Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Killing versus stopping

John, I'm sure you know this, but he's published a second book African Safari Rifles II. I enjoy them very much.

I quite agree about Mr. Boddington's books. The first time I looked at SR-I, it was years ago and hunting Africa wasn't in the future as far as I knew. "Meh," says I, and moved on. But when I had firm Africa plans in place, his book and the sequel had become much, much more relevant, and I read through them with keen interest in the detailed opinions. Great resource.

I had opportunity to meet Craig last winter at DSC and to discuss some of his viewpoints, and I look forward to a followup meeting next January, which I hope will be more in-depth than the first. There are one or two other old Africa hands that come regularly that I need to peg for more in-depth interviews as well. I appreciate you pointing out that Boddington is an actual journalist, something I've noted as well. Some of the crustier guys I know pooh-pooh him for "not taking a stand", thinking he's being wishy-washy, when in fact he's doing what a journalist is supposed to do... presenting the facts and opinions of others.

Anyways, thanks for the reply, JB. Now get cracking on that Africa book of yours, will you? Tick-tock, tick-tock!!!

I am not disagreeing with the too small or to poorly constructed bullet. It's the term "stopping rifle" what exactly is that? Don Heath used a 9.3, Harry Selby used a 416, etc.

Doc,

since you raised the issue of defensive pistol performance and it does relate to the discussion in general, what are your thoughts about the defensive pistol bullets and rounds?

Add in a pissed off moose as in a cow with a calf or a bull in rut. Two Anchorage cops had to kill moose, one cow, one bull, after they charged and tried to kill the officers. The first that I know of was at University Lake back in '90 or '91 and the officer used his S&W Mod 59 with Hydrashoks (emptied the magazine before the cow went down), and the other was at East High School where the officer emptied his Glock 21 (Speer Gold Dots or Remington Golden Sabres) into a bull that was trying to gore him.
Both got lucky as they both brained their moose with their last shots. We didn't train with handguns to stop a moose or bear, but probably should have. BTW, neither officer was a hunter.

Ed

When my daughter and I were turning in the DLP -defense of life & property- bear I had to kill with a 9mm last year the F&W troopers were most interested in what ammo I used. They get called upon to dispatch many moose that have been hit by vehicles and said that when they were issued 357 revolvers things worked fine but they claimed that the ammo they were issued in their 40 autos made the task difficult at best.

Thanks Youse Guys

M D, Doc, Jorge, etc.

Not being an African hunter, errr a hunter of African experience, I was not familiar with
C B's books. I have serious doubts about ever going to Africa, but I enjoy readin GOOD
books on Hunting in general.

I'll be searching for those 2 very soon. Any recommend where to find them at good prices ??

Jerry

Amazon or Ebay. Some are probably proprietary to Safari Press, so look there as well as CraigBoddington.com.

You keep missing the point. Nobody said that shot placement is the ONLY thing that matters. We said that putting a bullet in the brain or spinal cord (CNS), regardless of the size or weight of said bullet, will end the ordeal post haste. We even spelled it out- the bullet needs to be pointed in the right direction, and it needs to penetrate enough to damage the CNS. Penetration isn't monopolized by large-bore bullets, but such bullets produce larger wound channels, which give a bit higher margin of error in the direction the bullet is pointed by the quivering guy behind the rifle. BUT, if the bullet is directed properly and penetrates enough, even a .22 to the brain will kill very quickly...

i just ordered a couple of boddington's books off amazon prime.

Sure. I guess my english as a second language is the issue. I just can 't convey( Ad nauseaum) that shot placement and penetration are #1 or even the part about a 308 or 7X57 penetarting, but if your bullet fails to get there because it lacks penetration or if it's too soft and breaks up is irrelevant... I'm sure a 22 has PLENTY of penetration to reach the brain of an elephant...

Here, I guess some need illustrations. Take it to about 2:15 and watch the first shot (poorly placed) on an elephant's forehead. He does not drop, but it turns him AWAY from the hunter. The second shot, perfectly placed. drops him like a bad habit. TWO (as in "dos") POINTS:
1. Shot placement is key
2. Shot placement is still key, but try that with a 22...

Does that permeate?

Just for the sake of numbers, let's assume a 4" spinal column. A hit would be the diameter of the spine plus twice the bullet diameter. A .45 cal adds almost an inch of dia, vs a 6.5 which would only add ~ 1/2 inch (ignoring wound channel width). The larger caliber has a greater chance of wrecking something vital, by odds alone.
IMHO, of course.

Doc,

Interesting about people criticizing Craig for "not taking a stand."

However, when younger he did take some stands, including suggesting a firm line at .30 caliber minimum for larger, tougher non-dangerous game, whether elk or various African plains game. But when his daughter started hunting a while back, he saw what a 7mm-08 would do with good bullets, and not just once but repeatedly. He even decided to go elk hunting with a .270 Winchester, because some other people criticizing him for not having any experience with cartridges smaller than .30 caliber. He ended up taking a good bull at over 400 yards with one 150-grain Nosler Partition--and at that time the bull went down quicker than any other bull he'd ever taken. All of which apparently caused him to be a little more journalistic in his approach--though Craig did comment to the guy with him when he shot the elk, Mike Ballew of the Whittington Center, that now he could go back to using bigger cartridges again! (Mike told me the story when I got lucky and hunted the Whittington for elk myself a decade ago.)

First shot looked a bit low to me, second was spot on.

I won't get into too much detail here, as I'm not sure it's the correct forum. I must be clear that I am NOT a ballistics expert; my area of study is more on the "software" side of things (training & mental aspects of DUG's and OIS's) rather than hardware.

But let me say in general that for serious social purposes any of the standard service calibers (38 Special/9mm, 357 SIG, 40 S&W, 45 Auto), when loaded with any of the premier JHP bullets from Speer/Federal (Gold Dot, HST, etc), Winchester (Ranger Talon, etc), Hornady (TAP, etc), or Remington (Golden Sabre), will get the job done provided your shot placement is correct. If you want to carry a non-police caliber such as 357 Magnum, 41 Magnum, 44 Special/Magnum, 45 Colt, or any of the 45+ Loudenboomers, you can find good JHP ammo for it as above, but game-hunting bullets aren't necessarily suited to shooting people for reasons that become obvious when you study the anatomy a bit. There is other good ammo out there, but there isn't time or space to go into all of those here, even if I cared to or was qualified to do so.

But let me say this, most emphatically: training is far, far more important than choices of gun or ammo, and 90% or more of handgun owners completely blow this off. Taking a quality 3-day defensive handgun/rifle class from a quality instructor is far more important than buying up a crate of the "best" ammo. Thunder Ranch, Gunsite, Massad Ayoob Group, John Farnam, Tom Givens, Henk Iversen, and a number of others offer quality instruction at a very reasonable price, considering the value of the instruction offered. Shot placement is the wild card in mano-y-mano stopping power debates, as there is all manner of nonsense about that on the interwebs. Shot placement is part of what I train people in doing through Tactical Anatomy Systems LLC, and all of the instructors I've named have very good knowledge of that subject area; this is not something that can be adequately put into words on a gun forum.

For in-depth reading on hardware, I'd recommend you look up Dr. Gary Roberts' work on sites such as this one:

https://www.ar15.com/ammo/project/Self_Defense_Ammo_FAQ/#mozTocId912099

Start there if you like, and extend your search to find the most recent info. Dr. Roberts does regular and extensive ballistics testing through his roles in LE in California and as a military reserve officer. His work is broadly available on a number of websites and forums, as he shares the general results quite freely. He also has access to enormous databases of real/street shootings, so his bench gelatin tests are published with consideration of the effectiveness of the ammunition's performance on the street. So when Gary says a particular load is a good choice in our snub 38 revolver, but another load is better in your long-barrel .45, you can pretty much take that info to the bank.

Phil, we discovered the same problem in rural Wisconsin when deputies were frustrated in their efforts at trying to dispatch injured deer and livestock at the roadside. The official solution in my county was to have the deputies use their AR-15 carbines for this job. Neither the .40's we had when I started with the agency nor the .45's we went to before I left seemed to work very well. I suspect a large part of the problem was a combination of not knowing where to shoot the animal and not getting close enough to ensure a lethal hit.

On the other hand, I know several deputies that I routinely trained with in that department who "just happened" to routinely carry a couple of rounds of hard-cast, heavy-for-caliber bullets in a spare pocket here or there for road kill use, and that seemed to work just fine for them. I won't say those were Buffalo Bore rounds, but I won't say they weren't, either...

Thanks Again Guys

For your responses and suggestions. I've been gone all day and I was posting from my phone this AM.

I've been a fan of Mr. C Boddington for some time. There's another reason I like him, he likes the 8 MM REM MAG also.

I've enjoyed this thread a lot. THANKS

Jerry

Not quite. Assuming your target was 4" wide, and merely touching it would be enough, the bullet has to have its centreline within half a diameter of the edge, either side. Thus in theory at least the .45 could be centred a bit over .22" from the edge, while the 6.5 would have to be within about .13", giving you 0.09" extra leeway on either side.

Of course in practice it doesn't quite work that way, as I guess you know. Among other things it is not enough to make a glancing hit. You really need to damage the spinal cord itself, or a nerve junction to the spinal cord. That may be by the bullet driving through it, or by bone fragments driving through it, or by vertebrae being displaced enough to cut the connection (though that might only have a temporary effect, if the spinal cord isn't actually severed). A wider bullet might give you a tiny edge, just by virtue of its greater diameter, but it is a tiny difference really. More significant on bigger animals might be greater momentum, to drive through muscle and bones to get there. Equally, a bullet might expand, provided it still can penetrate deeply enough, so bullet construction comes into play too, and a fast expanding bullet (as long as it doesn't fly to bits and fail to get there) might scatter bone fragments through the spinal cord or a nearby nerve junction on its way past - I've certainly seen that.

I have not read all the posts yet on this thread, but while working to day I thought of this explanation. We have two ways to express energy .....as measured as foot pounds, Or the other as a vacuum inducing " hydrostatic " shock. Hydrostatic shock relies on an exit hole to in essence " suck " or aspirated vascular tissue into non viability. Hydrostatic shock not only requires full penetration, it need velocity. These two requirements demand both shot placement, adequate barrel length, and cartridge powder capacity.

Foot pounds of energy are only felt by an animal if the projectile does not fully penetrate the beast. Once it fully penetrates the energy is still in the bullet wasted on the impact of wherever the bullet goes and hits next.

Using a heavy bullet with a large meplat helps ensure maximum foot pounds of energy are utilized in the process of shooting into an animal. The larger meplat lowers the sectional density limiting penetration, but the heavier bullet " stores" energy as it is sent down range. This energy will transfer into the beast as the bullet sheds its weight while going through the tissues.Thus reducing the need for precise, shot placement, barrel length . One could also employ a smaller cartridge length.....for faster actions.
Makes this approach perhaps a better compromise in point blank situations.

Just my thoughts.