Ummm....did you actually miss the ballistics table I posted for the Buffalo Bore 270's (you know...the ballistics that destroy a 30-30 out to 200), or are you ignoring them on purpose as they completely negate everything you posted?
You know full well I missed the bit about the Buffalo Bore rounds because you edited it in after the fact. My post contains the original transcript of your response. Nice Trick.
Okay. You found a heavy, powerful, high performance .44 mag round. I stand corrected... oh wait. Buffalo Bore makes a heavy 30-30 round as well and look, it outperforms and maintains more velocity and energy throughout it's trajectory than the 44 mag. I maintain that a 30-30 (it was never my intent to extohl the virtues of this round - I don't even like it) will outperform a 44 RM given some standardization of loading (i.e. you cant find the most powerful 44 and teh weakest 30-30). The reason I'm comfortable in my assertions are very basic: cartridge capacity and the bullet shape of the two rounds. The capacity of each cartridge remains the essentially the same across all brands and despite the subtle differences in the noses, tails and insides of the various bullets out there their shape is pretty consistent too. Put very simply, you can pack more powder behind a more streamlined bullet in a 30-30 so that your mass advantage of the 44 mag is eliminated.
Look all I was doing was debating relative ballistics. It is not personal, though you seem bent on ridiculing me. Everything I've said regarding relative performance differences stands. I will acknowledge that you have shown me some powerful 44 loads. The fact is, I am grateful for your pointing me towards the Buffalo Bore site. Their stuff seems to be a significant improvement over other factory rounds. I'm going to order some of the biggest, nastiest 44 mags I can because I love that Win 92 and now that I see some with the numbers to hunt responsibly out at 100 yards I am going to use it next year when we go out for white tail and elk.
And so you know. I have been hunting since I was 12 and big game since I was 16. My freezer is plenty full. I have taken my share of deer with a 44, but I stopped carrying it because of overlapping species and the fear of being undergunned. I will now say this: The .44 Remington Magnum is a great round with a lot power. It performs especially well at close range.
But I am also a mechanical engineer with training in ballistics and significant understanding of the interplay of mass, projectile shape, drag forces and trajectory. I wont profess to have a ton of expertise in terminal ballistics (my training is in flight ballistics) but I do know that when a bullet strikes flesh and bone it is the energy in the projectile that allows for penetration and tissue damage that generates blood loss and shock.
As for the arrow buff, entering the fray. Bullets aren't sharp and they don't have the superior size of an arrow. I can only guess on the way in which an arrow might perform at its terminus but based on the data from a quick google it is obviously quite different from a bullet as it achieves deadly power with significantly less energy. A bullet with those low ft lb numbers wouldn't penetrate a squirrel. It seems to me that an arrow uses almost all of its energy for penetration and because it is sharp it achieves significantly more penetration per unit of energy shed, much like it takes less work to cut meat with a sharp knife than with a spoon. And in the course of penetration an arrow would be opening a very significant hole compared to a bullet's entry wound. I'm guessing you could push an arrow through me (seems like a few people want to do just that) but you would not be able to do that with a round nosed bullet let alone one that has mushroomed. I would suspect this is the primary reason for the difference in required killing energy. It's still true that when using bullets, for dependable killing of CXP3 game you should stay above 1200 ft lbs at the terminus.
