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

Looky here, Barnes must also think my analogy using a planes sonic boom was comparable to shock waves created by high speed bullets striking tissue.

Handloader/ Oct 07/ #249/ Inside Production News/ page 104/ Barnes Bullet Myths Busted DVD review :

"The DVD also features Gen. Chuck Yeager, World War II ace, dedicated hunter and the first man to break the sound barrier. He uses his extensive expertise to explain the shock wave Triple Shock and MRX bullets create when striking game, then demonstrates its deadly effect."

Anyone still believe there is no shock wave potential for high speed bullets? A shock wave being where Kenetic Energy "leaps" off a bullets leading edge. I just came across this, independent proof of my theory and more weight to the "magnum makes a difference" argument.

Help,
How do I get off this thread?

My eyes are bleeding listening to (reading) all this doggerel.

I'm still waiting to see the first animal that is more dead because of a magnum......(grin)

There are three constants in a magnum cartridges that I've found:
1) They burn more powder
2) They kick harder
3) They make more noise

Somewhere in there is a real good reason for me to use one, but I guess I'll need to ponder it further to determine which one.

Matt, what's your personal experience amount to in terms of killing big game animals with belted-magnum cartridges? Where and what have you hunted with them?

AD

Matt, they make more noise for sure. I love my new 300WSM it is very accurate, shoots a 180 grain a bit harder than a 30-06, but is very loud especially in a covered stand. I bought the rifle for an elk hunt I am saving for, but used it this year for deer hunting. Yes it works fine but darn it hurts my ears! I have come to believe reading this and other threads along with my personal experience that a magnum does not kill deer significantly better it is just a range extension tool. I think the 4 times I shot this rifle in the woods this year degraded my hearing some. I am still looking for that death ray but it does not exist from what I have seen all the way from 35 Whelen to 222 Remington except in the mind of the man that owns that weapon and has money invested in his choice!

I've killed exactly 3 deer and 2 elk that were shot with magnums poorly that I finished off, all of which being in Western Oregon by former hunting partners of mine.

I've shot plenty of them, since we had a general gunsmithing business for many years before starting our current business and I can say for sure that I've never been impressed.

Your hunting diversity trumps mine for sure, since I was born into a life of little funding and things haven't changed all that much despite my working around the clock......I'm offically on my 20th hour at the shop as I type this........

I can say this for certain though, even with my limited experience in relationship to geography; I won't be using a magnum in this country for anything. When, or if I make it to Africa, it'll be the 375H&H for sole reason that I have to, though a family friend killed 3 cape buffalo and a host of other plains game with his trusty 308, but that was because he simply a helluva salesman and world-rewnowned bs'er.....being one of the finest off-hand shots I've ever seen didn't hurt either.

I worked for Volvo and regularly visited Sweden for meetings and planning sessions in the early 1980�s. One day I was eating lunch at the Halarad test track. There were several animated test engineers that (by their hand signals) could only have been discussing hunting. I asked what they had been hunting and they replied �Elk!� (Moose are called elk in Scandinavia). I asked what caliber rifles they used and they answered (1) 6.5X55 (no surprise here), the 30-06 (this was a surprise to me) and, the 8X57. None of the guys reloaded, but generally used Norma ammo.

When driving, I was frequently warned to watch carefully for �elk� crossing the road. There are many accidents and deaths caused when a 100 kph (62 mph) Volvo hits a moose � both loose. Once while driving near Karlstad in the Lake Vanern region, traffic was stopped while wreckage was removed from the highway from a fatal car-moose accident. So, perhaps, a Volvo would be the best choice to kill a moose � it has even more energy and momentum than a 375 H&H!

Matt,

Please answer me just one question at a time. Would you say that a magnum cartridge makes a larger size wound in an animal? Answer yes or no. For instance compare a 308 Win. to a 300 Weatherby Magnum.

Thanks

Zebra taken with 338 Federal and 210 grain TSX





Exit in hide






Damage to Zebras heart





Would a larger hole or even a smaller hole have mattered?

Looks like the 338 Federal is enough...

Exit of a 300 Win mag in a bull elks rib cage. Impact velcocity was approx. 2600 FPS for 2700 FPE




Exit in the rib cage of the same Elk damaged caused by a 440 grain Flat point hard cast from a 500 JRH revolver at 950 FPS for 888 FPE





Both hit ribs going in and out... It appears that FPE is not the entire equation, apperently how the bullet does its work is very important.

Well I'll be. Look at that. Must have been one heckuva "reverberating wound channel" in that one.

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If you used the same exact bullet at the same distance, the 300 Weatherby would be more effective in damaging more meat while producing a larger hole than the 308.

Shot placement, with a mild caliber, that I can shoot well, interests me much more than a fast-moving, meat damaging, hard-kicking rifle I'm man enough to admit I can't shoot as accurate with.


The term "killing power" is great for selling powder, magnum cartridges, and new rifles, but is an illusion of a wordsmith at best and the abililty to give a hunter a perceived "edge" at worst.

I will admit to being absolutely sold on magnums for certain applications. I say that with the admission that I have only owned two rifles which qualify, in my opinion and understanding, as magnum rifles. They are the 25-06 and the 340 Weatherby. I consider them magnums - I could really care less about the nomenclature declaration of my 375 H&H or 338 Winchester. I do appreciate what a rifle can do when it delivers reasonably high velocities at longer distances. Than can, at times, be a useful quality. The downside, of course, is that it also means you have some very high velocities to deal with if the distances are very short. That is where very well controlled bullets become very important. Regardless, I know that high speed projectiles, regardless of their construction, can be devastatingly messy when they stray from their intended placement. That should be no secret to anyone who has made that error or at least understands how bullets work.

When I am hunting on the short days of winter here in the far north and I expect that the terrain I hunt will include a lot of broad river valley, then I like the advantage of having a rifle which can readily place a bullet of decent weight into a distant target. The advantage of a 225 or 250 grain 33 caliber bullet at 400 yards seems to be distinct when weighed against a 180 grain 30 caliber, quite probably started slower to boot. That said, at half that distance, similar bullets placed in a similar fashion seem to produce very similar results.

I usually shoot one moose per year and occasionally a bear. The 30-06 or larger seem to be well suited. Aside from that, everything else can pretty much be handled with smaller cases and bores. I enjoy using a variety of rifles and use smaller calibers more than anything - except at the range. If I could only have a single CF rifle and it happened to be a 30-06, I would not be seriously disadvantaged for anything I do. (But if cornered, I will admit nothing to any woman - especially my wife, or anyone else who might use that statement against me with ulterior intentions.)

Good, so far we are in agreement that a 300 Weatherby will make a larger deeper wound than a 308 no matter what the range. Of course optimum bullets would be selected for each cartridge, game and distance.

Now I want to get into my second point if you don't mind. My second point is that a larger in diameter and deeper wound is more apt to hit, damage or effect a vital specific spot in the quarry given the same shot placement. An example would be an artery that is bumped but not ruptured by the 308's bullets effect but made to rupture and hemorrhage by a wider-deeper wound. Thats quite logical don't you think?

At times this thread reminds me of the old writers once argueing they didn`t need them big boomers. One would shoot a moose with a 308 and the next will come back with "I got mine with a 7x57 in a cutom Mauser and it is all I need" followed by the guy that knew a Eskimo who shot polar bear with a 222 Rem and thought anything bigger then a 22LR for moose was waste.
Of course old Elmer would wake them all back up with a statement like "270s make damn fine coyote rifles" and a good 333 OK at the min was what one really needed for moose, while the guy hunting simply shot what he had and walked away with meat most of the time if he put his shot where it counts..... which is what IMO really counts. It doesn`t matter a whole lot how big around the hole is just what part of the animal has the hole in it.

Yea, I would say that TSX got bested by that slow pistol bullet, but thats not surprising.

Saw many Eskimo use lever rifles in the Arctic. I asked them why and the Eskimo looked at me kinda funny and said" Ever try and work a frosted up bolt rifle". I replied " no" Try it sometime and then do the same thing with a lever rifle.
I've seen these fellas shoot Polar Bears with 30-30 45-70 etc not because of the caliber but because of the action.
You can't get a 375 HH in a lever that I know of.
They would certainly use them because these Polar bears just keep coming even when the front end don't work, they don't stop until they're dead and sometimes that's to close. They just keep shooting until the rifle is empty and then hope the dogs can keep them off until they expire. I know this has nothing to do with moose but lots of guys get killed/maimed yearly by charging moose. Keep using your 243, and I hope one day your not dangling off a moose rack.

I suspect we'll all be waiting a week for you to make a point, but yeah.....a bigger bullet will make a bigger hole in an FMJ style bullet. I've seen holes put through deer with 25 caliber and 22 caliber that you could put both of your fists through. I've also shot deer with a 44 Magnum Marlin that left about a 3 inch circle of bloodshot meat on either side, took out the fitals and a rib on each side. The through holes were that of a bullet that probably didn't expand much.....but the buck was dead before he hit the ground.
My biggest buck to date was shot with a 22 Hornet at around 100 yards...He dropped too, but that tends to happen when you hit them between the eye and ear...go figure.

I'll be the first to admit that I can't shoot very accurately much above that of 30-06 recoil, but it hasn't slowed me down any. I can shoot however 30-06 and less recoiling rifles very well, and to some quite astonishingly well. I've been literally pulling triggers since I was three and have spent countless hours shooting from field positions, with very little time spent on a bench.
My father owned and operated a gunsmith shop for a long time before we opted to start up our current business, so I not only shot our family's rifles and pistols, but also our customers. Numerous 300 Winchesters, 338's, 7mm Mags, and other variious magnums and wildcats. Out of the hundreds that came through the door, there were only about 2 guys that could shoot them well and the rest were carrying them because they felt like they needed to. These were the fellas that would come up a week before season and have "us" sight in their rifles for them. We'd give them the target with the group and they could have spent the rest of their days trying to even come close with the same rifle.

I got turned off of the magnum craze probably most due to what I was taught when I was younger from my father, coupled with watching a lot of animals die to something smaller. I learned to shoot them, but not nearly as well as I could my favorites. When examining all the options, I decided that If I could shoot a rifle better, it would kill animals just as dead, I didn't have to throw half of it away, though my dog appreciated that, I was better off.
Being on a limited budget didn't allow the monies to waste ammo or spend more for it. I still feel the same way about that today.

If two guys can go into the field together and both come back with meat, then neither of them has one-upped the other right?
If the first guy can kill the same game animal with a smaller caliber year after year, I fail to see where the guy with the larger caliber has a case for his rifle caliber being superior.

You boys keep your magnums and enjoy the recoil, but I'll keep killing critters like I always have with something that I enjoy shooting more than once or twice a year.

So there we have it and you had to agree that a magnum is indeed more effective or shall we say more deadly. I say so and I just proved it.

Now there are details of course like increased recoil however some people can shoot magnums well just to make the point that they have an edge or benefit.

Well then, purely for the sake of continuing this silly argument:

If your theory is correct, then why did the .300 Mangleum require more shots (on average) than any other cartridge in the study?

Regards,
Scott