left that you cold call lungs....just pureed soup.
There are persistent "myths" in the world of BG terminal ballistics...one is that bullets must "fragment" in order to kill effectively on broadside lung shots...this leads to guys running around trying this bullet and that, expecting the bullet to behave exactly the same at 2000 fps as it does at,say,3000 fps, in the hopes that all lung shots will result in DRT's. IMHO this sometimes works and sometimes does not...at least based on what I have seen, which includes bullets that came completely unglued in the lungs, never making it to the offside, and the animal skipping merrily away to collapse some distance off.
So, I never thought too highly of the whole fragmenting theory, and still don't....Anyone who has killed any number of BG animals knows that lung hits with fragmenting bullets do not always give these results...and a bullet soft enough to possibly get it may work OK in the open country of the SW where broadside shots are relatively common and the shooting relatively easy(yes have hunted that area quite a few times)......but may be a dismal failure in the elk jungles of Idaho or Colorado or Montana at 70 yards with an animal slightly quartering away. (I don't know why you continually refer to a$$ shots and set them forth as the only reason for bullets of tougher construction; I have taken exactly one in 40+ years of BG hunting and it was on a previously wounded animal. It was with a Nosler Partition and yes it did prevent a wounded animal from escaping, doing exactly what I hoped it would do, since its construction and "design" was up to that task).
Even a quartering shot on a big bull elk,(no a$$ shots, remember!
where it may be desirable to dump him where he stands, might be required to penetrate heavy leg or shoulder bones coming or going in order to reach vitals...in such cases, having BTDT myself a few times, I will bet my hunt success and money on one of those "stupid" designs like a Nosler Partition, Barnes, Aframe, etc before I reach for a target bullet that
might make it. In any event, I am not going to pay much money to find out if it will or not....I like sure things
Anther persistent "myth" is that the bullet could not have "failed" because the animal was "dead"...this is intellectual dishonesty of the first order, and mostly nonsense.
Aboriginal, third world people have stuck ball bearings and other metal objects into muzzle loaders to kill BG animals...... proving?..... maybe?...that they are equally effective as a Barnes or Berger because the animal was "dead"? ...utter nonsense of course, as is the notion that all bullets that kill behaved in a predictable and reliable manner, making them suitable for BG hunting..
On the subject of Barnes bullets and similar monos, that stupid design (proven world wide by hunters of substantial experience) just may be the next and best technological advance in
hunting bullets, particularly when driven at high velocity...the damage may well exceed what guys are using the softer bullets to try to accomplish; and with much more reliable penetration to boot. A pal who posts here is emailing results from Africa daily, all very favorable, but lets wait for him tell us about it.
BTW what is it about Africa that would cause you to switch bullets to something tougher? Does it mean you have some reservations about the bullets you are using here? Personally, I'd just use pretty much the same stuff I use over here.
