Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Killing power - where do you see the difference?

I think it is safe to assume on this thread that proper bullet placement is a given. In the event of poor bullet placement, cartridge once again doesn't matter. Of course neither does the particular bullet being used...........

I guess I too am talking noticing "an immediate adverse reaction" to the shot. It just "seems" to me that the bigger rounds tend to "chill their doo doo" a bit faster, ha. They get that "OMG I've been shot" look on their face, ha. I may be all wrong, of course, but "less meat loss" is another reason I love the monos or heavy round nose bullets. Will I starve if I ruin a quarter of an animal? No, but I was raised to be careful with the meat. Hate bloodshot, ruined meat. That's why a ribcage shot is usually preferred. Now, as I mentioned, IF I need to anchor an animal, I go with high shoulder. I have whacked some pretty big exotics with small calibers, but was using very tough bullets. Ex- 220 Swift w 55 Trophy Bonded Bearclaws, 6mmx222 Magnum (6x47mm) w 85gr XBT, 22-250AI w 68 Hornady Match bullet. I always dig around and look to see what my bullet did to the critter, love it, ha.

MD- I remember reading an article by Ross Seyfried about how the .270 winchester and the 140 Failsafe factory load was the top elk killer on their ranch one year. I use to shoot that round all the time in my old Belgian BAR .270, but Winchester quit making it. It was accurate stuff is all I know. It was pure death on the one jackrabbit I killed with it and the one Spanish goat my God son killed with it, ha.

Yeah, the 140 Failsafe .270 was a very good bullet. Eileen and I killed a bunch of big game with it before switching to the 140 TSX--after the FS was discontinued and the TSX appeared. Killed game up to big nilgai with the 140 FS, and it worked fine.

The bullet Eileen's been using on game bigger than deer lately is the 130 TTSX in her custom Serengeti .308, which is actually downloaded a little to 2850 fps (about the velocity of typical 150-grain .308 loads). Dunno about big game getting a stunned look on their face, as the last elk she killed didn't have time. A big cow, pushing 500 pounds, it just stumbled 20-25 yards and fell over dead. (She also dropped the Shiras bull mentioned with the 150 Partition, back when she was using the .270 a lot. It didn't looked stunned, just dead.)

That is interesting. Unless long range trajectory is a major consideration, I usually try to get 2750-2850 fps muzzle velocity as the sweet spot between lethality and meat destruction. Was that your thinking or was it because of recoil?

I agree. Lung hits with most things, big or small, seem to cause similar reactions. Hyper velocity and fragmentation changes things.

Without good bullet placement nothing is going to work well. I think the debate is: given good bullet placement, how much does bullet design, diameter, weight and velocity affect the outcome? That's a lot of variables. And of course, each animal is somewhat unique and may react differently than others to the same shot.

Recoil reduction.

When Eileen first got the rifle in 2007 she used 150-grain monolithics loaded to 2850 fps, no problem. But shortly afterward she started getting recoil headaches, which over the next several years were triggered by less and less recoil. When we first started loading the 130s at 2850 she was OK, but eventually even that started giving her mild headaches, so we had a muzzle brake installed, which put the rifle just under the line.

The other two rifles she uses most for big game are a NULA .257 Roberts with 100-grain TTSXs at 3150 fps, and a Husqvarna bolt-action .243 with 100-grain Partitions at 2900. The .243 results in somewhat less recoil, both due to less velocity and because it's a little heavier at 7 pounds, 5 ounces scoped, while the .257 is 6 pounds, 10 ounces.

Lately she has been using an even lighter recoiling rifle on deer-sized game, a Tikka T3x .22-250, one of a special run from Whittaker Guns in Kentucky. It weighs just about the same as the .243, but with 70-grain Hornady GMXs at 3300 fps recoils even less--and so far has killed just as well.

PintsofCraft,
Much of my existance relies heavily on being injury free. Ive no running water, so haul water for myself and 14 malamutes in 15 gallon jugs.

Due to a minor hand injury acting up, I had hand surgery this year. I could only swing a 2.5 lb splitting hatchet head, modified with a full length handle. I could'nt run a stihl 660 in the saw mill. Could only handle a j-red 2172. So even minor injuries are a dire set-back.


I often hunt solo up remote, whitewater rivers or by dog team. Ive no electricity or heating fuel, so split all firewood by hand. Enough firewood to cover below zero weather from November to April.

This can all be taken away from me in a split second, packing a large moose hindquarter over inhospitable tundra terrain, laden with tussocks. My freind who ran a remote trapline for 30 years, broke his back hauling a hindquarter off a 70 inch antlered moose too far from the river. One bad step on a tussock, he was changed forever.

My Mi'kmaq cousin this past season, hauled a moose out with a tractor and hung it to process it. A few of my family back east have experienced similar, convenient moose recoveries. Must be nice!

Now I understand the most magnificient, most well-informed riflemen and big game hunters come from Montana. They're so practiced, so magnifient, any minimalist choice in gopher bullets will suffice, in any big game scenario. Just ask Brad.

But for some of us lowly bush wanderers not in their narrow field of view, living in suburbia America with all the accoutrements of a modern home with buttons for heat and water, there is a place for above 30 caliber.

From 358 winchester to 9.3×62 mauser, i dont see much change in where i cut up the large rut-raged bull moose.

BUT, at 41 caliber, I am experiencing a "stopping" where i preserve my back and knees, strained from 3 one -year tours in the Iraq war. The entire moose was within 10 feet of the boat.

This will help preserve me, so im prepared to pack the next bull my buddy shoots with his 20 something caliber gopher/coyote/deer gun. He doesnt care that lung-shot bulls with a single or multiple .20 something caliber wounds, can cover 100 yards or more of swamp and tussocks. Were not talking cows here, rut-charged bulls in their prime.

Anyhow, I wrote more about the 41 calibers here:
https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/16468969/1

I still need to work the 41 calibers for at least another 5 years of moose before i can report anything definitive. I only have 6 years experience with the 41 calibers, which is not enough. They also need to be bulls in their prime, in the 56-70+ inch antletlered range.

What is “killing power (KP)?” How do you define that?

I have taken big game with from a 243 to a 375, and with a bunch in between, including with the 340 Wby but I surely don’t know.

There are so many different factors involved, and each time in every case too, that you’d have to take, I don’t know — say five hundred head (a thousand?) under similar conditions to start to see a difference. How many of those factors could you omit to begin isolating for KP, and still experience a true hunt as opposed to some conceived of laboratory setting.

No very many at all.

I’ve also had a fair number of whitetail bow-kills, for instance, with the same bow, arrows & broadheads, same distance, same placement, but radical different reactions in a few cases. Though there has to be some reason, those reasons aren’t observable.

If it’s not observable and then repeatable phenomenon, does it exist?

Mainer- that aint much shoulder on your .41x9.3-62 there! ha I played with a .416 Taylor, .416 Rigby, .416 Remington and (close) a 404 Jeffrey. All with 350-400gr bullets. But, they sure are a handful ( and an earful!) ha Does the 416 Ruger recoil as bad/worse than your wildcat? Stopping them right there is why my friend uses his 45-70 as a saddle gun. He hunts with the 350 Hornady pretty hot, plus, when he packs into an area close to the Yellowstone (those dang humped back bears again!) , he has those Grizzly Ammo Bear Loads +P 460 HC suckers! Ouch.

There is a big difference between "Killing" and "Stopping" although I knew a retired PH who used a 7x57 throughout his career to back clients even on the big stuff which gets back to bullet placement, I have it on good authority that he could shoot the head off guinea fowl at 100 paces.

bullets, not cartridges is where I see the difference

PintsofCraft: The "difference" is SHOT PLACEMENT!
I have killed "Big Game" with a 22 L.R. via a carefully placed bullet.
Careful shot placement is every bit as important in Big Game Hunting as is "caliber" or "ft/lbs of energy" or "bullet type".
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Brad, I think Mainer is picking on you......

The quickest double lung with an exit armpit shot on a elk I've ever seen was with a 270, 150g NPt, MV just a tad over 2700fps by a 14 yo. At about a 100yds. The cow's head went all wobbly, her legs collapsed and she didn't even twitch once when she hit the ground. I thought for sure the boy had spined that cow or hit her in the head.

I've killed only three Alaskan bull moose, none of them approached 70", but it's hard to predict how critters like elk or moose will react even when hit in the front half and a good bullet does its job. Shot in the same spot with the same bullet and caliber, I've seen plenty of elk react significantly different. Short of shooting them in the head or spine there is no guarantee the critter is gonna fall down on the spot.

That is correct - until their blood oxygen drops far enough, plus they produce enough lactic acid that the muscles stop working, there is no physiological reason for them to stop. Even a broken shoulder can be used for a while.

Every single report of a "bang flop" that does not involve CNS trauma is luck.

What you can do is drive a bullet completely through them passing through vital organs. That gives you blood to follow and a guarantee that they will go down. If it's fast, great. If it's not, you'll find them.

Killing power. I understand how that phrase means really…nothing. My phrasing was knowingly generic & I should have said the visible impact or trauma dealt at the impact of a well placed shot…but that’s kinda boring. I know I didn’t spell out my assumptions very well - I fully understand that there is really no such thing as killing power.

I was having an internal conversation about how bullet placement with a quality bullet, created for the task at hand, really made more sense than any of the old ‘Killing Power’ formulas and wanted to see what you guys thought about it.

I have hunted a mixed bag of game animals throughout the country but mostly hogs, deer & elk in the Western states before moving to Vermont. I’m a pretty old school backpack hunter that enjoys the pain & suffering in some weird way.

So that is a long way to say I enjoyed each of your posts on the topic - thanks!

-MainerinAK - stay warm & thanks for sharing a little about your seasonal routine & your 3 long hauls in the sandbox.

The fast twist 22/250 is an amazingly efficient killer, I have been doing most of my hunting with the same rifle for the last couple of years, using the 77 grain TMK at 3180fps, it’s performance on game reminds me of the 25/06 or 270 but in a package that is much less blasty, which I appreciate because I hate hearing protection when hunting

"Killing power" is the result of hundreds of hunting articles trying to quantify a physiological response to being shot.

Ha Ha. Elmer is spinning in his grave....grin...