Home Forums Lever Action Central Big Bore Levers Good read on Meplat and wound damage

A lot of good info on that site.

A lot of mindless BS about "hydrostatic shock". So it is a batch of brownies with only a teaspoon of dog shlt in it.

Good article--thanks for posting!! m

I don't actually agree with his hypothesis on what kills. Having killed plenty in the last 45 years with many different cartridges and generally finding little difference between different cartridges killing power. If you bullet expands and penetrates properly, hits a vital area then you will have to gut and clean the animal you shot with it.

Hope to find out this fall with the 45-70 I just bought.

One problem with discussing different calibers or bullets, is people who say the animal is just as dead. No [bleep]. 22 LR works too.

For me, how far it goes is a huge consideration, I don't care if it is just as dead at ### yards as 1.

"Yet today, more than 80 years later, the subject of meplat shape and surface area is largely untapped" , False statement. Veral Smith in "Jacketed Performance With Cast Bullets" fully explores the subject for handgun bullets. Regarding rifle bullets Michael458, Terminal Bullet Performance, Big Bores thread, www.accuratereloading.com thoroughly covers the subject for solids. By actual experimentation he determined that the optimum meplat size in relation to bullet diameter is 60%. Paco Kelly even figured this out for .22 rimfires and designed a tool to file off the bullet tips consistently on any 22 round. CCI makes the Small Game Bullet in 22 rimfire. Elmer Keith and the semi wadcutter bullet was the beginning, not the end of the body of knowledge regarding wound ballistics and meplat.

There's no value in getting into a battle of semantics on this topic, but anyone who has ever watched a bullet enter into gelatin in slow motion will agree that there is a "wave" the pushes out violently from the bullet. I can see how that wave of pressure could shock the animal into collapse. What do you call that "wave" and what effect do you think it has on the animal?

One thing he mentioned that I was completely unaware of is the autonomic plexus. It has been my go-to aim point for DRT shots with my mild 257 Roberts. That shot is my favorite and my experience mirrors his.

The neat thing about this web sight is it based on a lot of "events". As was explained by a gun writer in New Zealand you can get in multiple harvest events per year,they consider large game a pest.

I love the authors suggestion of doing a field necropsy on the harvested animal to scrutinize trauma and ordinance efficiency.

I think there should be more information on normal and abnormal tissue appearance so people can make up their own minds.

But I sure enjoy harvesting game with the Lever big bores so I definitely have some bias.

Last year I completely destroyed both lungs on deer with spitzer 30-06. It still ran 100 yards. I had shot a deer with factory flat corelocts. Did not do much to lungs, other then a hole. Granted these are just 2 instances. I am curious if there would be any diffiference with a flat bullet, such as 45-70, with twice the weight.

I was just talking to guy who though 30-30 with the flat nose, had more knock down than 30-06. Hunters are known for opinions. Most of us don't get to shoot enough, to really know, if it is the bullet or other variables. On the surface, it would seem something flat have to push through would deliver more trauma. Hit a nail with a hammer, or hit a board, with hammer.

I've killed alot of deer with various full bore and saboted shotgun slugs and muzzleloader conicals that had ballistics in the neighborhood of a.45-70 with more diameter and far bigger "meplat" {12 gauge Brenneke K.O. which is essentially a .73 caliber wadcutter} . None put deer down any quicker than my .30-30.

For " knockdown" I believe you need CNS involvement in the trauma. Jeffbird posted some excellent videos of a repeatable DRT shot on boars and deer. Check it out! I would ask him his thoughts.

That is where the autonomic plexus or brachial plexus come in. Or brain,or spine etc.

To see the whole lungfield gelatinsed is about all a " meat saver " shot into the thoracic cavity caudal to the front leg is going to show.

The animal could still be ambulatory for a short time.

Unless some kind of CNS trauma also occurred.

If you think a gel block is tough, you should see a deer.

No such thing as hydrostatic shock, and the pressure wave was shown long ago to be irrelevant.

If you know nothing, then the writeup will give you something - a plate of brownies made with a teaspoon of dog shlt added.

How is it that my .257 bullet at 2700 fps turns a deer heart and lungs into a gelatinous mess? Wound channels much larger than the expanded diameter of the bullet?

From Wiki:

Autopsy Findings in Iraq[edit]
An 8-month study in Iraq performed in 2010 and published in 2011 reports on autopsies of 30 gunshot victims struck with high-velocity (greater than 2500 fps) rifle bullets.[25] In all 30 cases, autopsies revealed injuries distant from the main wound channel due to hydrostatic shock. The authors determined that the lungs and chest are the most susceptible to distant wounding, followed by the abdomen. The authors conclude:

Distant injuries away from the main track in high velocity missile injuries are very important and almost always present in all cases especially in the chest and abdomen and this should be put in the consideration on the part of the forensic pathologist and probably the general surgeon.

— R. S. Selman et al.[25]

U can lead a human2 knowledge but U can't make em think.


Common sense does not grow in everyone's garden.

While I have seen some anecdotal evidence of different visible reaction to flat front bullets, I'm not sure there's any science to them killing quicker than a rapid expanding pointy pill that penetrates, either. If I'm worried about tracking and can't hit CNS, I know they can't run too far with just two stern legs if I break both shoulders....with anything.