experiencing slow kills with heavy 7mm08

semantics but, from recollection on your bull pathfinder I thought it was around 2000 fps impact when I ran the math, and you took out just above the heart, which as Dogleg pointed out in the 44 mag thread that Jack O'Conner taught him is much better than putting it through the center of the heart(for drt flattening them)....so you made an unreal shot with that .270 at 560 and a big bull, without that perfect shot placement what does that basically 'solid' do?

400 should work no prob Joel, or wherever 2000 fps lands for the 7-08 mono as the ~rule, everyone can look up the ttsx gel stuff and it's not opening much down there and I know you have, I'm guessing you can load a 120 pretty quick as I know of a guy who killed a tank of a bull, well I was there and going after the same bull and ended up knowing the guy who got there first...it was a 308 with 130 ttsx launched around 3100 fps from recollection and it was 400 yards and it flattened that giant bull and down the mountain it went throwing snow way above the trees as it went....the 7-08 120 should do the same thing
You guys and your charts. Cracks me up.
 
semantics but, from recollection on your bull pathfinder I thought it was around 2000 fps impact when I ran the math, and you took out just above the heart, which as Dogleg pointed out in the 44 mag thread that Jack O'Conner taught him is much better than putting it through the center of the heart(for drt flattening them)....so you made an unreal shot with that .270 at 560 and a big bull, without that perfect shot placement what does that basically 'solid' do?

400 should work no prob Joel, or wherever 2000 fps lands for the 7-08 mono as the ~rule, everyone can look up the ttsx gel stuff and it's not opening much down there and I know you have, I'm guessing you can load a 120 pretty quick as I know of a guy who killed a tank of a bull, well I was there and going after the same bull and ended up knowing the guy who got there first...it was a 308 with 130 ttsx launched around 3100 fps from recollection and it was 400 yards and it flattened that giant bull and down the mountain it went throwing snow way above the trees as it went....the 7-08 120 should do the same thing
Gracias amigo.

Was of the opinion that below 2,100 fps or so was rather on the ragged edge of consistent good service on that one, which is why I had said "pushing it" and not "won't work"
 
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I’m not a big fan of heavy for caliber in mild cartridges, or mild cartridges for that matter. I load my daughters 7/08 with 140 Ballistic Tips with Varget and it doesn’t seem to have any problem killing anything its pointed at.

OP;

I’ve never found Sambars or their damn near identical cousins the Rusa particularly hard to kill. Shot most of mine with a 257 Weatherby and they die just like anything else. Mind you I keep hearing them described as elk sized, mostly by people who have never seen an elk before.

I find it interesting that the 139 Hornady Interlock didn’t work out for you. I took those up to 3500 fps and killed the bejebbers out of things with them. The float based and boatails are two completely different animals though.
 
I like a good pi$$ing contest as much as the next guy. I have mixed feeling on the TTSX, I've taken 3 Elk (with 4 shots) and some Deer with them, 100% of the time I've been left wondering if I even hit them before finding them, with hole I can stick my finger in and very little bloodshot meat.

Now with the 270 and 7mm TTSX, these are quite long bullets. The British wrote of their observation during the Russo-Japanese war that for the 6.5mm (with a long fmj) that wounding decreased below 2000fps, but then increased again at longer ranges (and lower velocity) as the bullet became unstable.

Has anyone recovered a sub 1800 fps mono bullet from a Big Game Animal to see what it actually looked like?
 
2500 to 3000 fps is about 16.5%. Just some additional perspective. 2500 is not slow. But I do like squishy rapid expansion bullets launched down there, seem to overachieve. I would not like tougher bullets, did accubonds at 2900-3100 for awhile and surprisingly get more drt and short recoveries from a much slower but light construction bullets.
 
“2500 to 3000 fps is about 16.5%. Just some additional perspective”

Your math is misapplied. Energy doesn't increase linierly with velocity.

3000 might be 14.5% more 2500, but if you calculate the increase in energy from that velocity gain its right around 44%.

If you can find a way to double the velocity the energy quadruples.

Speed kills; thats why. :)
 
“2500 to 3000 fps is about 16.5%. Just some additional perspective”

Your math is misapplied. Energy doesn't increase linierly with velocity.

3000 might be 14.5% more 2500, but if you calculate the increase in energy from that velocity gain its right around 44%.

If you can find a way to double the velocity the energy quadruples.

Speed kills; thats why. :)
That's right, tons of hydrostatic shock from high velocities. I believe that many are now brainwashed with "heavy for caliber," for long-distance killing..............they should stop watching stupid trendy/yuppie ballistics!
 
I’ve never found Sambars or their damn near identical cousins the Rusa particularly hard to kill. Shot most of mine with a 257 Weatherby and they die just like anything else. Mind you I keep hearing them described as elk sized, mostly by people who have never seen an elk before.

I find it interesting that the 139 Hornady Interlock didn’t work out for you. I took those up to 3500 fps and killed the bejebbers out of things with them. The float based and boatails are two completely different animals though.
The northern Rusa may be somewhat sized to the small herd of northern Sambar but are nothing alike the souths.

btsp 139s i tried but not super stoked on em
 
The northern Rusa may be somewhat sized to the small herd of northern Sambar but are nothing alike the souths.

btsp 139s i tried but not super stoked on em
There’s a considerable difference between the standard Hornady Interlock 139 flat-base and the boat-tailed version. The flat-based is considerably tougher, but not too hard. I’ve driven them up to 3500 or so in a few STWs and if that doesn’t blow them up, nothing is going to. It would meet your needs of a bullet that will stand up to bigger deer species while still opening up fast on the lighter resistance of smaller ones at rather mild velocities. It’ll do it in a cost effective manner as well. If I lived in Australia Id try Woodleighs first in everything; bjut I guess there’s supply problems.
 
There’s a considerable difference between the standard Hornady Interlock 139 flat-base and the boat-tailed version. The flat-based is considerably tougher, but not too hard. I’ve driven them up to 3500 or so in a few STWs and if that doesn’t blow them up, nothing is going to. It would meet your needs of a bullet that will stand up to bigger deer species while still opening up fast on the lighter resistance of smaller ones at rather mild velocities. It’ll do it in a cost effective manner as well. If I lived in Australia Id try Woodleighs first in everything; bjut I guess there’s supply problems.
Yeah Woodleigh is coming soon but not quite yet!

Wil try find a FB 139 for a try, but all I've seen is the BTSP model!
Maybe a Hot core is worth a go then, similar same. FB.
 
“2500 to 3000 fps is about 16.5%. Just some additional perspective”

Your math is misapplied. Energy doesn't increase linierly with velocity.

3000 might be 14.5% more 2500, but if you calculate the increase in energy from that velocity gain its right around 44%.

If you can find a way to double the velocity the energy quadruples.

Speed kills; thats why. :)
I don't disagree with your final conclusion. I will only say that you can get more from grain of powder for game intended than you think if you get the right bullet in front of it. I am experiencing more drt's and shorter recoveries with a 16.1" 6.5 Grendel with factory 123gr eld-m launched at 2386 fps than I was with 140gr accubonds out of a .270 win and .270 wsm where I was launching from 2900+ to 3100+....so go figure. Maybe ballistic tips were the better choice? I'm sure they were....point is, speed doesn't just kill, the bullet does, and anywhere north of 2400 fps launch with right bullets you can find some pretty amazing results of quick kills. There is more to this game than just speed kills. I was trying to point out that there just might be a magic formula where you dump most of that energy over the right distance. And that 44% extra energy did what for me? if it, and more than that, was all in the hillside behind the animal? The formula has a couple more factors to consider than just speed. 2400+ is 'fast as fack boi' ;)

Funny how we think that's slow though but a few percent more and we think it's fast, we do have that common perspective and it's not correct perspective.
 
I don't disagree with your final conclusion. I will only say that you can get more from grain of powder for game intended than you think if you get the right bullet in front of it. I am experiencing more drt's and shorter recoveries with a 16.1" 6.5 Grendel with factory 123gr eld-m launched at 2386 fps than I was with 140gr accubonds out of a .270 win and .270 wsm where I was launching from 2900+ to 3100+....so go figure. Maybe ballistic tips were the better choice? I'm sure they were....point is, speed doesn't just kill, the bullet does, and anywhere north of 2400 fps launch with right bullets you can find some pretty amazing results of quick kills. There is more to this game than just speed kills. I was trying to point out that there just might be a magic formula where you dump most of that energy over the right distance. And that 44% extra energy did what for me? if it, and more than that, was all in the hillside behind the animal? The formula has a couple more factors to consider than just speed. 2400+ is 'fast as fack boi' ;)

Funny how we think that's slow though but a few percent more and we think it's fast, we do have that common perspective and it's not correct perspective.
I’d say your observations on the effectiveness of your Grendel have more to do with the effectiveness of frangible bullets than some magical property of low velocity.


Bullet construction choice and velocity are firmly locked together, theres not much use in talking about one without the other. Much can be done with softer bullets to compensate for lower velocities but all things have limits. As a extreme example there isn’t a bullet soft enough to make a slingshot into an elk rifle, going the opposite way there isn’t a bullet hard enough to make the wrist rocket into a elephant slayer. No amount of optimization can get something that isn’t there .
 
I’d say your observations on the effectiveness of your Grendel have more to do with the effectiveness of frangible bullets than some magical property of low velocity.


Bullet construction choice and velocity are firmly locked together, theres not much use in talking about one without the other. Much can be done with softer bullets to compensate for lower velocities but all things have limits. As a extreme example there isn’t a bullet soft enough to make a slingshot into an elk rifle, going the opposite way there isn’t a bullet hard enough to make the wrist rocket into a elephant slayer. No amount of optimization can get something that isn’t there .
Yes there’s lots we agree on. There’s more to the formula. Yes frangible bullets work great but for game intended you need enough bullet to hold together to still get far enough through. Agree bullet construction choice ans velocity are tied together and then one has to make sure they will work for game intended. When you go too soft and not enough bullet and too fast then you run into under penetration issues.

From what I can tell the slower squishy bullets I’m using still very much killed by ‘speed kills’ as they are speedy kills and lots of internal work transfered. We’re missing some perspective of what speed is. And a ton of our choices overlap. You can get very efficient with this though and burn very little powder while still taking fair size of game.

After animals get a certain size (Africa dg) then the bullet construction becomes solid and the formula needs to be over .3 sd and impacting north of 2200 or you can’t get through to the vitals or brain. Not many bang flops in that game outside the brain shots.

One day we will try to objectify our terminal ballistics so our subjective experiences and conversations are better understood. We mostly shoot variable sd bullets here and no one is yet measuring the rate of change to standards in a constant medium to which we can build calculators around. Then gain understandings of this which start to catch up to our inflight ballistics conversations.

Until then we mostly agree and see same things and use different words to say it lol. And have a wide variety of perspective also.
 
I doubt that there will ever be a formula that can perfectly quantify the results a given bullet will give, there are too many variables including velocity which varies with cartridge and range, and the animal itself wihich varies in density by species and shot placement.


Until then I think that most people would agree that across the board whatever makes the biggest hole that is deep enough is going to kill the fastest. If they can’t agree on that, everything else is a waste of time.


As for efficiency regarding powder burnt; the bullet doesn’t care, gravity doesn’t care, the wind doesn’t care and the animal doesn’t care. I don’t see why I should.
 
Yeah we tend to have the longest threads on terminal ballistics because it’s just subjective experiences expressed by different people trying to explain them. We don’t really squabble much about inflight ballistics as we know the bullet is constant and figured out how to solve for the variable of air.

In terminal ballistics it’s opposite, the bullet is the variable and we can make the medium a constant and choose whatever standard impact velocity ranges to measure the finished bullet and travel compared to each other. If even it gives us a percentage based difference from one another we can objectify so much of this. Everything has seemed to focus on the wound as the variable and we can’t measure that well or even in gel, but we can measure finished sd and distance traveled in gel and the corresponding energy transfer over that distance and see a 150 bt as a short fat grenade vs a 130 ttsx longer skinnier grenade. Then percentage differences could be known to expect re on game performance. We have not looked at the rate of change (sd/energy transfer) over distance (per inch) in a constant medium yet.

It will be a game changer in objectifying terminal ballistics once we have the calculators to play with like we do with inflight and with inflight we can land a bullet into a milk jug at 2 miles now but squabble for pages about what happens when the swimming starts, we squabble what happens over the last 12" to 36" of the bullet travel. And here we are a quarter way through the 21st century...how silly of us to miss this. ;)
 
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