I read a magazine article awhile back, it might have been by Carmichael, but I can' t remember, where they made a wooden box about the size of a deer' s torso, put 4 wooden legs on it about the same length and diameter as a deer' s legs, and filled the box with sand and rags to make it weight about 125 lbs or about what an average deer would weigh. They then shot the box with popular deer cartridges such as 30-30, 44 magnum, 30-06, 300 magnum 45-70, 12 guage slug and even a few much more powerful cartridges such as the 375 H&H. If I remember right, the box of sand stopped most if not all of the bullets, and none of the bullets knocked the contraption over even though it absorbed all of the bullet' s energy. A few of the more powerful rounds made the thing tip a little but did not knock it over. hitting the thing with a sledge hammer would have alot less ft-lbs of energy but could knock it over. Ft-lbs of energy is a good comparison but really has no bearing on what really happens in the terminal performace of a bullet in the real world.


BTW do a comparison with the amount of energy a squirrel absorbs when shot with a 12 guage in comparison with what a deer takes. It would be interesting to see how much energy it would take to take the head and neck completely off a deer with no remnants left behind