stef1274 Wrote:It has always fascinated me how softer bullets at higher velocities are so popular for hunting in North America.
In the US, bullet preference really depends on where in the country and when. In many heavily wooded places, a 100m shot is a long one, so high velocity was not important. One of the most popular traditional cartridges was the 30-30 with a 170 grain (11 gram) bullet. I know many long-time hunters who have never killed an animal at over 150m. In fact, quite a lot of deer and hogs have been killed by shotguns.
Killing an animal at short range does not make for interesting reading, however, so most articles in magazines were about longer-ranged hunting. In other words, although a majority of animals were shot at short range, you would not realize it if you just read the magazines and books.
There are, however, many places, especially in the Western US, where 400m (440 yard) shots are fairly common. Until the advent of laser rangefinders less than 20 years ago, the hunters in those areas tended to use lighter, higher velocity loads to minimize bullet drop, just in case they misestimated the range. American cartridges tended to be designed with relatively slow twist for the light-for-caliber bullets that were popular. For much of my life, velocity and flat trajectory was considered more important than bullet weight. Pretty much the last cartridges designed in that era were the early 2000's Short-Magnums like the WSM and SAUM series. A popular factory load for the 300 WSM was only 150 grains (9.7 grams), for example. Only in the last 10-15 years have heavier bullets become popular again in the US. The 6.5 Creedmoor, introduced in 2007 helped start that change.
For a historical perspective, I suspect that the fondness for velocity in the US dates back the the introduction of the 270 Winchester in 1925. The Weatherby Magnums of the 1940's continued this trend. The combination of relatively high velocity and sufficient bullet diameter resulted in a lot of kills where the animals fell to the ground and didn't run, sometimes referred to as "DRT" (Dead Right There). We now know that the higher velocity of impact tended to create a large enough temporary cavity that the animal was stunned for a short time, not immediately killed. With proper bullet placement, though, the animal would die before regaining mobility, which provided the same result.