You are quite closed minded and refuse to consider that Foot Pounds of Energy,just might not be the Holly Grail as it has been touted by the gun rags.
You are quite closed minded and refuse to consider that Big Bore Wound Channel, just might not be the Holly Grail as it has been touted by an unknown goofball on the internet.
In my opinion, the only person who has a closed mind around here is you. You're a case of the blind being led by the blind, and it sounds to me like you'd better do more hunting than staying up, burning the midnight oil reading the half-bake theories of non-hunters.
If FPE didn't matter, then all cartridge development would have stopped in the 19th century. The U.S. Government would have never replaced the 45-70 with the 30-40 Krag, and it wouldn't have later replaced the Krag with the 30-06...........
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"The placing of the bullet is everything. The most powerful weapon made will not make up for lack of skill in marksmanship."
I don't know if I dare get into this one or not... there is a lot that I am still figuring out about how bullets kill. But I think I can contribute a little.
1. Sadly, some of the best information we have about how bullets kill and injure comes from observations on humans, during wars. There are statistically large samples of people shot, and pretty well trained people looking at the wounds.
2. When a bullet strikes soft tissue, the kinetic energy deposited in the target goes to two main destinations: Crushing, breaking, and cutting tissue directly in the wound channel, and to stretching the surrounding tissue. An immediate kill is generally dependent on the crushing, breaking, and cutting effect, and having it in the right place.
3. If you graph the Shuichetti data (see attachment to post), the penetration of standard bullets is pretty constant from impacts between 2100 fps and 2800 fps. The penetration of some premium bullets is pretty constant over a wider range. If you are shooting standard bullets, boosting your impact speed beyond 2800 fps is actually counterproductive, because you will get LESS penetration than you would at slower speeds. Wound channel dimensions seem to be pretty constant over a wide range. Kinetic energy is not constant over that same range.
4. My own speculation: Since critters are not all soft tissue, it is likely that heavy bullets work better because they will continue to penetrate after striking a large bone. I have a test designed for that, but also have a 14 week gig out of town...
5. An immediate kill seems to come from one of two things: A strike to the central nervous system, or making a large enough hole that causes enough bleeding to cause quick death. How big is big enough? I don't know. It seems to be something around 1/2" or larger.
6. Momentum usually comes in when you are calculating pre- and post-collision velocities in an inelastic collision, which usually describes a bullet strike. Momentum is conserved in an inelastic collision, and the math shows why a bullet is extremely unlikely to literally knock over an elk. I don't think it is especially useful in calculating killing capacity.
7. And most controversial: Copyright law does not give the author total exclusivity. There are major exceptions for educational use, commentary and analysis, and other situations. Posting the whole article, without attribution was probably beyond fair use, but the poster apologized. If somebody lifts a paragraph out of one my articles, and then procedes to analyze or comment on what I was saying, it is legally fair use.
Foot pounds of energy is the POTENTIAL to do work from the moment of impact until the bullet comes to rest or exits.
And transfer of that energy happens in the target. How much and how much effect it has, and how that energy is put to use are the variables. It aint no myth, and it does have an effect on the target.
It takes very little energy to penetrate without expending energy in the target...More energy to dump in the target, yet retaining enough of the projectile's integrity and energy to continue penetration during energy transfer is the best combination. JMO based the "wound ballistics experts" to whom I subscribe.
Correct. The less of that energy transferred to the right kind of energy, the less lethal the bullet. Kinetic energy can be converted to
* Heat * Deformation of the bullet * Partial dismantling of the bullet * Breaking bones * A wide wound channel of tissue damage * A longer and narrower wound channel * Moving the entire animal * Retained momentum after the bullet exits the tissue
The faster the bullet decelerates after impact the greater the impulse, just like the recoil of a light rifle. The slower the deceleration, the less the impulse, just like the push of a shotgun.
7. And most controversial: Copyright law does not give the author total exclusivity. There are major exceptions for educational use, commentary and analysis, and other situations. Posting the whole article, without attribution was probably beyond fair use, but the poster apologized. If somebody lifts a paragraph out of one my articles, and then procedes to analyze or comment on what I was saying, it is legally fair use.
Amen.
God forbid, we write something and somebody does something to cause people to actually read it.
[quote]uote from my first post in this thread: "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.[quote]
And the "SHOCK" was apparently caused with realitively little foot pounds of energy
I got banned on another web site for a debate that happened on this site. That's a first
I don't know if I dare get into this one or not... there is a lot that I am still figuring out about how bullets kill. But I think I can contribute a little.
1. Sadly, some of the best information we have about how bullets kill and injure comes from observations on humans, during wars. There are statistically large samples of people shot, and pretty well trained people looking at the wounds.
2. When a bullet strikes soft tissue, the kinetic energy deposited in the target goes to two main destinations: Crushing, breaking, and cutting tissue directly in the wound channel, and to stretching the surrounding tissue. An immediate kill is generally dependent on the crushing, breaking, and cutting effect, and having it in the right place. Velocity also plays a part in all of this, as any projectile at or above 2000 fps is capable of secoundary wounding, even 22-250 type rifles with realatively low fpe's as compared to 300 mags. The point is there are many cartridges that kill game well and some of them are on the low end of FPE
3. If you graph the Shuichetti data (see attachment to post), the penetration of standard bullets is pretty constant from impacts between 2100 fps and 2800 fps. The penetration of some premium bullets is pretty constant over a wider range. If you are shooting standard bullets, boosting your impact speed beyond 2800 fps is actually counterproductive, because you will get LESS penetration than you would at slower speeds. Wound channel dimensions seem to be pretty constant over a wide range. Kinetic energy is not constant over that same range.
4. My own speculation: Since critters are not all soft tissue, it is likely that heavy bullets work better because they will continue to penetrate after striking a large bone. I have a test designed for that, but also have a 14 week gig out of town...
5. An immediate kill seems to come from one of two things: A strike to the central nervous system, or making a large enough hole that causes enough bleeding to cause quick death. How big is big enough? I don't know. It seems to be something around 1/2" or larger.
6. Momentum usually comes in when you are calculating pre- and post-collision velocities in an inelastic collision, which usually describes a bullet strike. Momentum is conserved in an inelastic collision, and the math shows why a bullet is extremely unlikely to literally knock over an elk. I don't think it is especially useful in calculating killing capacity.
7. And most controversial: Copyright law does not give the author total exclusivity. There are major exceptions for educational use, commentary and analysis, and other situations. Posting the whole article, without attribution was probably beyond fair use, but the poster apologized. If somebody lifts a paragraph out of one my articles, and then procedes to analyze or comment on what I was saying, it is legally fair use.
DENTON, A very good post.Manny take this as if I said foot pounds of energy did not exist,which is not the case at all. The myth part is that foot pounds of energy is not the best or at least the only way to look at a cartridges effectives.Thier or those that proclaim a 800 to 1000 foot pounds of energy nessasary to kill a deer is often claimed,yet deer can and are taken cleanly with less . Foot pounds of energy is certainly a real number, but how much is needed and what is it's roll in this equation. When a bullet fails to pentrate deeply enough it is not effective as when it does penatrate deeply enough,yet the foot pounds of energy are the same.Would this not cause one to think that maybe FPE is not the best way to rate a cartridges effectiveness
Last edited by jwp475; 06/03/06.
I got banned on another web site for a debate that happened on this site. That's a first
FPE clearly is the be-all and end-all consideration for dealing death to game animals. That is why clearly magnum calibers are the only calibers to hunt with ethically. The lesser calibers do not have enough FPE to kill anything.
That is why clearly magnum claibers are the only calibers to hunt with ethically.
Of course, that would mean that a 50 BMG sniper rifle is the most ethical hunting caliber of all, right? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
What about my rancher friend shooting completely through an elk at 75 yards with a Remington .357 Magnum 158-grain JSP, from a Marlin saddlegun, breaking a rib going in, a rib going out, taking out the lungs and heart and dropping the critter in its tracks?
Or maybe that .357 was just efficient at tranferring most its energy into creating a wound channel, instead of bullet deformation, shock waves, heat and excess energy to move the bullet another 200 yards after exiting. It's about the same energy as the original .30-30 was, and that dropped a lot of deer and elk.
Hey, it gave me an excuse to elaborate. People who just look at FPE, when it comes from squaring a high velocity instead of increased bullet mass, forget that a lot of that energy is consumed in bullet deformation. An extreme example is a 5.56 NATO round at 3,000 fps striking the boron carbide plate in a body armor vest. The plate cracks and the bullet melts, with no penetration, and not a lot of energy remaining to even bruise the infantry soldier wearing the vest.
Hey, it gave me an excuse to elaborate. People who just look at FPE, when it comes from squaring a high velocity instead of increased bullet mass, forget that a lot of that energy is consumed in bullet deformation. An extreme example is a 5.56 NATO round at 3,000 fps striking the boron carbide plate in a body armor vest. The plate cracks and the bullet melts, with no penetration, and not a lot of energy remaining to even bruise the infantry soldier wearing the vest.
Great point!Yey the foot pounds of enrgy from the bullet is the same as when no vest is worn. My point is that thier are other and possiably better ways to rate effectiveness than by simply stating foot pounds of energy
I got banned on another web site for a debate that happened on this site. That's a first
All the jabber about energy and "killing power" originates with the natural but utterly impracticable notion that we can determine relative index numbers that compare and predict our bullets' performance on human and game flesh.
Ain't gonna happen, Jos�!
There's entirely too much unpredictable variation in field situations and conditions � the flesh that's struck, the distance to it, the bullet's path through the flesh, the physiological and psychological conditions of the creature struck, just to mention a few.
No reference-number system yet proposed sheds any light on why (a) a preteen prankster can kill an elephant with a single bullet from a .22 Short while (b) a timber-cruiser can blow the guts out of a porcupine with a magazineful of .243 rounds and still have to finish it off with more rounds (or wait for it to die).
The whole urge to produce a system of determining and assigning reference numbers to rate the innate "killing power" of bullets and cartridges is a waste of time, thought, and fret.
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"Good enough" isn't.
Always take your responsibilities seriously but never yourself.
