I have a question that I posted on another thread that is probably not properly placed for a response.
We discuss using larger projectiles for a more immediate terminal response dispatching quarry.
I understand the effect on muscle tissue and bone.
My question is that in regard to organ tissue, is there really any difference what size hole that is made with regard to function? Will a lung cease to function if it is punctured regardless of the size hole? I do not believe it matters what size hole you put through the brain or heart of any animal (243 or 600); its terminal!
I have always been of the opinion that if a lung is punctured, it will cease to function. You Doctors out there; Am I wrong?

quote:

Originally posted by eezridr:
I have a question that I posted on another thread that is probably not properly placed for a response.
We discuss using larger projectiles for a more immediate terminal response dispatching quarry.
I understand the effect on muscle tissue and bone.
My question is that in regard to organ tissue, is there really any difference what size hole that is made with regard to function? Will a lung cease to function if it is punctured regardless of the size hole? I do not believe it matters what size hole you put through the brain or heart of any animal (243 or 600); its terminal!
I have always been of the opinion that if a lung is punctured, it will cease to function. You Doctors out there; Am I wrong?

Matters a great deal which is why I smile with incredulity as I read the "Tough Cape buffalo" thread.

I have seen plenty of people not only survive but fully recover from small caliber gunshots through a lung or the left ventricle or even the brain.

Think of it this way:

If I poke a coat hanger through your biceps, chances are that you will heal and that muscle will work perfectly fine even if I take out a coat hanger's worth of muscle fiber.

If instead I poke a broomstick and with it disrupt a brookstick's thickness worth of muscle - a whole different story.

I can assure you with 100% certainty, in humans, the diameter of the bullet matters unless you hit the brainstem or the spinal cord.

Oh and before anyone says "He wasn't talking about muscle injury" the heart is a muscle and a big hole equals faster blood extravasation whereas a small hole might very well seal itself or lose such small amounts of blood with each beat that you are stopmed into the African dust before tamponade or blood loss terminates the attack.

As far as the lungs - small holes are tolerated surprisingly well for astonishingly long periods of time in humans.

As far as animals: Ask any whitetail hunter how far one can go when drilled through both lungs.

From your lips to God's ears . . . caliber does make a difference, despite all those who want to suggest that a .375 is just as effective as a .500.

As for injury to the lungs (in humans), it can get really complicated. The simple answer is overall the lung keeps functioning even after puncturing.

What can make for trouble in the lung itself (ignoring any blood loss for the moment) is when a penetrating injury causes a lung to collapse, and the chest cavity pressurizes and the large vessels that bring blood back to the heart (superior and inferior vena cavae) get kinked off and blood doesn't get to the heart to get pumped out. If the cavity doesn't pressurize, the lung can completely deflate, and they don't necessarily do that bad. The hole in the chest can be a way for air to escape and keep the chest depressurized.

Just saying it's not that simple as make a hole in the lungs and bang-flop.

Some other points:
There are lots of people walking around with only 1 lung because of cancer.
Animals don't smoke and reduce their lung function.
Elephant lungs are sealed up to the chest cavity so they don't get collapsed lungs like I described above.

All things being equal the larger the hole the greater the trauma. However, the velocity of the projectile and the expansion/disintegration of the projectile can make a huge difference in the amount of trauma inflicted on an organ.

Putting a .45" hole in a heart or both lungs is much less damaging to either of those organs than shredding them with a properly expanding bullet striking at a high enough velocity that it carries the energy to create the trauma.

Big holes are fine if you're only comparing them to small holes, but that's where the comparison should end.

quote:

extravasation

Hey, isn't that a dirty word??? You can go blind doing that!!! :-)

Don't forget to factor in fluid.
High placed puncture of lungs that also disrupts the plumbing will fill the lungs with fluid and decrease capacity. That will impact too. My assumption is, big hole = more fluid flowing = faster filling of the lungs with blood.

At least that is what I pulled from "the perfect shot" book.

Non central nervous system Trauma kills by letting blood out and letting air in. How quickly this all happens is a function of where the projectile goes, its velocity, and yes, size. Size matters!

quote:

Originally posted by Stonecreek:
All things being equal the larger the hole the greater the trauma. However, the velocity of the projectile and the expansion/disintegration of the projectile can make a huge difference in the amount of trauma inflicted on an organ.

Putting a .45" hole in a heart or both lungs is much less damaging to either of those organs than shredding them with a properly expanding bullet striking at a high enough velocity that it carries the energy to create the trauma.

Big holes are fine if you're only comparing them to small holes, but that's where the comparison should end.

Absolutely

But the question eezridr asked was specifically related the size of the hole.

quote:

Originally posted by Biebs:

quote:

extravasation

Hey, isn't that a dirty word??? You can go blind doing that!!! :-)

Sure but that's why eyeglasses were invented.

quote:

Originally posted by MJines:
all those who want to suggest that a .375 is just as effective as a .500.

Has anyone ever said that Mike? Talk about twisting the facts...

Given identical shot placement a larger hole is going to be more effective. The only problem is finding the shooter who can place the larger caliber as precisely as he can a .375".

Part of the problem with the big rifles is the cost, both in ammo and recoil, causes the users to be less proficient with their weapons.

The other problem is that few guys practice enough to shoot well with iron sights.

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:

The only problem is finding the shooter who can place the larger caliber as precisely as he can a .375".

Jason,
Respectfully, I completely disagree with this statement. The folk that regularly attend big-bore shoots demonstrate the fallacy of that perspective. In fact, if we speak of that crucial first shot, what difference would it make to sight picture, hold or trigger squeeze whether a .243 or .550?

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:

Part of the problem with the big rifles is the cost, both in ammo and recoil, causes the users to be less proficient with their weapons.

I couldn't agree with you more but that's true of people with .243s as well as .550s. Not enough practice regardless of cost of ammo or recoil.

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:

The other problem is that few guys practice enough to shoot well with iron sights.

Yup, I agree with you here too.

All comes down to practice and as I bet you would agree, practice is the key. Frankly practice with an open sight .22 is cheap and effective and a damn good way to prepare for and become proficient with a centerfire of any caliber.

The 22LR suggestion is about as good as there is. I would say a path to shooting a + 375 caliber gun would be to go out and have some fun with it.
Go out with a friends (sighted in gun). Shoot some milk jugs or stumps, close up where you can hit your target and gain confidence.
Going out and buying a new big gun and then going to the range and sighting it in at the bench is probably not the most effective path to enjoying shooting these firearms.

.

Okay. I have absolutely NO experience with African game but have had some experience with North American game.

In my opinion, and we all know what opinions are worth, but theer are too many intrinsics involved.

From actual experience a heart/lung shot white tail is going to run from 3 to 100 yards before it realizes it is dead.

One morning I shot a small white tail buck at about 40 yards with my 375 using a 250 grain Barnes "X" bullet. At the shot the buck took off and covered 60 yards in a heart beat and went off a 20 foot high bank into a creek bed.

The buck was dead as a hammer when I got to it, and as I was field dressing it, I found that the whole top third of the heart, including the arteries was gone.

I have had animals where the liver had been hit go down faster.

The philosophy I use, is that the bigger the hole thru the lungs, the more air and fluid the body will lose and faster.

Just like any other engine, once the air and fluid are out of it, it shuts down.

Shoot them in the right place with any decent caliber and they will die.

Forget all this science nonsense

I wear a .22 Long Rifle slug embedded in my 3rd cervical vertebrae. It went through my face to get there. It did not even keep me on the ground that long. It even severed my left carotid artery on its journey through my head. Had it been a .45 ACP...I would not be writing this post...I guarantee.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
I wear a .22 Long Rifle slug embedded in my 3rd cervical vertebrae. It went through my face to get there. It did not even keep me on the ground that long. It even severed my left carotid artery on its journey through my head. Had it been a .45 ACP...I would not be writing this post...I guarantee.

Ouch! Is there a "rest of the story"?

A simple way to think about it is we go to extremes to make bigger holes. That's what high velocity rounds are all about. Put a .45 ACP through a deer's lungs at 50 yards and you'll likely kill it (unless CCMDOC is there to fix things) Put a .243 through the lungs at the same distance and the chances of saving Bambi become vanishingly small.

The bigger the bullet and the faster it is moving the bigger the hole generally is. The bigger the hole the quicker the animal dies. All else equal.

There are too many variables here to give a hard and fast answer.

If you destroy the cardiovascular system by whatever means the animal will die based on how fast the most rapidly oxygen using tissue depletes its oxygen. Almost always, we are talking the brain here.

If you don't totally disrupt the CV system, you will have some level of blood pressure that will lower over time in proportion to the amount of damage, and in inverse proportion to the generalized autonomic nervous activity of the animal (commonly referred to as "adrenaline")

A lung hit depends on what kind of damage (trauma) you did to the lungs and their vasculature. If you miraculously managed to miss all moderate sized blood vessels AND did not cause a pnuemothorax (air in the lung's pleural cavity causing them to collapse)or hemothorax (blood collapsing the lungs by replacing the space to expand) it actually is likely the animal will recover.

The more tissue that you destroy, the more likely that blood vessels are cut causing blood loss, and the integrity of the pleural lining will more likely be disrupted. The more damage, the quicker the animal will become unable to function because of loss of oxygenation and death will occur.

A very high velocity bullet in the lung (however it got there, as long as it is shedding a lot of energy in the lungs)is likely to damage a lot of tissue. How fast the animal expires will be directly related to the amount of lung damaged compared to the total amount there. Similarly, a big bullet will make a bigger hole increasing the compromise of the lung space, and do a set amount of damage in a straight line through the lung, which is likely to cause sufficient vascular damage to cause the above mentioned hemothorax and pneumothorax.

Given that you have to get the light fast bullet in to the lung space, with bigger animals, you generally need a bigger bullet to get your penetration reliably, thus the big bullet favoritism.

As everyone's individual anatomy varies to greater or lesser degree, and the exact placement of the wound is somewhat variable and varies where you are in the cardiorespiratory cycle, you can see how its impossible to really answer the question definitively- you need to compare the arousal level, the total gross blood vessel diameter disruption, the degree of lung collapse that the individual shot caused, the amount of oxygen reserve the animal has in its brain, and also consider if you caused a hemodynamic impulse (what I envision people mean by hydrstatic shock)based on blood volume impacted and its amount of direct contact with the brain causing immediate incapacitation.

All a lot of physiologic gobbldygook that means "it depends on how lucky you are..."

quote:

Originally posted by JBoutfishn:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
I wear a .22 Long Rifle slug embedded in my 3rd cervical vertebrae. It went through my face to get there. It did not even keep me on the ground that long. It even severed my left carotid artery on its journey through my head. Had it been a .45 ACP...I would not be writing this post...I guarantee.

Ouch! Is there a "rest of the story"?

Sure...but have told it before on AR...

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

quote:

Originally posted by JBoutfishn:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
I wear a .22 Long Rifle slug embedded in my 3rd cervical vertebrae. It went through my face to get there. It did not even keep me on the ground that long. It even severed my left carotid artery on its journey through my head. Had it been a .45 ACP...I would not be writing this post...I guarantee.

Ouch! Is there a "rest of the story"?

Sure...but have told it before on AR...

Do you have a link?

Here it is:link


But you never did tell the whole story. Was she worth it?

Before we had the ability for velocity and knew how to make expanding bullets...we made bigger holes with bigger chunks of lead.

With modern smokeless powder and engineered bullets...small calibers can make even bigger holes. The lighter more aerodynamic projectiles with higher velocities gave us extended range. But when shooting things like elephant and buffalo...expanding bullets lost a lot of their ability as the big well constructed critters absorb energy quickly and their anatomy tears apart bullets...so with them...we go back to close ranges, large projectiles, and modest velocities.

Lane, I guess you're not going to tell us why you were shot?

Sorry, I'm just interested.

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:
Lane, I guess you're not going to tell us why you were shot?

Sorry, I'm just interested.

A fellow I knew at the time, while at my home, picked my .22 pistol I carried on my trapline, cocked it, pointed it at my face, and pulled the trigger. I never knew why he did it.

Small Texas town a long time ago...not much was said about it.

Kind of a boring story. There was a Ruger Blackhawk .357 Mag laying close to that .22. Just glad he did not pick it up...or I would have been evidence of the difference in bullet size.

I've often wondered if the animal's reaction to the (heart) shot might differ according to what the heart/valves is/are doing at the millisecond the bullet hits it.

I guess it's a moot point from a practical point of view but nevertheless, interesting to know.

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
I've often wondered if the animal's reaction to the (heart) shot might differ according to what the heart/valves is/are doing at the millisecond the bullet hits it.

I guess it's a moot point from a practical point of view but nevertheless, interesting to know.

+1

quote:

Originally posted by miles58:
A simple way to think about it is we go to extremes to make bigger holes. That's what high velocity rounds are all about. Put a .45 ACP through a deer's lungs at 50 yards and you'll likely kill it (unless CCMDOC is there to fix things) Put a .243 through the lungs at the same distance and the chances of saving Bambi become vanishingly small.

The bigger the bullet and the faster it is moving the bigger the hole generally is. The bigger the hole the quicker the animal dies. All else equal.

I would agree that the bigger the hole the faster the death but I believe that a hole through both lungs of a deer is going to kill it if said hole is at least .17 caliber. Such a shot will almost assuredly cause bilateral pneumothoraces which is probably not compatible with life.

I've made two complete pass through lung shots on deer with .224 caliber bullets (a 222 and a 22-250). One was a 360 yard shot with the 22-250 and the deer died on the spot and the other was an approximately 80 yard shot with the 222; that deer went probably 100 yards before expiring.

At the other extreme, I put a .45 caliber through the rear legs of a Klipspringer at a range of about 180 yards. That animal died promptly and I doubt it would have been recovered if I'd hit it the same place with some lesser bullet.

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
I've often wondered if the animal's reaction to the (heart) shot might differ according to what the heart/valves is/are doing at the millisecond the bullet hits it.

I guess it's a moot point from a practical point of view but nevertheless, interesting to know.

I think it has to do whether the heart is full of blood or not. I shot this 110 lb doe with a 375 JDJ in a rifle. 220 gr. Hornady Flat nose bullet around 2300 fps. Shot broadside, complete penetration and no reaction to the shot. Very little blood. IIRC, she ran around 40-50 yards.

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
I've often wondered if the animal's reaction to the (heart) shot might differ according to what the heart/valves is/are doing at the millisecond the bullet hits it.

I guess it's a moot point from a practical point of view but nevertheless, interesting to know.

One other thing to do with the heart that I'm sure happens sometimes is arrythmias. Hit the heart at the absolute right spot at the absolute right microsecond and get a drop to the shot result from disrupting the electrical flow in the heart. That's what I think explains some of the rare shots where you get a bang-flop without hitting the CNS.

A major point missed so far IMO is hitting a rib when shooting the heart lung area.

If the bullet goes between the ribs, the damage to the lungs is usually not enough to drop the animal DRT. They will run a bit and sometimes a long way. But if you hit a rib, often the lungs are just rags, perforated by bone fragment and bullet fragments. The ribs also vibrate with the impact and that also affects the lungs. High shots that hit the ribs transfer shock to the spine and the animal drops and may at times get up and run later, if not dispatched quickly.

I believe that the animals will drop DRT if the lungs are tatters due to rib bone fragmentation - they just cannot breathe. It is impossible to run even 2 meters if you cannot breathe.

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
I've often wondered if the animal's reaction to the (heart) shot might differ according to what the heart/valves is/are doing at the millisecond the bullet hits it.

I guess it's a moot point from a practical point of view but nevertheless, interesting to know.

Shakari,
I've had several buffalo be Dead Right There (DRT)(never moved or flinched) from .375, 9.3, and .458 to the upper part of the heart. Have you (or anyone else here) seen or heard of an elephant being DRT from a chest shot from any caliber?

Steve,

Like you, I've seen many animals hit in the top of the heart DRT but the only elephants I've seen DRT have been brain shot.....

The point I was trying to make (and as I said, I guess it's a moot point really) is that if the heart of an animal has the appropriate valve open at the millisecond the bullet hits the heart, does it actually die from a stroke caused by a pressure wave of blood hitting the brain or does it die from the more common failure to pump and blood loss etc?

quote:

I would agree that the bigger the hole the faster the death but I believe that a hole through both lungs of a deer is going to kill it if said hole is at least .17 caliber. Such a shot will almost assuredly cause bilateral pneumothoraces which is probably not compatible with life.

Nah. Lots of deer and deer-sized mammals (like humans) survive a perforation to the lungs. Of course humans usually survive with some amount of medical assistance, but that assistance is secondary and more typically involves infection control, etc. than directly administering theraputic action on the perforated lung tissue itself. The lungs tissue is quite elastic (at least on those of us who avoided a lifetime of Marlboros) and will self seal a small hole which happens to miss the larger blood vessels.

On the other hand, lungs hit with one of those "bullet failures" you're always reading about here on the net (you know the ones, those where the bullet lost its core, only weighed half of its original weight, and failed to make it out of the off-side hide) will almost always become immediatly disfunctional and cause the owner thereof to pass fairly rapidly and irreversably.

Stonecreek is correct. Punctured lungs even bilaterally can be consistent with life and healing. With a lungs only shot...it is all about tissue trama...as SC says rapidly moving expanding bullets do that best.

However...as I stated before...before there was velocity capabilities and expanding bullets...we made up for it with large caliber.

A .45 & > cal projectile passing through both lungs even if a solid is not compatable with life in most animals as it is too big to self plug letting in air and big enough moving through to relaese plenty of hemmorage to fill the thoracic cavity with blood and air...killing the animal by asphyxiation.

The exceptions here are larger animals like ele and buff that have some degree of permanent fixation of their lungs to their thoracic cavity walls thereby reducing collapse and where body size diminshes the size of caliber...IE: a hole that is big through a dik-dik's lungs may be small potatoes to the ele due to residual lung capacity.

I have been told that bilateral lung shots that miss the heart and great vessels in an ele sometimes don't even bother them that much.

I am surprised that no one has commented on my point about hitting a rib and the bone fragments having an impact on lung collapse.

quote:

Originally posted by Nakihunter:
I am surprised that no one has commented on my point about hitting a rib and the bone fragments having an impact on lung collapse.

No need to comment - nicely described and right on target.

As you, ledvm and others correctly state, in the absence of disrupting the brainstem or spinal cord, the amount of lung/heart/great-vessel destruction will usually be inversely proportional to "time to death".

We've all seen lungs and hearts (as in photos above) torn to shreds, so even that doesn't always spell instant death - organs and muscle can function for finite periods of time in the absence of fresh oxygen delivery.

Generally:
For solids: Bigger caliber = more tissue destruction;
For expanding bullets: Bigger caliber = more tissue destruction;
For a given caliber: Higher velocity = more tissue destruction - as long as the bullet penetrates into the vital organs