What I found in my junk email dated 12/16/04:

Hallo,
Rip, old boy, I am much amused to see that you have meddled with the TKO again. First it was the BSI, Bwana Saeed Index or BS Index, in which you simply multiplied me TKO by the sectional density and pronounced "Voila!" You said that this corrected for the TKO deficiency of favoring big, round balls. Then that Bekker chap shamelessly substituted the sectional density in place of caliber in me formula and though he had just discovered how to slice bread! Bloody butchery! You were a bad influence on Mr. Bekker!

Well, I may have big round balls meself, but I assure you that the TKO was not meant for application to such.

Now you have gone and popped off with BAM values, Bullet Area Momentum! Cutesy, eh? Simply substituting cross sectional area of bullet for me caliber term in TKO. Rubbish!

Don't take any of this rot too seriously. Don't let's take me TKO too seriously either! It is merely an expression of convenience for muzzel whomp. I reallly didn't think it was an accurate measure of knockout on elephant near-miss brain shots with solid bullets. That is just too dicey a thing to be predictable. However, that sure sold the concept and made a name for meself.

You'll note that the more learned writers, such as Col. Hatcher and this whippersnapper MacPherson, have tried coming up with ballistic rankings and quantification of "Wound Trauma Incapacitation" or WTI. Note also that they always end up throwing in fudge factors and empiric limitations that restrict their scientific efforts to the very narrow application of picking bullets to use in police handguns.

The self-proclaimed ballistics gurus may get a weak grip on "stopping power" concepts (tee hee) and do make a somewhat more credible stab at predicting penetration on ordnance gelatin and armor plating, but they all runand hide when it comes to real live game shooting, crying as they go: "Intractable!"

And well they should, because of the boggy terrain of animal physiology and "psychology," of bullet dynamics of soft and solids in variable tissues, and the most important bullet placement issue.

You might as well accept the fact that there is no "unified field equation" for a rifle bullet lethality index. TKO falls somewhere in the middle of MV/A snd MVA values. MV/A or MVA are both deficient for game shooting expressions, and ne'er the twain shall meet without some subterfuge and hocus pocus to combine the two.

You sha'nt improve on the TKO, unless you might decide to divide the TKO by the free recoil of the rifle, and call this some sort of DGR Efficiency Index. Might I suggest you do this and simply call it the RIP for "Recoil Indexed Product?" Bullet placement is most important, and the lower recoil numbers aid the bullet placement, thus increasing the RIP, for the vast majority of mortals. Of course I am mortal no more, as I RIP in the Happy Hunting Ground, where I am able to fire shoulder stocked mountain howitzers from the bench or offhand without flinching in the least.

I give you this concept if you promise not to muck around with the TKO further than that.

And just to keep the damper on this gossip about me being queer, please remind everyone at accuratereloading.com that I fathered many children with the local women of my old poaching grounds/poking grounds. The bugger that calls himself "Will" is a chip off the old block. Yes, sometimes while hiding out in the bush veld, I had too much time on my hands ... that is my excuse for for the TKO and Will.

Regards,
John "Pondoro" Taylor

P.S. Finn Aagaard, George Hoffman, and Peter Hathaway Capstick all send best wishes and season's greetings from the Happy Hunting Ground.

Sounds like him, I think it's for real!

Physician heal thyself!

Perry

A very admirable letter. And finally a new Index - RIP-, which may become the "mother of all indexes" (or indices). I think it is close to the "unified field equation" derivation for hunting bullets.

Is this some type of clandestine way of you trying to justify the ripping off of the KO in your recent post?


(P.S. Many try to minick Taylkor but I haven't seen any since that had his insight, and hence they try to trash my hero. Sort of like them liberal commies trying to trash Rumsfeld today! )