Maximum short range effectiveness on deer?

[BluntForceTrauma]

Bjorn, I suppose some scientists could set up some rubber tubes filled with water, all running through gel, shoot them and see what happens to pressures! But I remember someone saying that human blood vessels have little "gates" in them that prevent blood flowing back the wrong way, and it is these that, theoretically, prevent the transmission of any shockwave via the vessels.

But, yes, it's observations like yours that need to be taken into account in any fully developed theory of wounding by high velocity projectiles. That's why I'm starting to consider a hybrid theory that allows for some kind of damage or trauma from the shock of the temporary cavity expanding on impact.

Actually, I should be more clear because, since Fackler, we've known that the temp cavity helps rip and detach "meat" from the impact zone. One step beyond this is assigning either nervous system or vascular system shock, remote from the site of the hit.

John

P.S. It occurs to me that, many times, guys who've been shot say the initial impact felt like someone hitting them full force with a baseball bat. Is what they're feeling the pressure of the temporary cavity?

[bwaites]

Having been present at a few necropsies of animals that were shot in the chest, I can say that the brain showed massive bleeding.

I've always believed that there is significant concussive force to the heart from a chest cavity shot, and if the heart is in a systolic (or contractile) phase it will increase the blood pressure to the point of causing rupture of the brain blood vessels. It may even happen in a non-contractile phase under the right circumstances.

I do know that some portion of the time, when I've watched or helped friends butcher game animals, the lungs often looked like current jelly. That is NOT what lungs look like normally. Since the tissue is so devastatingly disrupted, I have to think that there is significant shock wave propagation in the tissue.

However, I have also seen where the lungs look perfectly normal, and yet the shot was at a very similar distance and velocity, there is simply a hole through the lung tissue.

There is more at play here than simple minds like mine can figure! I do know what I've seen and discussed in ER's with high velocity chest wounds fits what I've seen in game animals.

But...regardless of other forces at play, shot placement is paramount. If you want to guarantee a kill, shoot the animal through both lungs and the heart. I have never heard of ANY animal of any type that survives that! Poke big holes in the heart and lungs and animals drop dead, if not instantly, they drop very soon.

[LRRPF52]

Bjorn, I suppose some scientists could set up some rubber tubes filled with water, all running through gel, shoot them and see what happens to pressures! But I remember someone saying that human blood vessels have little "gates" in them that prevent blood flowing back the wrong way, and it is these that, theoretically, prevent the transmission of any shockwave via the vessels.

The shock wave doesn't need to alter the flow of metalloid, electrolytic fluid (blood), and yes, there are valves that function to prevent back-flow in the veins, which are returning CO2 rich blood back to the heart and then lungs for exhalation.

The physical structure of the nerves, which are closely paralleled with arteries, can carry a shock wave, which registers as a shooting pain on steroids and crack if speed of sound is 4862 fps in water, and water is not as dense as nerve tissue. The more dense the media, the faster the speed of sound. Density of internal organs and structures holding the nerve tissue in place will amplify the shock wave resonance, especially beyond the elastic wound cavity.

As to blood vessels, particularly arteries, a supersonic event caused by a foreign missile is very likely to send significant pressure events through the highly-elastic tubes of the venous system. I can see a conflict where the evacuative pressure of arterial destruction at supersonic speed could be struggling with the pressure wave sent through the vessel, which would cause unbearable stresses on the artery pulling and pushing distally and proximally simultaneously, leading to tearing and seizure. If a shock wave phenomenon of that magnitude happened to a carotid artery, that would very likely damage the brain.

Think of a resonant wave sent at supersonic speeds on the outside of an elastic tube, while the fluid inside near the perforation or avulsion is vacuumed out into the wound cavity near the wound channel. Two extremely fast events going in the opposite direction, in addition to the systems wiring (nerves) on the outside of the tube being overloaded with signal in both directions as well. A total system overload that shuts the hard drive down in a few milliseconds.

[Schwag173]

So, an animal Dropping Right There is basically an animal knocked out from nervous system shock blasted by the temporary cavity, but is soon to bleed out in due course and permanently lose consciousness when the brain is starved for oxygen. Some animals "knocked out" in this way get back up and run off if there's no hole in a vital area, others, hit better and bleeding out, never get back up. Just a theory. . . .

And one that I agree with. Two weeks ago I watched my hunting partner zap a whitetail spike with a 150gr PSP .270 Winchester at 157 yards. The deer was walking broadside, took one round and immediately dropped as if he was dead before hitting the ground. After a couple of minutes, he came to and continued to walk away as if nothing had happened. My partner had left to retrieve his pickup and by the time I realized what had happened, the deer was in a location my 10x binos wouldn't let me see antlers. No funny walk, no visible blood, no visible antlers. I let 'it' continue lest I shoot a doe. I later guided my partner a hundred yards away to where I'd last seen the animal and after confirming it was his buck, he dropped it with a spine shot from my Grendel. He apparently failed to properly lead his walking .270 shot, sending it through the aft torso behind the ribs and ahead of the hind legs. Zipped right through with minimal expansion. The 'shock' dropped and knocked the buck out, but the wound channel was not immediately lethal.

[sneaky one]

I wonder if we scared grendelfan1 away?

GF1-pm me your address, I have some 87 grn tsx pills here-want to try them out?

[woohoo]

So, an animal Dropping Right There is basically an animal knocked out from nervous system shock blasted by the temporary cavity, but is soon to bleed out in due course and permanently lose consciousness when the brain is starved for oxygen. Some animals "knocked out" in this way get back up and run off if there's no hole in a vital area, others, hit better and bleeding out, never get back up.

Just a theory. . . .

John

Sounds good, so what do we call it, TCNSS?(temp. central nervous system shock)

[Grendelfan1]

Wow, hey guys thank you for all the response.

After reading your posts, I share a lot of your ideas, and many of these posts have sent me in a few different directions. I'd like to address a few of these thoughts. It's gonna be hard to put all this into one post so I'm gonna break it up, but at the end, I think we may find out that everyone is correct, and we are all just coming at this from a different angle. Some people say just put the bullet in the right spot, some people say light and fast, some people say slow and heavy, etc.. I think there is truth to all of it, please bear with me.. I'd like to start at the end and work backwards... This is the first of three posts:

Imagine bullet manufacturers having gelatin or a water gallon/phone book standardized medium that reflected the bullet penetration needed to puncture this 250lb deer at 125 yards in my scenario. Behind it, they had a plate that could record how hard the bullet hit after penetrating completely. Each time they went back to the drawing board and redesigned, either adding or reducing weight, softening or hardening the alloy, changing the construction, or doing different things to maximize the accuracy of that hunting bullet and hit the plate with as little energy as possible say 9 times out of 10. 1 incomplete pass through for the sake of maximizing effectiveness might be a good idea. This would be a close range bullet, and for a longer range bullet, they could do a different test at a different range. I'm sure bullet manufacturers know all this stuff. They know what their bullet will do under different scenario's but are afraid to publish it because people will try to hold them to it under NON SCIENTIFIC conditions.

But ya, having entire teams of guys who know what is going on, working towards a goal would be pretty cool in terms of getting the job done. I for one, look at what hornady has done with the interlock whitetail deer line across multiple calibers and identify it as pretty close to what I have in mind. Remington core lokt is another example of a soft point bullet made to dump large amounts of energy in a soft skinned target at a normal hunting range. A lot of these guys have already made the attempt to do what we are talking about here.

The big question is, which one does what, over what range, and on what size or type of game animal? A bullet in my specific caliber out to 250 yards isn't near optimized for my task out to half that distance. A great question just from this post would be which bullet, hornady interlock or Remington core lokt, dumps more energy at 125 yards? That is all left up for us to guess and it is why my question arose in the first place, so lets stop right there and move to post #2. I want to address a few things you guys brought up, because I think they are some great points...

[JASmith]

Good thoughts Grendelfan!

The one quibble in the logic train, if I got it right, is the notion of optimizing performance for a particular range.

The challenge for the manufacturer is the certain knowledge that us abusers and careless ones will try using the bullet in different conditions. The result is usually a bullet that performs well, but sub-optimally, at a variety of ranges.

Another question is 'how do we define performance?" One dimension seems to have been partially answered, and that is that the bullet should go all the way through. Is this through the chest cavity without intersecting a rib? Through a shoulder and then through the chest? Or stern-to-step through the pelvis?

The other dimension is whether we talk about transfer of kinetic energy, wound channel size, or other.

With those parameters set, we can proceed with tests and assessments.

...and yes, the issue is complicated and we do try to simplify to allow a meaningful approach to insight.

[Grendelfan1]

First, lets look at boxing as some of you mentioned. Frank Bruno at 6 ft 3, 220+ pounds, won 40 fights in his career, 38 by knockout. He catches you on the jaw just right and it's lights out. He was in a lab and repeatedly punched with 920 ft lbs of force. There are many people hitting people in the head with less force and knocking people out. None of these punches result in violent internal wounding like a bullet penetrating and passing completely through. Maybe a bruised jaw, but nonetheless laid smooth out for 10+ seconds. Most of these guys are brought back with smelling salts.

In that I would make my case that blunt force energy transfer/shock can certainly "knockout" an animal. The references to boxing reinforce it.

Further, I've given blood, and for whatever reason my body doesn't like blood loss. I have to sit down before hand because I get dizzy and light headed. I completely agree with the blood loss/massive trauma, loss of consciousness camp that say that you can do damage to the vitals, and death will soon follow. Some people give blood and it doesn't bother them. I would equally suspect some deer need more blood loss to get dizzy than others.

I'd like to point out here that knocking a deer out, and not inflicting a lethal wound doesn't do much good if it gets up and runs off. Several of you mentioned a two part system, a knockout and then a passover from one type of knockout to another type of unconsciousness as a result from blood loss/internal wounding.

I couldn't agree more in my own theory.

If you look at the carolina game studies on deer, and the fackler studies others have mentioned in this thread, every bit of it is consistent with a general line of thinking. Fackler found a range of energy between 400-600 psi where the curve starts to flatten on incapacitation time vs peak wave magnitude. The curve stops bending a lot around 600 PSI and up. To be safe I'd start around the back end (higher PSI peak), and PSI conversion to ft/lbs considering fragments vs bonded vs cup and core vs copper can be complex in and of itself. Depth of penetration is also a factor which I have described before as more energy dump sooner is better to create a wave to hit the nerve centers rather than explode behind them.

Fackler found that a bullet which fragments and penetrates 12" needs just under 450 ft-lbs of energy to produce 1000 PSI. 1000PSI was found to cause traumatic brain injury via some of the concepts you guys have posted. Fragmenting bullets needed less energy to create 1000 PSI than non fragmenting bullets. Yes, swat snipers like fragmenting hornady tap bullets for a reason other than over penetration, lol..

A .357 magnum at close range with a soft enough bullet can and has been recorded to cause these types of injuries. A .357 magnum with a factory loading can do 550-800 ft lbs of energy. So now, consistent with the data, across the board, from at least three different types of energy applications (handgun, rifle, boxer) among differing media (people, deer), but when you boil it all down, it all comes out to roughly the same thing.

Some convert psi to ft/lbs via PSI x 144 = ft lbs. In this case assuming 12" of penetration from a fragmenting bullet = 648 ft/lbs of energy for 1000 PSI. A non fragmenting bullet, Fackler found you need over 700 ft/lbs to create the same 1000 PSI

http://www.scribd.com/doc/19483327/The-B...pacitation

http://www.rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/balli...study.html

I suspect the fragmenting bullet left more total energy in the target and as a result measured a higher wave, because it didn't exit. The study didn't seem to distinguish exit vs no exit. Fragmenting was classified as 10-12" and non fragmenting as bullets found to penetrate 14" or more. If the non fragmenting exits, it cant hit a higher peak if it leaves the target with some of its energy.

Common sense here would ask, do you have to blow the deer in half? Will a .50 bmg kill faster than a .243? Of course it will, but is it necessary? The important point we need to identify here is HOW MUCH ENERGY DO WE NEED TO DUMP, MINIMUM, to get the "knockout".

Now, many people say you need a minimum of 1000 ft/lbs to ethically kill deer.

BAM: 648-700 ft lbs to the spine or brain is different than 1000 ft/lbs behind the shoulder. Think about different aim points and different lengths the wave will have to travel, being absorbed before it reaches nervous tissue.

If a 920 ft/lb punch from Bruno to the jaw is enough to travel 6-8 inches to the spine/brain and deliver a "knockout" in otherwise un-penetrated tissue, think about the similarities of a 1000 ft/lb behind the shoulder shot, vs a bow and arrow THAT DIRECTLY CAME IN CONTACT WITH AND DESTROYED the spine as one poster mentioned. Do I need as much force if I actually blow the nervous tissue in half? I wouldn't think so, do you? Now we are talking wave knockout vs total dysfunction as a result of being destroyed.

If you step back and look at it all, all of these things behave generally by the same function and laws of physics. People are having observations, correlating them with things, and being able to reproduce them based on those things, but what is going on is more complex.

Chuck Hawks says 2600 fps produces something almost like a magic on/off switch for DRT. I'm not quoting him directly...

My response to that would be pick a 95 grain bullet or larger, in .243 caliber or larger and push that bullet to 2600 fps and what do you get? .243 with a 95 grain bullet is at least 1500 ft/lbs at 100 yards and it just goes up from there. Are you gonna leave that energy in the deer, or dump it all in the tree behind the deer? Then, lots of people get a bullet too big for caliber, shoot it slower than 2600 fps, it doesn't open as much, and what happens? LESS THAN OPTIMUM ENERGY TRANSFER.
You can change it with caliber or bullet construction or weight or material or etc, but it all plays out the same.

I believe that nervous tissue, within a range, will shut down with X amount of force. I believe that force waves dissipate as they travel through more and more pounds of flesh which is why it would make complete sense you don't see hydrostatic shock on 2500lb animals near as often, with smaller everyday rifles.

Let me wrap this up.

243 with 95 grain bullet @ 100 yards= easily over 1500 lbs of energy
270 with 130 grain bullet @ 100 yards= easily over 2400 lbs of energy
308 with 150 grain bullet @ 100 yards= easily over 2300 lbs of energy
45-70 with 250 grain bullet @ 100 yards = easily over 1300 lbs of energy
Grendel with 123 grain bullet @ 100 yards = easily over 1250 lbs of energy even with a short barrel

We could go on and on, but all of these bullets whether slow or fast, and regardless of caliber all carry enough energy potential to "bang flop" given a high enough energy transfer to the right location.

Light and fast = has the energy POTENTIAL
Slow and heavy = has the energy POTENTIAL

Big caliber helps, ask 45-70 shooters that get DRT's. That larger hole helps transfer energy. Does velocity help? Does it work? Sure it does...

All your ideas fit it coming from different angles and all feed into the same idea.

I absolutely have to create a lethal wound. I have to have penetration to do that, but over penetration helps me NONE. I DO want to dump as much energy as possible to POTENTIALLY create a "knockout" to temporarily anchor the deer while blood loss/trauma/internal wounding/loss of consciousness has time to set in.

All the people saying just put the bullet in the right spot, I think your right given a MINIMUM energy TRANSFER all these calibers have.
All the people saying light and fast, I think your right given a MINIMUM energy TRANSFER all these calibers have.
All the people saying slow and heavy, I think your right given a MINIMUM energy TRANSFER all these calibers have.

Will they all do the job, yes. Maximizing the Grendel at short range was my original question and I'm still trying to get there.

I've been reading about bonded bullets vs barnes bullets and specifically levels of expansion and still getting pass through. Bullet manufacturers talk about minimum expansion velocities. If our bullets don't expand, they don't dump energy before they exit. Its the whole reason why you can't hunt with FMJ ammo. Again, all points towards the same thing again.

I want max expansion quickly and I want it to hold together enough to exit, barely. There is no reason a bonded bullet wouldn't be as good or better than a barnes if it expands more and still passes through. Go check out nosler's website. They have pictures of bullet expansion at different velocity.

Each of the 4 bullets at different velocities are gonna pass through at short range. We want the most expanded, period. It's gonna drill the biggest hole and dump the most energy, period.

It would be really cool if we all could find out we are ALL right, haha.

Those are my thoughts anyway, but back to the original post, I'll do post 3:

[Grendelfan1]

Now, me with my little short 16" Grendel barrel, I'm trying to make up for lack of velocity and as a result, energy. Am I trying to compensate? Yes. I want a handy rifle that can do all the tricks. Ive heard people like Chuck Hawks say I need 2600 fps and I'm just not sure I can get there. That is where the 80-85 grain barnes idea was born. I believe I can push 80-85 grains out to 125 yards and impact at 2600+ fps. The copper bullet should expand and pass through. Win, Win, Win. That isn't a bad place to start. However the more I look at this the more I'm leaning toward energy transfer rather than velocity. You could make the case that velocity is just something with a high correlation to bang flops. Lets look at an example and go no further than the Grendel. If I shot a 150 grainer at 2200 fps and didn't get a bang flop is it the velocities fault? What is the sectional density on that? Was that bullet made to be fired out of a 6.5 norma at moose size targets and as a result extremely hard and heavily constructed? My guess is it didn't open much, wasn't recovered and left very little energy in the target.

I might as well shoot a 100 lb deer @ 25 yards with a 7mm mag with a 180 grain moose killing bullet and scratch my head when it runs off, never to be found. You have all heard this story before, right? I could have created the same wound with a 7mm08 and a FMJ round. Not much different at all...

Slow and heavy vs light and fast has to make a different type impact, but I'm not sure its gonna make much difference as long as enough energy is transferred before it exits. This thought could hold true over many discussions on this board.

I need thoughts on slow and heavy vs light and fast impacts and whether or not it even makes enough difference to trump the effects of larger expansion creating more energy transfer before exit.

Does anyone have any data on expansion in some of the lighter bullets? I think this is why some have had luck with the amax, because it comes apart violently but it still exits...

I'm thinking mini SST or similar bonded might be awesome? 85-95 grain bonded vs 80-85 grain barnes (LRX?)

Thoughts?

[ricsmall]

Just as an aside, I've killed several deer in years past at 100 yards or less with a .22 hornet in neck. Projos used were 35 grain vmax factory, 40 grain ballistic silver tip handload, 36&40 grain Barnes varmint grenade/ varminator. I don't condone using this small gun unless you are very familiar with it, and the conditions are in your favor. I would not shoot a deer past 100 yards with it either. I have killed one and only one coyote bang flop at 280 yards with 40 grain ballistic silver tip. Again, practice with your load and rifle to hit where you aim every time, without fail. Read through the kills in the beginning of the Barnes bullets manual number three, then the section on .22 hornet by Dr. Ed Ashby, citing that he introduced many young hunters to African plains game hunting with the hornet and a 45grain x bullet with one shot flop kills. Just a thought.

Richard

[cory]

First, lets look at boxing as some of you mentioned. Frank Bruno at 6 ft 3, 220+ pounds, won 40 fights in his career, 38 by knockout. He catches you on the jaw just right and it's lights out. He was in a lab and repeatedly punched with 920 ft lbs of force. There are many people hitting people in the head with less force and knocking people out. None of these punches result in violent internal wounding like a bullet penetrating and passing completely through. Maybe a bruised jaw, but nonetheless laid smooth out for 10+ seconds. Most of these guys are brought back with smelling salts.

Just to nick pick a little here. I like your analogies and agree with what you've said for the most part. You're missing a big factor in your boxer analogy.

I don't know much about Frank Bruno, but I'd bet the angle he was contacting the opponents jaw with had just as much to do with the knockout as the amount of force, if not more.

Roughly 80-90% of concussions in sports are caused by the lower jaw contacting the upper jaw with enough force to jar the brain. Bwaites please correct me if I'm off by to much here. I'm sure you have some experience dealing with sports related concussions. This is actually the reason for the mouth piece in sports, it's not to protect your pearly whites, but to protect your brain.

The mouth piece acts as a dampener absorbing the energy of the impact, preventing a jolt to the brain.

[Bigfoot]

Here's some more reading Grendelfan1, how non-deforming, hardcast, single caliber sized bullets kill. This is how 357, 45 Colt and 44 hangun hunters get enough penetration AND fast kills. Earlier I mentioned how the bow wave off the meplat effects temporary cavity. A large, flat sided meplat works better than a mushroom shaped one. Here's GS Customs web page, you might know about them since you mentioned 80 gr 6.8 bullets, very interesting reading. They take the light-fast bullet to another level. Here's the best terminal-performance explanation page quoted.

http://www.gsgroup.co.za/faqexpansion.html

"Further, HV bullets are designed according to the findings of the latest research on terminal bullet performance. This is contrary to the traditional "perfect double caliber mushroom and 100% weight retention" theory. Research done by Duncan MacPherson and documented in his book "Bullet Penetration - Modelling the Dynamics and the Incapacitation Resulting from Wound Trauma", supports the observations we made during field testing of the HV concept.

It has been proven that a high velocity flat fronted cylinder shape will leave a larger primary wound channel than a slower, double caliber mushroom. HV bullets are therefore designed to start mushrooming reliably from much lower speeds than most other premium bullets, typically from around 1000fps. Two to four centimeters of penetration is all that is required to fully expand an HV bullet.

At higher speeds, HV bullets will lose the petals entirely, shedding 12% to 20% of weight and presenting a flat cylinder shape to the direction of movement. The HV concept thus offers, at worst, a good double caliber mushroom, with extremely high retention and, at best, a high speed cylinder shape for dramatic primary wound trauma and deep penetration.

QUESTION:
I shot two whitetail deer at approx. 160 and 215 yards. Both dropped like stone. Neither shots were spined but both dropped like they were. Both shots were high, being near the apex of the trajectory, but the closest was about 2.5 inches from the spine. Have you heard of this before with your bullets? Do you think the velocity could cause hydraulic spine damage?

ANSWER:
What you have experienced is classic HV performance. When we started down the road with the HV design, we noticed that the faster we drive the bullets, the more dramatic and the more frequent were the incidents of one shot knockdowns. With no bullets recovered from game in the initial testing phases, we assumed that the bullets mushroomed and had extremely high weight retention, as that was what our HP range was doing. We also noticed that the softer (easier to expand) we made the HVs, the better they worked at all distances on game. All along we were puzzled by the fact that exit holes appeared to be only slightly bigger than calibre size. Close shots produced bigger exit holes but meat damage was still less than what we expected, given the speeds we were getting.

Then, in fairly quick succession, we were confronted by some very strange facts. We recovered a number of small calibre bullets from large animals where the bullets worked extraordinarily well. All of them were the same shape. The petals were completely torn off and the bullet front was expanded to a virtually flat shape. Weight retention was around 80 to 85 %. Experimentally, we then designed some hard bullets and some soft bullets and went shooting animals.

In every instance where we had double calibre or more expansion with full weight retention, the effect on the animal was less dramatic than with the "soft" bullets that broke down to 80% or so. To add to the confusion, our FN bullets were becoming an unprecedented success. Wound channels from the FN bullets resembled those of soft nosed premium bullets that expand to double calibre and more.

Clearly something was better about the soft HV design and the FN flat nose. For someone like me with forty years worth of input that said "good mushroom, maximum weight retention" it was impossible to figure out. The results were indisputable though, and the HV concept was born. While we designed HV bullets that would go as fast as possible, completely expand in one to two inches, throw off the three petals and then carry on as an expanded cylindrical shape, we searched for an answer to explain why the effect was so dramatic.

The explanation came in the form of an excellent book by Duncan MacPherson - "Bullet Penetration". His research reveals a couple of things:
1. It removes all doubt that the most valuable wound trauma incapacitation mechanism is a single large wound channel.
2. It proves conclusively that the most reliable instrument with which to inflict the maximum amount of disruption was a vertical faced, sharp edged projectile.

The reason why a cylinder shape is so much better than all other is because of the manner in which it displaces the tissue it encounters.

A rounded shape of any description displaces tissue to the sides of the wound channel in the time it takes for the front of the shape to move forwards and be replaced by the full width of the shape, creating a primary wound channel. Although this happens very, very fast, a rounded shape therefore contains a time and distance element that translates to a level of force imparted to the tissue. This makes the tissue continue to stretch away from the bullet path, creating a temporary wound channel, until the elasticity of the tissue overcomes the force and brings it back to the original position. Some of the tissue would have been disrupted and this would add to the total size of the primary wound channel.

A cylinder shape encountering tissue, displaces the tissue to the side vastly faster on a time/distance basis than any other shape. This imparts a far higher force to the tissue, pushing it much further from the primary wound channel, disrupting more tissue beyond the limits of elasticity and ultimately contributing to a much bigger primary wound channel.

Now there was clarity about the FN bullets as well. The HV design was in fact only an HV in flight. A couple of inches after impact, it would resemble an FN bullet.

In practise we see with HV and FN bullets that soft aqueous tissue such as the lungs, liver, brain, large blood vessels and stomach contents suffer massive trauma with HV and FN bullets. Firmer tissue such as meat, heart and kidneys survive much better.

Another point MacPherson mentioned in his findings was that, when the larger temporary cavity included a vital element, such as the liver (or spine in the case of your two shots), the damage to those elements was enough to cause disruption and incapacitation.

The bottom line is that traditional bullets, that depend on a mushroom, may or may not work. In some instances they break up too much and fail to penetrate deep enough, and sometimes the forces are not high enough and they do not expand at all. With HV bullets the worst that can happen is a good mushroom, if speed falls to really low levels. At speeds over about 2600 fps, the petals part company and it turns into a totally reliable mechanism that works in the same manner with monotonous regularity."

Spend a little time on the website, interesting stuff. They do work as advertised.... and cost too much.

http://www.gsgroup.co.za/02hv.html go to Technical Data for the bullet specs. They only go as light as 95gr in 6.5 but they made a 80 gr per requests from the 6.8 guys (Woohoo included). I swapped emails w them many years ago discussing bullets for the 6.5G and 6.8. Too bad he didn't make a 65G specific bullet, guessing it would be lighter than 80g.

BTW they are LANDS diameter, only the bands are groove diameter to seal the bore and take the twist rate, that's why they take less pressure to deform into the lands.

There's more than one way to skin a deer. For me at short-med ranges when you might have to quickly take any shot presented I want a bullet that will penetrate from any angle and not destroy a backstrap, I like fast solids or bondeds here.

Sorry for the long post, not like me usually but MNFs on so I got lazy and cut-pasted. Aaron Rodgers is out!!

[LRRPF52]

Interesting that the flat-nosed monolithic bullet that has shed its petals does better on instant DRT than ones that mushroom. The flat nose and cylinder shape allow more retained velocity in tissue, while the roughly 90 degree edge shreds through tissue violently, whereas the mushroom allows tissue to flow around the bullet, even though a larger wound channel is created.

What we're talking about is the importance of bullet shape and speed after penetration, with results that seem to defy accepted theory on what equals optimum bullet performance, if we define optimum as immediate incapacitation of the animal/lights out/DRT, versus prolonged consciousness of the animal after impact.

Re: boxing. I brought up boxing examples of where knock outs are achieved from BODY blows, not head trauma, demonstrating that it is possible to immediately knock someone out from significant impact to the torso, which supports the theory that there is a definite mechanism within the thoracic cavity that can shut down the brain when extreme trauma is introduced to the thorax.

My suspicion is that over-pressure within the large blood vessels and surrounding nerves resonate or travel at supersonic speed to the brain, causing trauma that immediately renders the brain unconscious.

If we could put animals on an advanced MRI with high-resolution digital signal processing, and watch the projectiles pass through them, gathering EEG and images of the brain, carotids, nerves, and other structures, that could confirm the hypothesis.

[Bigfoot]

Can't sleep and the vodka isn't helping so I'm back in the recliner.

The good news is GS Custom FINALLY opened up a factory in the midwest a year or so ago. Seems Geena (CEO and daughter of Gerhard the inventer) gave up on S.A. and found a Yank husband. The bad news is the prices are still double that of other monos. Plus they don't have anything lighter than a 95g.

So lets discuss current domestic mono bullets terminal performance. Basically they all penetrate well and animals die but they are different. The E-TIP opens into a good mushroom with some petal separation. The harder GMX doesn't open as much and usually looks like a cone, which works well hydraulically. But the TSX and TTSX do something special, the petals are sharp and act like the blades in your kitchen blender and the faster the rifling twist (and velocity) the more they turn organs into soup and help cut their way through. In a fast twist caliber like the 6.5 they can be brutal, which is why I'm with the op and LRRPF52 wishing for a cost effective lighter/faster, decent BC TTSX or LRX.

Here's another terminal performance web page worth reading. He's a NZ hunter w very conventional views on calibers. He likes fast, medium caliber bullets IE 270, 7 Rem Mag etc. He doesn't have much good to say about the 243, 250 Savage, 257 Bob or even the mild 6.5x55, not enough velocity or bullet diameter for him. However, check out what he has to say about the Sweed w Barnes bullets.

Again cutting and pasting, what can I say. http://www.ballisticstudies.com/Knowledg....5x55.html

"Every once in a while, during the course of testing for this knowledge base, a cartridge and bullet combination come together in such a way as to produce unique results. This is certainly the case with the Swede and 120 grain Barnes TSX/XCL bullets. These 120 grain bullets have a long bearing surface, ideal for the fast twist rate of the Swede, producing optimum accuracy. The fast twist rate and fairly high muzzle velocity of the Swede combined with the blender blade style Barnes produce a result that, to be blunt, is best described as vicious.

The 120 grain Barnes bullets (BC .381) will take medium sized game end to end with tail on shots as well as giving fast kills during this process. Wounding at close ranges is fierce and wound channels at ranges of between 250 and 300 yards remain very broad if major bones are encountered. This load is perfectly balanced for use on all game up to the size of Elk, again with attention to shot placement due to limitations of the caliber. Wide wounding tapers off after 300 yards (2200fps), quite a feat for a mono metal projectile."

Ever seen slow mo vids of gel blocks w a TTSX going through? You can see the waves coming off the petals. Fast TTSX bullet from a fast twist barrel, brutal.

Boxing, yeah hit the jaw w a good cross and you twist the neck quickly shocking the spine, disrupting the electrical signal and lights out. You can draw a parallel to our discussion here. Ever had something hit the back of your neck, it doesn't take many ft lbs to tweek your brain for a while.

K, maybe NOW I can get to sleep.

[Drifter]

A bullet in my specific caliber out to 250 yards isn't near optimized for my task out to half that distance.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the primary difference of a particular bullet's performance at two different distances is the impact velocity. If you want the 250-yard performance at 125 yards, reduce the velocity accordingly.

[Grendelfan1]

Ya, I'm sorry I didn't make my thought very clear on the nervous tissue thing. Ive seen people talk about jarring the spine and brain and it was actually your body blow comments that I put together with others that makes me wonder if all nervous tissue doesnt act in a similar way. Nerves are nerves. Brain tissue is a little different, but it is still very similar to nerves or spinal cord, etc. My thinking is they COULD all be capable of being shocked into a shutdown mode. In the trunk area there are several, at least three major nerve plexus centers. If you hit one directly, great, but even if you dont there are many of these tissues nearby, not to mention just standard nerves running everywhere. The more disruption, the better, I would think in terms of creating that shock to shock/shutdown or destroy for permanent trauma blood loss/dysfunction, etc..

To agree with you absolutely, 100%, even though I dont quite understand what all is going on, or the mechanism, I'm just kinda taking your body blow knockout example, and thinking if a boxer can punch the body and cause a knockout from a body blow, then certainly a bullet transferring an equal or greater amount of force should be able to do the same. If we can maximize that effect while creating a large wound channel, that is kinda what I am pursuing.

I don't know if all nerve tissue can be temporarily shut down with a great enough shock. I have no idea. I wish I did. Whatever the mechanism is though, we do know it can be triggered with an uppercut to the jaw, a body blow in the trunk area, and bullets fired into at least a few different locations.

I guess the biggest thing for me was there was some debate as to what was happening when we see a DRT event. I'm still open to going the whole other way with it, as I can see how massive nervous tissue destruction could be responsible, but it's just hard for me to ignore loss of consciousness as a result of pressure and a shock wave when we see it daily in boxing with little to no internal wounding, nothing like a bullet plowing through anyway.

Who knows, could be both, but if thats the case, trying to get both is a good thing.

[LRRPF52]

That article on the 6.5 Swede is way off. The 6.5 Swede is no joke, and he listed the 156 Oryx as a mediocre performer. It's a bonded bullet, and I have seen it create insane exit wounds, with DRT in Scandinavia. It has major penetration, as well as unbelievable expansion.

Bob Stokes has some interesting things to say about the 6.5 Swede, having served as a guide in Alaska and watching many game taken with it. It's what turned him on to the 6.5mm, which he was originally very apprehensive about, thinking that it wasn't enough caliber for big game. His experience comes across as basically opposite of that article, as does mine.

Personally, I have had more failures with this cartridge than any other cartridge I have used. Failures occurred in three instances as a result of bullet blow up and in another two instances as a result of the cartridge being unforgiving with shot placement, one being a rear lung shot, the other, a neck shot taken by a client on a wild pig at 240 yards.

With the benefit of hind sight, this rifle is a reliable killer when loaded with the 140 grain Partition, driven into the major bones of the chest to maximize wounding on tough animals. That said, the Swede is not nearly as forgiving as the .270 Winchester and heavier cartridges, especially when wind drift and bullet drop cause shot placement error.

The .270 Winchester has more wind drift that the 6.5 Swede, and drop is almost identical, unless you go to 140gr with the .270 Winchester. I compared the 129gr SST (2800fps) or Interbond from the Swede, with the 130gr SP in the .270 (3050fps). The .270 is also a 65,000 psi SAAMI cartridge, while the Swede is much lower pressure (longer throat life).

http://www.ballisticstudies.com/Knowledg....5x55.html

How in the blue flip are you having significant shot placement error with the Swede? I started to wonder if the author's article was based on theory, but no, he has been hunting with the 6.5 Swede for a long time.

When I shot my first deer with the 6.5x55, contrary to the Swede's reputation of producing deep penetration, the bullet I was using suffered blow up. The wounded deer evaded my attempts to locate it as night approached. In the morning, I found the animal which had died slowly from a small portion of lead which had reached its lungs. Later I changed to a new style of bullet and was off after a trophy pig for the annual NZ Deerstalkers contest. Again, perhaps by sheer coincidence, bullet blow up caused my pig which was hit squarely in the shoulder, to break into a run and take off for several hundred yards.

He certainly has more hunting experience with the Swede than I ever will, so I don't have the credibility to really criticize. He also has a very good spread of bullets used with it in the article, with reported performance from each. One thing we know is that bullets don't know what rifle they were fired from once they leave the muzzle, and they do what they do at impact velocity. He certainly had a lot of praise for the SST's, although he gives an example where a client lost a boar when attempting to make a neck shot at 240yds, with the SST deflecting off the spine without enough speed to DRT it.

I suspect the bullets that blew up were Core Lokts, which wouldn't surprise me in the least. Good article either way, just a head scratcher for me.

[hm2 clark]

I think your over thinking the chest knock out thing. I get knocked out from chest punches/kicks a couple of times a year. I believe the energy from the blow is just transfered to my vagus nerve which then stimulates the vessels that it intervates to dilate. That causes my B/P to fall and then I fall down. (simple fanteing). If that vagus nerve was activated by a GSW I probably would never get up.

[dmsims21]

I wonder if an alert, tail up, deer is less likely to die via DRT, than a deer that is just chillin in a field. Once a deer goes on alert, they start taking in more oxygen and the BP goes up. That may give them more defense against getting knocked out.