I'm not a big fan of the term "knock-down power". I'm even less of a fan for the term "stopping-power". They're misleading terms that too many people apply totally unrealistically in their discussions.
But perhaps even less endearing are the people who get into heated debates using these terms to paint false or unrealistic pictures of the effects of any gunshot to a human being or animal.
Maybe Hollywood (and the general gullibility of the ignorant public with respect to weapons and weapon induced trauma) is to blame. Certainly, the marketing strategies used by some as a result maintain these false images.
When you're shooting a human being, or animal on a hunt, you aren't "knocking them down". You're using a high velocity projectile to punch a hole in their body to cause organ damage, musculature damage, and/or skeletal damage. In many cases, bullets pass entirely through the body, so only a fraction of their kinetic energy is actually transferred to the body in the form of kinetic energy and heat.
How the internal organs, and the body as a whole, react to that is far more a function of the physiological reaction to the damage itself, not because the body was "physically knocked down".
Muscles convulse, which may cause the body to drop, or to leap several feet. Organs suddenly cease functioning, like lungs or heart. Central nervous system shuts down due to shock. Bone breakage causes collapse. Bleeding causes weakness. Concussive effects of internal shockwaves cause paralysis or other organ failures.
About the only thing I'm willing to concede actual, physical "knock-down" on on would be a close range shotgun hit on a small critter.
Don't believe me?
Next time you go deer hunting, when you hang the deer carcass up in a tree to field dress it, stand back a distance while it's hanging there on a rope and shoot it again. Tell me how much it actually swings while it's hanging there. Then walk up to it and give it a moderate push with a hand and see what happens.
Don't get me wrong...the ability to drop a target varies importantly based on any number of factors for a given weapon/load. But it's NOT about "knocking it down". Because if it really WERE all about knocking a 200 pound person or animal down when you shoot it, you're 200 pound *ss would also be on the ground every time you pulled the trigger.
And God only knows what would happen to a human body who fired the rifle powerful enough to actually knock a 2,000 pound, four-footed Bison over.
Action and reaction...it's not just a good idea, it's the law.
