This debate routinely surfaces about this time of year in deer camps, hunting forums etc...

Guy #1 uses 150gr(fast)cup and core bullets for his '06. Explains that they "open up" and do more damage.

Guy#2 opts for a heavier(and slower) bullet of similar design in the same round because it, "stays in the deer longer and does more damage."

How would you respond to this debate?


And................

Similar to above.. Often heard, "my magnum cartridge bullet is no good at close range. It is going through the deer too fast to completely open up fully and do much damage."

Thoughts please!

guy#1 will always work with good shoot placement,no need for heavy,unless the game requires it.

Guy #1 has it right.

The rest is the ramblings of idiots.

I don't know about the fast vs slow arguement, but I can tell you the barnes X works well at 30 ft from a 264 winnie on whitetail deer. It opened fully and did plenty of damage. Lost it in paunch. Bang, flop

I haven't recoverd a "fast" 150gr out of a deer, wether it be in .308Win or .30-06 medicine. Have shot quite a few with each.

Shot a wt doe with a 180 spire point out of a .308 Win, head on. It did bad bad things, but exit was not one of them. It was one hell of a mess.

Tom

30 ft?/ LOL!!


sound from a distance must have been like "Kabunk!!!"

good thing you had your flat-shootin' 264!!

Funny, but true...+1

More time in deer measured in miliseconds = extra damage? Where the hell do some folks come up with this stuff?

#1 you agree with, #2, you just let think what he wants to...too far gone down the path of stupid ideas to save...luckily, he likely wont do any damage to the deer with that thinking...at least past killing them.

#1, I have only a single data point but I am going with it...shot thru a small deer with a heavy slower bullet one time, it did not work I had to find it and reshoot it (the deer not the bullet). It was shot thru the center of the chest at an angle taking out only one lung and it penciled thru. None shot with 150's from 06 or 308 were alive when I found them.

Im in group one as i believe the faster bullet will indeed open a tad faster (maybe 2 milliseconds,albiet its a moot point)but with the increased speed the wound channel will be more pronounced.

And we all know (or should know) that the amount of hydrostatic shock interuppting the cns and where it occurs does more towards killing the animal quickly and humanely then anything else.

Uh oh! Nooooooooooooow you gone and done it!

The 338 Federal with 210 grain TSX is not what I would call a fast round, yet check out the damage it did to this Zebra's heart





Exit in hide





Shot was about 100 plus or minus yards....

Fast versus slow?

My answer is "whatever." And I'd be wondering if the next topic was going to be about knock-down power.





The old .30-40 Krag was the first [so-called] smokeless round adopted by the U.S. Army. Propelled a 220gr solid-lead bullet at @2200 fps, and could easily shoot through a deer and even some larger animals. Was quite the game killer in its day.

I should also point out I don't care about bang-flop killing my big game. If I can put my bullet through the 'ole boiler room' (aka the lungs), whatever I'm hunting is going to die, and I can follow its trail to where I'll find it. This has worked for me more than 30yrs.

My point - I care more about shooting a cartridge that has ample power/performance to propel a bullet through the lungs/heart of my game animal - more than anything else. I don't need nor care about which cartridges travel at mach-4 or 4500fps.

I won't use them!

I'm not tryingto be argumentative - EITHER.

Through my own experience 2400-2700 feet-per-second is plenty I've discovered - to propel any copper-jacketed lead bullet that will kill any beast I hunt. And I can eat almost up to the hole - if I don't hit a major bone and cause lots of secondary damage.

A .30/06 180grn bullet travels at 2700fps at the muzzle.

Hydrostatic shock caused lots of unnecessary damage (IMO) in many of the animules I killed with rounds that had a muzzle velocity greater than 2800-3000fps. I threw away lots of what should have been edible meat.

But to each his own. Whatever blows up a guy's kelt.

Anyway, flame away!

Stubbleduck, no flames from me, and your analogy of the 06 with 180 gr's at 2700 FPs has plenty of power, i was referring the "really" heavy for caliber bullets as i have a few buddies that prefer them. I also do not go super light as like you said too much hydrostatic shock with the wrong bullet or in the wrong place can be bad as well.

hydrostatic shock... christ.

I ain't touching it. What was it, 15 or 20 pages the last time?

I will however recommend an excellent text, Incompressible Flow by Panton. This is the bible of incompressible fluid dynamics and would make a fine addition to any personal engineering library.

Will

While I agree with #1, I have always liked the middle of the road....you know maybe in a '06 a 150 might be too light whereas a 180 or 220 might be too heavy (of course depends what your hunting....lets say deer today) so I would opt for a 165/8......kinda get the best of both worlds.
Then again I might just do 180's anyway......am I confusing ya?

That is quite impressive.

Just to be clear, it's not my opinion that hyper velocity is a requirement. Only that it would be ridiculous to believe that your load would somehow be even more destructive had it been going 500 fps slower, due to longer "time on target".

I agree with everyone here, #1 has had less whiskey tonight.

I also fully agree with the hydrostatic shock theory. Weather or not that's actually the reason, in my experience light and fast bullets kill quicker and more reliably that heavy slower pills even given similar internal damage. Assuming of course proper bullet construction built to handle higher impact velocities.

As a very small example, this year my hunting buddy and I both shot our antelope bucks the same day. He shot his with a 30-06 and 180gr accubonds at maybe 2650 fps mv, and mine was shot with a 7wsm and 120gr TSX at 3340 fps mv. They were shot at similar ranges, about 220 yds and the entrance/exit wounds were surprisingly similar and in the same location, right through the lungs. His goat ran off like it hadn't even been shot, then of course fell to the ground maybe 75yds later. Mine dropped instantly and was stone dead by the time I recovered from recoil. Again, all the damage internally and externally was very similar. Hydrostatic "shock" is basically the only reason I can come up with as to why this is ALWAYS my experience with the light and fast. Just my $.02

The distance may have been closer than 30ft. I was 50 yds from the edge of a clear cut(2 yrs old). The buck came from the timber behind me, and was shielded by 2 small pine trees. The 1st opening was at about 30 ft. It was now or never because he was starting to figure out he wasn't alone. BTW, in front of me I could have easily had a shot out to 300 yds or so. The 264 works up close too. It wasn't as messy as I thought it was going to be.Good hunting to you in MN this year

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)

The result of hydrostatic shock that I believe is relevant to killing, is the physical destruction of tissue near the bullets path. As in a fist-sized hole, where the previous contents of that hole are no more, blown away, totally vaporized (as in the big hole in the zebra's heart). All caused by a bullet of expanded diameter of maybe .75".

I'm not a big proponent of, or salesman for, the idea of a shock wave causing catastrophic effects at a great distance from the bullet path, although I can't argue against the likelihood of some level of temporary nerve interruption.

Fascinating thread. One that makes 24hour so usefull and thought-provoking. FWIW, I've killed deer with a shotgun slug and .35 Whelen on the slow end and a .270 and .30-06 on the fast end and in my experience, there is absolutely no question that a faster bullet will put a deer down faster. I liked MontanaMarine's comment about the huge holes we sometimes find in animals we shoot being much bigger than the expanded bullet. I once shot a pronghorn with a 130 BT out of a .270 Win. at about 40 yards. The exit was literally as big as my fist and I'm quite certain that the bullet didn't expand that much!

First off never any flames from me i learn an immense amount fromt he fire and would never put another guy down for his ideas. I agree we all are hinting around the same idea but seems to disagree as to what to call it or its potential importance in killing game quickly.

periscope, i absolutely cannot explain it except maybe the actual spot of impact on your deer or the path the energy travelled for whatever reason, and until yesterday i had never seen it.

Yesterday AM I watched a 2x2 blacktail buck (probably 120#'s ish) at about 100 yds take a 139 gr hornady interlock at 3480fps to the lungs compliments of a 7 STW. That damn deer looked at us at ther shot and sood there for about 3-5 seconds and took off downhill for about 85-100 yds and never once did he flinch or act hit then just when my buddy was set to shoot again the deer just flat fell dead and never twitched again. When we got to him the bullet had hit him low (1/3 up the shoulder crease)in the lungs and blew the bottom of both clean to jello and the exit was about the size of a large grapefruit. The deer probably died within 5 secnds of the first round but he never acted hit not one iota. This deers insides were flat FUBAR and he looked at us liked craig missed and i would have thought he did but i saw the bullet hit......That is the first time i have ever seen it happen.

I have been thinking about this thread and talked to several friends who hunt alot and are very into bullet performance like myself. in talikg about it in the last few days and the conclusion i come to is thus:

I am a firm, believer in hydrostatic probably because i tend to opt to place my shot higher then most when shooting broadside animals. I am a consistent 2/3 - 3/4 of the way up the shoulder crease and most often thats where the bullet goes. In thinking of the animals i have killed like this almost all have had severe wound channel damage around the spinal area if not in fact severing the spine. This would explain my beliefe of the quickest kills being CNS based and why i shoot game the way i do. This COULD also explain animals absolutely dropping to high shoulder and neck shots where no appreciable bone is struck, as all of these impart so much energy immense energy very close to the CNS that is absolutely devasates it.

again just a thought of why i think the way i do and i welcome any insight you all have on it

After talking with some engineers, I think we hunters have the nomenclature wrong, but the thought process down.

"Shock Wave", to an engineer, has a definite meaning, that a bullet meeting flesh can't accomplish. But it's all semantics at best.

MallardAddict: Yep, you experienced the EXACT same phenomana that I did. My deer was hit lower in the lungs area and ran about 150 yards after taking a massive hit to the chest with a 150 grain pointed soft-point that (I believe was driven too fast and opened up too quickly) In any event, the bullet DID completely penetrate resulting in a fist sized hole on the other side. He ran over a football field in length before dropping dead.

Than last year I shot a very large doe. I was aiming for just behind the shoulder but instaead she was shot just forward of the shoulder. The deer went straight down. Upon futher review it was obvious. The entrance hole was .264 caliber and the exit hole about the same diameter. Obviously, she had been neck shot.

It concerned me that the 140 grn Nosler partition had not opened up much at all...but there was no question that the deer had died instantly. The response to being shot was that of a wrecking ball.

Go figure, huh?

it is indeed weird how animals react to the shot, I seen deer shot by others (was to there for the shot) that they said ran 100-300 yds before piling up that had massive damage to the heart lungs area, yet have seen some with very minmal meat and vital damage that acted electrocuted just flopped right over.

I tend to subscribe the the nosler theory, i am okay with losing some of the front of the bullet (secondary fragmentation) and having the rear drive through. I have never had a partiton make a huge hole going out unless it struck a rib and a longish shot (one mulie buck at a lazered 348 yds with a 130 NP from a 270 2900 fps @ muzzle), tend to be about golfball sized exits with good internal damage and minimal meat damage.

I used the 125 np in my 264, 150 np in both my 300 wsm and my 7 RUM and 210 partitons in my .338

I think that for deer sized game....having a bullet that expands rapidly (yet still penetrates completley) is the key.

The NP really is not required unless you are going after tough game or using a round that drives a bullet an an excessive velocity.

It is interesting how they will run sometimes and sometimes drop right there with what seems to be identical shots. I normally try to take out the lungs because, as a previous poster said, they will die, sometimes right there, and if not there is normally a good blood trail.

Anyhow, I read a theory not too long ago, can't remember where. The gist of it was that if a deer runs or not (on a lung shot) is to some extent dictated by whether it had exhaled or inhaled, or was in the process of doing one or the other when the bullet did it's thing. I'm not a man of science, but it does ring true on some level. If somebody can remember where I might have read this it may provide some level of insight.

Nice to be here btw. I've lurked for a good while now. Good discourse here.