ORIGINAL: Roskoe
The green tip 62 gr. SS 109 NATO rounds our troops currently are packing in the great sandbox have considerable penetration. Underneath the jacket is a hardened steel penetrator tip. I recently shot one through a fairly new railroad tie that had a piece of 3/8" mild steel bolted to the backside of it. The bulletpunched through this like an end mill. I don't think there is any animal in earth that couldn't be dropped with one of these rounds fired into theanimal's brain.
What I would expect to happen in the elk/moose scenario described in the original post is that the bullet would make a very small hole through the bones of the shoulder - not really shatter the bone structure, but leave a tiny hole that would not necessarily disable the animal.
That'swhat I thinkit would do too. I thinkit would put two very small holes in each shoulder. It would probably kill the moose but you would have one heck of a tracking job on your hands. Thisalso depends on what distance you shoot the moose at.
This of course this is ONLY with military 62gr(actually 61.5gr)SS109 projectile loaded M855ammo. This stuff is not just a FMJ bullet buthas a hardened steel core. Not quite like an actual a/p round but as close as you can get in such a small projectile. Remember hunting ammo is no way near as strong as this militaryammo and it's not designed as a multipurpose round like the GI stuff.
footballplaya, you are also correct in that it would not be legal to use this type ofround for hunting (at lease not in my state) so it's kind of a mute point, but I understand it's a hypothetical question.
As far as passing through a car.....I think it's possible but again it would have to be M855 ammo (M196 won't cut the mustard) andthe bullet would have to pretty muchmiss the engine to do so. Withallof the hardenedalloy componentsin the engine ie: heads, pistons, crank shaft, connecting rods,rod caps, crank caps, etc...there is no wayit wouldmake it through that stuff at all (even M855) and I cannot picture a path through an engine (lengthways) that doesn't have at least a fewof thosecomponents in theway.