But, add another 500 fps to this same bullet and it will do more damage and still penetrate.

I'm not talking about different bullets going the same velocity. As in, a FMJ and a soft lead bullet that are both going 2000fps. I'm strictly talking about whether a pass-through is better than a bullet that does not exit. I want a bullet that expands and penetrates.

A fully mushroomed bullet that goes through a deer at 3000 fps will transfer more energy than a fully mushroomed bullet that is going 2000 fps. More trauma, more shock. It is the expansion of the bullet and the fact that it is meeting resistance that gets the non-pass-through guys giddy. But, in order for that bullet to stop before exiting, it has to slow down to a complete stop. Meaning, at the end of its wound channel, it is barely transferring any energy. It is running out of gas.

I usually strive to take the "archery shot" regardless of weapon being used. In every target you can see where the lungs, heart and liver overlap. I refer to this as the "archery shot". Southern Mi offers a great deal of variety in deer sex and size. The "archery shot" would necessitate a different amount of energy needed between full expansion and pass-through on a broadsie small doe vs a 200lbs+ buck quartering towards. Simply, if I were to go for a bullet that will give me full expansion on the broadside archery shot, will it have enough energy when a quartering shot for a 200lbs monster is presented?


Accuracy is number 1 for hunting bullets. Then I want bullet construction and penetration to take any shot I may encounter on the animal I am hunting. Once I know that it will do those things, transfer as much energy as possible to the game animal.

To me that kind of seems like missing the whole point. The whole idea is to match energy with expansion isn't it?

I think maybe you are misunderstanding what gets the non pass through guys giddy or maybe some of those guys are misunderstanding the concept.

The comparison shouldn't be the same bullet traveling 2000fps vs 3000fps.....thats a no brainer.

The idea is comparing 2 bullets starting with the same energy/velocity and one creating enough resistance to dump all its energy in the target VS one that passes through and wastes its energy.

I think you are trying to compare apples to oranges.

Thats my take anyway but I'm no professional and maybe I'll get corrected.

We agree on this. My perfect bullet expands to double its diameter and retains weight and ultimately penetrates. If I have to compromise, give me 50% of each. I don't want a bullet that expends all it's energy in the first half of the target either. I want it to get through anything and penetrate bone, muscle or what ever gets in the way at any angle.

A perfect example happened at my camp a few years ago. I loaded the same Barnes Triple Shocks for my 300 Weatherby and my buddy's 308 Win. My bullets penetrate deer and drop them like a stone. Even though they don't run, they are laying in a pool of blood from the nice exit wound. The same exact bullet from my buddy's 308 Win did not penetrate his last buck. It expanded to the same diameter as my bullets. But it ran out of energy and couldn't punch through. It did run, and the blood trail wasn't that great with only one hole. That same bullet, at 600 fps faster, would have mushroomed the same, but hit harder and penetrate.

My guess is you have never seen a neck shot fail. I have. If you don't get the spine and just clip the windpipe or esophagus than you have a wounded animal that can and will go a long way. As you say, you're new to hunting. Most experienced hunters go for the heart/lung/chest area because it is a bigger target and if you put a bullet anywhere in it you will drop the animal. Neck and head shots are iffy at best.

I base the above on experience with 91 deer, 25 elk, 2 black bear, 14 pronghorns, 5 bison, a bighorn sheep, a stone sheep, a mountain goat and who knows how many wild hogs.

Well sure, I must be missing your point though? The same exact bullet going 600fps faster delivers more energy? Is that your point?

I get the impression you are trying to dispute the "non-pass-through guys" if that is the case you are cheating. Your using a round that has more energy to begin with(apples/oranges)

You would need to compare the same energy with different bullets not the same bullets with different energy.

I want a pass through myself.....I agree with you on that but your comparison does not give the opposing view a fair shake. Your delivering more energy because you have more energy to deliver in the first place.

I think you missed the fact that he stated "new to hunting not accurate" meaning he's been around for some time. The neck shot IMHO is as you say "very iffy" and there is a lot of area like you mentioned that will not kill the animal quickly and probably not at all. Stick to the shot through the vitals or shoulder with the proper bullet like all the old timers on here have mentioned and you'll bring home meat!

I try to avoid the head a neck shot arguments. The guys that regularly take those shots have either, as Flags stated, never seen the results from a just an inch or 2 off or they have seen it and just don't care. But you can't argue with them either way usually. They think they are perfect shots and will never miss.

I guess this argument has two different aspects.

Same cartridge and different bullet. - Apples.
Same bullet and different cartridges. - Oranges.

Rockport - you are arguing apples and I am arguing oranges. In the apple category, I want a bullet that expands a lot but can still penetrate. I would like the best of both worlds, but would take slightly less expansion to get that pass-through.

As for the oranges, I guess I'm arguing against the people who prefer lower velocity because they think it leaves all the energy in the animal. They think faster cartridges just poke through and leave little energy anywhere but in the tree behind the animal.

But, we are arguing about different things. So, we could really agree on everything.....if we were talking about the same things. :D I am losing my focus. :D

Exactly!

I don't like wasting all day during HUNTING season tracking deer and stomping all over every inch of the exact ground I want to HUNT for two more weeks.

So I don't take shots I may miss at live game animals.

I take my iffy shots and leg stretching shots ON THE TARGET RANGE to learn my real abilities. I don't guess.

Well when I said your either missing the point of the people your disagreeing with are missing the point and it sounds like its them and maybe you are using their faulty logic to dispute the whole concept.

There is a legit case for leaving all the energy in the animal but if they are just using less energy to achieve that they are not getting the point(if that were they case we would just throw rocks at deer). Those people don't know what they are talking about but the concept of leaving the energy in the animal is real.

I agree 100% on erroring on the side of a pass through but trying to get the best of both worlds.

A real comparison would be using your rifle with bullets that offer more and less resistance. That is what you would have to show to prove the people wrong that actually know what they are talking about. The no pass through group that knows what they are talking about wants to achieve no pass through by dumping more energy not using less energy.

Read up, ladies.

http://www.bergerbullets.com/barnes-...so-successful/

Obviously just about every bullet currently made can ethically kill every animal they are designed to kill, it's just peoples preferred choice after that.

Me personally, I don't have any "slow" rifles so if I know I'll be hunting close range (under 300) I'll shoot a mono-metal or bonded bullet because I like to break both shoulders of an animal. If it's over 300 I'll shoot a VLD type bullet for the added BC value and still break both shoulders with ease.

I have also shot deer under 100 yards with a Berger and still got an exit, fist size with a blood trail for about 20 feet that was a foot wide.

I've also shot deer with a Barnes that needed a follow up shot, it penciled right thru since I didn't shoot it in the shoulder. A Barnes needs to hit resistance, that's why they are made for big thick skinned animals and not deer/antelope. They still kill though.

We have shot a good 50 whitetails with Barnes bullets. 308, 30-06, 300 Win and Wby and 7mm Mags. Everyone expanded perfectly. Most were broadside rib shots. They have a hollow point and pre-stressed sides so they open up immediately at any resistance. All whitetails shot with Barnes had liquid lungs.

How do you know it expanded perfectly when they pass-through? Did you find them in the dirt behind the deer? I'm just wondering, I've shot them a bit and never found one unless I was testing them into jugs, paper etc...

When field dressing and skinning, we can see the damage that has been done. Exit holes are very impressive. We shoot into a backstop of sawdust and have recovered the bullets from the magnums in there. They all look like the pics from the brochures. The 308 Win bullet was actually recovered from a deer and it was the perfect mushroom. It had no trouble opening up inside the deer at modest velocities. It was a braodside shot, behind the shoulder.

most experienced hunters spend a lot less time shooting paper than they should due to having killed so many animals.

I reload for extreme accuracy, I practice for extreme accuracy, and I shoot an animal with extreme accuracy or I don't take the shot.

there is a huge difference between just a hunter, and someone who goes the extra mile to make sure equipment is capable of performing as expected, the shooter can make the predetermined shot, (which is where shooting paper comes in to play), and that an ethical kill is produced.

I am no sniper by no means but I do spend prob 3x as much time shooting and preparing for those DRT KILLS than most of you do eating and sleeping.

does that make my shot any better than yours NO I told you where I prefer to shoot my deer and when I have taken the shots the deer have been laying where they were standing before shot.

no different than someone hunting with a 243, 7-08, 308, 270, 30-06, etc... it is a preference and if it is working for you then it obviously isn't broken and you cant fix it.

I don't think there is anybody on this site or any other site that would shoot a animal somewhere that wasn't success proven in some way shape or form and continue to make the shot if the animal continued to be wounded and not recovered.

We really didn't need that sermon and I'd like to know how you know anything about any us to make very foolish and unwise statements like you did (see bold above). Of all the whitetail and mule deer I've shot over the years, and it's way more than a few dozen, the only one that I shot and did not recover was a doe that I tried a neck shot on. She was only 40 yards and went down like a ton of bricks when hit with a 30-06 150 grain Core Lokt. I got my stuff together up in the stand and headed down the ladder to gut her and take her back to camp. As I was part way down the ladder I looked over and she got up, shook herself like a wet dog, and walked off wobbly straight away such that I couldn't get another shot at her. I followed a few little drips of blood for maybe 30 yards and they quit, but I followed her tracks in the snow for at least 300 yards and there was no sign that she was having any problem. I can guarantee that bullet just hit meat and missed bone, as well as the windpipe and jugular. To this day I've never attempted another neck shot and that's exactly why any of us with much experience are saying it's not the place to put a bullet. If you keep doing it, I can just about tell you that you'll probably have the same thing happen to you like I described. IMHO the only worse place to try a shot is for the head that can move at any time unlike a paper target no matter how good you shoot at the latter!

Top, that is the part the smug neck shooters and head shooters forget about, they move and it doesn't take much movement to turn a kill shot into a wounding shot while a heart lung shot is much more forgiving and just as fatal. Yes I said I killed a deer with a head shot and it never knew what hit it. That was years ago and I am smart enough to know that is a low odds shot and the circumstances were such that I will probably never encounter again and I have never taken it since.

Pass though the "engine room" , i.e. the heart/lung area .... Devastating hydro shock, about a 2X diameter caliber wound channel and almost always easier to follow blood trail.

Like I said earlier, there is no arguing with neck and head shooters. They all think they are extreme marksmen. And the day you hit the range 3x more than me young man, is the day I'm dead. I send in excess of 10,000 rifle rounds a year on the LOW estimate. Some years as much as 50,000. Around the same amount on my handgun range. Been wildcatting rounds since the late 50's or so. Have several rifles that will shoot well inside of an inch at 400 yards. Practice regularly with an old Mod.70 .30-06 at 800 yards even though I won't shoot at live game past 400 for ethical reasons.

You can practice all you want on paper. But that target doesn't have a brain and doesn't decide to flinch right at your trigger break. You can dream all you want about shooting 3x more than me, or several other members of this forum. But I can tell you with complete confidence that it is just a dream.

there are quite a few of you that are bent out of shape about my placement of shots on deer.

I don't care where you choose to shoot them at or how far you plot a course for a tracking job after the shot.

I explained what I do and you cant except the fact of what I do has been successful for me. I haven't told you or asked you to shoot deer where I do, or with the same caliber/ gun. what you use and where you shoot them at is your business and where I shoot mine at is my business.

now if I or anyone else is shooting an animal and it is not being recovered no matter where shot placement is then yes that is an issue.

Gentlemen members---This is the same member that made his first post just 6 weeks ago stating that buckshot is good out to 70 yards on deer and then tried to do the same thing he is here by "schooling us" on how good and knowledgeable he is, LOL! IMHO I have to agree 100% with sh54 that people like this aren't really worth discussing much of anything with when they can't see the forest for the trees and are the only one in the room that does what they do because they are the only one that's correct on the subject!

PS To dogbone13: FYI I have never had more than one animal go even 30 yards that was shot in the lungs or shoulder and he was hit a little far back at an angle and the shot took out his liver. I got out of my ground blind and he was down only 50 yards from the stand, but jumped up as I went over to him and he went through some thick stuff for about 100 yards leaving a blood trail that Stevie Wonder could have followed!

It really has very little to do with marksmanship. It isn't the size of the target, it is the mobility of the target. Deer and other game don't stand still for long. Since they are prey animals they are always on the lookout. From the time you squeeze the trigger the target may move before the bullet gets there. So you can hold perfectly and still blow the shot due to movement that you have no control over .

I know a little about shooting with more than 25 years active duty, 9 combat deployments and expert qualifications in 7 different weapon platforms. I don't know how many rounds of ammo I have fired in my life but some of the gun shoots I took part in went through 750,000 rounds in 2 days on the range and I shot an M-4 out to 800 yds. There is s reason the military teaches people to chest shoot the enemy. Bigger target and less movement. Period.

lol...Only reason I can give a pretty clear estimate of round count is because of my stringent reloading logs. Lord knows how many rounds I sent during training a Lejeune.

kinetic energy never killed a thing, the one and only thing dependent on lethality is the wound channel. dump 3000ft/lbs of KE in the guts or hind quarter and good luck finding your deer, dump 45lbs of KE via a broad head into the lungs and you will get a quick recovery, hydrostatic shock is an oxymoron shock could not be static, its more like hydraulic pressure, there is no shock wave, thats impossible.
the wound channel is all that matters, bigger bullets and bigger expanded diameters leave bigger wound channels, and a complete pass through is the biggest wound channel you can get with a specified bullet

again I was speaking from experience and you CAN NOT except the fact of what works for someone else with great success being OK.

it is absolutely your way or NO way.
if you don't agree with what I said works for me or has worked for me fine you don't have to as I haven't asked you to try anything I have accomplished.

a forum is for suggestions, questions, answers, opinions, etc...
not my way is the only way or I haven't done it so it cant be true. etc...

Get over it and accept it that someone else can have success at something just because you haven't and that is O.K.


I didn't ask why you don't shoot a deer in the neck. all I stated was with a nosler projectile and neck shot they are drt. Which has been my case.

??? Impossible??? Have you never seen the effects of a rock entering water? Just what do you think causes ripples in the water? Displacement will only cause a change in the levels. Displacement with FORCE at SPEED creates an ENERGY WAVE. Otherwise known as a SHOCK WAVE. A bullet entering an animal (high levels of liquid) creates just such a wave. Note in my earlier explanation I said "temporary wound channel". This channel is caused by the sudden entry and resistance of mass at speed. Thus called ENERGY TRANSFER.

Pretty easily seen here in slow motion. Note the HUGE displacement upon entry. This is your "impossibility" happening right before your eyes. blob:https://www.youtube.com/d9e0ac4...3-59eb149f1c17

Now, the question is, just what damage does this temporary wound channel do. In actuality, not to much. Unless an organ such as the liver is within the path of the wave. The liver is much less elastic than most of the other organs in the body and it has been shown in several studies to be greatly effected by those waves. What DOES happen is the initial physical shock from both the actual mass of the bullet as well as the energy transferred into the animal from that mass entering at speed.

You may want to read more than the one artical you pulled your info from there zrex. You know,,,this one,, http://www.scopedin.com/articles/edi...ostatic-shock/ Where many seem to make their mistakes is thinking that H-Shock means hitting an animal in a poor region and thinking it will go down from the massive energy wave through the arteries and such. Total horse crap there. But you hit an animal in the vitals, there is no doubt whatsoever that a greater energy wave, creating a greater sized temporary wound cavity, will do more damge and aid in putting the animal down faster.

Lately I'm liking the Texas Heart Shot. Pretty small target area but very little meat damage when the bullet goes into the right orifice, if a "pass-through" bullet is used it'll go up thru the animal and usually pop right out of the mouth breaking the neck at the same time.

a shock wave is never encountered, for this to occur the bullet would have to be traveling faster than the sound speed of the material its passing through, the sound speed of tissue is on average about 5000fps, what your talking about is a flow wave or acoustic wave, shock wave is never encountered, it maybe a hydrodynamic impulse which causes cavitation, thats why i say its hydrauilic shock and its dynamic not static, hydro static shock is bull crap.
kinetic energy never killed a thing. a hand thrown baseball and an arrow have about the same kinetic energy, guess which one is lethal. i will say it again, the sole determination of lethality is the wound channel and tissue destroyed, not anything else.

What is referred to as hydrostatic shock is basically the transference of energy, outward from the bullet, through the cells. When you skin a deer, you will see the effects. You may have a 1.2 inch wound channel. but you have a couple inches of bloodshot meat all around this wound channel. Basically, that outward force has destroyed the surrounding cells. This doesn't knock and animal down, unless the CNS is effected. But all trauma is good when you are trying to kill an animal quickly.

A surgeon will tell you, if they get a GSW victim in, the first thing they want to know is whether it was a HP rifle or a slower velocity handgun. The difference in viable tissue will be huge.

This is getting way to complicated.

Oh, we bow hunt, I personally killed my first deer in 1969 with a 45 pound Bear Recurve and Bear broadhead...I'm also very careful where I set up to bow hunt as well, a well hit deer with a broadhead seldom goes more than 50-60 yards and if hit properly there is plenty of tracking blood...

Ok guys, I didn't want to type out a chapter on this but here goes...

We own 3 farms in eastern NC, kill 45-60 deer a year and have since the early '60s...I have 2 brothers and plenty of family that hunts...So,we have killed a ton of deer with about every type weapon that can be used...

A few years back, I decided to try every factory loading for a .243... I and a few buddies use this cartridge...I've personally killed about 300 deer with mine...What we found out is that the standard cup and core type bullets were actually putting deer down quicker than the premium bullets...They didn't always pass through but with center lung shots the deer went down within 40-60 yards...With the premium it would be closer to 60-100 yards...

Something else we have noticed through the years, larger calibers do usually give more pass throughs but not always a better blood trail...Exit holes can and do get blocked by intestines, fat, muscle, whatever...In addition, we also noticed that with a larger caliber and a center lung shot there was no noticeable difference between how far a deer ran...There was more difference seen in the type bullet used within the caliber than simply moving to a larger caliber...

So, in our opinion, with whitetails the standard CoreLokts, InterLokts, PowerPoints, HotCors and GameKings were superior to the higher priced premium bullets...

Your post is not at all surprising nchawkeye! All it takes is a little common sense that if a bullet is designed to expand greatly at a certain speed within a certain length when it hits tissue it will do a lot more damage than one that is not designed to expand much, if at all, within that same length when it passes on through. Thus, it's no surprise that a bigger caliber premium bullet that isn't designed to expand until it has penetrated quite a ways is going to give exactly the results you mentioned in your post and not do as much internal damage. The bullet used is a huge part of what we're talking about and your last sentence is one that people in the know will generally tell newbies when hunting smaller animals like an antelope or deer as compared to what to use when hunting elk, moose, etc. where a premium bullet is the way to go most of the time.

Sir, you really need to comprehend what has been said by well experienced people on this thread! First, a question for you. How long have you hunted big game and how many animals have you shot in the neck? Second, what has worked well for you so far has a lot more chance of going wrong than aiming for the chest or shoulder area that contains all the vitals and is a much bigger target than the small neck area. It would seem that you can't get over it when you've now come on a second thread and stated what you do and everyone else disagrees and tells you why, yet you won't accept that you're by yourself on both subjects. I guess sh54 is more than correct in that persons such as yourself have a closed mind and will not listen to what the vast majority of seasoned veterans know about a subject. So be it and I'd bet that when you shoot one in the neck one of these days and don't recover it that you won't be back to start a thread about your failure and it will happen sooner or later depending on how many times you do it!

No, kinetic energy has never killed a thing. And no animal ever killed with a weapon has been killed WITHOUT it either! It, like every other part of the physics involved within the killing force of a weapon, is just that,,,A PART!! Take a part out of the formula and you may as well be throwing rocks...Oh wait,,,that's kinetic energy too! I love how some try to pick apart a subject when they have no clue. As far as your pick about hydrostatic vs hydrodynamic...You have a point. BUT the theory was named hydrostatic shock. Yes it's a dynamic force and the ones that came up with the theory, back around WWII time, wanted it to stand out on it's own. Temporary wound channels absolutely DO create damage. They also create a physical reaction within the animal as well. Anyone that thinks they don't are completely clueless about terminal ballistics. Granted, except to a couple of organs, not much damage, but ALL damage taken as a whole should always be considered when considering bullet choices.

velocity has a much more effect on in vital tissue destroyed than kinetic energy could ever dream of, if one would convert kinetic energy into watts, it wouldnt be enough to boil a teaspoon of water, i hate that term, and is misleading.
i have killed many deer with a bow and arrow, 45 ft/lbs of kinetic energy makes the tissue look like it was hit with a 300 mag.
and now i make no sense since an arrow has a puny 260 fps velocity

Arrows have razor blades on them and they slice arteries, veins and vital organs. No need for velocity and energy. Just enough force to get the razors to contact vascular areas.

If you want to compare arrows to bullets, you need to use field points.

Isn't velocity part of the equation for kinetic energy? Velocity squared times weight, blah, blah, blah.......

It's all about the speed and weight zrex. You add the speed and weight to push that super sharp broadhead through the animal. The more the weight of the object, the more retained energy at distance. The more initial speed, the more energy at distance. Put both together in the right spot on an animal, you have your pass through. Those that go super light on their arrows, to get that flatter trajectory, are sacrificing a bit, to a lot, of penetration due to the lack of weight to store the energy from the string of the bow. Those that argue that kinetic energy has no real value can't get that through their heads for some odd reason. It's a very easy concept but the speed freaks in today's archery world just can't seem to wrap their minds around it. To make my point with some of them, I pull out my little ole 75# recurve that pushes my cedar logs, that weigh an average of 630 grains with a 125 tip, at around 245fps. I then have them shoot their little super speedy 450gr total into a Mckenzie (the older solid ones) and I shoot mine into the same target. Both at 20 yards..I then tell them to go look at the penetration difference. While they are having to put both feet on the Mckenzie target and pull their guts out trying to get MY arrow out, I'm sitting back giggling and wondering if they get the point.

245 doesn't sound fast by today's standards but I'm pretty impressed at that speed from those heavy arrows. That's a hammer.