Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 10,000 Swedish Moose died to teach us this lesson.

One of the obvious problems with any simple formula, from KE to KO, is that it draws people into a concious or unconcious expectation that the formula is going to behave linearly from one end of the spectrum to another. Using simple models to describe complex phenomena is risky business; for example, if Body Mass Index was any good, NFL halfbacks would be declared obese and the gov't would force them to go on a starvation diet.

Consider the effect of bore size. Working with the example of an elk, there's probably some threshold bore size above which there are diminishing returns in terms of the effect of the entrance wound on the speed of collapse. Likewise, exit wound diameter, permanent wound channel volume, etc. And down at the small end, there is probably a strong nonlinearity; moving from .224" diameter to .243" diameter probably makes a substantial difference; moving from .358" to .366" probably doesn't (despite the frenzied claims of the 9.3 crowd).

And consider the sensitivity of bullet placement. When a 1 MOA aiming difference means hitting the aorta or not, I think it will take a LOT of data to ensure a decent confidence interval, even if you pre-sort your data down to double-lung shots for example.

There are so many independent variables, and the association of those variables with your dependent variable (be it collapse time, run distance, whatever) are so nonlinear at times and weak at times, that trying to extract a regression model out of it appears to be a time-consuming and fruitless exercise. Which is why Al Gore invented the Internet!

� but darn few pass my simple field demonstration:

� with an empty chamber when they expect a round to fire.

Most shooters (with precious few exceptions) yank the rifle as they pull the trigger. The bigger the cartridge, the more certain and more pronounced the yank. If the click had been a bang!, a bullet would've been 'way off the point of aim.

I will suggest one possible flaw in the implied conclusion, i.e., that (assuming a 6.5X55 or better) the only thing that matters is bullet placement. The flaw is the fact that hunters using a .30-06 (or lesser powered) class rifle round are going to be more hesitant to take a shot on a moose that is quartering away, and might well be more likely to wait for a more perfect (perpendicular) angle of the animal before taking the shot than someone with, for example, a .375 H&H. This fact could artificially skew conclusions favoring the .30-06 class of cartridges due to lower recoil and apparently equal terminal performance.

it looks to me as if they are all about equal. The 6.5 kills about as well as the 30-06, and about as well as the 375, there is just not that much difference to me 47 vs 47.567 feet etc. One trait "shootability" and starting a longer thinner bullet may compensate for "power", "velocity" and bullet diameter. That said the whole thing is to me is bogus as no information on the type of bullet used is included.

Seems like the most strenuous and emotional rejections of the study are that it removes about 98% of the basis for all arguments about why "my choice is better and your's sucks".

I can see why so many people are looking so hard for ways to discredit it.

The distance travelled gets very meaningful if that distance gets them to the water!! A hunter with much more experence than me said," If you get a moose going,he'll take more lead than an elk."

BCBrian, I dont have time to read the whole thread.

Mag in question is Handloader No.222 April 2003.

This whole issue is gold!

About the only conclusion you can safely draw from this study is that the 6.5 and the .30-06 was used by the majority of the hunters.

One place where 'bigger is better' might be significant would be if there was a listing of one shot kills. I find it odd that the average was about 1 1/2 shots, but this could be meaningless as well. After all, one shot and one kill and two shots and one kill average 1 1/2 shots per kill, but with the same shot placement, I would say the edge goes to the caliber that gave the one shot one kill, if there was any.

The chart, as it is written, would not help you to choose which caliber you would take to Sweden, because it took about 1 1/4 to 1 3/4 bullets for each moose, from the smallest to the largest caliber. Just how many took one and how many took four or five is not given, and this would be helpful only if the location of the shot was given. What we have is average, and average does not always represent true facts.

I wonder if the 6.5 was the smallest allowed for moose.

BINGO!!! The 35's continue to do the job despite being ignored ... what was it Taylor wrote regarding the 350G&H?? If pressures are okay and projectiles upto it ... he'd have preferred it to the 375H&H???
Cheers...
Con

This is one of those situations where the analysts are saying, "yeah, well so what if it works in practice. The important question is, does it work in theory?"

While acknowledging the lack of raw data to further sub-divide the results, and the fact that the smaller the sample the more an average might deviate from the median or mode(s), would anyone opine that there is any cartridge listed where the raw data would be markedly skewed or stand out from the others?

IOW, does anyone think that the .300 WM data show 26 one shot kills with one invincible moose (or really sh*tty marksman)requiring 27 shots? And no, I didn't backtrack the math, it's just an example.

Or the 6.5 perhaps really required 5 shots per moose and the moose all traveled over 200 meters except for those 197 that were head shot and dropped on the spot?

More data is always better but it looks like you guys are still trying to identify and magnify minute differences based on assumptions instead of seeing the general picture that the results in total are painting. Which is, that no one chambering really stands out from the others as God's Death Angel on Moose nor as the Casper Milquetoast of smokeless loads.

Looking at it as a whole what I see is that it supports the contention that one chambering really kills about as well as the next. My opine is that if we added another thousand examples each to those chamberings that are under represented then we would see the differences between them shrink even more.

I have been saying the same thing for the last few years. Though I don't get many to agree with me I think that the energy itself does very little if nothing when it comes to the killing of game. I feel like it is the ripping and tearing of vital organs that is what kills the game.
If energy killed, the shooter himself would die as well when he pulled the trigger. And while on that note people often mention energy dump, if a guy with a bullet proof vest gets shot, he will asorb all of the energy but it will probably not be fatal.

I don't know how these mathmatical formulas make their way into the hunting world. Sectional density is the other that baffles my mind.

Your absolutely right Ken and I use a live round but leave the safety on. Ready to fire on a Weatherby you see the red dot and on safe you see nothing. Remington has one near the trigger but you have to twist the rifle around to see it while the B can be viewed without moving your rifle. I've seen many a big fella jerk the trigger instead of a gentle squeeze. Large calibers kick hard but when you see game I've noted most guys don't even think of this and get a good shot off. You will see more flinching at the shooting range in my opinion.

Bullet proof vests will be penetrated both sides with most hi-power hunting rifles. they are designed for pistol bullets. Body armor is designed much stronger but the Lapua 338 was designed to penetrate 2 layers of body armor at 1200 yards. This was the criteria of the design.

Seriously cool.

Look how well the little old 308 win did!

With statistically significant numbers of animals killed (1,314) and very short travel distance (41 meters).

When considering how well the 6.5 Swede did, it shows (to me) the three most important things in rifle hunting: (1) Shot Placement; (2) Shot Placement; and (3) Shot Placement.

BMT

you guys are highly entertaining What's so hard to understand about shooting an animal with a modern cartridge & bullet & it dies...all pretty much the same. As long as a bullet has sufficient velocity/structure to get inside the vitals & do its damage it's pretty much a done deal.

All I know about dead mooses is a sample of one. Big Drift punched our party tag by putting 3 225gr Speers from a 35 Colonel into the pump portion of the boiler room on a young bull this fall. 2 shots broadside at 100, the third quartering to the right at 125. He dropped on the third but was dead on the first.

FWIW I *was* carrying a Swede on my way hiking from the next drainage over at the time of the animals demise. Had no qualms whatsoever of taking my M70 FWT with a belly full of 130gr TSX's on that hunt. The other two guys in the party had .270's with 150gr Partitions. I'm thinking those woulda dun da trick too.

GE

I'm told in these hunts the alg is driven, so is moving anywhere up to a slow trot, and the average shot is about 80 meters, given the country hunted. Also, the hunter keeps shooting as long as he can see the animal, so the 1.5 shots is possibly a recognition that either the animal is down or that he's disappeared into the brush.

What Jaywalker just wrote. The Swedish moose are generally moving when shot, the reason they tend to keep moving after being shot. And yes, Swedish moose hunters just keep shooting until either the moose is down or there is no shot.

It generally takes at least 10 seconds for blood pressure to drop in the brain after a solid heart-lung shot. This blood pressure drop is what makes an animal fall over from a heart-lung shot.

The other reason an animal falls over after being shot is trauma to the brain and spinal cord. A shot here dumps them. This is probably the reason the .300 Winchester shows up so well. A few spine shots would certainly skew the results in a small sample.

But we do not know that for sure. What we do know is that larger numbers of moose shot by the much more powerful .375 H&H did not show any vast shortening of how far the mose traveled after being hit.

The scientists who analyze wounds generally agree that the size of the wound channel is all that matters. This is not increased by "hydrostatic shock" (a term discredited by all but a few gun writers and some hunters) or kinetic energy. In fact, the hole made by a big rifle can be smaller than that of a small rifle. It all very much depends on bullet action.

There is an extremely wide variability in both individual animals and gunshot wounds, the reason a very large sample is needed to see any trends. This is the reason a more rigorous statistical analysis, as Denton fantasizes about, will probably not do any good.

Hunters are fond of examples of one, especially when trying to make a point about their favroite rounds. Here is another: I was once culling springbok in South Africa with, of all things, a .375 H&H, using the 260-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip at 2800 fps. Now, according to all the logic of kinetic energy, bullet diameter, etc. this should have dumped every little springbok (they are about 3/4 the size of pronghorns) on its nose.

A ram and ewe came by at about 100 yards, and stopped. I shot the ewe through the ribs and she dropped. The ram trotted a few yards and stood broadside. I shot him in the same place, as far as I could tell, and he ran off about 100 yards before stopping, wobbling and falling over. When we picked them up, each had an exit hole that could have accomodated a third of a football. So why did one drop and one trot off? Rigorous statistical analysis will not tell us--but in this case an example of one does indicate that even a REALLY BIG RIFLE will not knock them down all the time, despite the firmest beliefs of some hunters.

Now, there is obviously a difference in the "killing power" of a .17 Mach II and a .460 Weatherby. But there is damn little between, say, a .30-06 and a .300 magnum, despite much wishful thinking.

We have gotten into this discussion before here, and one guy (I cannot remember who) claimed that the elk he shot with the .30-06 always went 50-100 yards further than they did after he switched to a .300 magnum. He claimed he had observed this after shooting "almost 10 elk" with the .300. (Which made me wonder: what is "almost 10"? Nine? Eight? Even six is closer to 10 than zero. But none of them are anywhere close to 100.)

Then he went on the explain that about the time he switched to the .300, he had learned to shoot elk in the shoulder and spine. Which begs another question: Did the elk he spined with the .30-06 go 50-100 yards further?

This Swedish moose data is the biggest bunch of data I have seen on shooting big animals, at more or less the same ranges. I do believe that the large numbers shot with some cartridges tends to even out things like bullet construction and precise shot placement. The results also pretty much duplicate what I have seen over the years.

This is not to say that there aren't advantages to more powerful cartridges. Their bullets can more reliably break big bones and continue to penetrate, and they can (with the right bullet!) more reliably create a blood trail. However, that in itself is not really as telling a point as some might guess. It implies that often the blood trail is needed.

And that is the major point of all these numbers. No matter what we hit big game animals with, unless we break them down somehow they are all likely to go a ways (or stand around a while) before keeling over from a heart-lung shot. There is no amount of kinetic energy or hydrostatic shock or other hunter's magic that changes that. It is just the way animals are built.

Oh, forgot a couple commennts.

Klikitarik--How do you know the moose wasn't about to fall over anyway when it was hit by the .30-06?

378--Anybody who believes the .378 Weatherby always bowls them over should read Bob Hagel's story of shooting an Alaskan bull with the .378, in GAME LOADS AND PRACTICAL BALLISTICS FOR THE BIG GAME HUNTER. Bob even shoulder-shot his bull....

You make sense to me and I agree but put a few trees in the way and you will have a whole new ball game. Traverse some brush with a fast skinny bullet versus a heavy large diameter bullet plowing through trees. Hit a twig with a 7mm magnum versus a slow flying 444 and tell me what you figure will happen. And don't say it never happens especially with running targets in reference to the swedes way of hunting.