Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Fast vs Slow (inside deer) bullet debate??

I'm with you! Here's a few pictures form this years hunt.

Picture #1 This is from a doe mulie that was shot at 125 yards facing head on with a 30-06 and a 150gr Hornady BTSP with a muzzle velocity of 2800fps. This is the entrance hole and the bullet did not exit and was not recovered. My friend shot this deer and it was his first kill ever.




Picture #2 This is from a doe mulie shot at 80 yards broadside with a 30-40 Krag and a 180gr Sierra RN at 2400fps.

Entrance wound.


Internal.


Exit wound.


Both deer went straight down but one lost alot more meat than the other. Last year I shot my deer with a 35 Whelen and a 250gr bullet at 183 yards and you could eat almost right up to the hole. I don't like shooting up meat.

I agree the pics from the zebra kill are impressive, but we'll have to agree to disagree, MontanaM, about the hydrostatic shock theories. Some things we'll never know because A) We weren't there, and B) Could we even agree on the method of "measuring" what we were trying to prove?

I've not been too thrilled about hearing about the new .338 Federal (because I'm aware of what a great round the .358Winnie is - and never it caught on big) .....

..... But I would be very interested in studying more kills (autopsies) made by both of those rounds. I won't argue about the ability of the .338Fed, nor the ability of the 210grain bullet in Nosler Partition configuration. The 210 Partition has long been a favorite of many .338WM shooters, and I can attest that it kills elk very well.

What impresses me most about the zebra kill is the huge size of the heart! I don't know what a zebra weighs on the hoof, but that heart looks huge! The bullet, cartridge, rifle, hunter - et all, all worked well in dispatching that gaminal.

Plus I appreciate the reference to the engineering book. I'm not an engineer, but my father was. I've studied college physics, chemistry and dynamics. That text sounds like it would be a great primer (and probably much more) on Penguin's point.

.338Fed vs .358Win; Ken Waters who used to write 'Pet Loads' for Wolfe Publishing, called the .338-08 (essentially the same as the Federal round) a "cartridge of merit" when comparing it to the .358 Winchester. The two are very similar and should give similar performances.

But if it was me, I'd still choose the .35iver, first! The .358 is VERY EFFICIENT, can use many pistol bullets and is great when shooting cast-bullets. However I'd definitely still use the 210 Partition in a .338/06 or .338WM.

I'd say no doubt in my mind that fast kills quicker. I don't like light bullets because they used to do much more damage, and they were less efficient in the wind at ranges....

Barnes kinda changed that, solid copper, for weight they are longer which is more efficient in the wind and for drop, and they don't fragment like cup and core bullets doing quite as much damage.

I like to eat up to the hole personally. I have no issues of trailing a deer a bit, actually enjoy it. I"ll err a bit on the heavy side due to penetration issues... ping pong vs golf ball theory, and with the X I can generally have the best of all worlds.

If I knew I was gonna never have to shoot bone and could choose all my shots, I might well drop down to a really fast BT type expansive bullet in the ribs or head and be done with it. But since life guarantees nothing, especially after driving hundreds or thousands of miles, I go prepared for the worst, and accept the best.

Jeff

I do not disagree with your logic, but I believe that once we have arrived at enough internal damage more does not necessarily incapacitate faster.

As Smoky Robinson put it, to an extent, I second that emotion.
Anyone who is forced to use slugs on deer know they are effective, but diameter is larger of course, and expansion is not needed. #1 has merit when choosing small caliber expanding bullets. A solid .22 cal can be a slow killer. Bigger cal, less speed, hence the 338 Fed. damage.

Hydrostatic Shock kind of sounds like some fancy marketing slogan to me.

I have heard the theory before and many swear by it including a guy named Roy Weatherby.

I have also heard that there is nothing to this theory and that animals the size of deer cannot be "shocked" with even the fastest and most explosive bullet a hunter would care to throw at a deer.

I have my own case in point. I shot a smallish button buck at about 40 yards with a very fast moving rather frangible 150 grn .30 caliber bullet. The deer simply stood there for a few seconds and nearly went back to eating....thought better of it and ran about 150 yards before I heard him flop over. When I found the deer...the damage to the lungs was massive. The exit hole was about the size of a large fist. The lungs looked like they had been pureed.

150 grn bullet hitting this deer at about 3,100 fps (range was about 40 yards) The deer weighed about 100 lbs (my first deer) and yet ran over a football field before piling up dead.

Hydrostatic shock? Not sure if I buy it.

In my interpretation, the effects of hydrostatic shock are well illustrated by that big hole in that zebra's heart. Fluids being displaced at such a rapid rate as to create a pressure wave that causes tissue destruction. There is a permanent cavity far greater in size than the diameter of the expanded bullet. The exit hole, made at lower velocity, is closer to the actual projectile diameter.

If not hydrostatic shock, what DID cause that gaping hole? Did the bullet expand to the size of a softball, then shrink back down?.......(I don't think so).

I have only hunted deer 10 yrs and 9 of them with a 30-30. I always chose 170 grain bullets over 150s because on the charts the larger bullet had more energy at (x) number of yards than the lighter bullet. I asumed that having more energy to transfer = better. So I would have sided with #2 for a different reason, Maybe ignorance. Shot placment being the same, is speed more important than energy?

I'll use a heaver constructed bullet everytime. I have used alot of 22 cals on deer and they leave a great big wound channel, but I feel safer with a 165 308 bullet everytime on deer, or better yet a 250 round nose out of a 358. I like a entry and a exit. That means I have 2 blood trails. I have never lost one with one going in and one out. I've had to look hard for a couple with only an entry.

Ed

I don't hunt with a .30-30, but did the first couple years I started hunting. Never killed anything with one.

But if I did use a .30-30 I'd choose the 170's - cause I know they will plow a [consistant, methodical] hole through a deer or whatever else I point the rifle at. Both the 150's and 170's are proven bullets in the .30-30, but I prefer the heavier of the two.

For a medium velocity deer load (2400-2500fps) in the .308W I've thought about loading some 170 Speer's, but haven't had the opportunity yet. Application would be out to 150yds from a treestand.

Hmmm....looks like you have an awful lot of hair on the meat there...

What made the large exit hole?

Well....you figure that the bullet mushrooms and then starts pushing on stuff in it's way. The force of the material being pushed fans out over a larger area. Also remember that the bullet is no longer flying point end first but may have tumbled and is slowing down rapidly as the area of the bullet increases in diameter and the medium that it is in is very dense.

A half dollar sized slug that is tumbling and pushing is going to cut through much of the "meat" but will also be pushing quite a bit more mass than just the bullet itself.

Finally...the bullet reaches the other side of the animal and a blow-out occurs. The skin seperates and some of the matter and mass that had been accelerated comes out the other end about the same time that the bullet exits.

Hydrostatic shock? Hardly.

Simple physics? Yep.

Couldnt have said it better myself so I wont try.

I would not use tumbling as part of my arguement if I were you.. When a bullet tumbles it is very unpredictable and rarely pentrates straight, also a bullet that tumbles will not pentrate very well at all....

jwp475:

A bullet starts out spinning very fast when it leaves the muzzle of a rifle. Once it hits a medium like flesh and bone....it will start to deform and yaw.

As the bullet that hit your animal was not going into ballistic gellatin....it might be hard to say exactly what it did.

However, if you have ever seen slow motion photography of a bullet going into test medium....the bullet DOES tumble and deform and can be deflected up or down depending on what it encounters.

As liquid is not compressable....the large exit wound was likely caused by the acceleration of other mass inside of the animal with the force of the impact being spread across a wider area causing the large exit hole.

Call me crazy.

We cleaned it up. It's all good!

We have probably all seen shots made on game that should have been bang flops where the deer ran 200 yds with no lungs and its heart in two pieces, there are exceptions to every rule as its nature, i am only referring to the majority i have seen in animals and humans both.

Anyone who has seen a bullet entering ballistic gelatin can clearly see the shockwave created by hydrostatic shock as we can all plainly see that bullet at no point expanded to the full diameter of the wound channel.

In fact the bullet deposited a level of force/energy on the gelatin and that force caused a hydrostatic wave (as the medium is comprised of high % of water thus physics tells us the shock is then plainly of a hydrostatic nature) that caused a tearing of the medium equal the the energy and subsequent shockwave imparted.

Also from my physics lessons i seem to remeber that any matter containing a liquid can be temporarily placed into a compressed like state due to the force acting upon it, yet you are correct it cannot be held in a compressed state as the force/pressure can and will subside as the object passes and or as the energy/velocity of the object decreases in the medium.

Therefore IMHO any argument that hydrostatic shock is not one of if not the major issue of faster kills is skeptisim or someone with very minimal understanding of anatomy and physiology or how the body operates. EVERYTHING in the body is run by electrical impulses delivered via the CNS (the only exception is the automaticity of the heart AFTER cns disruption/shut down, or the same reason a chicken manages to keep pumping blood after its beheaded). Thus the faster we achieve CNS disruption the faster the animal dies.

Thus i think it foolish to rationalize that hydrostatic shock does not play heavily into the killing of an animal. Bows impart very little hydrostatic shock due to the design of the broadhead and the compartively low amount of energy imparted, they rely on hemmoragic shock, and assuming a good shot with a highpower weapon we all know our animals are not bleeding out prior to expiring.

Penguin said "...Incompressible fluid dynamics....".


Mallard addict said "....the acceleration of other mass...."


periscope depth said "....the bullet mushrooms and then starts pushing on stuff in it's way. The force of the material being pushed fans out over a larger area....."


It seems we are all speaking of the same dynamic. I've always considered this dynamic to be "hydrostatic shock". Maybe I have the name wrong, but the dynamic is the same.

Anybody know what the name of this dynamic force actually is?

Okay....I like your explanation, MallardAddict and I think you have made more sense than all of us put together.

If hydrostatic shock is enough to shut down the CNS then why did my heart/lung shot spike buck run 150 yards after it was hit by a .30 caliber mushrooming bullet moving in excess of 3,000 fps (that flew to pieces) and left an exit hole the size of George Foreman's fist?

That was well over 3,000 ft/lbs dumped into this little deer's chest....yet he acted (at first) like he had never been hit.

Hydrostatic shock? Knock down power? Nope. not that I could see. In fact, I was reloading to shoot again because I thought I had missed him. Can you believe it??

I'll agree that the temporary cavity made this little guy bleed out faster. I'll even agree that he might have been a very tough deer....but I refuse to believe that this pressure wave that went through his body had anything to do with him falling over dead after he took his last 150 yard sprint.

Think about this....had this deer been a 100 pound mountain lion instead....I likely would have been mauled as he had about 30 seconds of fight in him before he fell over. (I was only 40 yards away when I shot him)