The arrow and bullet use ENTIRELY different methods to kill the intended target so they aren't really comparable.

An arrow slices through an animal, using the blades to cut along the way. This cutting action causes massive bleeding, and this is what kills the animal. So with an arrow, we would like to see as much penatration (preferably pass-throughs) as possible since this will give more cutting distance.

A bullet kills by massive tissue shock. It shocks the nervous system and organs into failure, as well as bleeding. The most efficient killing bullet would not necessarily be one that passes through the animal- that would be wasted energy. Having all the KE from the bullet dispersed within the animal will casue the most tissue shock and damage. Look at some of the real "killer" military bullets that are designed to break apart into pieces as soon as they enter a body- really dispersing the bullet's energy throughout the target. Hollow points for hunting are designed for hydrostatic shock wave in the target.

An older .308 cartidge will plow through a 5 gallon bucket of sour kraut (a friend has done this for demonstration)- entrance and exit holes look almost the same. But using a little military NATO 5.56mm bullet, it will entirely explode the same 5gallon bucket. All the KE of the 5.56 bullet is spent in the bucket where the .308 will go through without imparting most of its KE.

Nosler partitions are designed for huting with this in mind- leave as much KE in the animal as possible before passthrough.

There is a trade-off in bullet design for ruining a lot of meat with tissue damage when leaving all the KE in the animal- or blowing through the animal with no cavity expansion.

Edited by - Black Frog on 01/16/2002 10:27:56