BarnesX.308

Wow. Not too many people left holding on to that old camp myth .

How much energy is left behind the target when using a 30-06? 20%? 50% Do you know? The faster the bullet, the faster it will start expanding and causing hydrostatic shock. The 7.62X39 is an adequate deer cartridge but certainly not better than the 30-06. The 30-06 is going to expend plenty of energy inside the deer. Don't worry about that.

Killer_Primate

I didn’t say I was worried. Further I didn’t state that the 30-06 wasn’t a good choice. I stated an observation, that I didn’t need your concurrence on, sorry.

“Old camp myth” would then mean that nothing, would be considered too powerful; is that right? If not, how about you provide some specific data on your recommended caliber and what energy is left behind on which animals, depending on where they were hit.

I put a bad shot on a pretty good size buck once with my 30-06. I stood free hand for what seemed like forever before getting a shot. He was quartering to me, so I decided to put the cross hairs in the center of his chest, so that I’d have a clean exit out the ribs. Well I shot a little too far to the left, so my bullet entered in the front shoulder, traveled diagonally through the abdomen, out the side of the stomach, back into the hind leg and blew a baseball size hole out of his hind quarter. 3 inches of bone missing from the hind leg. It was a mess. I would have gladly traded for the .223 or the 7.62x39 for that same shot. I think I’d have saved some meat.

I think what we have here is short-mans syndrome for firearms.

ipscshooter

I thought that part of the killing power of a bullet was related to hydrostatic shock and the disruption of organs not directly impacted by the bullet. Seems to me that if your .30-06 bullet expands to, say, .500 and completely penetrates the body due to its higher speed and energy, whereas the 7.62X39 bullet expands to, say .450 (because of its slower speed) and penetrates all of the body, but ends up lodged under the skin on the opposite side, the .30-06 is still going to do a lot more damage, because it's travelling at a higher rate of speed, and generating greater hydrostatic shock/organ disruption as it passes through, whereas the 7.62 X 39 is slowing down so quickly that for the last half of its trek through the body it's generating very little hydrostatic shock/organ disruption.

In doing a little "google-ing", I found this:

nchawkeye

It's not a myth, it's the truth...

We kill 40-50 deer a year on our 3 farms, have done so for at least 20 years...Cartridges used include the 22-250, .243, .260, .7mm-08, .308, .270, .280, 30-06, .270 WSM, .300 Win Mag...In addition, I've killed quite a few with a bow, inline muzzleloaders, a .45 and a .54 caliber flintlock, shotgun slugs and buckshot....

I've killed over 300 deer in my lifetime and have cleaned and tracked several hundred more killed by guests that we have on our farms...When you look at lung shot deer with cartridges from .243 up to the .300 Mag, you see very little difference in how far that deer runs before it drops...

A few years ago my brother and I shot the same doe, him with his .270 and the 130gr Sierra SPBT and me with the 100gr .243 Sierra SPBT...Both hits were behind the shoulder, both exited....That doe still ran 70 yards...Some folks claim that bigger holes drop the deer faster (on lung shots)....It's just not so...

What drops deer are a well placed bullet that goes through the spine or a bullet into the brain...

Several years ago I set out to see what was the best factory loading in .243 caliber...Bullets tried included:

100gr CoreLokt (I had already killed about 75 deer with this one)
100gr Remington Premuim SPBT (discontinued)
100gr Winchester Supreme PowerPoint
100gr Winchester PowerPoint
100gr Federal Premium Nosler Partition
100gr Federal Premium Sierra SPBT
85gr Federal Premium HPBT
100gr Federal Classic Sierra Pro-Hunter
100gr Nitrex Grand Slam
100gr Hornady Custom SPBT

I killed 5-6 deer with each of them, took either high shoulder shots or broadside center lung shots...

What I found out is that the "softer" bullets that usually stayed in the deer dropped the deer closer to where they stood than the "harder" bullets that usually went through the deer....

Once that bullet exits the other side, it's through killing...

Exit wounds are good, I like to see a bullet that usually exits on lung shot deer, but not on high shoulder shots...With them, no blood trail is needed...A bullet can actually be too hard, leave a small exit wound and a longer tracking job...

Even if a bullet does not exit on a lung shot deer, there is a blood trail, I've tracked them many times on the blood that expells through the mouth and nose....

In this case, a good LED tracking light or a Coleman lantern is imperative, but that's another post...


btw...Not ALL 30-06 bullets will exit...The 130gr Winchester Silver Tip is one example...My closest hunting buddy used it for years, and it seldom exited....It did make a mess of the lungs, but they still ran 60-80 yards after the hit...

He was a non-believer about the .243, until he had skinned a few dozen deer that I had killed...He now shoots a Remington 700 in .243 and the 100gr Hornady Customs...Deer run no further than when hit with the .243 and he never looses sight of his target...

When discussing different calibers for deer it's also important to discuss the bullet that is being used...

Killer_Primate

I agree with that somewhat. In a perfect situation the bullet would travel all the way through a given target and then fall straight to the ground on the other side. This would mean that all of the energy was delivered to the animal.

However, as stated in my other post, “Yeah, it’s all about how it (the energy) is delivered. Caliber, distance, bullet weight, sectional density, projectile materials and shot placement”.
All those things matter. An armor piercing bullet for instance – the people who don’t understand what that means will probably think “wow, those must be powerful”, but really they aren’t anymore powerful than any other projectile of the same weight traveling at the same speed; they’re just “harder”, so they keep going without expanding, which would make them terrible for hunting, unless you were hunting warhorses of steel I guess.

What I’m getting at is – who is to say that a .223 isn’t powerful enough to put down a deer, regularly even, and from many different shot angles. Kinetic energy is limited by its own potential. And if a bow can kill a deer with any type of consistency, so can a .223 projectile shot from a rifle.

.223 boattail HP match weighing 69 grains leaves the barrel at 3000 fps and has 1379 ft-lb of energy. Out to 200 yards the projectile is traveling 2458 fps and has 926 ft-lb. How is this not acceptable when just about any bow you can find and shoot in the lower 48 is going to be considerably less than 100 ft-lb of energy?

ipscshooter

I guess the part that confuses me by this "bullet that barely exits is best" theory is this.

Let's say, just for example, that the deer's body is 10 inches wide. Let's say, for example that a 150 gr. .30-06 hits with 2900 ft lbs. and a 7.62 X 39 hits with 1800 ft lbs. Let's imagine that the bullet does as you said, and expends all that energy and drops out the other side 1/100th of an inch past the body, with 0 remaining foot pounds.

Now, the 06 is hitting harder and exiting the other side, with significant remaining energy, say still having 1100 ft lbs. It has still shed 1800 ft lbs in passing through the body. And, when it hits the off shoulder and is breaking through, it's doing so with significant force, whereas the 7.62 X 39 is barely penetrating. I just don't see how hitting hard all the way through is worse than hitting medium and exiting soft... Doesn't make a bit of sense to me.

cjwink

I don't understand the fasination with knock down power either.. When have you ever seen a deer knocked to the ground by hitting them directly behind the shoulder? There is not enough mass in that area of the deer to stop most bullets. They will pass thru.. Those smaller faster bullets usually don't pass thru but rather explode inside.. Both of which results in massive internal damage that results in death.. A deer will only be thrown to the ground when you hit substantial mass such as the neck or shoulder and the energy from the bullet completely transfers to the deer. Two puncutured lungs will equal death. I don't care if the hole is 1 inch or 10 inches.

Killer_Primate

There is nothing wrong with your example. However, rightfully so, you’ve customized your example to suit your argument. And it is a good example of what could really happen. But how many examples could we use?

I would pose the question to you, using your example, why not try to get all 2900 ft-lbs of energy into the animal? You could do it, if you got a faster expanding projectile, but why? It is excessive, in my opinion to try to do so and would probably look more like an explosion took place than an animal getting shot.

In your example, you’d be sending a projectile beyond your target with 1100 ft-lbs of energy. Is that responsible? In most cases, sure, in some, probably not. Since in your example you wasted 1100 lbs, you wasted gun powder, brass, copper and lead. You probably spend more money on your rifle and the same rifle chambered in .223. And this situation is fine, but so is not wasting the energy.

Now, what if you only put 350 ft-lbs of energy into the deer? Keep in mind that is about the power of a .45 ACP which I’d have to assume that we’d agree is capable of traveling through the ribcage of a deer. Now you’ve got 2550 ft-lbs of energy going beyond your target.

I think that the second example is closer to reality than the first. I guess we’d have to compare a lot more than just energy and speed though to come to any real conclusion.

BarnesX.308

Which is trying to prove something by hunting big game with a varmint rifle?

You ever look at a bullet penetrating ballistic gel? The powerful ones cause a lot of damage the whole way through. The ones that just manage to get across are losing their destruction radius quickly. If a bullet is penetrating the vitals with 3000-4000ft/lbs of energy, what difference does it make what it leaves on the other side of the target?

BigTiny

That's a pretty good explanation. The .223 does some substantial damage to internal organs that never touch the bullet directly. That's one thing that makes it a good combat load. Even the armor-piercing rounds that aren't designed to expand much make a mess of internal organs.

As for the .30-06 and other rounds wasting energy; that may be somewhat true from 150 yards and closer, but to get out to range and still deliver kinetic energy required to deliver an accurate shot takes a more powerful round. The 7.62x39 is a great round for deer hunting, but look at the ballistics. What is the drop on the 7.62x39 at 300 yards? It gets even worse further out, which means the round is rapidly losing energy. It isn't that the higher powered rounds are wasting energy, they just have enough juice to get the job done at longer range. I shoot a 7.62x39 single-shot and use it for deer hunting, but where I hunt with it, I'll never get a shot over 150, so it's just fine. I would not attempt to shoot at anything over 250 yards with it, and even that is stretching it's limits. Personally, I don't mind wasting a little energy if it means my weapon has greater range and therefore more hunting utility.