Testing HDY V-Max On Whitetail

[GooseGestapo]

Energy is the ability to do work. Kinetic energy which is what we are talking about, is a nebulous figure applied to bullets as it can be expended in different ways.

If it is expended on non-essential tissue, then it is "wasted". If it is applied to essential tisssue, and that tissue is disrupted and residual energy is expended into the air/ground behind the animal, it's besides the point.

I shot a 90lb doe with a Hornady 35gr V-max from a 22Hornet at 3,100fps m/v in 1998. The bullet entered the left side of the chest behind the left shoulder angling foward into the chest cavity. The Heart was obliterated as well as the forward portion of the left lung. The cavity left was the size of a soft-ball. The largest piece of bullet was the plastic tip that was located in the wall of the far side of the chest. Little damage was done to the right lung. Most piceces of lead were smaller than #9 birdshot.

No, I wouldn't use the load again, but then I was hunting crows in a pecan orchard and the owner wanted a "tender young doe" if you can get me one. I did..... But, if I'd hit the humerous of the left shoulder, I'm sure I'd have never found the deer, which was DRT (dead right-there). But, no blood trail would have been problematic... as there were many, many deer tracks through the area..... A lack of penetration is a huge drawback. Excessive penetration even with two holes can also be problematic. No expansion and insufficient tissue disruption is just as big a problem as explosive expansion and no-penetration. Hence. "HUNTING" bullet development has been the blending of the two. Why give up on 100's of years of experience and R/D, in trying to re-invent the wheel.....
Use enough gun and bullet. Due to hard-headedness, Laws, such as I used to enforce such as "No FMJ'S", and "minium caliber's", are necessary.
Some states such as Alaska and Colorado have laws that make "wanton waste" a felony. It could be construed in a prosecution for such that use of insufficient "ammo" is such.....
Don't make the gov'mint idjits get in your busniess.... !

Use the varmint bullets on deer if you must, but be aware that a bad shot will give worse results than using the proper bullet.....

re: Sierra's vs. Barnes, ect. For deer the cost and neccessity of resighting the rifle (the monolithic bullets have different friction/load data requirements and change impact from zero w/"normal" bullets) dictate against the Barnes, ect. If you are explicitly using a rifle/caliber for the purpose of large/dangerous game, then the "one bullet" concept is viable...... But if I'm going to spend $40.00 for a box of bullets, I prefer that it has 100 instead of 20 or 25.......! Especially if "shooting" deer....

 

[snuffy]

The old argument about energy "dump" inside an animal by bullets of any kind of construction has been going on since the invention of gunpowder. It never will be settled.

It's been a generally accepted figure that the minimum energy required in a modern rifle using an expanding bullet, 1000 ft pounds minimum. That's for the normal sized whitetail deer. That's why some states have a 24 caliber minimum for a rifle, and only allow magnum cartridge handguns. A .223 in some loadings is under that.

In Don's example above, if that 22-250 was using the barnes 62 TSX-BT, then the results would have been exactly the opposite .

 

[kingmt]

Reread what I'm telling you. These are not the numbers on the box that I'm talking about.

I actually slowed the bullet down to have less engery so it didn't rip itself apart. This made the bullet retain more of its engery to penetrate deeper before coming apart. The heavier the construction of the bullet the more engery it retains & will use that engery to penetrate but if it gets dispersed it does more damage to the areas it comes in contact with.

It isn't about more engery it is about using the engery you have correctly. The only info on the box that I ever look at is the picture that shows how much the bullet comes apart at what speed but that just gives you a guess where to start working with it.

I slowed this bullet down so much that it went threw b jugs of water & only broke the plastic tip off. It left a nice little hole that the water drained from. I have also had it fast enough that it turned the first jug inside out.

The pencil. The engery is delivered from your hand & that transferred into the boby. The engery that the pencil is made of is never released. It is still a pencil. The engery of the bullet itself is never released ether it only transfers the engery from the gases expanding to the kinetic engery delivered to the animal.

 

[glockky]

I have had great luck harvesting deer with a 243. First deer i ever killed was with a 243. Although i love to shoot those light bullets i save them for shooting at small critter. I stick with a 90 to 100gr bullet designed for controlled expansion and have had great results. I personally like the 95 nosler ballistic tips because they shoot great in my rifle. I have also used sierra bullets and they have done a great job on deer. I personally wouldnt shoot a deer with anything lighter than a 90gr bullet in 243. I had to shoot a canine that was killing my father in laws sheep a few years ago. I shot it about 60 yards and didnt get an exit wound which would leave me to believe that a deer hit in the shoulder would just be wounded. Just my .02

 

[Oklacoyotekiller]

first off kingmt, nice shot. i am like you in that i prefere lighter bullets in 243. last one i had preferred 85 gr sierra varmint. bout the heaviest i like. have tried 95gr sst. shot doe through both lungs and clipped bottom of heart. she ran about 100 yards before falling. exit wound was not much bigger than entrance. not impressed at all. have kille about 15 deer with 22-250 that either fell Im their tracks or went less than 30 yards. am firm believer in dumping as much energy inside as is possible. it does no good to have a bullet carry 2500ft/lb of energy and dumps 90% of it on the ground on the other side. that being said there is no replacement for a well placed shot. no bullet regardless of weight will make up for a poor shot.

 

[kingmt]

Agreed.

 

[KingM]

Just a update to this thread I long forgot about. Two of my sons & I used this load again last year & year before My oldest son & I. Year before last I think my shot was only 60 yards(DRT) My sons was 80ish yards(Bad shot that went between the gut & lungs with a little bit of liver damage) which had a lot of blood inside but we had to track it about 300 yards & take a fallow up shot. Last year I took my deer about 150 yards(DRT) My two sons were within 70 yards(DRT). This load has proven itself to me. I'll be sticking with it.

 

[gamestalker]

I've tried a lot of different bullets over the years, V-max included, and I keep returning to Speer Hot Core's, or the Grand Slam for a real good penetrating bullet. Especially the Hot Core though, it's a very accurate bullet, and the integrity it maintained on the animals I've taken, and seen taken with it, has been nothing short of impressive.

I haven't tried the Deep Curl yet with .243, but it did well in the 7 mag.

As for energy transfer, I have an example of such that is pretty interesting. I shot a 1/2 piece of plate steel from around 150 yds. using a 130 gr. standard lead core PSP BT .284" bullet, Speer if it matters. The chrony showed the bullet was doing about 3350's fps from the 7 mag.. Having done this before, punch hole in steel, I've always wondered what comes out the opposite side.

So on to the shooting part, I propped the steel up against a 5 gal. container of water in an effort to recover the fragments of bullet. Here's the weird part, I ended up with a rather large hole in the container and a 1/2" diameter half shaped sphere, and perfectly smooth and bowl shaped inside, and perfectly smooth on the outside. When I got home I put a magnet to it and sure enough it contained steel. I then took a propane torch to it and no lead melted off, so it appears to be all steel, no lead. And it appears that pure energy is what punched that 1/2" piece of steel out of the plate. The piece of steel weighted 153 grs., 23 grs. more.

GS

 

[RussellC]

While this V-max may be a varmint bullet and all that, its the first one that gets offered when someone asks here about what a good SD bullet would be for .223. Why is that?

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=750681


Russellc

 

[Walkalong]

People are not nearly as tough as deer. Not even close.

 

[silicosys4]

I took my first vmax coyote the other day, a 50 grain .223.....I will be switching over to something else. It's interesting that people are getting satisfactory results with the vmax on deer, because I was not happy with what I saw on that coyote.
At 2900fps or so I got a baseball size entry wound with no bones hit...and that's it. Maybe 3" of penetration that I could see and no exit wound. The coyote was only 35lbs or so, so it didn't even make 6" of penetration.
Dead coyote, but if I had hit a shoulderblade I wouldn't have found it. Same bullet as the .243 used on deer in this thread, same speed, just different bullet weights...but totally different results from the pictures I saw.
I guess the extra weight out of a .243 is just enough to retain some mass to punch through vitals.

I don't trust the vmax against coyote, but I feel pretty confident in them as a SD round out of a carbine.