Haven't shot much, have you.
"Much" means different things to different people. I killed 5 deer this year, my buddy killed 4 and my wife killed 1. So I saw 10 deer die this year. I killed two with a muzzle loader at 50 yards. Lead bullet impact speed ~1450 fps. Both shots were high and both died on the spot. A few years ago I killed a buck at 220 yards with a 300 wby 180gr tsx and I spine shot him just in front of the tenderloins. He went down and his front leg was kicking. I ran towards him and after having run maybe 50 yards he was dead. Point is they do die on the spot. For sure not all the time but again, people shot deer at 150 yards too far back and they run off in the bush and die an hour later. It's the same thing.
How can a bullet penetrate a shoulder and then "explode"? What physics makes it able to do that? How long does it take for an elk to run 100 yards before it drops? Five seconds? A man can do it in 10. There is a profound difference between 5 seconds from the shot to the animal's death, and an animal lying paralyzed for half an hour it will take those guys to get to that spot. That's the difference between a short death run and a spine shot. Spined animals are most often NOT dead. The difference is suffering.
Just because you don't know anything about bullet technology and you don't know how Berger makes their bullets doesn't mean they can't do exactly what I mentioned previously.
You can read this (I know, I know, all smoke and mirrors), and look specifically at the wound channels. You can clearly see the bergers go in without expanding and then expand after a few inches. This is exactly why they use them on high shoulder shots. They will smash through the first few inches without expanding and then violently expand sending shrapnel everywhere.
h ttp://www.bergerbullets.com/Information/Barsness%20Article.pdf
They also have bullets that can tell the difference between drywall and people. They do different things based on what they hit. These are obviously not hunting bullets but it does illustrate the point that bullets can do some pretty amazing things. Just because you don't know anything about that doesn't make it not so.
And your point is what, exactly? No trees means 700 yard shots are hunting? Being 700 yards away is not hunting, it is long range shooting. Shooting is not hunting, whether the shot is 17 yards or 700, shooting is not hunting. Getting close to animals is "hunting". What on earth does "Not exactly lots of trees" have to do with anything?
Hunting is finding critters. We are all "shooters" after we found them. Be that 10 yards with a bow or 700 yards with a rifle. The range at which you feel "shooting" becomes your definition of "hunting" is a number you picked based on your skill and equipment. Other people with better gear and more skill will have different parameters. Doesn't make you right or them wrong.
The fact that there are "not exactly lots of trees" relates to the point that you're not going to sneak up on those elk and shoot them at 50 yards.
So how do monolithic bullets make shooting at long range easier? How do the many things that have changed change the facts that reliably and humanely killing critters is very "iffy" at 700 yards? How many ways are there for that 700 yard shot to go "wrong" even if they have practiced, had good equipment, and could hit paper at that range? How long did the bullet take to get there? A single step by that elk would have changed things dramatically.
I never said mono bullets make long range hunting easier. I used that example to illustrate that technology has changed the way we think about which bullet weights to use for big game hunting. Mono bullets let you take a 308, load a 130gr Barnes and kill stuff.
Technology has made long range hunting easier in many ways. Excellent rifles and optics are reliable and extremely accurate. VLD bullets have very high BC's which means they retain their energy further out there, drop less and buck the wind better. Wind meters tell you things like wind speed, barometric pressure, altitude etc. You can plug that all into your iphone, which will tell you the exact parameters you need to set up the shot. Lets not forget the range finder, which will tell you exactly how far away your target is and since gravity is a constant, you can correct for this. All these things have made it easier to shoot accurately further then prior to these advances in technology occurring.
Time of flight for that bullet was probably ~0.8 seconds or so. Anytime an animal takes a step just prior to the shot things change. How long does it take an arrow from a bow to release and fly 40 yards? Ever see a deer duck under an arrow? I have but nobody says we shouldn't shoot deer with bows because they might move when you release your arrow.
Finally, there is no proof at all for your belief that the elk was dead. It is actually quite unlikely that it died that quickly. If you had shot many animals you would understand that very few drop dead on the spot, no matter what is being shot at them. For an elk to collapse its legs like that, a spine shot is the most likely cause. The immediate "zoom out" is also a common tactic for film makers to avoid the unpleasant view of a struggling, and suffering animal as it dies. I do not have any faith that elk was "humanely" killed.
More importantly there is no proof to show that it wasn't dead. He said it was, the "novice" hunter looked at the animal through her scope after it went down and didn't make any comments contrary to the statements that it was dead. If you just shot your first big game animal and it's still flopping around you might comment on that, don't you think? Like I said before I don't know that I shot "many" animals but of the 5 I killed this year 4 dropped on the spot. With a muzzle loader at 50 yards or a rifle at 250 yards. DRT. The one my wife shot (with a 243 and tiny 80gr ttsx) was also DRT at maybe 60 yards. Watched my friend kill 2 with a muzzle loader at 120 yards, both DRT. Watched him kill a buck at 70 yards, DRT. He killed a doe that was running and that one took two shoots but only cause the first one missed. The second one folded her mid stride. So yes animals do drop dead on the spot. It depends what your shoot them with and where you hit them. Oh and a few years ago my wife shot a deer at 50 yards with a 120gr ballistic tip out of a 7mm rem mag and she hit the spine. It was also DRT.
If you can argue that 700 yard shots are perfectly fine, because you saw one on the internet, you are in for some bad hunting experiences. So are some unfortunate animals.
Like I said initially nobody is telling you to do this, nobody is saying everyone should do this and if you are dumb enough to attempt this because you saw it on the internet, then that makes you the "bad guy", not the people doing this successfully because they have the skill and equipment to do so. I already talked about this at length in my original post. Did you read it?
