During the past several days, I have read in a couple of places that "1000 lbs of energy is needed to kill a deer". My question is Who comes up with this figure and how is it arrived at? If say Ray or Saeed or some of their ilk were to say you needed 1000 lbs of engery to kill a deer I doubt I would question it. BUT its been my experiences that folks that come up with stuff like that, don't know shit from peanut butter.
Just figuring the possible varibles on the deer's position as well as his "mental" state -alert? browsing? etc- would make the calculation very hard. Shot placement would count for a lot. Are we precisely placing our shots as good little posters in AR or are we shooting for the big middle? Are we expecting some magic bullet or boomer to make up for our lack of range time? How much of that 1000 lbs of engery is lost into the countryside beyond the deer? What sort of bow and arrow generates 1000 lbs of engery?
As you can see, folks that speak in absolutes, especially regarding rifles and hunting, irk me.

This is just so much filler material for the gun writers. If you look @ bow hutners, handgun hunters, it just doesn't mean much. Bullet placement & bullets construction count far more than anyones energy tables. Bigger holes are better though.

I don't put much stock in the numbers myself. In my younger (and dumber) days I once shot (and droped) a 100lb whitetale doe, with one (high neck) shot. I was using a .22LR, wich launches a 36gr bullet at 1280 fps. The shot was at 80 or so yards, so we are talking about a whopping 90ft lbs. of Energy. So I guess that day it took 90 ft lbs.



As fredj338 pointed out, bullet placement and construction are far more important than the mythical minimum ft lb rateing.

11mm!
relevance:
that is the apprioxiamte depth of the carotid artery in most game animals. once that's taken out, the target will bleed out.

it's not "clean" but if done correctly, the animal may not even notice, just feel like a lie down for a long nap.

i'd not get flustered as to how much power is needed,
use common sense: you wont get a .22lr through the bonce of a big boar, and a .300win mag on a rabbit is just funny.

consider target, consider range, then consider caliber.

then go there!

it was messy, but a mate took a boar with a .22lr!
it was all he had at the time, as he was after smaller stuff, however he took both back knees and finished it off with a knife.

as the old addage goes:

for maximim effectiveness, projectiles must hit the target.

peace.

"energy " never killed anything but the authorities have to place some limits to reduce crazy stunts. The 22lr has always been a favorite of poachers but under special conditions.In this area there was a poacher who used a powerfull slingshot ! Caliber, bullet weight, velocity, bullet construction are all more important than energy but energy figures are always published so that's what they use.

Bemanbeme: forget energy numbers. take a few hours and read through this posting by someone who clearly knows what terminal ballastics is all about. It sure opened my mind up!

http://www.mindspring.com/~ulfhere/ballistics/wounding.html

RobertD