Stopping Power (debate)

[Omega]

If you use Taylor knockout values, the 45/70 loaded properly, is right up there with the .416 Rem./Rigby, and well above the .375 H&H, the smallbore cartridges you mentioned barely have any value. Taylor figures are based on using a solid bullet, and when you think of it, it is a good way to compare because expansion is not in any way predictable or measureable when the material used is muscle and bone. A big .45 or .50 cal., hardcast flatpoint is the "bees knees" whether it expands or not!

Aw come on people still don't believe this old poachers fluff do they?
How accurate is it? well according to TKO Nolan's fastball would have killed anything it hit....
Pondro Taylor wrote an "equation" that provided the results he wanted and proved the cartridges and bullets he used were the best. This old chestnut was debunked decades ago.

 

[Dogleg]

But isn't the counter-argument the "baseball vs wiffle ball" theory?

Take two balls. One is a baseball, one is a wiffle ball. Ther are extremely close to being the same size. You go stand in the corner, and I will throw each ball at your head, the baseball at 25km/h, and the wiffle ball at 50km/h. Which one will hurt more?

Through personal experience, the wiffle ball stings, but the baseball knocks you on your ass and leads to a whole bunch of painful feelings. High school gym class lent itself well to testing obscure theories...

Neither is likely to be fatal, no velocity to speak of. You can catch either ball and throw it back.
Take the most anemic of cartridges like the .22 LR and see if it bounces off. It weighs less than a wiffle ball. Take the same 40 grains up to 4000 fps and see what you can stir up. Dodgeball would never be the same.

 

[Dogleg]

If you use Taylor knockout values, the 45/70 loaded properly, is right up there with the .416 Rem./Rigby, and well above the .375 H&H, the smallbore cartridges you mentioned barely have any value. Taylor figures are based on using a solid bullet, and when you think of it, it is a good way to compare because expansion is not in any way predictable or measureable when the material used is muscle and bone. A big .45 or .50 cal., hardcast flatpoint is the "bees knees" whether it expands or not!

Taylors opium induced fantasy tried to predict how long in seconds different cartridges would knock out head-shot elephants that the brain had been missed. It doesn't work. Even Taylor didn't try to make the numbers work on soft tissue, granting that soft bullets and higher velocities handled that better.

 

[stubblejumper]

would you rather get hit by a semi doing 60mph or a Hyabusa at 180mph?

It certainly doesn't take long for the ridiculous comparisons to get posted.How many times the weight of the motorcycle is the semi?It would be like comparing a 12guage slug to a .177" pellet out of an air rifle,which isn't much of a realistic comparison.

If you want to use a more realistic comparison lets compare vehicles that represent the differences between say a 180gr bullet at 3500fps(30-378),and a 350gr bullet at 2000fps(45-70) .That would be like having a 2500lb compact car hitting you at 100mph or a 5000lb pickup hitting you at 55mph.Either way you are dead.Now if you want a ridiculous comparison,take a 200 ton vessel being hauled to an oilsands plant and it strikes you at 1mph,you likely would just be pushed back,but not be hurt at all,despite the huge momentum that such a heavy load possesses at only 1mph.

 

[stanway]

Through personal experience, the wiffle ball stings, but the baseball knocks you on your ass and leads to a whole bunch of painful feelings. High school gym class lent itself well to testing obscure theories...

You let somebody hit you in the head with a baseball? On purpose?




.

 

[Boomer]

There is no formula that I have found that reliably predicts killing power. The bullet that displaces and crushes the most amount of tissue can produce lightning fast kills, but if the wound is shallow the animal will not be killed quickly. If the bullet penetrates through and through, there is the potential for a quick kill, but not unless a vital organ is destroyed or unless the central nervous system is damaged.

When we consider the use of modern centerfire cartridges, we are best served with bullets that are designed to upset to 1.5X the original diameter and retain as much weight as possible. This allows the bullet to penetrate deeply in a straight line even if bone it hit. Due to the large frontal area of the expanding bullet combined with high velocity, normally over 2000 fps, a supersonic shock wave crushes the soft tissue in its wake, often several inches beyond the bullet's frontal diameter.

Bullets that impact under 2000 fps, such as many of the black powder hold overs, muzzle loaders, handguns and shotgun slugs have sufficient diameter and weight to ensure that penetration is deep, and the wound volume is sufficient to produce a fast humane kill even without any bullet upset. The supersonic shock-wave is still present from these bullets provided the impact velocity is above 1200 fps, and although it will not be as great a wounding factor as with bullets impacting at over 2000 fps, it will be enough to aid in the penetration of soft tissue.

High velocity impacts above 2700 fps are the most difficult problem for the bullet designers. These bullets must be able to stand the tremendous forces acting on the bullet, but the bullet must also be able to function at lower velocities as the high velocity rounds are typically chosen for long range applications. On the smaller species of big game and for use on the big cats, a high velocity bullet that penetrates well into the vitals and then grenades is often considered optimal. But attempts to design such a bullet that will produce this effect on demand under all circumstances has been disappointing in the field as not every shot is the broadside and the bullets tend to prematurely break up on frontal or quartering shots. Perhaps the proven Nosler Partition comes the closest to this to the desired performance, although they hardly grenade.

The best advise when choosing a rifle, a cartridge, or a bullet is to answer the following questions: what game do I intend to shoot and what range will I typically shoot at? The larger and denser the game, the stronger the bullet that is required and in some cases bullets that will not upset under any game shooting conditions are called for. Conversely if a bullet is to be used for varminting, those with explosive tendencies are the most humane. The longer the range, the greater the benefit of high velocity as small errors in range estimation with low velocity rounds can result in misses or wounded game. Where the low velocity bullet can benefit from much exposed lead and round or flat nosed profiles, the high velocity bullet is most likely to have a shape that makes passage through the air more efficient, and employ a complicated jacket and core or be of mono-metal construction to ensure reliable performance at any velocity over 2000 fps.

The fact of the matter is that either a high velocity small bores or a low to moderate velocity big bores are suitable for most big game in sport hunting scenarios. Protection and cropping scenarios require more specialized gear, but that need not concern most hunters. For a general purpose North American hunting rifle choose bore size of .257 as a minimum and choose bullets that are suitable for the intended game and range intended.

 

[hansol]

Oh these debates are fun. You have guys freaking out because they are super serious about it. Then you have the guys that will rant about shot placement: "Remember the indian lady with the .22?" they will say. Next you have the rediuclous analogies, like the semi trucks and the moon. Then the "dead is dead" camp pipe up and ask what does it matter?

I actually really like these debates, because I usually wind up learning something from them, out of all the craziness. And usually if the people keep their heads about them and don't start going snap show and turn it into petty bickering, they can be pretty informative. (Boomer's post is great example. So is the astronomy one.)

Dogleg, I'm never playing dodgeball with you.

As for the baseball/wiffleball: Wiffleball was just us guys on the basketball team being stupid and playing dodgeball with wiffelballs. The baseball was me being a pitcher for the grade 12 gym class, and the guy hit the ball straight at my head. I got the glove up in time, but like we are talking about here, there was a lot of momentum with that ball and it gave me an ass-whooping...

Which brings up another important part: momentum. Sure that little 257 100 grain bullet has a lot of foot pound numbers behind it, but how well will it retain that energy once it impacts? Compare this to a 505 gibbs or even a 30-06 for that matter.

 

[mdragon9]

If it was simple, there wouldn't be so much controversy over it.

Keeping in mind that velocity contributes much more to energy than mass, (square the velocity times 1/2 mass equals kinetic energy), then with equivalent relative increases in mass and velocity, the velocity contributes more to the potential to cause damage, but the one that transfers the potential energy to the subject the quickest will likely cause the most damage (Energy = mass times the square of acceleration).

How big and fast a bullet is a big determinant for causing damage, but how fast it decelerates because its slowed down by what it hits is a bigger determinant. Bigger caliber or expanding bullets tend to slow down faster and so are typically more effective at transferring energy, but a really fast smaller caliber bullet has more energy to transfer and doesn't have to be as effective.

Obviously shot placement is critical, and assuming the bullet penetrates deeply enough to reach something critical, you can kill anything with any cartridge. You can also go the other extreme and lose a lot of good meat by shooting with a cartridge that does too much damage or not kill something because the bullet just spins on through the muscle without causing much damage at all.

Can you kill a Moose with a 22LR, yup, can you kill a Rabbit with a 45/70, yup. Are those the right guns for the jobs, nope. Is a .270 Winchester a good cartridge for Moose? Depends on the bullet. Is a .30-06 a better cartridge for a Moose? Depends on the bullet.

So is bigger/slower more effective than smaller/faster? It depends
First you got to hit the animal where it counts.

 

[stanway]

As for the baseball/wiffleball: Wiffleball was just us guys on the basketball team being stupid and playing dodgeball with wiffelballs. The baseball was me being a pitcher for the grade 12 gym class, and the guy hit the ball straight at my head. I got the glove up in time, but like we are talking about here, there was a lot of momentum with that ball and it gave me an ass-whooping...

Okay, that's good. You had me a little worried.

It's true these debates get a little out of hand sometimes, which is why I like to poke fun once in a while.

It is interesting to read other peoples opinions on light & fast bullets as opposed to heavy & slow.

 

[Dogleg]

Every rifle I own seems to kill faster and hit harder at short-range than at long. Naturally I thought that was because the shot was much louder to the animal's sensitive ears at close range, but now I'm wondering if it might have something to do with velocity? I hate to jump to conclusions, esp since scaring 'em to death seems to work.

 

[stubblejumper]

Which brings up another important part: momentum. Sure that little 257 100 grain bullet has a lot of foot pound numbers behind it, but how well will it retain that energy once it impacts? Compare this to a 505 gibbs or even a 30-06 for that matter.

That depends greatly on the bullet design.A 100gr .257" tsx will retain virtually 100% of it's weight,while a 150gr .308" core loct or power point will usually lose at least 50% to 60% of it's weight.The result is that you have a .257" bullet weighing 100gr for the full time that it penetrates,while the 150gr .308" bullet only has about 60gr to 75gr remaining when it finishes penetrating,for an average penetrating weight of around 100gr to 110gr.Then you have to take into account that the .308" bullet expands to a greater diameter,so it is displacing more material as it goes.The end result,is that in this example,the 100gr .257" bullet will retain it's energy longer,and penetrate more than the larger diameter,heavier bullet.

 

[303carbine]

Ya can't kill'em if ya don't hit'em, no matter what yer shootin'.

 

[Dogleg]

Ya can't kill'em if ya don't hit'em, no matter what yer shootin'.

Higher velocity makes 'em considerably easier to hit.

 

[hansol]

Regarding the 100gr tsx .257: At the same time, imagine a 600gr TSX out of the 505. Would that make it 6x better than the latter 100 grain bullet?

And when the target is far away, I just hold over more.

Mostly I'm just playing devil's advocate. Personally, I'm right in the middle of the light-bullet-high-velocity/big-bullet-low-velocity camps. I want a heavy-for-calibre bullet going mostly-fast (technical term), in order to give a decent trajectory out to 300m, but has more than enough mass on impact to wreck stuff.

 

[Seabass]

Dinosaurs, wiffle bats, the moon, Oh boy

Good Greif

 

[TheTooner]

...How many times the weight of the motorcycle is the semi?...

What's unrealistic about the comparison is that at those velocities, it doesn't matter. Both are lethal. Small bullets are lethal if they are travelling fast enough. Slow bullets are lethal if they are big enough. And in both cases, bullet design can enhance the effects enough to make a difference in how fast a small bullet must travel or how big a slow bullet must be.


I've seen a subcompact car cut almost in half by a 350cc street bike that was estimated to have been travelling in excess of 100mph. (Bike entered at passenger door and stopped in the drivers door. Both vehicle operators died.) That fashion designer/ex-model that was married to Paul McCartney had her leg taken off by a motorcycle that hit her at well under 100mph. A m/bike the size of a Hayabusa striking at 180mph will thoroughly dismember a human body. If you'd rather be squashed by a semi at 60 mph, that's nice for you, but dead is dead, and you are probably going to have a closed casket funeral either way.

 

[hansol]

Dinosaurs, wiffle bats, the moon, Oh boy

Actually, that combination made for one of the most entertaining evenings I've ever attended...

 

[mylesrom]

Well I shot 3 deer with a 257 Wby, 4 with a 30-06 and 2 deer with a .50 cal muzzleloader. The 3 deer with the 257 went down on the spot, the 3 deer with the 30-06 and 50 cal ran from 20 to 100 metres, one deer with the 30-06 stopped on the spot. 257 and 30-06 were all Nosler partitions, with similar placements.

Is the 257 more effective, NO.... as they all soon stopped, but the point being, is it was not any less effective and it did it was substantially less recoil.

Now, if I was after Moose or Elk, I would like more grains than 120, but I would not hesitate with a 270 or 7mm in the 150 range, with a good bullet.

3 years ago, I seen the largest buck I seen shot in Sask, (he was huge), downed with a 257 Roberts AI and the guy was using 110gr Nosler Accubonds, it took one shot to the chest and the deer was down on the spot... So small bullets can be quite effective.

 

[Calum]

Here is a thought, how much weight and bulk in ammo does one want to carry on a hunting trip?

Methinks the modern higher velocity cartridges do a better job and at much less the bulk and mass.

 

[blargon]

If you want to use a more realistic comparison lets compare vehicles that represent the differences between say a 180gr bullet at 3500fps(30-378),and a 350gr bullet at 2000fps(45-70) .

I wasn't trying to be realistic. I was just pointing out another comparison that was irrelevant, like the others already posted...