Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Exposing the Foot Pounds of Energy Myth

I posted this in the Handguns and Hunting Rifle Forums so as many people as possiable would have an opportuniy to read this.

Read this with an open mind and see what a wound ballistics expert has to say.

Webmaster's Note:Original source here:

On Terminal Performance

jwp475:
Everyone should read an article such as this. I trained myself years ago to IGNORE, the foot pounds of energy figures. IMO, It's not how much energy there is, but how it is expended that matters.
Smitty of the North

Precisely. Energy in this context is merely the potential to do work. Depending upon the efficiency of your widget, anywhere from 0% to <100% of it ends up doing the work you wanted it to do.

The physics involved tell us that penetration depends on Momentum (Mass x Velocity). Wound cavity depends on
Energy (Mass x Velocity x Velocity). As Elmer Keith put it
"It is the size and depth of the hole".
Good luck!

IMO tissue damage is what kills animals. For instance often times in light skinned game like deer a balastic tip kills much faster than stoutly constructed bullets that penatrate deeper.
The key to fast kills is to use a bullet that is right for the application and to place it in the right area.

This sounds like more "Great Motherhood Theory" mumbo jumbo. Fortunately, we live in a world in which wishful thinking and illogical conjecture cannot rule.

If foot-pounds of energy doesn't matter, then I guess the science of physics doesn't matter, either <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />!

If FPE doesn't matter, then I guess we could all get by with a 30 M1 carbine instead of a 30-06, right?

Or does FPE only matter up to a certain point, then it doesn't all of a sudden mean anything, or what?

Bob Hagel said it best: "No cartridge kills any better than the cold, hard ballistic tables say it will." Hagel couldn't have been more right, and his experience mirrors what I've seen for myself over the last three decades. When it comes to understanding what works and what doesn't work on big game, I'll take Hagel's brand of experience over "Dr. WizDumb's" brand of experience any day of the week.............

AD

Old man Whelen himself stated that the ability of a cartridge to kill was dependent entirely of the nature of the wound channel it makes. I think in a roundabout way this is what this article is getting at.

I think.

As far as the physics go kinetic energy versus momentum is a very tricky subject when applied to non-ideal environments. You cannot go the distance with either. Rather both have to be solved simultaneously. And this is really hard because of the lack of friction coeffs, momentum before and after collision with bone, etc.

All that super technical stuff that a man would have to know to solve the system accurately. All of which we don't have.

So we argue instead. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Will

[quote]If foot-pounds of energy doesn't matter, then I guess the science of physics doesn't matter, either ! [quote]

Penetration is what kills,how much game have you killed with no pentration??

How can you argue with a wound ballistics expert???

An NFL runing back that runs a 10 secound 100 yards is traveling at the rate of 30 feet per secound this equates to 3504 foot pounds of energy (his speed alone, no one else's) so if foot pounds of energy is so deadly at this level WHY ARE THE FOOTBALL PLAYERS NOT KILLED??

When a police officer is shot in the chest and the bullet hits his proof vest he is not klled nor is he serous injred yet te foot pounds of energy is the same as whe there is no vest.
Why is he not hurt?

Answer to both is, NO PENETRATION

AD
I'm favorably inclined to Bob Hagel's work, but is there a corollary to your quote that would say, "Some cartridges do not kill as well as the ballistic tables would indicate."
T

Would it follow that we all should be shooting solids?

As someone already stated above, Energy figures in ballistics represent the total work available that can be done to an animal. IMO the ideal preformance happens when you find the bullet under the hide on the far side, after having gone thru a vital area, fully expanded. Penetration and complete energy transfer in the right area is what drops then right there.

GM

[quote
How can you argue with a wound ballistics expert???
[/quote]

Well, in this case it is pretty easy.

Proof by repeated assertion is common in the social sciences, but not in my brand of physics.

The original article is a confusing jumble of arrows, handgun bullets in humans, muzzleloaders and who knows what all else.

I only know one author who has a science-based, consistent theory of wounding, and it is not the author above.

Other than that, it is OK. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

jim

I can't say that wound channel and its size don't have a direct effect on killing. However, basic understanding of animal physiology also tells you that "there is more than one way to skin a cat". We all know that you can kill with a precisely placed very small hole and almost zero energy transfer IE an icepick to the jugular or aorta. You can also kill with nothing but "energy transfer" IE blunt force trauma that doesn't create a wound channel at all.

"Shock" is as likely to cause death in many cases as any other physioligical reason. Shock can be induced by pain, interuption of the body's eletrical or circulatory system, etc. Energy transfer is not a "myth" but it is but one way to effectuate death in creatures, and when done with proper bullet selection, you can combine the best of both worlds of wound channel size and energy transfer...THIS my friends is when you get "bang flops"

The foregoing reasons are why we can kill deer, elk, and moose and the like with either a .270 or a 375H&H or many in between that rely more on energy transer or wound channel or both.

Fackler's research, though not completely flawed, started with his trying to prove his own preconceived notions rather than from a "lets see what we can see" point of veiw.

Well, in this case it is pretty easy.

Proof by repeated assertion is common in the social sciences, but not in my brand of physics.

The original article is a confusing jumble of arrows, handgun bullets in humans, muzzleloaders and who knows what all else.

I only know one author who has a science-based, consistent theory of wounding, and it is not the author above.

Other than that, it is OK. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

jim [/quote]

Dr. Fackler is a wound ballistics expert and is or at least was head of the Army's wound ballistics

I think the author could have done a better job of making his point if he hadn't tried too hard to shock the reader. To me, the point should be that there are a lot of other factors to consider besides just kinetic energy, and that's too important a point to be lost in hubris. Unfortunately, the author greatly cluttered that point.

Basically, kinetic energy in hunting applications is like cholesterol measurements for M.D.'s looking at heart disease risk -- it's only one aspect and definitely not the whole enchilada.

.280Rem: +1...

[quote]Energy transfer is not a "myth" but it is but one way to effectuate death in creatures, and when[quote]

Send this to the wound ballistics experts maybe they have missed something

I don't think elk read this kind if stuf. All they know is if you hit them in the right [lace, they die.

There are lots of "ballistic experts" that have opinions quite the opposite of Dr. Fackler's.

Fackler, as previously noted, came at his conclusion through preconceived notions. Im not saying they're wrong either. But he assumes a position of supreme authority espousing his one point of veiw on a subject with many other ways to accomplish the same desired effect. His opinion is debunked many times each hunting season in the fields and woods. They are also confirmed...bringing me back to my point of view: Energy transfer is not a "myth" but it is but one way to effectuate death in creatures. Energy transfer is no more myth than wound channel size. Again, both or a comprimised combination of both can and are frequently used with great success afield.

All I can say is, there's a big difference between shooting a 180 lb. man with a military-type bullet from a 5.56 or a 9mm and shooting a 750 lb. elk with a hunting bullet from a 30-06. Which should be an obvious point to anyone but a non-hunter or a very inexperienced hunter, which I suspect is the case at least with Dr. Flacker............

There's also a difference between shooting big game with a 308 and a 300 Winchester in terms of how quickly and dramatically animals of the same size and at the same distance from the rifle will go down (on average) with the same shot placement, and from a bullet of the exact-same make, weight and construction.

And any experienced African PH will tell you that there's a big difference in how hard a Cape buffalo will go down when hit with a 458 Win. Mag. and a 460 Weatherby, with bullets of the same weight and construction.

In each case, that difference due to energy transfer due to delivered FPE, caused by increased velocity. Even Dr., Flacker must know that if you double a bullet's weight, you double its delivered energy, but if you double it's VELOCITY, you QUADRUPLE its energy.

In terms of actual physical science and actual honest experience as it applies to hunting at least, Flacker's arguments are easy to take out of context, and they're easy to misapply. They're also easy to blow out of the water, on paper, as well as from actual experience.

If you want to deny physics, go ahead though. The worst kind of foolishness is to go down in flames over some pet theory that in practice just plain doesn't work..........

AD

Hydra-shok/Golden Saber/Firestar and(Gasp!) Black Talon.
Mr Tom Burczynki desigened 2 of those Superior handgun bullets.and us shortgunners have never had it better.

Dr Fackler knows his stuff,but i fear real world applications have turned his work around i.e the [email]9mm1300[/email] fps the .357 125 @1450.we don't have Elk here in Dixie least my part but i reckon a .30/06 [email]corelokt2770[/email] fps thru his lungs may not be a good thing for mr. elk.yalls thoughts?