stubbicatt
Member
Guys. I've been shooting prairie dogs with a 7.62x54r with some success. I do it because the ammo is cheaper than 223 handloads with Vmax bullets, my "other" prairie dog rifle.
But I got to thinking, as I sat there enjoying a prairie sunrise, what about deer or antelope or other "game" animals as opposed to pests?
If I understand things right, unless you are shooting a 105mm solid bullet (if such a thing exists) the wounding, or killing potential of a cartridge depends greatly on the performance of the bullet once it hits flesh and bone. As I understand it there is hydrostatic shock occasioned by higher velocities, fragmentation of the bullet due to factors which seem erratic to me, expansion of the bullet, or yaw of the bullet, which act to create a wound channel and incapacitate or kill the animal.
Each of these last three phenomenon involves creating a larger permanent wound channel than the nominal diameter of the projectile, whereas hydrostatic shock is about a temporary wound channel, which due to the elasticity of flesh, tends to return to nominal diameter, but with bruising in the tissue... not typically creating catastrophic blood loss or organ damage.
Because I really don't understand fully the erratic nature of fragmentation, my question sort of turns on either yaw or expansion. Expansion is somewhat dependent upon velocity to initiate and sustain expansion. Expansion contemplates that a bullet will continue through a game animal in a more or less nose forward attitude, but that deceleration forces acting on the material of the bullet causes a classic "mushroom" shape, with an intact shank and very little loss of mass. The result of the expansion is a larger than nominal bullet diameter permanent wound channel. Some 30 cal bullets are supposed to go to 1/2 inch or so, or 50 caliber using this method.
But what about those two or three part bullets like the 303 Brit, or the 5.45 Russian, or even the 7N1 sniper bullets fired in the 7.62x54r rifles? The designs of these bullets are not such as would cause expansion, but rather yaw and tumbling. The wounding effects of these bullets is that once they have penetrated a certain distance in flesh, they destabilize, tumbling, changing nose first attitude in attempt to obtain a heel first attitude, etc. What you end up with for at least some distance of the bullet's sideways travel is a keyhole shaped wound channel as wide at its widest aspect as the bullet is long. This can be nearly an inch in some cases.
From what I have read, the yawing effect is actually quite reliable. The bullets begin to yaw at pretty much the same depth of penetration, and the yawing is not as dependent upon velocity as is mushrooming.
Is it reasonable to conclude that the yawing bullet will create a more reliably large permanent wound channel than will the expanding bullet? If it does, wouldn't some of the 3 part "fmj" bullets be considered better hunting rounds, creating larger permanent wound channels and transferring energy to the target more efficiently?
But I got to thinking, as I sat there enjoying a prairie sunrise, what about deer or antelope or other "game" animals as opposed to pests?
If I understand things right, unless you are shooting a 105mm solid bullet (if such a thing exists) the wounding, or killing potential of a cartridge depends greatly on the performance of the bullet once it hits flesh and bone. As I understand it there is hydrostatic shock occasioned by higher velocities, fragmentation of the bullet due to factors which seem erratic to me, expansion of the bullet, or yaw of the bullet, which act to create a wound channel and incapacitate or kill the animal.
Each of these last three phenomenon involves creating a larger permanent wound channel than the nominal diameter of the projectile, whereas hydrostatic shock is about a temporary wound channel, which due to the elasticity of flesh, tends to return to nominal diameter, but with bruising in the tissue... not typically creating catastrophic blood loss or organ damage.
Because I really don't understand fully the erratic nature of fragmentation, my question sort of turns on either yaw or expansion. Expansion is somewhat dependent upon velocity to initiate and sustain expansion. Expansion contemplates that a bullet will continue through a game animal in a more or less nose forward attitude, but that deceleration forces acting on the material of the bullet causes a classic "mushroom" shape, with an intact shank and very little loss of mass. The result of the expansion is a larger than nominal bullet diameter permanent wound channel. Some 30 cal bullets are supposed to go to 1/2 inch or so, or 50 caliber using this method.
But what about those two or three part bullets like the 303 Brit, or the 5.45 Russian, or even the 7N1 sniper bullets fired in the 7.62x54r rifles? The designs of these bullets are not such as would cause expansion, but rather yaw and tumbling. The wounding effects of these bullets is that once they have penetrated a certain distance in flesh, they destabilize, tumbling, changing nose first attitude in attempt to obtain a heel first attitude, etc. What you end up with for at least some distance of the bullet's sideways travel is a keyhole shaped wound channel as wide at its widest aspect as the bullet is long. This can be nearly an inch in some cases.
From what I have read, the yawing effect is actually quite reliable. The bullets begin to yaw at pretty much the same depth of penetration, and the yawing is not as dependent upon velocity as is mushrooming.
Is it reasonable to conclude that the yawing bullet will create a more reliably large permanent wound channel than will the expanding bullet? If it does, wouldn't some of the 3 part "fmj" bullets be considered better hunting rounds, creating larger permanent wound channels and transferring energy to the target more efficiently?