Vern Humphrey
Member
Is that you, Elmer?
Dang! They tole me Elmer Keith was dead.
.338 for deer - heavy and slow vs light and fast?
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Is that you, Elmer?
Dang! They tole me Elmer Keith was dead.
FITASC666
Member
I've shot deer with my .338 at 160yds: 250grs soft point, muzzle velocity less than 2600 fps. Fabulous results. Nice slow mushroom, no exploded shoulder, lung shots/close to heart. Deer around 250lbs in Quebec, Canada.
dogrunner
Member
I dropped down to the 225 Accubond bullet for my BAR. Gives very tight groups using 70.0 IMR 4350 and chrono's right at 2850.
Shot a decent 6 point W.Va buck from about 200, shot was downhill so I held a bit high, minimal meat damage and of course just one did it.
Impact point was high left, just behind shoulder, exit just in front of right brisket. Deer flipped upside down in a perfect gutting position.
Shot a decent 6 point W.Va buck from about 200, shot was downhill so I held a bit high, minimal meat damage and of course just one did it.
Impact point was high left, just behind shoulder, exit just in front of right brisket. Deer flipped upside down in a perfect gutting position.
35 Whelen
Member
Allow me to quash the slow bullet=less meat damage theory!
Lest ye think the "Slow bullet = Less meat damage" works, allow me to submit the following pictures.
My Pop and I just returned from our annual NM elk hunt. He's 74 years old and we hunt at about 10,500', so me being the considerate son I am,, I decided to work up a load for his Remington 700 Classic 35 Whelen. This rifle weighs but a scant 7.25 lbs. w/ scope, so I figured it'd be nice for him to carry when walking instead of his 338-06 or 330 Dakota both of which are a little heavy.
The load I settled on drove a 250 gr. Speer SP at a leisurely 2519 fps. Well, he whacked a bull at 44 yds. with this rig. The first picture below is the entrance wound! The second show extensive damage and bloodshot meat where the bullet came to rest on/in the offside shoulder.
The last few yards the bull travelled he was literally gushing blood out the entrance wound. A blind man cou;d've followed the trail. I agree with slower bullet damaging less meat, but make sure it's a tough, deep penetrating bullet like a Barnes TSX.
Good luck,
35W
Lest ye think the "Slow bullet = Less meat damage" works, allow me to submit the following pictures.
My Pop and I just returned from our annual NM elk hunt. He's 74 years old and we hunt at about 10,500', so me being the considerate son I am,
, I decided to work up a load for his Remington 700 Classic 35 Whelen. This rifle weighs but a scant 7.25 lbs. w/ scope, so I figured it'd be nice for him to carry when walking instead of his 338-06 or 330 Dakota both of which are a little heavy.The load I settled on drove a 250 gr. Speer SP at a leisurely 2519 fps. Well, he whacked a bull at 44 yds. with this rig. The first picture below is the entrance wound! The second show extensive damage and bloodshot meat where the bullet came to rest on/in the offside shoulder.
The last few yards the bull travelled he was literally gushing blood out the entrance wound. A blind man cou;d've followed the trail. I agree with slower bullet damaging less meat, but make sure it's a tough, deep penetrating bullet like a Barnes TSX.
Good luck,
35W
cooch
Member
The appropriate qualifier should be "all other things being equal".
When you use a relatively soft projectile at a velocity at which it is designed to open up quickly, you should expect serious meat damage.... if you shoot into the meat. Even if that velocity is relatively slow in comparison to some other cartridge/projectile combinations.
When it comes to bullets, size and velocity are very much relevant terms. In my .444, 2400FPS is FAST for some projectiles designed for handgun velocities of around 1400 FPS, and they behave like varmint projectiles.. The same velocity is S-L-O-W for a projectile designed for a hot Magnum.
Reality is that the rule is generally true, but not universally so. Which means that posting pictures of an exception does not disprove the rule.
Respectfully yours.......... Peter
35 Whelen
Member
Perhaps you should qualify your statement by defining "all other things". What "other things"? I really don't think there's anything here that needs to be qualified. I was merely posting my experience. Maybe you could post your personal experience (photos too!) with bullets such as these.
I didn't, and still don't know that the 250 gr. Speer is a "relatively soft projectile" that is "designed to open up quickly" as you put it. Given the age of these particular bullets, which I know to be older than the commercialization of the 35 Whelen, and the fact that they may be a tad heavy for practical use in the 358 Winchester, I suspect(ed) these bullets were designed for cartridges such as the 350 Remington Magnum and the 358 Norma Magnum and the velocities one could expect with these cartridges.
Then I checked a couple of my older Speer manuals and found the bullet in question described as follows: "The first .35 caliber bullet made by SPEER was the 250 grain spitzer. It is an excellent game bullet for the Whelen and the .35 caliber magnums". Nothing in that statement indicates to me that this bullet is soft or designed to open quickly. On what data or evidence do you base your statements regarding this bullet?
If the bullet in question were a flat or round nose bullet, of any caliber, then I would have assumed it was designed for perhaps a lever action based cartridge (read lower velocity) and designed to expand at the lower velocities normally associated with such cartridges. For example, if I had used a 200 gr. Sierra RN at say 2800 fps, I would expect it to literally explode on game because I know it was designed for the 35 Remington cartridge and its 2000-2200 fps velocities. Likewise, had I been using one of the .35 caliber Speer flat points, I would have expected violent expansion at the velocities attainable in a 35 Whelen. But I would never assume a spitzer (game) bullet would be lightly constructed and designed to expand violently. To the contrary, I would assume a .35 caliber, 250 gr. bullet would be used on large to very large game and as such would be constructed with a heavy jacket and perhaps even a hardened core.
My intention was not at all to refute a rule, as I believe there are few "rules" when it comes to bullet reaction and performance. The main reason I posted these pictures is that on forums such as this one, one rarely sees hard evidence of any kind. It seems that about 75% of the advice given here is merely conjecture. For example, I see relatively young people (read: little or no experience) from say, Texas, giving advice on the best cartridges and rifles for hunting grizzly bear in the Yukon Territory, someone from New Jersey explaining that a 300 Winchester is needed to hunt javalina here in Texas because they may attack, or someone in California giving advice on the best cartridge and bullet combination for Banteng in Australia.
I understand that much of this is merely discussion, but I find it absolutely fascinating when someone supports their opinions or advice with actual experience or better yet with photogrpahs of their experience. I would assume that someone seeking advice, such as in the original post, would appreciate real world experience in addition to the expected theory.
Regards,
35W
cooch
Member
35Whelan.
I disagree to this extent.
You were not merely stating your experience. You were also inviting us to draw a specific conclusion based on that isolated experience. That is a very different thing.
"All other things" includes, but is not limited to bullet design, impact velocity (as opposed to muzzle velocity) , angle of impact and the type of tissue (muscle, bone, hide, internal organs etc) that are struck. If you don't know much about the bullet's construction then this remains a variable which must be accounted for, and therefore the results which you observed cannot logically be assumed to be independent of this. As you have not, and by your own admission cannot, determined that the projectile in question is a premium or "controlled expansion" type, then it remains both poissible and probable that the bullet in question is a generic soft point dating from a period in which such types were frequently relatively thin jacketed. I do not assume this to be the case, merely point out that you have not demonstrated otherwise.
From personal experience, from the experience of friends, and from the writings of those much more experienced than myself, I have learnt that neither bullets, nor the animals that we use them on are entirely predictable. For example, I have seen high velocity FMJ solid projectiles cause massive damage similar to that caused by rapidly expanding soft-points, but I would not recommend their use in most situations because I also know that this is generally not what happens.
Therefore when dealing with variable living systems such as the animals that we hunt, we have to generalise to a certain degree and allow for the exceptions. Even allowing for such exceptions, certain choices give us a higher probability of achieving our aims.
Had you stated your case by arguing that "Slow bullet does not ALWAYS = Less meat damage", then I would have agreed with you entirely. However the wording of you first post might lead a reasonable man to conclude that you - on the basis of one single incident - were prepared to make an absolute statement regarding the untruth of the premise. Was it really your intent, by raising this single incident, to discount the occasions (plural) in which I have placed a bullet at moderate velocity through the rib-cage of an animal, and witnessed very little damage to edible meat? Or the experiences of others, some of which have been recounted on this forum in threads of a similar nature? Obviously not, but why, then, do you disagree with my post?
No, I don't bother to photograph the results because they're generally unspectacular. You'll just have to take my word for it..... and that of others with similar experience
Regards.......... Peter
I disagree to this extent.
You were not merely stating your experience. You were also inviting us to draw a specific conclusion based on that isolated experience. That is a very different thing.
"All other things" includes, but is not limited to bullet design, impact velocity (as opposed to muzzle velocity) , angle of impact and the type of tissue (muscle, bone, hide, internal organs etc) that are struck. If you don't know much about the bullet's construction then this remains a variable which must be accounted for, and therefore the results which you observed cannot logically be assumed to be independent of this. As you have not, and by your own admission cannot, determined that the projectile in question is a premium or "controlled expansion" type, then it remains both poissible and probable that the bullet in question is a generic soft point dating from a period in which such types were frequently relatively thin jacketed. I do not assume this to be the case, merely point out that you have not demonstrated otherwise.
From personal experience, from the experience of friends, and from the writings of those much more experienced than myself, I have learnt that neither bullets, nor the animals that we use them on are entirely predictable. For example, I have seen high velocity FMJ solid projectiles cause massive damage similar to that caused by rapidly expanding soft-points, but I would not recommend their use in most situations because I also know that this is generally not what happens.
Therefore when dealing with variable living systems such as the animals that we hunt, we have to generalise to a certain degree and allow for the exceptions. Even allowing for such exceptions, certain choices give us a higher probability of achieving our aims.
Had you stated your case by arguing that "Slow bullet does not ALWAYS = Less meat damage", then I would have agreed with you entirely. However the wording of you first post might lead a reasonable man to conclude that you - on the basis of one single incident - were prepared to make an absolute statement regarding the untruth of the premise. Was it really your intent, by raising this single incident, to discount the occasions (plural) in which I have placed a bullet at moderate velocity through the rib-cage of an animal, and witnessed very little damage to edible meat? Or the experiences of others, some of which have been recounted on this forum in threads of a similar nature? Obviously not, but why, then, do you disagree with my post?
No, I don't bother to photograph the results because they're generally unspectacular. You'll just have to take my word for it..... and that of others with similar experience
Regards.......... Peter
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35 Whelen
Member
Hey Pete...sorry I didn't respond sooner. I fell asleep in the middle of the second paragraph of your little philosophical dissertation. Are you a college professor, an attorney, or perhaps running for a political office? The reason I ask is that you successfully avoided addressing most of my points by replying with eloquently worded statements that really have nothing to do with the subject at hand.
How you, a self-proclaimed "reasonable man", took from my original post that I was trying to change anyones opinion is beyond me. The first sentence of my original post should have been, and I believe was by most who read it, taken as light sarcasm; even somewhat parodical. Why?
Because I've read, been told and even experienced the "Low velocity=Less meat damage" situation myself (I've used a 308 Win. with cast bullets, a 375 Win., and a 45-70 on several head of game). So I found it rather humorous, even if in a dry sense, that after 30+ years of thinking (and seeing)that a big slow bullet would, should, and usually does make a smaller mess, that I was faced with that huge mess when I gutted, skinned and quartered the bull in the pictures. I found it very ironic.
And maybe you missed the statement in my second post that said: "My intention was not at all to refute a rule...."
So in closing:
Unwad the undergarments and relax. Don't take everything quite so literally.
It isn't necessary to attempt to change others thinkings. My intent in my original post was not to change someones mind, but to give them something else to "chew on". Sir Walter Raleigh said: "A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still".
If you're going to describe a relatively little known projectile in specific terms such as "relatively soft ..." and "designed to open up quickly", you might want to make sure you've at least shot something with said projectile. While I have almost no experience with the bullet in question, you evidently have none, save what you've read in magazines and on the internet.
And lastly, don't be intimidated by the experience of others...especially if they qualify their experience with evidence. To quote Ivan Turgenev: "A picture shows me at a glance what it takes dozens of pages of a book to expound." That is why I enjoy taking photographs of those such as I posted. I can more easily tell others: "Hey, look what happened to me...or look at what I've learned..."
If you've anything else to say to me directly, please do so via PM. I find that little pi$$ing contests such as this typically ruin threads.
Regards,
35W
How you, a self-proclaimed "reasonable man", took from my original post that I was trying to change anyones opinion is beyond me. The first sentence of my original post should have been, and I believe was by most who read it, taken as light sarcasm; even somewhat parodical. Why?
Because I've read, been told and even experienced the "Low velocity=Less meat damage" situation myself (I've used a 308 Win. with cast bullets, a 375 Win., and a 45-70 on several head of game). So I found it rather humorous, even if in a dry sense, that after 30+ years of thinking (and seeing)that a big slow bullet would, should, and usually does make a smaller mess, that I was faced with that huge mess when I gutted, skinned and quartered the bull in the pictures. I found it very ironic.
And maybe you missed the statement in my second post that said: "My intention was not at all to refute a rule...."
So in closing:
Unwad the undergarments and relax. Don't take everything quite so literally.
It isn't necessary to attempt to change others thinkings. My intent in my original post was not to change someones mind, but to give them something else to "chew on". Sir Walter Raleigh said: "A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still".
If you're going to describe a relatively little known projectile in specific terms such as "relatively soft ..." and "designed to open up quickly", you might want to make sure you've at least shot something with said projectile.
While I have almost no experience with the bullet in question, you evidently have none, save what you've read in magazines and on the internet. And lastly, don't be intimidated by the experience of others...especially if they qualify their experience with evidence. To quote Ivan Turgenev: "A picture shows me at a glance what it takes dozens of pages of a book to expound." That is why I enjoy taking photographs of those such as I posted. I can more easily tell others: "Hey, look what happened to me...or look at what I've learned..."
If you've anything else to say to me directly, please do so via PM. I find that little pi$$ing contests such as this typically ruin threads.
Regards,
35W
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