Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why hydrostatic and not correctly hydrodynamic?

You can call it hydro-whatever. But I've seen critters die from bullet wounds that shouldn't have been fatal. No organ or bone damage,no deep penetration, no significant blood loss .... but yet they were graveyard dead. Something else is at work here. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

My information � which is so old now that I no longer have a clue where I got it � was that some surgeons opposed an�sthesia more vehemently than anyone else, but the proponents of an�sthesia carried the issue when they countered those surgeons' objections by citing the Genesis passage (2:21 � emphasizing the part that I've italicized here) "And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof...."

� which is all very interesting to me because the old an�sthetics (ether, spinal tap) that were used on me were anything but pleasant. Almost unbearable headaches, for example, persisted for what seemed like forever after I "came out from under" the spinal tap. Even the an�sthetic that was used on me for several surgeries five years ago hurt like Hell before it put me under.

My first bull elk is a good example. At no farther than fifty yards, the 180-grain Remington Bronze Point from my .30-06 Ackley Improved made a neat 0.308-inch hole going in, perforated a rib, and perforated another rib on the way to another teeny-weeny hole in the hide on the opposite side. The bull wheeled as if missed and ran down the slope but didn't get far before his rear end overtook his front end and down he went. He couldn't even try to get up and was obviously dying � but too slow, so I popped him in the head with my S&W.

By today's reckoning, that bullet "failed," of course. Equally obviously, "hydro-black-magical shock" didn't explode any part of him out-right. There was no easily discernible blood trail, and there was no huge wound channel inside. There wasn't even much blood on the exit-side hide.

Ken,

That's exactly the kind of thing I refered to above. I've seen it three times. So what killed them ? Heart attack ?

Brighter folks than me have put down Weatherby's 'hydrostatic shock' theory .... but somethings happening.

Damfino what killed 'em. Surprise?

But remote arm-chair theoretical autopsies in absentia don't impress me as anything but onager guesses, no matter what "experts" may say about 'em pro or con.

On Kodiak in 1958, we trapped a three-year-old brownie and an�sthetized it with ether. It immediately passed-out completely � as in grave-yard dead. For an hour or more, Earl and I gave it artificial respiration and had fresh Kodiak Island air going into and coming out of the lungs (with the smell of sour ether coming out), but we were never able to revive that young bear.

Earl said that it must've had a bad heart. I didn't have a theory then and still don't. Sometimes, the only comfortable thing to do is to see something strange and mysterious, to marvel at it, to accept it as an inexplicable fact, and to refrain from trying to explain it with fanciful theories. Some things just happen, and mankind doesn't have nearly all the answers yet � partly because a lot of what happens doesn't happen from a single cause or from causes that we already know about.

Medical autopsies conducted directly on the animals would've been the only way to know why or how they died, and some of them might've been inconclusive. The curiosity that insists on a clear, logical explanation doesn't necessarily always lead to certain knowledge but can certainly lead to confusion and controversy.

edited to add:

Also, autopsies on, say, five animals may well have identified four separate and mutually unrelated reasons for four deaths and been completely unable to offer a theoretical "explanation" for the fifth. Death may be the only discernible fact common to all five.

The "problem" is as a collective "we" are handloaders/shooters with vast years of experience and modern science hasn't caught up with us."We know" when you whack a buck or bull with a 180.30 cal at reasonable velocity,we have a butchering job ahead of us.i'm no .357 magnum fan,but modern defensive bullet studies for&against show the .357 125 grain is effective on 2 legged vermin.....it's just we have no mathematical or sciencetific formulae to express such numerically so both newbies&and older gunners(and the gum&ammo makers Advertising departments) can readily understand.i apologize for my gross spelling errors.

Yep! Speed kills! Too many other things stated by the non-believers to argue, so I will state that I simply believe that whether it's correctly called hydrastatic or hydrodynamic shock...IT kills! While possibly misunderstood, or not completely understood by laymen such as myself, there is clear evidence that it exists and contributes to quicker killing or quicker incapacitation. If you don't believe it, then tell me why an animal shot with an arrow in the chest that doesn't contact the spine will almost always run off, vs the higher you move up the energy ladder with projectiles similarly placed the more often on average you'll get a bang flop.

Thanks DigitalDan, this is a most interesting reference. He has a real scientific mind and is thoroughly grounded in the field.

Besides it is well written and I enjoyed reading it. His remarks on the ballistics theories of pseudo physics experts are well presented and right on the dot.

Gotta agree with Mr. Howell. Damfino, either.

Twice I've killed deer that shouldn't have been killed. Both times it was with a .270. Dad was a '.270 True Believer' and believed it possessed qualities no caliber offered. Sorta like black magic.

So that's my answer... black magic. About as scientific as anything else. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it - and Ole Black Magic my .270 <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Does this mean that if I follow the correct barrel break-in procedures that my 30-30 will be capable of killing a whitetail?

Yep; You'd never have seen it, it you hadn't believed it:)

Naw. Not enuff black magic. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Back to the original question, hydrostatics relate to situations where the fluid isn't moving much, while hydrodynamics has more to do with fluid flow (in pipes, over surfaces, etc). The bullet spends so little time passing through that the fluid(s) don't have time to move much, and so it becomes a hydrostatic problem.

Re: the cardiac guys and flexible hoses, I have seen water hammer make a coiled hose jump pretty good if you close a valve quickly. I don't know how much the elasticity of the hose will dampen things if the wave is propagating along the length of the blood vessel rather than perpendicular to it though.

Regardless, if you hit a deer or elk near a major blood vessel the pressure wave only has to go maybe 2 feet in order to get to the brain or heart and disrupt function long enough to kill the critter.

FWIW

tq

I think the wave of fluid that is displaced and then spreads through the body after bullet impact tears up flesh. The question is, how do we get a big displacement of fluid?

We know a high velocity, rapidly expanding bullet does this. We also know that a heavy, non-deforming, slow velocity, flat nosed bullet also makes big wound channels.

Maybe we should think of this interms of "displacement energy". Anyone know how to calculate that?

Another obvious point about the pressure wave and its inability to damage distant organs: There was not a single player on the field last night for the Monday night game that did not take a harder blow than any reasonable bullet could produce.

They also autopsy hearts to determine EXACT cause of death... Exsanguination is key, they say... Stunning the animal is often a cover for the speed of departure (or rather, lack thereof) and leaves the animal still while it uses up all available Oxygen.

I remain steadfastly unswayed by anecdotal accounts at distance from the expiring critter and jack knife autopsies. (Not to discount Ken's uncle, just the pilers-on.)
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Blaine
Wrong tree, buddy! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Wave energy propogates with minmal media motion.
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SD,

You said basically what I have tried to say in many of these threads. Its apples and oranges really. Killing power vs. Incapacitation power. An ice pick shoved between ribs in just the right place with minimal energy will still deliver a sure fire death, though the final breath may be taken some time after the injury. Dumping a lot of energy from a high-speed projectile in to the same placement, sending shock waves through the surrounding fluid engourged organs and tissues which can cause secondary ruptures, and emense pain and instant shock will more often result in a quicker incapaciation, if not a quicker death. There have been instances where a heart is stopped with a sharp blow to the chest, and where a heart has been started with the same. Shock, can and does contribute to incapacitation if not death.

Now the junk science lingo has moved from "shock wave" to "pressure wave".

For the same reasons that a shock wave cannot exist in flesh due to a hunting bullet, any low-velocity pressure wave also cannot spread very far through SOLID flesh.

What can happen is the destruction of tissue surrounding the bullet path due to fragments of the bullet and kinetic energy being converted to heat as the bullet is decelerated so rapidly and disintegrates.

That's why Triple Shock Bullets are so good.

BMT


(what did he say?)

Lee
Care to explain why you think flesh is a solid? Or would that take you into that realm of junk science you claim to abhor?
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