eldeguello

Right! It is easy to get hung up on this kinetic energy thing, but all such figures really allow is an academic comparison of the performance different cartridges, bullet weights and powder charges. I have seen figures for the "amount of kinetic energy required to cleanly kill a deer, an elk, a brown bear", etc. However these figures ALONE are very misleading, because they don't take into account such niceties as bullet construction, andparticularly, bullet placement.

For example, the man who held the world's record bag of elephant during his lifetime, over 1000 pachyderms, killed over 800 of them with a 7X57mm Mauser caliber rifle (.275 Rigby). Now, do you think the energy developed by that little rifle is up to the "level required for shooting elephant"? I doubt it! But this guy shot most of them through the brain, and killed the vast majority with but one round!

DM

Have you read up much on how he actually killed most of his elephants? It's no secret that he was a poacher and after shooting most of them, he walked away to leave them die, as many of them were wounded.... He then came back weeks later and collected the ivory.... Back then it was possible to get away with doing something like that.Not long ago ireada good post about all of this on another forum.... It wasn't the first time i read this very same thing either....

I'm NOT disagreeing with the jest of your post though...

DM

Roskoe

Amen. The only things that really matter in the world of terminal ballistics are bullet construction, impact velocity, and bullet placement. One thing worth noting, though: There is certain impact velocity at which a bullet can only make a permanent wound channel the size of it's frontal diameter. That speed is right around 2,000 fps. So a bullet impacting at 1800 and a bullet impacting at 2100 might have very different wound channels - the slower bullet delivering a much smaller wound channel and generally providing more penetration.

Above 2,000 fps or so, a bullet is capable of pulling a "wake" along behind it - similar to how a boat makes a wake through the water above a certain speed. This wake contains body fluids, bone chips (sometimes), and bullet fragments (most times). And this wake can makea permanent wound channel through an animal much larger than the bullet itself.

stubblejumper

And that varies greatly from bullet to bullet.Some bullets will not expand at all at 1800fps yet others with expand to some extent as low as 1500fps.

Roskoe

I realize that; but even if the bullet expands at 1500 fps, it's not going to create the kind of wound channel it can at 2200. Think about the black powder era . . . . a .36 caliber rifle was a squirrel gun. Big game rifles started with .45 caliber. If you needed to make a bigger hole through an animal, you went for a gun that shot a bigger diameter bullets. .54, .58, .62 and so on. When smokeless powder fist came out, we were suddenly hunting big game with the .30 caliber and even 7MM bore diameters.

Pistol bullets are kinda the same deal - even expanding pistol rounds cannot make a permanent wound channel bigger than their frontal diameter - due to their speed not being high enough to create a "wake" behind the bullet.

Nomercy

Apparently you've never shot a deer with a .44mag. My exit wounds are between golfball and baseball sized.

DM

I have, with both 44 rifle and revolvers.... I've also taken moose (and many other game animials) with my 44 mag. revolver.

I have NEVER got even a "golf ball" sized exit wound on a deer.... What you are talking about is, bullet construction!

When it comes to bullets, if all else is equil, faster means more damage.... Any yes i understand sometimes it takes quite a bit faster, as in the case of tough constructed bullets..

I use hard cast bullets, and that normally equils near bullet diameter exit holes.

DM

JagMagMan

I am not disagreeing with this, but faster is NOT always better!
In theory, a faster moving bullet SHOULD expand more. But where I hunt, ranges are usually under 100 yards, and the deer rarely exceed 150 pounds. After almost losing two bucks a couple of years ago, I have stopped using my 7MM RM with heavier bullets! One went less that 20 yards, and was an easy find. The other ran about 80 yards through some pretty thick stuff. Neither bled a drop of blood, and the exit wounds were no bigger than the entrances!
I have went back to using my .308 for the deer size, and ranges that I shoot.
At first, I thought that the 7MM RM's were going "too fast" to expand, but as I said, "in theory" faster equals better expansion.
Really, the 7MM wasn't going too fast, the bullets were just a little too heavy to expand on that size deer, at closer ranges!
The bullet? 150 gr. Core-Loct! Not exactly a "heavy" bullet, but in the 7MM RM, it maybe a little too much for the shots I take.
The .308 bullets I use are the same weight, 150 Core-Locts! But with a little more diameter, and a little less speed, it does a far better job than the "magnum"!

All that said, to answer the original question, NO deer, at ANY range, will EVER tell the difference between a .308 and an '06! (and you won't be able to tell the difference either!)

DM

It's not the bullet "diameter" that makes it expand faster, it's the bullet "construction" that makes it expand faster.

DM

JagMagMan

DM, the 7MM Rm was a 150 Core-Loct, and the .308's that I shoot are 150 Core-Locts too. Only difference that I know between the two were diameter and velocity! Perhaps the 7MM RM C-L is constructed a little stronger for larger game at longer ranges? I've never taken one apart??? They sure didn't expand on lighter Whitetails at <100 yards!
I'm still at a loss to explain it!