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338 Winchester mag 250 Accubonds

What was your load and impact velocity on those?

The load is

Nosler brass
Federal 215 M primer
69.5 gr of H 4831 sc the most accurate of all the powder charges in my rifle

Impact velocity would be high. The one on the left was from 100yds hit a little too far forward in the front shoulder as it was running thru the timber.
The one the right was 20yds or so as it was coming at me.

Bullets were recovered from a bull moose my neighbor wounded in the a.m. He asked me to help find him in the afternoon. Well I found him alright nearly got run over.

Should add on another moose hit right behind the shoulder without hitting bone that load was a complete pass thru. The shot was easily under 100yds.

In time.....there will be some jackass along to tell you of your bullet failure

I have no complaints at all.

Set them on the table and then photograph them

Look above now

Look similar to all the Accubonds I ever found...

Yep, those are text book Accubond recoveries.

Looking good to me as well...

I've gotten used to seeing AB's look like that too, which is why I love 'em. Congrats on the moose.

I knew JG had a pocket full of them. powdr

Yep, those are some nice looking bullets.
Congrats on helping out with that moose. I hope he makes for good table fare.

Bullets taken from a dead moose?

Obvious bullet failure. Just ask the moose. <G>

How was the weight retention? Those look like the heavy jacket type Accubond and I would bet 1/3 or less weight loss. I think MD weighed just the jackets alone and they were 2/3 of the total. This may have been for the heavy BT but I would assume the same for the Accubonds.

I have had Moose run me off a trail before. It sort of gets your attention.

And you mostly shoot little stuff, no?

That is a very long way from what I want to find in any animal...

In fairness I did recover an X this year for the first time. It was in a moose and it was a little heavy for caliber, a little slow for caliber, and a TSX.

It also went through a hell of a lot more moose than these examples... and it only took one...

I have decided to start looking at the edges of bullet performance rather than the middle because the middle is so reliable. I am also trying to figure out how so many can have experiences so completely out of sync with my mine. Mostly, I still doubt a large percentage of the "I have never..." crowd...

Funny, I bet I have asked more moose than everybody else on this thread combined... and then asked more than that again... but what do I know? I started shooting moose with a 22lr in the mid '60s. And I listened to my father and believed a Speer was as good as any other bullet for decades. And I have also shot them with Sierras, Noslers, Hornadays, hard-cast, and Brenneke...

For the last number of years I have been using a plain old 30-06 with 165gr TTSX.

And I have used .22, .243, .270, 7mm, 308, 319, 35, and 375 bullets in them.

And hunters I guided added .338 and .416 to the calibers and Bitterroots, A-Frames to the makers.

And I have butchered many literal tons of them and observed the differences in meat loss...

So, go ahead with your wise-cracks, but realize your finger-pointing is working in two directions.

Lol. Prophetic.

I do believe ya walked right into that one, SD!

Yeah, but you're the same guy who said any bullet that didn't exit was a failure IIIRC, which is a weak argument no matter what sized animal you're shooting.

Mostly little stuff for me, except for about 30 head of African game up to and including kudu, zebra, and blue wildebeest.

Arrival.....just as predicted

And I stand by that statement when shooting larger animals, especially. The science and Physics says it is anything but a weak argument. Animals die from non-CNS wounds by bleeding to death. Having a bigger, more useful vent is an obvious advantage.

If not for your obvious lack of experience my feelers might get hurt...

It's weak because it's proven wrong by countless hunters, including myself. No, I don't shoot grizzly bears or moose, but wildebeest, zebras, kudu, etc aren't real small.

No pass through's equal bullet failure? Seriously? I guess your beloved TTX/TTSX bullets that are "caught", failed also then. Ridiculous.

I like pass throughs only because 2 holes bleed better than one. All things being equal if i recover a bullet from a DEAD animal I don't see it as a failure. But I'm sure someone will come along and tell me I'm wrong.

Sitka Deer loves the drama, almost every Accubond or Partition thread he pops up and tells everyone how much better Barnes bullets are. Maybe someone at Nosler wasn't nice to him one time. For the record I really like the Accubond and don't mind the TTSX bullets either. The two Partitions I really like are the 160 gr .277 and 220 gr 308.

I can see those heavies being excellent for large game Gerry. Myself I'm a big fan of the 25 cal 115gr and the 7mm 150gr Partition. Have some 210gr 338 Partition bullets that I've yet to try..

I have used both of those on black bears and they work really good. The 6.5 mm 140 gr PT is another that works quite well that we have used. A friend has used the 150 gr Partition in his 280 Rem for animals from goats to moose, great bullet.

Favourite Accubonds are the 130 gr 6.5 mm, 200 gr 308, 200 and 225 gr 358 and when I had my 375 Ruger I really liked the 260 gr AB

If I wanted an exit every time, or the bullet was a failure, and my ability to collect animals was in jeopardy, I'd be ethically bound to shoot flatnose solids.

A guy who wants to complain that expanding bullets fail, and then goes on to describe one of his expanding bullets failing, but then claims that others should also use his failure of a bullet.....well, that guy sounds like an unethical ass or an idiot who can't reason. Shoot non-expanding bullets that have the greatest chance of exiting, or STFU.

The other option is that expanding bullets work just fine, as proven by all the dead animals. And the ones that don't exit also work just fine, else the would be few pictures of bullets taken from game.

WOW! Where did you leave your clue?

At least you put yourself in the ridiculous slot in your first paragraph, rather than trying to drag me into it. And obviously you have not kept up with the discussions.

You have to be a lot more specific than "expanding bullets" and putting someone else in your clueless, self-imposed ethical dilemma is laughable. FMJ and solids are notorious for slow killing... any reasonable person would not jump to the conclusion I was advocating exits above all else.

Your thought sequence does not work in proving your point, or even come close. So I will type this very slowly for you. I have never witnessed an Accubond exit and I have seen them used in a number of calibers up to 375. I do not expect every bullet to exit, but for bigger critters that I want dropping right now I prefer them to exit.

To suggest exits do not help is wrong.

The bullets I prefer are expanding bullets that IME&O are very reliable at exiting. Forced to shoot high because of the brush a bullet hit spine, and a scapula, and ribs before stopping just under the hide. On a bull moose. It was the first I have caught and far from the first one I put through a moose. It killed the bull and he was not close to deep water. My shot placement in a large animal with a TSX moving a bit slow allowed the bullet to be caught. I expect that bullet under similar conditions would exit far more reliably than any Accubond I have seen in use.

Then there is the very real difference in ruined meat...

Yup, I am all about drama and have no experience to back up what I say...

That's what's surprising to me quite frankly. With all that experience, to make and stand by a comment like "unless the bullet exits I consider it a failure", well..........

Two holes make for a little easier trailing, but no better killing, IME/IMO. Yes, a few hundred dead big game animals told me that.

Weak arguments come from weak minds.

Apparently so.

Reading comprehension is a gift...

OK

Notice the use of the plural?

I've noticed things die faster from internal bleeding than external.


You must be bored Art, you need to take me hunting so I can show you some quick kills.

Come on up, I'll put you on a decent bull.









But your chamber stays cold until I tell you to chamber one...

I'll take you up on that. lol......

Also have some 230 grain Failsafe's that should make you happy!

It is funny to watch morons like you founder as you attempt to reason, but it just comes out as insults against the guy who does know how to reason, who made a valid and ethical argument. I enjoy it. Please, continue attempting to grasp my "thought sequence" LOL!

Right........

Kind of surprised me when this 260 gr .375" Accubond was found hanging in the off-side hide of a black bear I shot at close range, about 15 feet, a couple of years ago. Used my 375 H&H with a muzzle velocity of 2620 fps. I'd had nothing but pass-throughs on a couple other black bear with the same rifle & load. This one though, was shot at particularly close range, as I was following the bear in the brush. It had been wounded by another hunter.



I like those bullets! Accurate, expand well, and I managed to catch only one.

Regards, Guy

It makes no sense to argue about bullet performance and the rest. I am probably the less experienced hunter in this forum, but I understand that if one likes to hunt with bullets that expand fast but still penetrate enough to kill a moose by damaging the lungs/heart, then an Accubond or Partition works just fine. And I am not surprised at all by having controlled-expansion bullets such as these two passing right through while killing the animal. A lot of hunters in Alaska and other places where there are large animals that can be grumpy and have big claws have some options relating to what they want from their bullets. For example, lets say that I want the most penetration and perhaps not as much expansion from the NOS bullets argued about in this thread. In this case I choose the same bullet, but heavy-per-caliber. And yes, the trajectory will decrease, but I am getting the greatest punch possible from the bullet I have chosen. If it passes through or not, who cares as long as it kills the animal as fast as possible?

I can also achieve the same by choosing a bullet of the same weight as before, one that is not heavy-per-caliber, but one that is designed not to expand as fast. In this case, I can choose the Barnes TTSX, a slightly tougher than the NOS, "Swift A-Frame, and so on. In bear country a lot of hunters prefer to go with tougher (less expanding) bullets, and as I mentioned above, one can achieve that by going up in bullet weight, or switching to another bullet. But the bottomline is that pass through or not makes no difference other than when tracking the animal, but bleeding is not the only thing that kills the animal. For example, a gut-shot moose may bleed inside for quite a long time before it dies, but a lung-shot animal may not always bleed a lot and still won't be able to breath and drown after the shot. A heart-shot moose will die pretty fast not only because it will bleed, but it won't be able to breath. Don't ignore the shock wave the bullet causes to the internal organs. This shock is not a wound channel, but an extremely fast "shacking" (don't have a better word) of the internal organs as it travels through the animal. A brain shot does not cause much bleeding, but kills fast. A neck shot (breaking the neck) or even spinal shot also stop the animal and kills relatively fast without much bleeding.

Pass throughs or not make no difference in relation to killing the animal or not. What matters is what organ and how much damage the bullet has caused to it as it passes through or not. We put too much emphasis on bullet performance and tend to ignore that we, the ones shooting the gun, have to do our part and shoot the right spot. I remember reading a story about a couple of hunters using a .338WM and .375H&H who shot a grizzly bear numerous times, and the bear ran into the brush after being hit by the bullets. The two hunters tracked the bears about 30 minutes later, and the bear charged. During the charge the two hunters finally shot the bear dead. The moral to the story they told was that from that moment on they were not going to use any .338's and .375s to hunt bears again, just .416s and up

As for me, I am a one-gun hunter who prefers bullets that don't expand as fast as the Partition and Accubond, but they all work fine as long as I do my part.

Guy your Accubond looks just like my 338 250gr. I am more than happy with their performance and they shoot scary accurate.

Ray well said good informative post.

I have't recovered accubonds yet .. not in pieces I can take pictures of.

The first deer I shot with them was with a 165 grain from a .308 and it was a head shot. No shock, right?

The next two were .257 110s from a .257 Roberts. I said didn't recover ... they didn't exit, they blew apart so badly there was nothing but little bitty pieces. 2 deer, 2 shots within about 2 minutes, both broadside. Both bullets fragmented somewhere in the heart / lung area. The inside of the rib cage on the "off" side (what would have been exit side) was poked full of many teeny holes. On the larger deer, I don't think any pieces quite reached the shoulder blade though many fragments went into the ribs / rib meat. On the smaller deer, the shoulder blade was hit hard enough to bloodshot/gell the whole shoulder but nothing went through the shoulder blade.

I wouldn't have any concern about using the .30 cal 165 again but I'm done hunting game animals with the 110 grain .25 caliber accubond. I'll save those for coyotes. I picked up 10 boxes of 120 grain partitions for my hunting use.

Tom

Guy, I'm very glad you recovered the bear even tho the bullet FAILED !



Seriously, the few I've seen pix of look very good.
I have had bullets OR pieces of bullets to PASS thru....that were FAILURES as far as I'm concerned.
That's another discussion.

Congrats

Jerry

Yes, blood pressure drop is what kills. And by using a bullet like a TTSX this pressure drop takes longer to occur on average. This isn't rocket science. Smaller frontal area, less shrapnel = less damage= slower pressure drop. "Venting" has nothing to do with it because as soon as the lungs are punctured breathing stops.

TOM,

Maybe you posted that story about 110 AccuBonds before, but I don't remember for sure.

I do remember having posted the following information, several times, on the Campfire:

During a relatively brief period, a year or two after AccuBonds were introduced, demand was so high that one worker in the Nosler plant decided to speed up the task at his station. Unfortunately, his speed-up prevented the bullets from bonding, and some of those left the factory. Nosler recalled as many as they could from distributors and stores, but a few had already been sold to handloaders. Those were the AccuBonds that came apart as you describe.

In the big scheme of things very few made it into the field, but the memory lingers on, despite excellent results from AccuBonds both before and afterward. In fact I've never encountered any despite starting to use AccuBonds their first year, and using some most years since. My last animal taken with an AccuBond was a whitetail doe, shot last November here in Montana, a 150-grain from a .308 Winchester. The bullet entered just inside the left shoulder as the deer stood almost directly facing me, 75 yards away, and was recovered from under the skin of the rump on the opposite side, retaining over 60% of its weight.

Since AccuBonds appeared, my hunting partners and I have taken 17 species of big game with them in both North America and Africa. ("Hunting partners" means people I was hunting with when they took the animals.) They've included animals from pronghorns and springbok to eland and moose, including elk, grizzly and the three elk-sized African plains game animals considered perhaps the toughest to drop--blue wildebeest, gemsbok and zebra. The bullets have ranged from the 110-grain .25 to the 260-grain .375, and around 80% exited. Those recovered looked very similar to the bullets pictured in the first post of this thread.

While I realize that personal experience (even very limited experience) is always stronger for many humans than solid evidence from elsewhere, do you really think AccuBonds would be so popular if the performance you saw was typical?

I doubt a unbonded AB would disintegrate. I shot deer with the 100gr Ballistic Tip and at predominantly woods ranges and never had one disintegrate. Actually I have never had a lead and copper bullet completely disintegrate ever. Had some slip cores or not give an exit, but never had one do a complete splash..I would think it's exceedingly rare.

Most bonded bullets are heated to essentially solder the core to the jacket. The heating anneals both the jacket and core, making them softer. As a result, the unbonded AccuBonds turned out considerably softer than Ballistic Tips, so your comparison isn't valid.

If by "completely disinegrate" you mean breaking into molecules, then you're correct. But I've seen jacketed rifle bullets break into tiny shards of jacket and core a number of times--including at least one bonded bullet, made with a relatively thin jacket.

That makes sense on the annealing, John.

Well I'll be damned. They kill the crap out of "Big" animals too...........

Agree. Several years ago I shot a moose through the lungs one time with a Federal 250-grain NOS HE, which back then was a pretty hot load from Federal, and the bullet broke apart inside the moose, except for a small piece out the other side of the moose. The pieces of jacket and lead in the lungs were very small, but it killed the moose pretty fast; it dropped before it could take one step forward. I was standing about 175 laser-measured yards. I can't complain about that bullet since it did what was supposed to do.

All depends. A loss of blood pressure can kill, but not as fast as a stoppage of blood flow to the brain. When oxygenated blood does not reach the brain, the heart and lungs can't function. Also, a shot to the brain can kill faster than a loss of blood pressure. A shot to the neck or spine that breaks the cervical nerves, specially the C6 and C7, can also kill pretty fast without much blood pressure loss.

That said, a big hole only makes a difference if it is though any body organ that carries lots of blood, or the heart itself. For example, the arteries by the heart, neck, and upper thighs on humans (near the groin) carry a lot of blood under pressure. There aren't very large blood vessels in the lungs, but a disruption to the lungs function such as the shock from a shot, as well as bleeding in the lungs, can kill, but at a slower rate depending on the amount of shock. Then take the heart beat of a brown bear at 40 beats per minute, an animal that can get to you within a few seconds, even if the heart has a big hole though it.

My experiences with the 225-grain Barnes 3-Shock bullets have been as positive as the NOS Partition, the 250-grain A-Frame, and the 230-grain Lubalox-coated FS, at least on moose. While a complete loss of blood pressure eventually kills, it does no kill as fast as when the CNS is damaged as mentioned above. But since I am not an expert on such things, please take my words with a grain of salt.

I recovered a 130 gr accubond under the hide, far side of a cow moose this year. Shot was from a 6.5x55 at about 2640 fps MV. Maybe Impact vel of 2450. Moose walked off, slowly 100 yards, lung shot then lay down. Made a believer out of my Pops who always said the swede was too small for moose.

Sorry Ray, but virtually nothing here is inside the science of killing...

Seven heart beats with a severed Aorta will put any animal on the ground... from lack of blood pressure.

Shock is absolutely not a measure of killing capacity short of CNS... No animal ever died from shock...

Blood pressure dropping completely disrupts brain function... and quickly... as above, seven heart beats with a severed Aorta kills immediately.

Brown bear heart rate at very low levels is a myth brought about by measuring hibernating bears' hearts... when awake and moving they have very ordinary heart rates...

Perhaps I was not clear, so here it goes again: a grizzly or brown on a charge from, lets say 35 yards away, can still chew you before it dies, because it will be on top of you within a couple of seconds. This is a maybe yes and maybe not thing, since every situation is different. Sometimes heart-shot animals such as moose and others take more than one step before dropping. But a brain shot usually drops the animal right there, then the animal dies from perhaps on to a few seconds later. For death from a loss of blood pressure to occur on any human or animal, it must be a complete blood pressure drop, not just blood loss. That's why we usually wait for a moose (for example) that is already on the ground, to expire. Otherwise we shoot it on the brain. Don't you think so? That's what I tried to say to the poster I was responding to. In other words, loss of blood does not always kill right away, but a total loss of blood flow kills faster. But it is not necessarily that a loss of blood pressure kills the brain. For example, if some blood from the heart is pumped to the brain just before the heart is blown to pieces, the brain still uses the blood that has already reached the brain to still send a signal for the animal to breath and move. The brain keeps on sending such signals until it has already spent all the blood that it already contains, unless you stop the CNS from functioning. A brain without blood can still survive a portion of time before it goes into a coma.

And about shock, I haven't said that shock kills. But the shock created when the bullet hits a body organ, or the area around the entry and exit wounds, violently shakes those areas. This leaves behind bloodshot flesh. The shock may not kill a large animal, but it sometimes stops the lungs from inhaling or exhaling, and even makes an animal shot near the brain pass-out for a moment, which then gets up and runs.

Better explained here:
http://www.health24.com/Lifestyle/Man/Your-life/Gunshot-wounds-20120721

Ray, FWIW I have a certain degree of expertise in this area, and I agree with your assessment for the most part. As Dr. Martin Fackler posited, there are only TWO reliable means of incapacitation by gunshot wound: trauma to the CNS, and rapid blood loss that deprives the CNS of oxygen. In other words, you have to stop the CNS, either directly or indirectly.

CNS hits incapacitate immediately. Blood loss incapacitation is extremely variable and unpredictable. In my professional experience as a trauma physician, I have observed this phenomenon at first hand, but also have access to the breadth and depth of the trauma medicine literature, which basically says the same thing. People and animals can accomplish amazing and heroic feats of strength, endurance, and tenacity in the short term despite catastrophic blood volume loss. Others keel over and die slowly with a less dramatic wound. You simply can't predict the speed with which a fatal non-CNS GSW will cause the recipient to cease purposeful action.

Whether a GSW produces only one external wound (entrance) or two (entrance + exit) is irrelevant to lethality or speed of exsanguination. The only advantage to having a second hole in the skin is that twice as much blood will spill onto the ground for tracking. The chest cavity can accommodate the entire blood volume of an animal or person, it doesn't have to escape from the chest to result in a loss of blood pressure. To argue that a bullet that does not produce an exit wound has "failed" is beyond ridiculous.

As for holes in the heart, I have to disagree with you... the size of the hole is far less important than the location of the hole; and, I strongly suspect, the time in the systole-diastole cycle of the heart when the bullet hits is also probably an important factor that needs to be studied in greater detail. The reality is that not all "heart shots" are equal, and in fact, there is a high degree of variability of effect in heart shots. The heart is a large, complex, and very tough organ. I'm aware of a number of cases of people who've taken a bullet through the heart who have survived long enough to have lifesaving surgery, and went on to live productive lives thereafter. Quadrupeds are no less subject to the vagaries of GSW's to the heart, so it's no surprise that some Dangerous Game have rampaged through an entire hunting party with the hearts "shot out", while others have rolled over and died very quickly.

No two GSW's are the same. The number of variables involved in the mechanics of the GSW is enormous, and then if you add in physiological/dynamic variables, the possible outcomes expand exponentially. Claiming that one particular type of bullet is a guaranteed "fail"--or a guaranteed "win"--based on one hunter's limited opportunities for observation, is an exercise in oversimplification that fails to take into account the complexity of the problem.

Be careful. Laymen use all kinds of made-up words in discussions of terminal ballistics/terminal effects. These include the infamous "hydrostatic shock", a nonsense term with no scientific validity. "Shock" has a very specific definition in trauma medicine and in wound ballistics. "Shock" isn't impact energy, and it isn't the physical force of the bullet striking flesh, or the formation of a temporary cavity, or any of these ideas. "Shock" is a physiological state of decreased tissue perfusion, which in turn is due to decreased blood pressure, blood volume, etc. Period.

Shock is the state wherein the recipient of the injury doesn't have enough blood flowing into its vital organs (especially the CNS) functioning. Shock can be cause by stopping the heart (cardiogenic shock), draining the blood out of the system (hemorrhagic shock), damage to the thoracic spinal cord (spinal shock), and neural reflex (neurogenic shock). There are a few other categories, but this simplification handles the bulk of it. As you have probably surmised by now, the primary cause of death for most game animals is hemorrhagic shock, secondary to penetrating thoracic trauma.

Tissue damage done by direct bullet impact results in a permanent wound cavity, which is literally the hole drilled in the body by the bullet, which is a permanent injury. Tissue damage done by transmission of kinetic energy into the tissues in a wave form results in a temporary wound cavity, which is what causes "bloodshot" meat, etc., but this does not result in permanent injury. What you are describing in your post is physical transfer of kinetic energy to the body, not "shock".

Doc, thank you for taking the time to type this out!

A couple points I have picked up from the literature and extended conversations with ER docs, thoracic surgeons, anesthesiologists, and others that are in at least minor conflict with your descriptions. Your statements about complexity and variation address them but many disagree with the outright dismissal of several factors.

To start, the chest cavity will hold all of the blood volume if empty, but in the first moments post GSW those areas are occupied. The vent allows the blood to flow at much lower back-pressure. The second vent decreases back-pressure significantly more than the first hole for a number of reasons; first, the exit is usually larger, second, the tissue has been pulled toward the exit by the passing bullet and the tissue seldom completely plugs the wound as frequently happens on the entry wound, third, the minor increase in blood loss volume effect vs BP reduction is not linear, fourth, the argument is not about absolute death (yes/no) but rather the speed of exsanguination to the point of incapacitance.

I, in agreement with many learned sources, disagree with the offhand dismissal of the value of exit wounds. I do agree absolutely it is a complex equation.

The constant use of the "all failures to exit are bullet failures" eliminates the context when those statements were made.

A Cardiac surgeon friend and I just spoke about this and he still completely discounts the concept of cardiac contraction stage influencing distant CNS effect as we believe you hinted at. One over radius squared eliminates that...

Thank you again for a well-stated discussion.

Thanks for your comments. It's always best to discuss these things as gentlemen!

My dismissal of the "value" of exit wounds is not offhand, I assure you. It is based on sound medical and physiological principles. The simplest way to consider it is this: when I have a patient in my ER with a thoracic GSW, the first thing I do after stabilizing his airway is to put a second (or third, or fourth) hole in his chest. This procedure is called a tube thoracostomy, or chest tube placement in plain English. This can be considered the equivalent of an exit wound, in terms of what it does in the immediate post-injury period. We do this to get blood (and air) out of the chest, because leaving blood and air in there is a significant threat to life.

Free fluid (blood) in the thoracic space is always a bad thing. Unlike air, which can be compressed readily, blood does not compress. Thus bleeding that is contained inside the chest necessarily compresses the lungs and may compress the heart. Both conditions lead to rapid decline in function of these organs and the body. The trivial internal pressure of the lungs is easily and rapidly defeated by even venous blood pressure (5-10 mm Hg), let alone pulmonary arterial pressure (30-40 mmHg) or aortic arterial pressure (>100 mmHg, and higher under stress).

So the notion that internal bleeding is somehow diminished without a free-flowing exit wound, while appealing on an intuitive basis, has no basis in physiology. If it were otherwise, we would be binding up GSW patients rather than opening them up!

Now, a cervid with an abdominal wound may be prone to more rapid exsanguination if there is a large exit wound... but in my experience in both the hunting field and the trauma room suggests that external bleeding from abdominal wounds is much less of a concern than internal bleeding, especially if the liver spleen, abdominal aorta, or major pelvic blood vessels are ruptured. Death from internal bleeding occurs with tremendous speed with any of these injuries. The "gutshot" animal that lives in terrible pain for a day after its shooting is shot in the guts, not these critical organs.




Good point, and I did not mean to trivialize the point or the context. I can think of several instances where an exit wound should considerably hasten the recipient's demise. A wound to the arterial structures of the hindquarters, for instance... here, the second hole will prevent tamponade within the muscles, and the animal will hemorrhage externally more quickly.




Let me put that inference of yours firmly in the garbage can where you and I and your CT surgeon buddy all know it belongs! I did not imply or "hint" that there is any remote CNS effect from thoracic trauma; that particular internet legend was propagated by a fake PhD named Michael Courtney a number of years ago, and there has been ample peer-reviewed research published to thoroughly debunk it.

What I was referring to, rather, was the idea that if a bullet penetrates a ventricle when it is full of blood (end-diastole) it may be more prone to rupture than it would be when it is at its lowest volume (end-systole). At end-diastole, the ventricle is at its upper limit of elasticity, being stretched to capacity; the kinetic energy of the bullet is transferred to the fluid blood inside the ventricle and there is less elastic capacitance of the ventricular wall to absorb that energy without rupturing. I have demonstrated this with post-mortem sheep hearts, but this is of course not the same thing as a living heart; this is my reason for suggesting further research is needed.

My hypothesis is that if a bullet strikes the ventricle at end-systole, the elasticity of the myocardium allows it to stretch and all you get is a bullet-diameter hole. A ventricle with a bullet-diameter hole in it can still pump blood quite effectively, as the larger outflow tract of the aortic/pulmonic valve offers less resistance to blood flow. However, if the bullet hits at end-diastole, the transfer of energy into the fluid contents of the ventricle produces a dramatically larger exit rupture, which offers less resistance than the valve, and as such forward blood flow into the vasculature will all but cease.

In other words, my hypothesis is that a bullet strike when the heart is fully engorged with blood is more likely to cause a catastrophic and near-immediate loss of blood pressure than if the strike occurs when the heart is fully contracted.

Thank you DocRocket , for your very concise and clear explanations about bullet wounds and related trauma.

Of interest. Never recovered an accubond.

Fackler also said the greatest influence in rapid death is wound volume and fragmentation IIRC.

The other thing with Barnes exit wounds is often they are so small they let very little blood out. As it pertains to the last elk I shot I couldn't find the exit until I peeled the hide off. The entrance was found by chance because there was a single drop of blood at the entrance site. The animal ran 70 some yards IIRC in the snow with not a single drop of blood. And this was after taking a boiler room hit at under a hundred yards from a 30 cal 180 TTSX at 3400fps.

Great recovery. Accubonds have been excellent Bullets for me.