What kills?

svehn said:
but if you drop a safe on him, he will open the door from the inside and come staggering out like a drunk. :D
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Finally! I know I've seen that somewhere for a fact, and I have been looking for someone else who's seen that so I can come clean about my belief that is true.

I'm tired of people thinking I should tighten the straps on my tinfoil hat. Now it's confirmed on the internet, it's true! Can't wait to show this to my wife, who has been making some very snide remarks lately. She seems to think I have my inside and outside lives confused.

Thank you.
 
If an animal's brain is destroyed, it dies. If an animal's central nervous system is cut, oxygen enriched blood stops flowing to the brain and the animal dies. If the heart or lungs are damaged to the extent that they no longer work, oxygenated blood cannot reach the brain and the animal dies. If major arteries are cut or if there is massive bleeding from some other organs which combines with other damage to significantly effect the volume of blood available for the brain, the animal dies.

A bullet wound from a typical hunting rifle loaded with sporting ammunition produces a complex wound, which overwhelms the animal’s survival mechanisms. The passage of the bullet penetrates skin and tissue, and breaks bones. Accompanying the bullet is a supersonic shockwave. By the time an expanding bullet functions or in the case of a non-expanding game bullet, the large frontal area results in a large shockwave that projects to the front as well to the sides of the bullet and as the bullet passes through the animal, this shockwave tears, crushes, and displaces soft tissue, and scatters bone fragments resulting in even more extensive wounding and bleeding. The shockwave is present while the bullet's velocity though the target is supersonic, and if that bullet exits at a supersonic velocity you can expect the exit wound to be unreasonably large.

How quickly an animal responds to a bullet wound depends on many factors. How large was the animal? What was the species? Some game like caribou seem to die easily, while other game might travel miles with a similar wound. Was the animal aware of danger at the time of the shot? What was the shot angle? How many inches or feet of penetration did the bullet achieve in the game animal. Did the bullet perform within its design parameters? Was the design of the bullet appropriate for the game being shot? Did the bullet damage the heart and lungs? Where they inflated or deflated at the moment the bullet damaged them? Did the bullet damage the brain or the central nervous system? Did the bullet exit? If all of these factors play out in your favor, its like you pulled the rug out from under him . . . if they don't you're in for a long day.
 
Boomer is right on the money. That is exactly how an animal dies from a projectile penetrating its body. A bad shot is like gambling, the outcome is unknown until either the body's defenses can overcome or be over come by infection or blood loss. No other explanation is needed!
 
Dogleg said:
Animals die when light gets inside them. Larger wound channels distribute the light quickly, and high velocity lets the light in faster with parallizeing effect.

Oddly, exit wounds seldom add to the killing effect, possibly because the light escapes before breaking into deadly scattered light fragments. It will sometimes take the path of least resistance, wasteing light energy. Light pencilling through like a laser is the last thing you want.

Less experienced hunters are sometimes confused when a animal runs after takeing a solid hit. This can usually be traced to hitting the shadey side of the animal, which will then inevitably head for the thickest, darkest cover to get some soothing darkness on its wound. Many animals shot at last light are never found, not surprisely since the bullets are quickly loseing their effectiveness. According to various game departments, shooting after dark must not work at all since it is seldom allowed.
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ha:
 
Dogleg said:
Animals die when light gets inside them. Larger wound channels distribute the light quickly, and high velocity lets the light in faster with parallizeing effect.

Oddly, exit wounds seldom add to the killing effect, possibly because the light escapes before breaking into deadly scattered light fragments. It will sometimes take the path of least resistance, wasteing light energy. Light pencilling through like a laser is the last thing you want.

Less experienced hunters are sometimes confused when a animal runs after takeing a solid hit. This can usually be traced to hitting the shadey side of the animal, which will then inevitably head for the thickest, darkest cover to get some soothing darkness on its wound. Many animals shot at last light are never found, not surprisely since the bullets are quickly loseing their effectiveness. According to various game departments, shooting after dark must not work at all since it is seldom allowed.
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Dude seriously just made my day.
 
When bullets expand, the energy is transferred to the animal, the shock creates trauma, much the same as getting hit with a hammer. Bruising, and bleeding from broken blood vessels occurs. The bigger the blood vessels are that are ruptured, the better.

When the same trauma also causes a large wound channel, blood loss occurrs. Rapidly.

Which is why the broad side double lung shot is preferred to any other shot including head shots. The target is large (lungs), there is a huge amount of blood there, and a massive wound to the lungs will cause uncontrollable bleeding = rapid death.

The non expanding bullets do not transfer as much energy, nor do they create the massive would channel. Head shots are obviously fatal if the brain and CNS are compromised but the target is much smaller, and the head moves much quicker.
 
It's been said a ton of times in these few short pages, but there is a BIG difference in the reaction of a game animal to a hit from a solid (non-expanding) and an expanding bullet. The perfect hunting bullet combines both attributes, like the Barnes TSX. Expansion let's the energy of the round enter the tissues, and incapacitates from the shock alone, acting on the brain stem (even with a a hit far from it, as in the vitals). Solids penetrate like all hell, and do kill, but much more slowly. They are necessary at times on extra-heavy game like elephant however.
 
Ardent said:
It's been said a ton of times in these few short pages, but there is a BIG difference in the reaction of a game animal to a hit from a solid (non-expanding) and an expanding bullet. The perfect hunting bullet combines both attributes, like the Barnes TSX. Expansion let's the energy of the round enter the tissues, and incapacitates from the shock alone, acting on the brain stem (even with a a hit far from it, as in the vitals). Solids penetrate like all hell, and do kill, but much more slowly. They are necessary at times on extra-heavy game like elephant however.
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We don't get to play with solids very often in North America, but in Africa, my two bang flops, an impala and a warthog were with solids. The impala was a broadside heart shot and the warthog was rear quartering. The key to good performance from solids is choosing the correct profile, a flat or hemispherical nose, straight sides, and short length. These things will penetrate in a straight line and cause massive damage. The traditional Kynoch design which has been copied by Woodleigh is far less certain, although Woodleigh now makes a good solid with their Hydrostatically Stabilized line.
 
Outside of a CNS hit, my observations and personal experience lead me to believe that blood loss is what both incapacitates and kills quickly. The blood loss comes from either the permanent wound channel transecting a blood vessel (preferably a large, high pressure one, but low pressure large diameter ones work well too in the killing quickly department) or tissue stretched to the point it tears, also breaking blood vessels.

Flat nosed bullets crush tissue better than pointier ones, and expanding bullets cause larger diameter permanent crush cavities at the expense of penetration. Fragmenting bullets create smaller secondary permanent crush cavities and tears, but also at the expense of penetration.

What is also worth thinking about is the bullet's terminal trajectory (ie: it's trajectory inside the animal). Expanding bullets (especially soft core lead tipped designs) often expand irregularly, sometimes causing deflection from their original trajectory. I view this as a negative attribute as the deflection can be erratic and unpredictable, causing you to miss what you intended to hit. A notable exception to this observation is the barnes ### bullets...in all of the animals I've shot with them they've tracked straight. I am a big fan of Barnes ###s.

However - the more I hunt big game, the bigger fan I become of monolithic flat nosed deeply penetrating bullets. There are not many of these available in North America however I hope to change that sometime soon.

IMHO people make it way more complicated than it is. CNS hits and blood loss are what kill quickly. For more info google Dr Martin Fackler.

Cheers,

Brobee

edited to add "quickly" behind all the killing talk. You can gut shoot an animal and it might die from infection several days or weeks later...I would not count that as a "kill" in the context of the original post.
 
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For those looking for a bit of time by the fire with a good book, there's a wonderfully thoughtful and well-researched commentary (even including a bit of a review of forensic medical literature) on this very question in Rifles for Africa, by Gregor Woods.

Like many here, I had previously been of the mind that velocity = tissue displacement = faster death, but Woods makes a very compelling case that the dramatic wound channels we see in tests with ballistic gelatin are relatively meaningless, as the cavitation and displacement caused by high velocity impact is temporary, with the tissue returning to more or less its original position in milliseconds. The medical specialists he consulted generally hold the view that the affected tissue is bruised/bloodshot, but still functional. All in all, it's a very thoughtful and well-written book -- and the sections on terminal ballistics are really quite thought provoking.

Book reviews aside, though, what does cause death is anything that deprives the brain of oxygen (circulatory damage), or which impairs the brain's ability to send/receive signals to the rest of the body (CNS damage) such as spinal damage which isolates the brain from the heart and lungs, which then cease to receive instructions to operate, which in turn cuts off the supply of oxygen to the brain. So really, in the end, death is cause by one thing -- cutting off the oxygen to the brain.

Which bullet does this most effectively will depend on caliber and critter size. But in principal, the bullet that makes the largest *permanent* (non-recovering) wound channel through vital organs is going to put the animal down fastest.
 
I'd say the bullet that drops animals the fastest is the one that breaks, disables or paralyzes the parts that are holding it up. This may or may not kill it quickly, but it isn't going anywhere because it can't.
An animal dies when its brain shuts down from lack of oxygen. If its lungs are in tatters or collapsed, or the circulatory system can't carry oxygen anymore it will be faster than those that just drown in their own blood. Either way, they may cover some ground before its over, because they can.
 
Dogleg said:
Animals die when light gets inside them. Larger wound channels distribute the light quickly, and high velocity lets the light in faster with parallizeing effect.

Oddly, exit wounds seldom add to the killing effect, possibly because the light escapes before breaking into deadly scattered light fragments. It will sometimes take the path of least resistance, wasteing light energy. Light pencilling through like a laser is the last thing you want.

Less experienced hunters are sometimes confused when a animal runs after takeing a solid hit. This can usually be traced to hitting the shadey side of the animal, which will then inevitably head for the thickest, darkest cover to get some soothing darkness on its wound. Many animals shot at last light are never found, not surprisely since the bullets are quickly loseing their effectiveness. According to various game departments, shooting after dark must not work at all since it is seldom allowed.
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BAHAHA Light kills people just in case you were wondering lol
 
andyman_49 said:
BAHAHA Light kills people just in case you were wondering lol
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Light also kills vampires, something that has been known and accepted for centuries. The only difference is with animals the light kills from the inside out, instead of the outside in.

There's some rather far fetched theories out there that seek to explain that which was already well understood well before such modern marvels like smokeless powder. These new theories can usually be traced to some hard scribbleing word salesman, who will convieniently name it after himself. The name is further proof that he never had an original thought in his life.

It's really simple:

What makes an animal die? Light.

Whats makes an animal drop? Gravity.
 
Dogleg said:
Light also kills vampires, something that has been known and accepted for centuries. The only difference is with animals the light kills from the inside out, instead of the outside in.

There's some rather far fetched theories out there that seek to explain that which was already well understood well before such modern marvels like smokeless powder. These new theories can usually be traced to some hard scribbleing word salesman, who will convieniently name it after himself. The name is further proof that he never had an original thought in his life.

It's really simple:

What makes an animal die? Light.

Whats makes an animal drop? Gravity.
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Anyone seen an aweful movie called The Quick and The Dead? Light killed Gene Hackman.
 
Dogleg said:
Light also kills vampires, something that has been known and accepted for centuries. The only difference is with animals the light kills from the inside out, instead of the outside in.

There's some rather far fetched theories out there that seek to explain that which was already well understood well before such modern marvels like smokeless powder. These new theories can usually be traced to some hard scribbleing word salesman, who will convieniently name it after himself. The name is further proof that he never had an original thought in his life.

It's really simple:

What makes an animal die? Light.

Whats makes an animal drop? Gravity.
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Nope light makes vampires sparkle like pretty gems.:p
 
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