I sometimes see people talking about a large caliber bullet hitting an ele in the head, but failing to penetrate for one reason or another and the ele would run or charge.

I can understand why sometimes a bullet would fail to penetrate that massive skull, but my question is why doesn't the energy transferred from the bullet knock the animal down even though it didn't penetrate? At 7000-8000 ft lb of energy one would think that just crashing against the head would deliver a debilitating knock.

Energy, by itself, means nothing to an animal at all.

The purpose of energy is to make the bullet penetrate, and damage organs and tissue to speed up the death of an animal.

Here is an example.

An impala might weigh 150 pounds.

I shot one feeding towards us from less than 100 yards.

The bullet hit him at the junction of the neck and shoulder.

He flinched very slightly, shown no other sign of being hit.

He walk a few yards, then lay down, and a few minutes he was dead.

The bullet was a 375 caliber, 300 grain Barnes X. It penetrated the whole length of his body, and was lodged under the skin next to his tail.

Muzzle velocity was close to 2800 fps, so muzzle energy was over 5,000 foot pounds.

By all intent and purposes, that impala should have been blown off his feet 20 feet in the air, and landed 50 feet back!

It did not happen.

I hit an elephant in the head with a .577 nitro Express 750-gr. solid.

He went down …

Then he stood back up …

I missed his brain by 1-2 inches. About all he would have had was a bad headache.

I would say that 90+% of all large bore bullet failures with solids are lack of shot placement.

The really ultra bores will as noted above cause them to loose their feet when hit in the head, sometimes, but if you didn't hit the brain proper, he will get back up.

My sample size is only 2, and only a .470, but both hit CNS, and both died on the spot.

I have seen one hit by a .500 get up and run. Just didn't hit the brain, shot under it.

Several reasons, and this is probably a partial list:

1. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. To generate enough energy to have any noticeable effect (due to the energy) on a 9,000 – 14,000 lb animal, from a gun capable of being carried, the 200 lb individual pulling the trigger would be destroyed.

2. Outside of the brain cavity, the elephant’s skull is largely honey-combed and can absorb a tremendous amount of energy with very little effect on the animal.

3. Sectional density is an important factor in penetration results. For a given bullet weight and design, the larger the diameter, the poorer the penetration. Dr. Robertson focuses on this in his “The Perfect Shot II”. This helps explain the long-standing success of the .375, 450/400 and .416. All have high SDs. It also helps explain why several PH’s lean towards “heavy for caliber” bullets – same diameter but higher weight drives the SD up (and momentum).

4. Shot placement. The larger bullets with high energy values probably allow a larger margin of error (miss the brain, but close enough to transfer enough shock to dump the animal for a period of time), but it’s probably measured in single-digit inches ….

I am truly at awe of your knowledge and experience. Saeed's example is truly eye opening, as I had thought the energy and shock would have devastated the deer. Also the honeycomb structure of the elephant's skull is a new one to me. I know how that would absorb the energy like the crash boxes inserted in a car's chassis. Thanks everyone

That's the reason that at least one of today's cars has a bumper of aluminum foam !! We metallurgists and car engineers have greatly improved crashability by using designs and materials that greatly absorb energy. Watch the crashes with race cars where 10 years a go a driver would be killed but today he walks away from it !!

Actually, theory does not work on animals, as no one seems to ask them to participate in all the bullet testing manufacturers do.

Up to a certain point, things work as planned, but the odd bullet will make you scratch your head.

Miss the brain. Like I did last trip. Hard quartering away and the bull went down front legs first. I obviously missed the brain.

Follow up shots killed the bull and he rolled down into a deep korongo. Couldn't budge him and couldn't evaluate the first shot, but it clearly was close, but no cigar.

Other than missing, don't use top quality solids.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:


By all intent and purposes, that impala should have been blown off his feet 20 feet in the air, and landed 50 feet back!

There has to be sufficient resistance in the actual target for anything even remotely like that to happen.

A projectile can actually expend less of its energy in a target and actually prove be more effective.

EG:
A soft-point can expend ALL its energy and not reach the CNS.
A same weight/calibre/energy -solid- can exit with retained energy & momentum, -yet drop the animal in its tracks.

All 5,000 pounds of energy were expended in the impala, so how did 150 pounds resists 5,000 pounds??

Too many people believe silly thing as in Taylor's knockout values, which are nothing but a load of rubbish!

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
All 5,000 pounds of energy were expended in the impala, so how did 150 pounds resists 5,000 pounds??

The 150lb mass didn't entirely resist 5000 ft/lb, it actually allowed your projectile to travel some considerable distance through,
dissipating the bullets energy -momentum in the process.

Where one places the shot and the construction-design of the projectile will determine where in animal the energy is expended.

Had you shot high hitting the impala in the neck-spine(CNS) & then exiting, it would have dropped like a Sack-Of SHT!
despite expending less energy in the animal.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
...

Too many people believe silly thing as in Taylor's knockout values, which are nothing but a load of rubbish!

Even Taylor himself stated the .375 didn't quite comply to his TKO formula,
claiming it punched above it 'calculated TKO value ' ..

Then folk like DWM Bell just knew from confident experience that a lazy 7x57 solid in the right place
will get him his Ivory,.. save his Bacon,.. and feed the trail of hungry natives that regularly followed him....

BTW: he died by heart-attack in Scotland, and not by being in anyway under-gunned in the wilds of Africa.

We should take note that Taylor's observations were not in respect of game and body shots, but on elephant to stun by head shots. It was an intuitive feeling and not absolute.


Santa Claus

Taylor was quite correct, though he pandered some to the 375 crowd.

Once again, pseudo-physicists gone amuck on AR!

quote:

Originally posted by Santa Claus:
We should take note that Taylor's observations were not in respect of game and body shots, but on elephant to stun by head shots. It was an intuitive feeling and not absolute.


Santa Claus

Yep.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Energy, by itself, means nothing to an animal at all.

The purpose of energy is to make the bullet penetrate, and damage organs and tissue to speed up the death of an animal.

Here is an example.

An impala might weigh 150 pounds.

I shot one feeding towards us from less than 100 yards.

The bullet hit him at the junction of the neck and shoulder.

He flinched very slightly, shown no other sign of being hit.

He walk a few yards, then lay down, and a few minutes he was dead.

The bullet was a 375 caliber, 300 grain Barnes X. It penetrated the whole length of his body, and was lodged under the skin next to his tail.

Muzzle velocity was close to 2800 fps, so muzzle energy was over 5,000 foot pounds.

By all intent and purposes, that impala should have been blown off his feet 20 feet in the air, and landed 50 feet back!

It did not happen.

I had a very similar experience with a Red Hartebeest cow.......same sort of raking shot with a 225 TTSX out of a 338RUM. The animal wasn't even knocked down and needed a second shot to the head.

The first bullet exited in front of the off hip.

Never having shot an elephant but having seen a few shot, I would say that when using solids shot placement is VITAL, pardon the pun.............

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
All 5,000 pounds of energy were expended in the impala, so how did 150 pounds resists 5,000 pounds??

Too many people believe silly thing as in Taylor's knockout values, which are nothing but a load of rubbish!

Just remember for every action there is an equal and opposite reacrion. That means the 5,000lbs is applied to the rifle and your body as well. The energy is disperesed through the weight of the rifle and your body absorbing and rolling with the recoil.

I've shot several elephant that were knocked down flat out with a head shot, only to get back up, or attempt to get up before being finished off. Obviously missed the brain on those. But if energy transfer is a myth as Saeed suggests, and I missed the brain, what, other than energy transfer sufficient to stun the brain, caused the elephant to drop in its tracks when it wasn't outright killed?

I've always likened this a bit to boxing. A well placed fist (or bullet) can stun the brain causing the man's (elephant's) brain to temporarily loose consciousness without being fatal ... hence they get back up after the shot! Energy transferred to the brain causes it.

Energy is obviously transferred to the animal. I am sure Saeed is not saying that. What I say is that the "Energy number is not mathematically equivalent to the effect on the Mass of the animal." If it were, Saeed would have been watching his Impala flip end over end for quite some time.
Also I say that energy transferred very close to the CNS, a bullet hitting, or passing very close by, has considerable effect on living animals. It has the effect of "stopping" normal function for a bit, sometimes quite a bit of time. However, it doesn't make a .224 Weatherby into a Elephant brain shooter. Why? Because you could not produce a sufficient "normal" projectile that would resist the bending forces enough to be reliable in that Caliber to reach an elephant's brain 100% of the time. Bell noted that his 6.5 solids occasional failing was probably accounted to bending where as the 7's seem to be good in that respect. 303's likewise and so on.
The whole "Energy" thing is far more interesting from a Mathematic standpoint than it is from a Hunting stand point for me.
When one talks shooting Men with Handguns defensively, or offensively, it gets even less interesting. In fact this is why the old 45 ACP with a 230 grain RN worked so well for so long in those settings. The good penetration straight to the correct spot, CNS or Aortic cluster causing rapid drop of BP, is what works "every time" and the magic energy delivered to the wet gut by a high velocity Hollow point, where it is often completely "transferred" with no exit, fails "most" of the time to achieve the desired result in one shot. The desired end of this kind of shooting is the "termination of the threat" and that the Threatening Person's hands no longer work to use a weapon and the brain has stopped being able to give the body directions.

Energy transfer is misleading bunk, as Saeed's example illustrates. MOMENTUM is transferred (conserved), not energy. The momentum imparts energy of course, but energy ISN'T conserved.

Let's look at his example and assume zero energy is lost due to bullet or target deformation (work), in other words the bullet hits the surface of the impala and stopped immediately, transferring every bit of it's momentum to the target without losing any puncturing and breaking stuff:

300 grains x 2800 fps / 7000 grains per pound /150lb impala = 0.8fps

So, in a perfect world, and if the impala was standing on a frictionless surface and suffered ZERO tissue damage (which would consume some of the bullet's KE) he would rocket away at the blazing speed of 0.8 fps, or about .5 MPH.


Another example, say we have two guns, one fires a 1500 grain bullet at 100fps for 33FPE, the other a 100 grain bullet at 1500fps for 500FPE. They hit identical targets or animals.

The targets will have exactly the same momentum, velocity, and kinetic energy despite one "absorbing" 500ft-lb and the other only 33ft-lb.

Bob

Just how big is an elephants brain anyway? Anyone got a figure in either litres or kg?

It is possible with much smaller animals to put a bullet through the cranium and lobotomise rather than destroy the brain stem and kill the animal instantly. Anyone who has had to put down stock will have likely observed that if the cartridge used has enough energy to result in eye bulging chances are the brain stem will be destroyed, if you've something with less energy you need to hit the brain stem.

Remember that when you slaughter a domestic animal like a cow you shoot it in the head --Not to kill it but to KNOCK it out ,so it will bleed it.
Even at very close range with a 9mm pistol sometimes that doesn't work !!

quote:

Originally posted by Fury01:
Bell noted that his 6.5 solids occasional failing was probably accounted to bending where as the 7's seem
to be good in that respect. 303's likewise and so on.

Bell did talk of bending in the smaller bores.
The one point I remember him writing was how the 7mm DWM 173gn solid
would end -up bent, after it had travelled the chest-stopping against the backbone.

and from what I recall, he didn't stop using 6.5mm because of bending, but simply bcause
the ammunition quality was poor(split necks, etc)

The 7mm became his favoured ele-killer rifle simply due to reliable quality of DWM ammunition.
He purchased his Daniel Frazer .256 mannlicher carbine and his first custom order Rigby .275,
at about the same time.....His long barrelled Gibbs mannlicher .256- was his dedicated meat gun.
Fortunately it seems, he already had the .275 on hand when the .256 solid ammunition began failing him.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

The purpose of energy is to make the bullet penetrate, and damage organs and tissue to speed up the death of an animal.

I can heat a projectile with a blowtorch and impart it with energy.

but without any actual linear and angular momentum it aint going to do what you want of it.

quote:

Originally posted by Todd Williams:
I've shot several elephant that were knocked down flat out with a head shot, only to get back up, or attempt to get up before being finished off. Obviously missed the brain on those. But if energy transfer is a myth as Saeed suggests, and I missed the brain, what, other than energy transfer sufficient to stun the brain, caused the elephant to drop in its tracks when it wasn't outright killed?

I've always likened this a bit to boxing. A well placed fist (or bullet) can stun the brain causing the man's (elephant's) brain to temporarily loose consciousness without being fatal ... hence they get back up after the shot! Energy transferred to the brain causes it.

Absolutely agree and more to the point, that well placed fist has a big frontal area when it hits a mans head, not just a high speed poke with a finger.

Taylors KO was based on that same principle, heavy bullets with a good frontal area hit hard and if close to the brain of an elephant or other large game will very often cause them to drop.

Of course Taylor's KO value was not perfect and he never claimed it to be. I haven't seen any modern hunter come up with anything to replace Taylor's KO as a 'guide', not gospel, for other hunters. But of course he is dead now and so we can all bag him as much as we like

.

Thanks Alf. I always enjoy your posts. Very educational.
This one reminding us that the bullet has to hit a part of the tissue that doesn't like, or can't resist, the effect of the "mechanical Energy transfer" and as such creates the effect of "stopping" or death in a living target. All the rest of the energy equations are very interesting but not useful in "stopping" or killing.

I don´t think the knockout on an elephant can be predicted or controlled, Ive seen (on video) a big botswana bull take a doubling of a .577 ne in the forehead and he simply flinched and ran away, also a smallish zambezi valley cow take a .600 ne to the head to just run away. I have also seen big bulls knocked out with a .416 or .375.

ALF,


A rifle projectile with momentum (in linear & angular motion) does FORCE a path through living tissue,
it does not ENERGY a path through living tissue.


Momentum has both amplitude (an ‘amount’ value) and a direction.

Kinetic energy is scalar, or NON-directional, in nature - it is the TOTAL energy, of all types, in all directions.[bang, flash,rotational energies,heat(friction)]
That is: kinetic energy has magnitude, but it does not have direction.

quote:

Originally posted by eagle27:

Absolutely agree and more to the point, that well placed fist has a big frontal area when it hits a mans head,
not just a high speed poke with a finger.

Yet the knuckle duster was developed to be able concentrate- deliver the force of a travelling fist via a smaller-
leading surface area of contact......People go down easier-faster to a Duster don't they?

and at the opposite end of the scale.... boxers wear gloves to more widely distribute & soften the effect of their hit.

Didn't Taylor have a sort of sliding scale of how long an elephant is going to be knocked down by how far from the brain the hit is, and by what caliber??

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Didn't Taylor have a sort of sliding scale of how long an elephant is going to be knocked down by how far from the brain the hit is, and by what caliber??

.577 up to 20 minutes
.600 half hour
Cal

Mr.Taylor:.....He made the point that even a "stopping rifle" was ineffective with poor shooting.

and although some have said his findings were 'intuitive'

He actually had a mathematical formula to determine cartridge TKO values.

you can even give it a go here yourself! http://www.n4lcd.com/calc/ ..

quote:

Originally posted by cal pappas:

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Didn't Taylor have a sort of sliding scale of how long an elephant is going to be knocked down by how far from the brain the hit is, and by what caliber??

.577 up to 20 minutes
.600 half hour
Cal

I love math.

So we can assume that for every 0.023 of an inch in bullet increase will give you an additional 10 minutes of elephant snooze time

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

quote:

Originally posted by cal pappas:

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Didn't Taylor have a sort of sliding scale of how long an elephant is going to be knocked down by how far from the brain the hit is, and by what caliber??

.577 up to 20 minutes
.600 half hour
Cal

I love math.

So we can assume that for every 0.023 of an inch

in bullet increase will give you an additional 10 minutes of elephant snooze time

I think you've hit on a new topic for a thread here.
Cal

Cal,

I have rifles up to the 700 Nitro Express.

I have hunted with various 416, I have seen others hunt with rifles up to 460 Weatherby, I have seen videos of people hunting with a 577 T.Rex.

All these results have convinced me that a properly placed bullet from a 375 will do anything any of the bigger caliber can do.

That is why I developed and built the 375/404.

Many of us have used that for so many years, shooting quite a number of elephants, buffalo that at no time did we feel we were under gunned.

I love shooting big bores - I sometimes take my 600 and shoot seagulls with it!

Bloody dangerous those birds are, one has to be careful of stopper rifle one uses