"The bullet was going too fast to expand"

Gatehouse

Gatehouse

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I saw this in print recently in an older Petersens HUNTING I was rereading- It's a publication I rarely read.

I've seen it on the intraweb a few times, and of course, I've seen it written in magazines in the past.

Never could understand what the heck they were talking about!:p
 
Okay, that was good for a laugh. The best one I heard was that a slug was going so slow that it hit a bear and pancaked without penetrating!
 
Hey I have heard storries fom the old guys 75-80 years in age, at the range telling me when they did what i do now with my wild cats that older bullets being pushed to fast , never making it to the target because they would not hold together... fact or fiction it sure sounded like a good storry

You know what I believe them.
 
JasonYuke said:
Hey I have heard storries fom the old guys 75-80 years in age, at the range telling me when they did what i do now with my wild cats that older bullets being pushed to fast , never making it to the target because they would not hold together... fact or fiction it sure sounded like a good storry

You know what I believe them.
Click to expand...

Well, some bullets can break up in flight. No doubt about that. Usually they are smaller caliber, softer bullets, pushed to extreme velocities, and they spin apart.

They can also turn sideways and "keyhole"
 
I once had a guy I knew casually mention to me that he had shot a moose at 850 yards. Knowing he shot a 300 Weatherby Mag, I asked: "Louis, how are you sighted in?" His response: "Dead on at 200 Yards" My next question: "Tell me how high you held on that moose to hit it at 850 yards?" His response [without blinking an eye]: "I just held dead on, the 300 Weatherby doesn't drop between 200 and 850 yards." I just about had a cardiac arrest, I was laughing so hard. Regards, Eagleye
 
Gatehouse is looking for more excuses
to why he's not telling the sasquatch story;)


Yep, Gatehouse is right,
not all bullets manufacured with the pre-war technology
could hold at 22-250 or 220 Swift (full) velocities.
Some seem to never reach the target.


Going thru a target without expansion and/or fragmentation
(because of excessive velocity)
is called "vishling" in the real ballistics science (artillery)
but is a lot more complex than just "too much velocity".



I heard some about the idea (and I don't completely dis it)
of "pancaking" without much penetration
but not "without any penetration".



I don't really believe in "blowing up" on the hair
without breaking the hide,
but in special circumstances, the hair causing
"deflection" of the bullet
(which is different than "blowing up" the bullet) is a real fact.
Some may refer to it as "bouncing",
but it's not a correct description.
 
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Bullet failure happens with some fast calibers like 223 if pushed too far with too fast of a twist. 7:1 does it, bullet will fall apart from cetrifugal forces immediately upon exiting muzzle.

Missiles or artillery shells flying right through barns or other soft targets without detonation is known fact.
 
22lr said:
Bullet failure happens with some fast calibers like 223 if pushed too far with too fast of a twist. 7:1 does it, bullet will fall apart from cetrifugal forces immediately upon exiting muzzle.

Missiles or artillery shells flying right through barns or other soft targets without detonation is known fact.
Click to expand...

7:1 isn't a twist, it is a thread. Do the bullets have a slot, Robertson or Phillips base?

Lots of time and effort have been put into developing fuses for shells that will work predictably and dependably under all circumstances.
 
I had enough Hornady SX's break up in the air from my Gaillard 1:7 twist .222 barrel that I quit using them. Any fragile bullet will have problems in a fast twist barrel, but one of the worst bullet failure on game that I've experiences was when I shot a seal with Speer 130 gr hollow points from a .30/06. All of these bullets broke up on bones, left a fist sized hole where the bone was, and flecked the meat with bullet metal. But nothing penetrated into the chest, and finally a neck shot killed the seal.

Back to Gate's original post about bullets not expanding because they were going to fast; I doubt that speed was the problem. Remember when hunters were complaining that the old 270 gr .375 X bullets (maybe XLC's) wouldn't expand on North American game? Turns out that Barnes changed the hollow point so that the bullet would penetrate better on African buffalo, and as a result it became a marginal moose killer. In the early days of the X bullets, every lot of .416's I'd buy would have a different size of hollow point. The TSX is a much better bullet.
 
I have had quite a few different bullets blow up in the air on exit from the muzzle in a Swift. Some of that was my own fault, since I wanted to see how fast I could drive the SX and Blitz bullets without that occurring. But even with bullets that should take it, the odd one will leave that telltale little grey cloud out in front of the rifle, and no arrival at the target. Regards, Eagleye.
 
I heard some about the idea (and I don't completely dis it)
of "pancaking" without much penetration
but not "without any penetration".
Click to expand...

Not unless the bear is made of steel or the projectile is made of wet clay. This story was wrong on two levels. First, too slow of a velocity would not cause a 12 gauge slug to pancake regardless of what it hit. And secondly, there is no way a 12 gauge slug can pancake on the outside of a bear unless there was a serious flaw in the composition of the slug.

Interestingly, it was blamed on another bit of internet lore.....that a a short shotgun barrel produces too slow of velocities for slugs to work properly. I guess that adds up to three levels of BS.
 
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I've had bullets shot at game that not only came apart but they must have completely vaporized cause no impact no blood no steaks and chops.:confused: - and rifle bullets don't rise. They're bullets, not Tomahawk missiles. Remember the apple falling out of a tree and a guy called Newton?
 
Bullet rise is relative to your sight in distance. Most rifles are sighted in at 100 or 200 yards. If the trajectory is 2" above 0 at 100 yards, then the bullet "rises" above the line of sight. Technically rise is cause by the different point of aim of the scope/sights and the point of aim of the barrel. They are not parallel -- if they were you would have to have much more holdover that you do now.

This topic has been covered a lot on this and other forums. I'd suggest taking a look at some ballistics information to learn about rise.
 
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