Energy Dump (rant)

[Cosmoline]

The more I learn about good hunting ballistics, the more I question the self-defense theory that a bullet should "dump" its energy in a target rather than penetrate through. Both the physics and biology of this theory seem HIGHLY suspect.

To kill any living thing with a bullet quickly, you have two main choices. A central nervous system hit will kill almost instantly, but is extremely difficult and risky. The only game I know of where it's done on a regular basis are elephants, which move slowly and have (relatively) large brains.

The other option, used in 99% of kills, is to send an expanding bullet through the heart and lungs of the animal. The animal dies from the shock caused by massive blood loss, primarily through the LARGE EXIT WOUND resulting from the expanding round.

Now, there is no reason these same principles should not apply to humans. Yet instead of proper hunting ballistics, the self-defense crowd advocates bullets that DO NOT penetrate all the way. The seem to think it's preferable to use SP bullets with low sectional densities fired at low velocities. When they hit the target, the noses expand, and then promptly stop the bullet like an air-brake. It does not cut a large exit wound, and in fact it is seen as dangerous if it does go through. The target consequently may not be incapacitated by massive shock. Internal bleeding will occurr, but unless the heart or a major artery is hit, it may take some time to stop the person.

The notion that the dumped "energy" of a big fat slug is going to do anything to the target is absurd. The level of ft. lbs. may look high, but in reality the human body can take a lot more raw energy than that. Bullets do not do thier damage because of "energy."

I am willing to bet whatever money you care to put down that any of my hunting rifles, even my antiquated 1891 Argentine Mauser, loaded properly, will work far, far better at self-defense than of the "energy dump" handguns or carbines. Get hit with a proper bullet from a full-size centerfire hunting cartridge in the torso or head and you will never, ever get up again. The same cannot be said for typical self defense pistol rounds.

 

[GunNut]

The other option, used in 99% of kills, is to send an expanding bullet through the heart and lungs of the animal. The animal dies from the shock caused by massive blood loss, primarily through the LARGE EXIT WOUND resulting from the expanding round.

I think the animal dies by the holes in the heart/lungs/arteries that the shock and bullet fragments create. The LARGE EXIT WOUND only allows a place for the blood to exit, making tracking possible, and is only created because of the extremely high velocity.

It's really hard to compare a 150gr .308 bullet travelling at around 2500fps, with a 125gr 9mm bullet at 1100-1200fps. A rifle with the proper bullet and adequate placement will ALWAYS be better than a handgun.

Thus, the reason to use your handgun to get back to you rifle/shotgun.

Handguns definitely are not the most effective weapon, but try sticking your hunting rifle in your waist band and walking around town..... boy would that be a sight.

Steve

 

[Cosmoline]

The LARGE EXIT WOUND only allows a place for the blood to exit, making tracking possible, and is only created because of the extremely high velocity."

It's the blood loss that kills. The holes in the organs is only important because it allows the blood to flow. This is a technical but very important point. To stop a living thing quickly, you must create a large exit wound. Otherwise blood will simply pool up and kill more slowly.

Of course, I agree that it's often not possible to carry a rifle around. What angers me is the line of thinking, found in many handgun mags and among certain self-defense writers, that a handgun is actually BETTER. I also object to the bogus argument that the "dumped energy" makes certain poorly-performing bullets somehow work better.

And it is possible to get large exit wounds with a handgun. A .44 Mag with a good bullet can certainly do it.

 

[ojibweindian]

I agree with Cosmoline; "energy dump" is highly suspect. The variables involved in estimating one-shot-stop percentages are to numerous to give any real definitive estimate to a cartridge's effectiveness.

BTW, has anyone ever factored in PAIN felt by BGs in OSS calculations? Surely tolerance to pain has some effect.

 

[curt]

I've always thought of the concept of dumping energy to be a bullet which is of sufficient diameter to ensure that all of the available enery is used to break/smash/tear stuff. If you have a round exit the body then there was obviously energy that was not converted to work inside the target which equates to a loss of efficiency and since a pistol round doesn't have much oomph to begin with a loss of effciency in transferring its energy to ripping flesh is bad.

I don't know jack about hunting but i wouldn't think that the lack of an exit wound would be that big a deal. It seems that the circulatory system runs with enough preasure that a hole in the pump or a major pipe is going to reduce flow sufficiently regardless of whether the blood goes outside or inside. I do of course see the point about tracking that GunNut mentions. People die from little bullet holes with no exit every day.

 

[GunNut]

It kind of seems like we are trying to argue effectiveness vs. practicality.

In a hunting situation it is desired to have a large exit wound, to better use the power and capabilities of a hunting bullet.

Were we to use the same principals in a self defense handgun, we would also put innocent bystanders into harms way.

The self defense handgun bullets is designed to penetrate 10-12" and leave all of its energy inside its intended target.

I don't believe that any of us would argue the effectiveness of a hunting rifle and bullet on a human or animal target.

But like I said, they are not appropriate where innocents could be hit.

If given the choice of going to war with a rifle firing sp or hp ammo, or a handgun.......I'm pretty sure we would go with the rifle, but collaterall damage is acceptable in war.

Steve

 

[Cosmoline]

ah, overpenetration

That's another one of my Sunday rant topics

I can understand the concern, in theory. However, these concerns can be eleviated by using a bullet that, while creating a proper exit wound, will not retain much of its mass in the process. Small, high-speed projectiles with thin jackets and a low sectional density might do nicely.

I also feel strongly that many more innocents have been put in danger by missed shots from small handgun cartridges than ever would have been put at risk by use of proper long guns with proper full-power cartridges. But that's probably another rant.

 

[Zak Smith]

Exit wound?

If a hunting bullet penetrates the heart/lung area and comes to rest under the far side skin with no exit wound, the animal will still bleed internally - the same effective blood (and pressure) loss. From deer hunting, the result I've seen, even with an exit wound is that the lungs fill up with blood, then it starts spilling out the hole.

-z

 

[DigMe]

I'm no expert on the physics of all this so I can't really pretend to present any great scientific argument, but just speaking from experience...I've shot some BIGA$$ feral hogs in the wild with 12 gauge 00 magnum loads and a Ruger .223 ranch rifle. I also witnessed a friend of mine take down two equally large feral hogs with a .22 magnum rifle. Because of the size of a hog and the thickness of hide and whatnot none of these shots resulted in an exit wound. However in every single case the hog went down IMMEDIATELY and appeared to be fully dead within a minute. Again that's without exit wounds. These central Texas feral hogs live in rugged country and are notoriously tough (actually central TX has nothing to do with it I guess). Yeah, I suppose a large exit wound gives the blood an external place to go but I feel that near equal if not equal devestation CAN be done with the right load and no exit wound. Can handguns below .357 magnum generate that kind of devestation? Well that's a whole other argument!

On a side note I hope to purchase a .44 mag at some point and start open-sight hunting hogs with that exclusively. It'll be a while though as I'm a lowly social worker about to get married. :banghead:

brad cook

 

[Keith]

The whole concept is a bit silly.

A bullet that goes THROUGH a target "dumps energy" all the way through as it breaks through bone, meat, etc. A bullet that stops within the target would dump less "energy" since it cuts through less tissue and encounters less resistance.

There are sound reasons for wanting a hunting bullet to exit, and a defense bullet to stay within the target, but the energy thing doesn't make any sense.

Keith

 

[Cosmoline]

Good points about bleeding out into the lungs, esp. on larger animals with big lungs. Of course this will produce shock and death as well. My point was that there is no "energy" being "dumped" into the target when a bullet doesn't penetrate all the way. The hog doesn't die because it's been hit with X ft. lbs. of "energy" that would have been lost if the bullet penetrated through. That's obvious. Yet the proponents of "energy dumping" want us to believe otherwise.

 

[444]

I have to agree. For the energy dump theory to make sense to me, you would have to be talking about two bullets with the same energy to begin with. For example, let's say we are talking about using a hollow point bullet and a FMJ bullet both of the same weight and fired at the same velocity. If the hollow point expands and expends all it's energy in the target and the FMJ just punches a nice small hole all the way though, then we might have an argument. But, if we have two different calibers with one being significantly more potent than the other one, and one stops in the body and the other one goes all the way through, then it seems to me that the more powerful cartridge may have dumped a similar amount of energy and still had enough additional energy to also exit the target.

Another factor is that in most of the examples cited so far, we have been talking about a "good" shot. A shot through the vitals. Putting a hole though an animals heart and/or lungs is probably going to kill the target whether or not you have an exit wound. But on a more marginal shot, it might make a difference. The internal bleeding has to go somewhere. If it can't exit the body, an argument might be made that it may tamponade the flow of blood because it is exerting pressure against the wound. Or possibly if the blood begins to pool, it can clot. If there is an exit wound, I would believe that it would tend to keep the blood flowing. Then we get into thoracic injuries such as pneumothorax and tension pneumothorax. This would be the classic sucking chest wound. When an animal inhales, the diaphram flattens out creating a vacume in the chest cavity. Normally this causes air to enter the lungs through the trachea. If you have a hole in your chest, this same action results in air entering the chest through the holes. As this air builds up inside the chest, it compresses the lungs creating a life threatening situation in and of itself. And, if you have more than one hole, more air will enter the chest faster.

 

[popbang]

I believe there is a bigger problem with the concept of energy dump. Quite simply it isn’t there. By that, I am talking about the energy. An example is I take a steel spinning target and shoot it with a 230-grain hollow point traveling at an average of 920 fps. Now the target weighs about 4 pounds and the bullet is producing about 430 foot pounds of kinetic energy. And you know what it spins the target a couple of times but nowhere near what it does if I hit with a 32-ounce hammer. So, what happens to this supposed energy? I took a piece of wood that weighed about 62 pounds and fired into it the bullet did not exit, but guess what the stump didn’t move. Again, with the energy produce it should have moved about 7 feet. I put a steel plate on the piece of wood and shot it again. Still nothing. The energy transferred by a handgun bullet is closer to the momentum value, around a pound.

In the end I believe the bullet characteristics are much more important than the energy of a load. If the bullet consistently expands and goes 10-14 inches in gelatin I believe that is more important than energy.

 

[Andrew Wyatt]

It's the blood loss that kills. The holes in the organs is only important because it allows the blood to flow.

even if i had a magic bullet that left no entry or exit wounds but still left holes in organs, the target of said bullet would still die.


if i had another magic bullet that left cauterized holes in the skin, and no holes in the organs, the target would not die.

 

[zahc]

IME if you put a hole thru any animals lungS, that animal is dead. That wound is unsurvivable. And lungs are big.

 

[Cosmoline]

Imagine it this way

If you had an animal that did not use pressurized blood to move oxygen to its cells, putting little holes through it would have no great effect. The little holes made by bullets only kill so well because they cause a massive and sudden drop in the blood pressure resulting in shock, and it's this shock that kills. The hole itself is just a hole. If the hole only cuts through muscle and bone, the wound will only be fatal if the blood flow can't be stopped or if there's an infection. Lung shots kill because the blood flows freely into the lungs and again you have a drop in pressure and shock. If you make a hole in the lungs and manage to miss all the vital arteries around the lungs, you will just create a sucking chest wound and death will not always come very quickly. Certainly it's better if you hit both the heart and the lungs, and have a nice exit wound. That sort of a wound is basically 100% fatal and in short order. Whether it's a squirrel or T-Rex, it's going to crash and die.

 

[Andrew Wyatt]

uuh, even if i was shooting at robots, the more damage dealt to internal organs the better.


that's the whole point of expanding ammo.

 

[P95Carry]

''Energy dump'' is rather an unfortunate term .... ''energy expenditure'' sounds better!

For me, the whole deal is about damage ... to tissues ..... bullet design and thence performance will make a considerable difference to the nature of that damage but surely the bottom line is ...... a bullet carries ''x'' much kinetic energy .... this being a function of velocity and mass. This represents an ability to ''do work'' ..... viz, tissue damage.

I have to say .. if a bullet penetrates and then exits ..... it must perforce still have energy remaining ... arguably that could be seen as energy not usefully used within the target to produce more tissue damage. A factor often levelled at ball ammo.

The handgun deal is very much geared to minimizing over penetration, to avoid third party injuries .. a specific case.

The delivery of the available energy is going to we hope produce both tissue damage - AND shock. The latter is in part a function of reduced blood pressure following blood loss but .... we must also remember that when gross tissue damage occurs there is also the release of other chemicals .. instance histamine, 5HT (5hydroxytriptamine) ..... both potent when in sufficient quantity .... and themselves able to effect a drop in blood pressure.

The ''magic'' CNS hit is far too hard to achieve to place much reliance on so .... invariably we have to deal with massive body cavity damage and blood loss.

The expanding bullet that uses all its energy in creating damage surely makes best use of that energy .. no exit ... just huge tissue disruption (including hydraulic effects as well as fragmentary).

Wound science is a big subject .. and contains much contention but.... for me, the fully expenditure of a bullet's energy is more useful than less.

 

[ShaiVong]

Whats all this about without an exit wound it cant bleed externally? What about the hole the bullet punched when it ENTERED the animal?

 

[ShaiVong]

I believe there is a bigger problem with the concept of energy dump. Quite simply it isn’t there. By that, I am talking about the energy. An example is I take a steel spinning target and shoot it with a 230-grain hollow point traveling at an average of 920 fps. Now the target weighs about 4 pounds and the bullet is producing about 430 foot pounds of kinetic energy. And you know what it spins the target a couple of times but nowhere near what it does if I hit with a 32-ounce hammer. So, what happens to this supposed energy? I took a piece of wood that weighed about 62 pounds and fired into it the bullet did not exit, but guess what the stump didn’t move. Again, with the energy produce it should have moved about 7 feet. I put a steel plate on the piece of wood and shot it again. Still nothing. The energy transferred by a handgun bullet is closer to the momentum value, around a pound.

I think you might have missed the point..

With the spinning target, the only energy being dumped is the ammount of energy required to torque the target, which is low. Unfortunately you deflect the bullet at the same time, and this isnt a complete energy transfer. If you could shoot a spinning target with a bullet that would expend most of its energy upon the target (maybe if it was putty rather than lead) then i assure you it would spin much faster than a hammer hit.


With the block of wood, all the energy is expended in deformation and heat generation. Even if you used a sledgehammer to produce the same ammount of newtons as a lighter bullet with a greater velocity, it wouldnt penetrate nearly as much as the bullet, but you could wail that piece of wood a long way, because there would be a velocity transferrence, rather than much deformation and heat. F=MA. F being Sigma, sum of, F.

 

[redneck]

Your leaving out a big section of hunting....varmint hunting. Here you have bullets that expand explosively expending large amounts of energy over a fraction of a second. The animal is blown to peices. That kills much quicker than a heart shot with a solid, exit wound or no.
Granted, you can't get enough kinetic energy to do that to a human sized critter, especially out of a handgun. But the idea seems to be the same to me. If the bullet expands enough to stay inside, it may break apart and do damage in multiple directions, or it might just turn everything into goo. Energy is conserved, if the bullet starts off with X ft-lbs of kinetic energy, and ends up with zero ft-lbs of energy, then X ft-lbs of energy was expended doing something. In this case, squashing stuff.
You do as much internal damage as possible, without the added risk of the bullet retaining enough energy to hurt somebody after blowing clear through the intended target.
The energy dump isn't intended to "knock them over" its to do as much internal damage as possible without sending the bullet to places unknown. Internal bleeding isn't any better for ya than external bleeding.

 

[goalie]

Just my 2 cents, but, as a nurse in a big, inner city hospital I have seen quite a few GSWs. Either you hit the brain/spine and they drop or you hit the heart and they bleed out relatively quick. I have seen people shot in the chest with a .45 APC and be ambulatory and I have seen people dropped with one well placed .25 round to the chest that hit the spine. A lot of the caliber debate is kind of ridiculous IMO, simply because proper shot placement is the key to stopping anyone or any critter where the foot pounds of energy transferred is not exponentially higher than the critter/person's body weight.

 

[Mizzoutiger]

Sounds to me like everyone can agree that SHOT PLACEMENT is key.

 

[ShaiVong]

Yep, definately the key.


What about the 223 ball ammo that fragments when it enters tissue over a certain velocity? That usually doesnt create an exit wound, but its mighty effective.

 

[cratz2]

The thing I've never completely believed is for the 'energy dump' crowd, by definition, they believe that if two identical targets were shot with two identical bullets, say controlled expansion bullets such Barnes X-Bullets in 308, that if in one target, the bullet hit one additional bone or was at an additional 5 degrees angle and didn't exit, the animal is going to just flop over dear whereas if that additional bone or angle isn't met, and the bullet passes through, the animal is going to lead a long a prosperous life.

Take a .30 cal 150 Gr X-Bullet at 2,800 fps. Shot into one lung and passes through the other lung taking out at least one rib. If everything goes perfectly to plan, the bullet will expand to about .45 cal by exit and will travel only a few yards after exiting. Most of the energy is deposited into the animal but an exit wound is consistantly left. How far does the deer go?

On the other realistic extreme, we would have a 75 Gr VMax bullet in 243. If all goes as designed, the bullet will penetrate a short distance unless it encounters a rib straight on. A shot into a deer should still get 6" penetration at minimum, again barring a rib hit, and that would include the near side lung of the shot was so placed. How many here really think that the deer would expire within 100 yards of the shot or so? I sure don't

I buy into Randy Brooks belief that in a big game bullet, if it doesn't completely exit from pretty much any realistic angle, the bullet failed. Controlled expansion is what I want in an animal that weighs over, say, 100 lbs. On the other hand, I've seen the devastation that results in an energy dump bullet such as a 40 to 50 Gr VMax at 2,500+ fps. The only word that comes to mind is explosive. Either feathers everywhere and very little meat left, or a massive crater of a wound just inside the entrance on something like a coyote. But to expand that up to the scale required for a 200 lb deer, we'd be talking about one big bullet at an extremely high velocity. And then we'd still see massive meat damage, the pelt would be gone etc...

And that still doesn't explain how a coyote would be nearly immediately incapacitated from a heart or lung shot from a .270 with enough weight to almost ensure no expansion took place? Or how a 160 lb deer hit with a 338 Win Mag flops over dead within seconds.

Maybe I'm oversimplifying it by only looking at the extremes but I don't think so. Using pure logic, you must look at extremes when arguing two opposing points. In the real world, if you put a bullet with adequate penetration, be it a Nosler Partition, VMax with some weight to it or a Winchester PowerPoint, through the heart and at least one lung of a 150 to 200 lb deer, it is more than likely going to die soon enough to be recovered. This is whether you are using a .243 that doesn't completely penetrate or using a .45-70 that completely penetrates the deer and then penetrates 4 feet into the ground.

Controlled expansion of an appropriately sized and weighted bullet with adequate penetration that leaves an exit wound is ideal. In my book anyway.