ORIGINAL: eldeguello
I tend to agree, yet when discussing wound ballistics, Army experts such as General Hatcher(Hatcher's Notebook) seem to use impact velocity of a given bullet as the measure of whether or not that bullet is capable of inflicting a dangerous wound or not.Energy levels are notincluded as a measure ofwounding ability.
You can calculate energy given velocity and bullet mass. If both of these are in his reports, than probably energy is figured in there as well - maybe just not mentioned. E=mv^2 if I remember correctly. Though I might agree with him, comparing my 270 to a freinds 3006, he has a slight advantage in energy and bullet wieght yet the faster 270 seems to almost always produce larger exit wounds.
ORIGINAL: Gangly
However, all of us will eventually make a bad enough shot to where the size of the round prolly wouldnt make much of a difference...
I shot a beautiful buck with afriends 270 that he said he had sighted in.He didnt tell me that he sighted it into only hit paper at100 yards (not even sure if thats true) and so obviouslyall i did to the deer was wound it at 169 yards. Searched for 2 days for the deer andnever found anything but a chunk of meat from the location where he was shot at. I could have KILLED my friend for that. From that day on I have decided that I would do everything i could to keep from just wounding another animal. Best way i see that happening is to use more gun than neccessary and toshoot only your gun that you sighted in and are comfortable shooting. Leave guesswork to other people who dont know better.
Gangly, that sux about the lost deer. But I am confused if your saying had you used something more powerful than the 270 you would possibly have inflicted enbough damage to recover it? because you start off by saying "...the size of the round prolly wouldnt make much of a difference..."
It is interesting how some poeple consider small rounds perfectly fine and others wouldnt use anything smaller than a 7mm mag. I carry a 270 myself and havent lost a hit deer yet. Infact its been given the nickname by my buddies 'the meat grinder" due to how much damage it inflicts. My most messed up deer happens to be my longest shot I have taken, 225yds. After seing this deer hangin with the skin off, one of my dads older freinds made the comment "I'll never hunt with a gun like that". Somehow all but 3 ribs were broken on one side. It took 2 paper towel 'squares' to cover the wound on one side like a bandaid. And the deer dropped, I could tell since it was on snow and it was laying in a big 'splatter' going in the direction I shot, and no blood anywere else. Of course bullet selection makes a difference... its been many years since I could hunt with a riffle but as I recal I was using 140gr Hornady Custom boattails.
But I am guessing the deer would have been just as dead with a 25-0whatever, 260, 280, 30-06... maybe if it was out a 300 yards there might be more a difference between the different choices, but 225 has been my farthest shot, with almost every singe other shot being under 100.