Just got back from the SCI convention
- Thread starter H&Hhunter
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John,
First of all I am just repeating a story from a very reliable source who has the scars to prove his story. I was not there.
But lets try and break this down just for fun.
A .33 cal 54gr lead ball at 1200fps has no sectional density to speak of. Sectional density is an indicator of penetrativie quality. I would offer that a .22LR bullet at a weight of 34 grs at a simular velocity would have better pentrative quality or possibly nearly the same as your lead ball given the fact that the ball has more surface area and less sectional density at a compareable velocity.
Lets not get hung up on the 2" penetration thing this may or may not be an exact number. The statement may have been an underexageration. The fact of the matter is that none of or at least not enough of the shot got to the right place to kill the cat in time. This is a farily common problem with buckshot on cats.
There are two things I'd like to test as well.
1. take your shot gun and try to point contact shoot into as reliable medium and then see how good the penetration is. I questioned gerald about the incident and he seems to think that had something to do with it. He said the shot was all buched up in a wad and didn't have time to spread out. He thought that that may have caused the poor penetration. His second shot at the airborne cat was either touching or nearly touching the cat. The third and final shot was at a distance of about 10 feet and it did the trick.
2. I've often wondered if the contraction of muscle tissue makes any difference in penetrative quality. I don't know the answer to this but it seems to me that an animal in full contractive muscle state (such as a jumping cat) may have some effect on a bullets performance. Especially one marginal as a 54gr lead ball.
Lastly it has been the trend recently to get away from buckshot on cats as a follow up weapon as the stats show a high failure rate inregards to stopping. I can promise you one thing if Gerald had been using a his .470NE with soft points and had hit the cat in the chest with a contact shot we wouldn't be having this discussion. The question is could he have hit it with that platform? I THINK I can shoot just as fast and accurate with a well fitted double rifle as a shot gun.
The PH's I speak to are split 50/50 on the shotgun thing some swear by it others shun it. The newest fad in leopard back up seems to be a guide gun in .45-70 equiped with ghost rings.
Next time I speak with Gerald I'll ask him as to the state of the ammunition it may well have been in the truck on the dash for the last 5 years.
HankB,
I'll agree with your statement on plains game if you put the bullets in the right place they die. That is true in all species there are two however that become bullet resistant when wounded and those are the Blue Wildebeast and the Zebra. A ranch owner friend of mine from South Africa calls them Bluewoundedbeasts. He claims that they are one of the few animals that he can collect three or four trophy fees from the same critter in a single season
.The kudu on the other hand I've never seen a softer animal Jeeze cut one with a rusty nail and they'll be bedded up and nearly dead in a hundred yards..........
I'm no expert and not real anxious to get into the argument, but I just keep seeing this come up and its got me wondering....
The buckshot crowd always states that at the range in question, the pellets are travelling in a solid mass.
To me that means that you lose the advantage of stringing out a load of shot to hit your target, its like shooting a rifle.
So if given equally fast handling guns that both must be aimed like a rifle, and why not shoot the one with a REAL "solid mass" ie. a bullet, rather than a wad of pellets?
The buckshot crowd always states that at the range in question, the pellets are travelling in a solid mass.
To me that means that you lose the advantage of stringing out a load of shot to hit your target, its like shooting a rifle.
So if given equally fast handling guns that both must be aimed like a rifle, and why not shoot the one with a REAL "solid mass" ie. a bullet, rather than a wad of pellets?
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Redneck,
My point precisley. by definition a wad of pellets ain't going to penetrate worth a crude. it's the ultimate frangable it ain't even held together by a jacket.
To give you an idea a good friend of mine got hit by fragment from a jacketed .44mag 240gr soft point. He shot a piece of steel at about 25 yards and the spray sent a piece into his left arm.
The piece they dug out of him weighed 42 grains it penetrated about 3 inches into his forearm and stopped in his elbow. And it wasn't a round ball it was a sharp flechet looking piece. Single buckshot pieces just don't have the weight or the velocity to do crap on anything outside of the softest lightest critters.
You are always better off with more weight and more velocity for stopping power to a point. The old adage that buckshot enters as a solid mass is flawed in that as soon as it impacts it spreads apart to some degree.
My point precisley. by definition a wad of pellets ain't going to penetrate worth a crude. it's the ultimate frangable it ain't even held together by a jacket.
To give you an idea a good friend of mine got hit by fragment from a jacketed .44mag 240gr soft point. He shot a piece of steel at about 25 yards and the spray sent a piece into his left arm.
The piece they dug out of him weighed 42 grains it penetrated about 3 inches into his forearm and stopped in his elbow. And it wasn't a round ball it was a sharp flechet looking piece. Single buckshot pieces just don't have the weight or the velocity to do crap on anything outside of the softest lightest critters.
You are always better off with more weight and more velocity for stopping power to a point. The old adage that buckshot enters as a solid mass is flawed in that as soon as it impacts it spreads apart to some degree.
I want to point out again that I'm not a member of the "buckshot crowd"--I'm just trying to reconcile an apparent anomaly.
I figure you're right on the 22LR having better penetration, but then a 22 bullet will penetrate a good foot or more if it doesn't hit bone. IIRC, the 22LR pistol bullet that hit Reagan bounced off a rib and still penetrated deep into his chest cavity. From what I could read of the initial post, it looks to me like bone wasn't an issue in the leopard incident.
I'm also not questioning the honesty of your friend. I'm questioning the quality of his ammo--and maybe his ability to eyeball 2" accurately.
As far as the shot column not spreading out. From my experience shooting an airgun into a ballistic putty pellet trap, if you put a pellet into a hole made by another pellet, the pellet will hit the first pellet and drive it deeper. The resulting depth of penetration is not as much as if you shot two pellets and added the resulting wound channels end-to-end, but it is deeper than either one would have made by itself. That's with a VERY poor projectile in terms of sectional density, and one that will deform FAR more easily than a solid lead ball. So, I would have to say, based on that, the shot column will penetrate much better before it spreads out than after. I have no way to accurately quantify the penetration depth, but you should see penetration that is better than an individual 00 pellet, but not as good as if you shot a solid lead projectile of the weight of the entire column.
Also from my airgunning experience, I can say with some confidence that even relatively soft and non-aerodynamic projectiles will penetrate a surprising distance. I've got a .20 caliber airgun that shoots about 800fps. There is no question that those 11 grain pellets will penetrate 2" or more in flesh--I'm getting more than an inch of penetration in ballistic putty which is far more dense than flesh. Those airgun pellets are pretty anemic compared to .33 caliber & 54 grains @ 1200fps.
The 44mag incident is hard to relate to this topic. As you pointed out, the fragment was heavier than the shotgun pellets, not shaped like a ball, and most of all, we have no idea of the velocity at impact.
One more thing worth throwing out... A couple of the references I found pointed out that there is quite a bit of difference in penetration based on the softness of the pellets. Apparently the harder pellets--especially if they are copper plated too--penetrate much better than a load with dead-soft plain lead pellets. If you're going to ask him about the ammo, you might as well also try to find out if he was using premium buckshot (hardened, plated pellets) or the plain lead variety.
I figure you're right on the 22LR having better penetration, but then a 22 bullet will penetrate a good foot or more if it doesn't hit bone. IIRC, the 22LR pistol bullet that hit Reagan bounced off a rib and still penetrated deep into his chest cavity. From what I could read of the initial post, it looks to me like bone wasn't an issue in the leopard incident.
I'm also not questioning the honesty of your friend. I'm questioning the quality of his ammo--and maybe his ability to eyeball 2" accurately.
As far as the shot column not spreading out. From my experience shooting an airgun into a ballistic putty pellet trap, if you put a pellet into a hole made by another pellet, the pellet will hit the first pellet and drive it deeper. The resulting depth of penetration is not as much as if you shot two pellets and added the resulting wound channels end-to-end, but it is deeper than either one would have made by itself. That's with a VERY poor projectile in terms of sectional density, and one that will deform FAR more easily than a solid lead ball. So, I would have to say, based on that, the shot column will penetrate much better before it spreads out than after. I have no way to accurately quantify the penetration depth, but you should see penetration that is better than an individual 00 pellet, but not as good as if you shot a solid lead projectile of the weight of the entire column.
Also from my airgunning experience, I can say with some confidence that even relatively soft and non-aerodynamic projectiles will penetrate a surprising distance. I've got a .20 caliber airgun that shoots about 800fps. There is no question that those 11 grain pellets will penetrate 2" or more in flesh--I'm getting more than an inch of penetration in ballistic putty which is far more dense than flesh. Those airgun pellets are pretty anemic compared to .33 caliber & 54 grains @ 1200fps.
The 44mag incident is hard to relate to this topic. As you pointed out, the fragment was heavier than the shotgun pellets, not shaped like a ball, and most of all, we have no idea of the velocity at impact.
One more thing worth throwing out... A couple of the references I found pointed out that there is quite a bit of difference in penetration based on the softness of the pellets. Apparently the harder pellets--especially if they are copper plated too--penetrate much better than a load with dead-soft plain lead pellets. If you're going to ask him about the ammo, you might as well also try to find out if he was using premium buckshot (hardened, plated pellets) or the plain lead variety.
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