OK, here's the deal. I figure I've adequately exposed jwp for what he is to enough people capable of independent decisions. I'm stopping this and allowing him one last shot at me unless he starts another post showing his ignorancetoward me personally. But I'm done with both these posts for his comments. I won't even acknowledge having read them and deal with the real issues at hand. How's that?

quote:

Originally posted by george roof:
OK, here's the deal. I figure I've adequately exposed jwp for what he is to enough people capable of independent decisions. I'm stopping this and allowing him one last shot at me unless he starts another post showing his ignorancetoward me personally. But I'm done with both these posts for his comments. I won't even acknowledge having read them and deal with the real issues at hand. How's that?

george you couldn't expose yourself at a Nudist colony, much less anyone else...

dsiteman, when you only come on computer once a day a lot of pissing gets done between your post and mine. Seems I'm not the only one that thinks you're full of shit with your talk of cerificates being the only marks of marksmanship. So take your marksmanship cert and put it next to your Language Nazi Cert. I'm sure it'll look nice right next to your Hall Monitor Gold Star.
You see, I know when I shoot well and I know when I shoot poorly. I don't need a group of back patters to tell me. I shoot for my own pleasure and the demise of some distant Pdogs and to put some back strap on my table.
So, regardless of the degree of accuracy of my rifles, if I say a moa rifle isn't needed to kill a deer, you can write that down in ink! You can try to "what if" it to death but it ain't gonna change. Forget your controlled situations; I've worn out too much boot leather east and west not to know.

"So, regardless of the degree of accuracy of my rifles, if I say a moa rifle isn't needed to kill a deer, you can write that down in ink! "

Damn, that sounds familiar. In INK??? How about magic ink that disappears when someone else's opinion gets posted. You CAN write this down in ink: Ever bullet that hits the exact spot where the crosshairs were when the trigger was pulled is MOA. So if you want to believe it or not, in order to kill an animal humanely, your gun was moa even if you weren't.

That said, I picking up my ball and going home......

You are right sir!

George, your word games are getting thin. My point, which I was making to dsiteman, and which I think you can surmise, is that I like MOA rifles in and of themselves. Do I think a MOA rifle is needed to kill a deer? No. Nor do I think anyone with very much real world hunting experience does either.

stillbeeman, your word games are growing just as thin. You're certainly entitled to YOUR opinion and I respect that, but when someone tells me that what they say can be written "down in ink", most dictionaries and thesaurus' I'm familiar with explains that implie "irrefutable fact". It's not my fault your jargon seemed misleading to me.

nugman, why is it when someone feels their opinion is worth just as much as anothers, someone like you has to come on and compare that to "childish behavior". I don't get much satisfaction from blowing roses up anyone's ass and I certainly don't appreciate someone having to resort to silly insults like that. If any of you who're screaming about "can't we just get along" could see that some issues are worth arguing over. With me, science and physics are those points and it becomes extremely frustrating trying to explain laws of science and physics to people who don't seem to have a high school education. I never came here looking for an argument and as long as the contributors had made statements as opinions, then my opinion would have been overlooked to begin with. What is this; a cumbaya sing along? I guess my generation doesn't play the yuppie games well. Guys like Keith and O'Connor would have ripped you apart and torn you to shreds, yet when I state the exact same opinions they had, then I'm being "childish"??? Give me a break.

Now, now, Stillbeeman, until you have earned a classification, you have nothing to really talk about pertaining to skill as a rifleman. You are currently an MU and most likely will remain at that level of skill with a rifle. Believe your temper and general attitude regarding expanding your abilities, knowledge base, probably life in general will prevent any improvment of skills. Swallow your pride, ego, etc. and seek out a long range or high power match in your area and as unlikely as it may seem, you will come back on here and actually admit that there is a whole new world out there regarding shooting skills. Try a High Power match from the postions required and see how much you have to learn. Can you say the word humble?? You will and I repeat, until you have earned your classification, you have no basis for any claims you might make. Just a hard, cold fact.

quote:

Originally posted by dsiteman:
Now, now, Stillbeeman, until you have earned a classification, you have nothing to really talk about pertaining to skill as a rifleman. You are currently an MU and most likely will remain at that level of skill with a rifle. Believe your temper and general attitude regarding expanding your abilities, knowledge base, probably life in general will prevent any improvment of skills. Swallow your pride, ego, etc. and seek out a long range or high power match in your area and as unlikely as it may seem, you will come back on here and actually admit that there is a whole new world out there regarding shooting skills. Try a High Power match from the postions required and see how much you have to learn. Can you say the word humble?? You will and I repeat, until you have earned your classification, you have no basis for any claims you might make. Just a hard, cold fact.

OK.....

quote:

By the way, O'Connor was a marketing puppet of Winchester.

It's a shame you spent so much time learning to be an engineer and so little time reading Jack O'Connor. You wish you could be a "puppet" like he was.

I don't get out of the hollow much, what's a "MU"? Is that some groovy "in" word the back patters use to confuse us great unwashed?

If bullets, any bullets, killed by hydrostatic shock (IF such a thing actually exsisted and any proof out there tends the other way) then you'd never see a deer run after being shot then discovering the heart/lungs/etc DESTROYED on field dressing.

Central nervous system hits, OTOH....

and FWIW unless the wound path from a bullet passes through a major blood vessel or heart lungs the wounds won't bleed as well as an arrow wound, because the shattered tissue doesn't bleed as rapidly as the slicing wound caused by an arrow's edges and larger opening in the skin.

This is why so many hunters like seeing an EXIT wound from their bullet because exit wounds bleed more.
while archers see most of the blood loss from the slices around an entrance wound that is usually plugged by the shaft of the arrow!

And while decades ago I was an accomplished target archer I've never actually gone bow hunting.

I don't believe that target shooting with a rifle, that I've also done, does little to improve your field skills when aiming at meat rather than paper.
I think steel sillouettes are actually of more relative value, however they too share a flaw of regimented paper target shooting, the fact that you are shooting at a known distance
and the additional flaw that striking the target ANYWHERE suficiently to knock it over scores.

AD

quote:

Originally posted by Allan DeGroot:
If bullets, any bullets, killed by hydrostatic shock (IF such a thing actually exsisted and any proof out there tends the other way) then you'd never see a deer run after being shot then discovering the heart/lungs/etc DESTROYED on field dressing.

Central nervous system hits, OTOH....

and FWIW unless the wound path from a bullet passes through a major blood vessel or heart lungs the wounds won't bleed as well as an arrow wound, because the shattered tissue doesn't bleed as rapidly as the slicing wound caused by an arrow's edges and larger opening in the skin.

This is why so many hunters like seeing an EXIT wound from their bullet because exit wounds bleed more.
while archers see most of the blood loss from the slices around an entrance wound that is usually plugged by the shaft of the arrow!

And while decades ago I was an accomplished target archer I've never actually gone bow hunting.

I don't believe that target shooting with a rifle, that I've also done, does little to improve your field skills when aiming at meat rather than paper.
I think steel sillouettes are actually of more relative value, however they too share a flaw of regimented paper target shooting, the fact that you are shooting at a known distance
and the additional flaw that striking the target ANYWHERE suficiently to knock it over scores.

AD

Well said, Allan!

Wheter it is handgun bullets, or the faster rifle bullets that can blow a larger hole than thier bullet diameter because of thier higher speeds, and unless the central nervous system is hit, then the actual cause of death is by massive blood loss and a dreprivation of oxygen..

Of course george roof kills by some magical way unknown to the rest of modern civilivation.

Allan, have you ever hunted or spoken to people who've hunted the Cape buffalo? If you have or get the opportunity to speak to one of them, ask them about ox peckers. Ox peckers are the small indigenous birds that eat parasites off the bodies of African animals, notably the Cape buffalo. Ask the hunter how many times he's found dead ox peckers lying where the bullet initially struck the buffalo. Now I'm rather sure they didn't expire because of sympathy or spontaneous combustion. They died from the transfer of hydrostatic shock sent through the Cape buffalo. Have you ever shot praire dogs with a hypervelocity round? Do you maintain that they died of blood loss or was it the fact that their body size increased to about three times their skin size due to rapid expansion caused by HYDROSTATIC SHOCK? Have you ever hunted them with a bow? The arrows pass right through them and they do expire due to blood loss, unquestionably. Every deer I've ever taken with a bow has died of blood loss. I see videos of guys striking the spinal column and deer going down in a heap, but I've never taken or accidentally made such a shot. By the same token, I doubt I've taken over half a dozen deer in the last ten years that actually died of "blood loss". John Wooters convinced me years ago that the "high shoulder shot" would incapacitate a deer immediately, and that's the preferred shot for me. I've seldom found enough blood loss in any of those animals that could attribute that as the cause of death. They simply do not bleed as the shock to the central nervous system puts the animal down and out immediately. I don't ask you to take my word or anyone else's that your logic is flawed. All I'd ask is on your very next deer, think about putting your crosshairs (IF YOUR GUN IS MOA) right atop the shoulder blade bone and slightly towards the neck in that small triangle there and shoot the deer. I can almost guarantee you that the deer will never take another step and will be dead instantly. Then when you field dress it, if you hit the proper spot, you'll find that there's no blood in the chest cavity and the first signs of it will be when you sever the aorta. Then and only then will you be qualified to join the other magpies on here who want to argue something they know nothing about. I'll await your report.

BTW, before those same magpies start chirping about exactly what the force was that incapacitated the central nervous system, remember that a bullet in the brain is not necesssarily fatal. Neither is the bullet channel through that high shoulder. It's the HYDROSTATIC SHOCK THAT IT DELIVERS TO THE HEART, THE SPINE, AND THE BRAIN STEM that shuts these systems down. There is no nerve cortex in this particular portion of a deer's body, so the introduction to a cavitated bullet channel in this area actually does not sever any major nervous system components.

George you absolutely a laugh a minute...

Ever kill anything with that Avatar?

Allan, one more question. Since you vehemently eschew the thought of sighting your rifle in on paper, am I to assume that you only use factory set iron sights on your rifles you take afield? And if that's incorrect, do you just stop sighting in when the bullet finally strikes the paper anywhere?

Uuuhhh, hold on just a second. George. I've never seen a Cape Buffalo except on film or in a zoo but you're saying that when GWH (great white hunter) shoots the CB(Cape Buffalo) with a 500gr solid @ 1600-1800fps it creates such a shock wave up thru the bony little feet of the birds that it kills them? That's a little too farfetched for my little brain to wrap around.
Why is it that the Buff sometimes merely stands there and looks at the shooter? And sometimes he rumbles over and stomps the snot out of the shooter or it takes multiple hits to finally convince him he's dead. Is this hydrostatic shock selective. Maybe it's hell on birds but Cape Buffalo get a free pass?
I still ain't found out what a "MU" is.

quote:

Originally posted by stillbeeman:
Uuuhhh, hold on just a second. George. I've never seen a Cape Buffalo except on film or in a zoo but you're saying that when GWH (great white hunter) shoots the CB(Cape Buffalo) with a 500gr solid @ 1600-1800fps it creates such a shock wave up thru the bony little feet of the birds that it kills them? That's a little too farfetched for my little brain to wrap around.
Why is it that the Buff sometimes merely stands there and looks at the shooter? And sometimes he rumbles over and stomps the snot out of the shooter or it takes multiple hits to finally convince him he's dead. Is this hydrostatic shock selective. Maybe it's hell on birds but Cape Buffalo get a free pass?
I still ain't found out what a "MU" is.

It works for george and his mystical ways of death..


Thank god george change out that UGLY Exotic animal avatar he had....

quote:

Originally posted by george roof:
Allan, have you ever hunted or spoken to people who've hunted the Cape buffalo? If you have or get the opportunity to speak to one of them, ask them about ox peckers. Ox peckers are the small indigenous birds that eat parasites off the bodies of African animals, notably the Cape buffalo. Ask the hunter how many times he's found dead ox peckers lying where the bullet initially struck the buffalo. Now I'm rather sure they didn't expire because of sympathy or spontaneous combustion. They died from the transfer of hydrostatic shock sent through the Cape buffalo.

Excuse me?

quote:

All I'd ask is on your very next deer, think about putting your crosshairs (IF YOUR GUN IS MOA) right atop the shoulder blade bone and slightly towards the neck in that small triangle there and shoot the deer. I can almost guarantee you that the deer will never take another step and will be dead instantly.

I swore I wouldn't get into this food fight, so I'll probably hate myself when I wake up in the morning, but...

The reason this shot normally incapacitates almost instantly is a result of a direct hit to the spinal column/cord which passes right behind the deer's scapula. The main arteries that feed the deer's brain do the same, albeit a bit lower. See below.

As for owning or hunting with MOA rifles, I'm somewhat perplexed, mostly because I can't remember EVER measuring a group on paper that was shot with any of the 50 or so rifles -- from levers to semis -- I have owned over the years. Hell, I'm not even sure if I ever shot a 1" group at 100 yards. But then I don't personally measure any of my trophies either because I don't give a rat's ass about the score.

I'm probably a bit strange anyway; punching holes in paper other than to adjust sights never appealed to me as anything more than burning up good ammo and money. My only fall from grace was shooting high-power metallic silhouettes competively for 3 years in the 1970s. At least the targets made a nice "bong" when hit.

So my usual routine, even when I was reloading, was simple. Take the gun to the range and shoot a few groups at various distances to make sure they stayed within a reasonably small area on the target, preferably with at least one or two in the little black ring. IOW, if the shots grouped within "MOA of deer," I was good to go.

Now, I'm not going to post a long list of the animals I've killed over the past 50 years throughout the US, Canada and several other continents other than to say it's fairly extensive with multiples of several species in sizes from javelina to moose. In all those years and in all those places I have lost but ONE big-game animal to wounding while using any of my "MOA of deer" rifles, and that wasn't the result of the rifle; it was MY poor judgement to even shoot. Distance varied but most were in the 100-yard to 400-yard ranges with a minimal number outside that window in either direction. And few of the animals I've killed required more than one shot.

Also, over the last 15 years or so, I've been shooting nothing but out-of the-box factory ammo, mostly Winchester and Federal.

-TONY

Exactly, Outdoor Writer, Exactly

Tony, obviously some outdoor writers don't agree on some things. Mind explaining the ox peckers or the praire dogs?

The following are *not* my words, but that of a gentleman I know. What he writes makes perfect sense to me, is what I believe, and is germane to some of what has been written here, so I post it here for folks to read, if they like. It came from one of his online essays found here:

http://civic.bev.net/shawnee/digress.html

This discussion has gotten far from its original focus, so what the hell. The author of this is an anatomist by profession, and a long time hunter. His name is Dr. Tom Caceci. Food for thought.

Cheers,

KG

***************************************

A Temporary Digression While I Ride One Of My Hobby Horses:
or,
A Short Disquisition On The Bullet's Killing Mechanism


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part I: "Energy Dumping" Is A Myth

Let me state right here and now that there are two terms you're going to hear that have no meaning. If you haven't heard them yet, you will, if you spend any time at all on a shooting range or hanging around the wiseacres in gun shops. Both refer to popular myths among shooters about how a bullet kills, and are based on thorough misunderstanding of ballisitics and biology.

"Hydrostatic shock" is the idea that a bullet kills by setting up a "shock wave" in the incompressible water of which an animal's body is largely composed. "Energy dumping" is the concept that if a bullet stops within an animal, it will kill more effectively than one that goes through and exits, since it "releases its entire amount of energy within the body."

As intuitively appealing as these notions are, the fact is that a bullet kills the same way any other agent of penetrating trauma does. A bullet may act faster than a knife or an arrow, but like them it kills either: 1) by causing a rapid loss of blood pressure, depriving the central nervous system of oxygen; or 2) by physically interfering with nerve pathways; or 3) both.

The False Reasoning Behind The "Energy Dumping" Fallacy

The bullet does indeed have a good deal of kinetic energy, and the faster it's moving the more it has, of course. In the USA bullet energy levels are rated in "foot-pounds", a relatively obscure unit implying the amount of energy needed to move one pound of weight one foot.

European countries use the much more sensible metric system, and in this system the energy unit is the "joule". While both these units refer to energy of movement, the joule has the advantage that it can easily be converted to units used to measure heat. One calorie is equivalent to 4.1 joules, the calorie being a unit of heat. Specifically, one calorie is the amount of heat needed to raise one gram of water one degree Celsius. (The comparable unit in the US system is the BTU, but converting foot-pounds to BTU's is not so straightforward as converting joules to calories.)

A bullet fired from a reasonably powerful handgun, say a hot 9mm Parabellum load, has an energy level of perhaps 500 joules at the muzzle.

So why do I care about converting muzzle energy figures into heat? Because if a bullet is stopped in its target, that's exactly what happens: its residual kinetic energy is, in fact released (or, as the wiseacres have it, "dumped") into the animal's body; but it's released as heat, in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics. (This is the reason why your car's brakes heat up when you stop: that energy can't be destroyed, it can only be converted to another form, and the "defaut" is to convert it to heat.)

The amount of heat liberated by stopping a bullet is surprisingly small: 500 joules works out to be about 106 calories. That would be enough to raise 106 grams (about 0.25 pounds) of water one degree Celsius (about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit). That's not all that much, especially when compared to the size of animal it has to be "dumped" into.

A man is a pretty large animal (about the size of a deer) and 500 joules (or 106 calories) of energy diffused through the body of a 150-pound (68,100 gram) human would not suffice to raise his body temperature even one-one-hundreth of a degree Fahrenheit. And that is a maximum amount, which assumes the bullet is stopped and that the shot was fired at point-blank range. To have a noticeable effect on tissue temperature you would have to "dump" a great deal more energy than 500 or so joules: the amount of heat liberated even by the biggest and baddest bullet available is very far below the capacity of the body's water to absorb it. It should be obvious, then, that the theory of "energy dumping" is based on an exaggerated idea of how much energy a bullet actually has, and is meaningless as a part of the killing mechanism.

Believers in the "energy dumping" theory never seem to have an adequate explanation for the fact that there are many, many gunshot victims are still walking around with bullets that "dumped" all their energy, and are still inside the victims. Many people with such retained bullets received them at close range from large-caliber guns, and were therefore the unlucky recipients of lots of "dumped" energy, but they are still alive. The answer, however, is really very simple: they are still alive because they were lucky enough not to have received a hit in a vital area.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part II: "Hydrostatic Shock" Is An Even Bigger Myth

Proponents of the "hydrostatic shock" theory usually argue that animals are composed largely of water, and therefore a bullet causes a "shock wave" to be set up in them, which causes displacement of organs, and rupture of tissues. Their belief in this concept is bolstered by the spectacular splashes that expanding bullets make when fired into plastic milk jugs filled with water: they imagine that something of the same thing happens in an animal body. They are wrong.

First, animals aren't jugs of water, and don't resemble jugs of water in the least. Animals don't have uniform internal density, and the response of muscle to a bullet is very different than that of, say, the bones or the lungs. At the microscopic level, animals are actually very compartmentalized, and there is almost no "free" water (or any other liquid) to constitute a homogeneous medium in which a "shock wave" can be propagated for more than few millimeters. About the only places where large quantities of fluids are found sloshing around are in the spleen and liver, both of which contain sizeable volumes of "loose" blood.

Second, it has been demonstrated quite conclusively that most body tissues are very tolerant of momentary deformation and quite resilient. Unless a bullet physically cuts a blood vessel or nerve, little more than localized damage is done by its passage.

It is true that in passing through, a bullet does form a so-called "temporary wound cavity" of considerable size, which lasts for milliseconds. Inside this volume a "shock wave" does form, and it even displaces some organs. But the effect of the temporary wound cavity is small, and most tissues and organs resist this very brief deformation. There is certainly no possibility--as you will frequently be told by ignorant gunshop clerks--that you can "...hit a man in the arm and the shock will travel through the blood to his brain and kill him..." Blood is carried in blood vessels, and those vessels are tough. Anyone who has dissected a freshly-dead animal will testify to the strength of an artery: it takes a good deal of force to rupture one, and physical displacement for a few milliseconds isn't enough. It's perfectly possible to displace an artery by several inches permanently with no loss of function. To do significant damage the artery has actually to be hit by the bullet, preferably by the sharp edges of the expanded outer jacket, which will cut it.

Furthermore, there is no way the "shock wave" could "travel through the blood" because the design of the system is such that a) it permits only one-way flow; and 2) it dampens pressure oscillations of considerable magnitude. Arteries that carry blood to the body are very muscular structures and designed to resist considerable heads of pressure lest they burst. And as they get smaller and smaller, ramifying to all the organs, the resistance to flow increases greatly. Even if you were to set up a significant "shock wave" locally, it wouldn't get very far in the system before the increasing resistance to its passage would dampen it out completely.

The True Believers in the "hydrostatic shock" myth often point to the messy soup found inside the chest of deer hit in the lungs as "proof" they are right. But they are really pointing to a major hole in their argument. There isn't any "free" blood in the chest of any mammal: like blood elsewhere, it's in blood vessels.

The lungs are a sort of enormous capillary bed, with millions of small blood vessels lying between the gas-exchange surfaces. Most of the volume of the chest is air. The vast quantities of blood found in the chest cavity of a lung-shot animal weren't there when the shot was fired. The free blood found in the chest after a shooting got there because the bullet damaged the blood vessels running through the area.

An expanding bullet does a fearful amount of damage to the extremely delicate tissue of the lungs, but this region also includes major blood vessels (the aorta and pulmonary artery, to name two) which are usually damaged as well. These pour enormous quantities of blood into the thoracic cavity when they're ruptured. Contraction of the body musculature and the pumping of the heart (if it too isn't hit) will assure this. The blood in the chest cavity is the result of the damage, not the cause of it, and the "shock wave" isn't propagated through it at all.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:

Originally posted by george roof:
Tony, obviously some outdoor writers don't agree on some things. Mind explaining the ox peckers or the praire dogs?

Let's see, supposedly...

"John Wooters convinced me years ago that the "high shoulder shot" would incapacitate a deer immediately, and that's the preferred shot for me. I've seldom found enough blood loss in any of those animals that could attribute that as the cause of death. They simply do not bleed as the shock to the central nervous system puts the animal down and out immediately."

I don't seem to find anything in my statement that disagrees with that. When a bullet hits the spinal column/cord, it's certainly one hell of a shock to the deer's CNS.

Just be carfeul how you interpret what I said, however. I addressed using hydrostatic shock as the erroneous causation for why that high-shoulder shot drops a deer instantly in most cases.

I never stated hydrostatic shock is nonexistent because it certainly does exist. Can it sometimes have an effect on how an animal reacts to being shot? Sure, depending on the circumstances.

As for the ox peckers, I haven't had the privilege of either seeing or hearing of that phenomena.

I've shot a couple deer and bear that were loaded with ticks, though, and they all unfortunately survived the shockwaves. I hate having ticks crawl all over me when skinning critters!

Oh, and I also stayed at a Holiday Inn Express if that's worth anything. -TONY

/

Tony,

The Holiday Inn comment made my day.

Lee

So what do you guys feel is acceptable rifle accuracy for whitetail hunting?

quote:

Originally posted by KC Carlin:
So what do you guys feel is acceptable rifle accuracy for whitetail hunting?

My 2 cents:

After sighting, almost any rifle out of the box will provide the accuracy required to hunt deer and most other big-game.

Show me a guy with a $5,000 custom-everything rifle that shoots caliber sized groups, and I'll show you a guy with comparable shooting skills who owns a factory 110 Savage that will kill just as many deer.

Now, if you're asking what is the acceptable accuracy for the rifle/shooter combo, that's a 'hole 'nother subject.

In general, IMO, if someone can consistently hit a 5-6" circle out to 200-250 yards from FIELD shooting positions (that doesn't mean it has to be Off-hand!) he'll be eating lots of venison. -TONY

Tony:
Really appreciated your posts.

quote:

Originally posted by Outdoor Writer:

quote:

Originally posted by KC Carlin:
So what do you guys feel is acceptable rifle accuracy for whitetail hunting?

My 2 cents:

After sighting, almost any rifle out of the box will provide the accuracy required to hunt deer and most other big-game.

Show me a guy with a $5,000 custom-everything rifle that shoots caliber sized groups, and I'll show you a guy with comparable shooting skills who owns a factory 110 Savage that will kill just as many deer.

Now, if you're asking what is the acceptable accuracy for the rifle/shooter combo, that's a 'hole 'nother subject.

In general, IMO, if someone can consistently hit a 5-6" circle out to 200-250 yards from FIELD shooting positions (that doesn't mean it has to be Off-hand!) he'll be eating lots of venison. -TONY

Another good post Tony... Good solid reasoning

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
George Roof:

I was asked by some others to enter into this discussion particularly with regards to the mythical existance of the concept of "Hydrostatic Shock" as it pertains to the mechanics of wounding and causation of the process of death in animals.

In order to simplify this we need to look at the very basis of the process of wounding which in reality whether it be an arrow, a knifewound a blunt blow or a bullet comes down to two concepts.

The first is direct crush of tissue by the leading surface of the bullet and the second is the effect of radial displacement and transport of tissue away and in front off the passing bullet.

Because tissue is deemed a solid, allbeit a soft solid, with solid matter properties and mechanics we can get into things like elasticity, vicoscity, density, cohesion etc to see what effect the radial displacement has on each of, or alternately what effect the quality has has on the passing bullet.

So thus far no talk of " hydrostatic shock" ! : if we look at the term it infers a shock wave produced in a fluid medium , or that is what one would assume, it also assumes a lot of other things such as the effects of compressability or in the case of a fluid the lack thereoff and again the effects of a projectile passing at high speed through a viscous or non viscous non compressable fluid. Fundmantally very different to a bullet's passsage through a soft solid in terms of mechanics.

Shock waves are produced in tissue, in front of the bullet, they usually will travel at velocities close to or in excess of the speed of sound in the tissue. A feature of these waves are that they do not transport tissue and their ability to cause damage has to do with the slope in front of the pressure wave. As such they do no harm ! in theory at least there is indication that they may cause changes in nerve tissue conduction if the wave is propagated close to the nerve in question.

Alf, thanks for providing us with your expertise in this discussion....

quote:

Shock waves are produced in tissue, in front of the bullet, they usually will travel at velocities close to or in excess of the speed of sound in the tissue. A feature of these waves are that they do not transport tissue and their ability to cause damage has to do with the slope in front of the pressure wave. As such they do no harm ! in theory at least there is indication that they may cause changes in nerve tissue conduction if the wave is propagated close to the nerve in question.

Are you trying to say that the only physical damage is from frontal impact?

If the transport of tissue/fluids rapidly away from the front of the bullet isn't shock explain the difference please.

Anyone who's ever shot a milk jug full of water has observed the water goes about as far uprange and it does downrange or laterally. That's hydrostatic shock. A body is roughly 2/3rds water. The connective/musculature/skeletal/skin tissues holding it together have a huge moderating effect on the dissipation of the energy, but, the physics of the impact of the bullet don't change all that much. The extremely rapid transfer of energy from the bullet in a liquid/semi liquid medium sets up a shock that separates the molecules of the medium pretty impressively. That rapid dispersal of liquid rupture muscle cells, nerve cells, vascular cells, blood cells etc.

Kill Ox Peckers sitting on a Buff? No, dissipating 5000 foot lbs of energy with a 1000 lb mass is not going to leave enough enery spread over that much skin to move it unless the poor Ox Pecker is pretty much sitting where the bullet exits.

I've seen prairie dogs in very close proximity when one gets shot. Sometimes body parts and bone fragments will do harm to the bystander, but not usually. Think about the energy per pound of target body weight. If you could impart that much energy per pound of Buff you might do a little collateral damage to an Ox Pecker. I am not going to shoot that gun though, someone else can do that.

quote:

Originally posted by george roof:
Allan, one more question. Since you vehemently eschew the thought of sighting your rifle in on paper, am I to assume that you only use factory set iron sights on your rifles you take afield? And if that's incorrect, do you just stop sighting in when the bullet finally strikes the paper anywhere?

God I just love it when a blowhard has to resort to a completely out of context response to pump up their own ego.

But I'll play along

I never said that "sighting in" served no purpose.

You said that, right here. in the post I'm now replying to...

I said that regimented target shooting which is VERY different from "verifying sight alignment"
aka "sighting in" is not a reliable measure of field shooting ability.

Paper verifies sight alignment and by group size can verify the consistancy (precision) of a given load. this mainly verifies that the barrel harmonics are consistant more than anything else, not proving killing power or other real or imagined advantages.

Beyond doing that shooting more paper "bullseyes" is a waste of time and ammunition when it comes to field shooting

I shoot a lot of SMALL reaction targets.
either clay shotgun targets set at random distances or water filled soda cans.

Not to demonstrate hydrostatic shock, but for visual indication that the target was indeed hit.

as for exploding groundhogs? If I shot a deer with a 60mm exploding projectile the results would be about the same. the deer would splatter.

groundhogs splatter because while that shockwave of impact is traveling through them the structure of their tissues is being compromised by being perforated by fragments of the bullet designed to disintegrate.
this causes the structure to tear rather stretch elastically.

shooting them with solids or controlled expansion bullets has nowhere near the same effect as a proper Varmint bullet.

And since groundhogs don't blow apart with controlled expansion bullets hitting them then why should you expect deer to...


BTW, hitting a deer in the shoulder can have a similar effect to banging your funny-bone against the corner of a table... HARD.

Imagine someone wacking your funny bone at the same time as your arm is broken whle it is supporting part of your weight.

you'd fall down right?, now imagine the addition of getting the wind knocked
out of you at the same time, bullet what the hell is a bullet? you'd think and before you managed to get back to your feet
you are dead... there is NOTHING "magical" about it.

Some deer simply get "their bell rung" others with suprisingly similar dammage don't. and thus are able to run some short distance, sometimes not so short... insistance on pinning down something you will NEVER understand by quantify it is a pointless desire to complicate "we don't know" with supposition.

If you were one of a set of triplets and I shot all three of you I'd frankly be suprised if all three of you fell down the same way regardless of the presision of my shooting.

Hell I'd be suprised if any two of you reacted exactly the same way....

Are you one of a set of triplets? if so I'd LOVE to expiriment....

AD

Alf, OW, those were very good and thought provoking comments. Obviously I don't share all of them, especially since we've tended to center around "deer" as targets. Some physical phenomenon has to explain why a praire dog can be disintegrated with a hyper velocity round and simply punctured by a .22 rimfire. I don't know if it's ft.lbs, joules, or hydrostatic shock, but certainly it hasn't been explained in any of the c&p's thus far.

Now Allan, let me address an issue with you. I guess I'd rather be a "blowhard" any day over a pompass asshole who can only resort to calling someone names liek "blowhard" or "childish" who disagrees with their input. I simply took what you said. I didn't "interpret" anything. I consider myself an ETHICAL hunter and I consider the game I persue as deserving the best efforts that both me and my firearm can sustain in order to take it. I am saddened that anyone would just shoot at a deer without being concerned of where the bullet hit. OW is PROBABLY correct in someone shooting within a 6 inch circle at 200 yards being able to kill a deer. HOWEVER, consider that if you're aiming for that high shoulder and you miss it 6 inches to the rear, you destroy lungs and the animal is taken. But what happens is you sighted in MODeer instead and your "zero" was already 3-5 inches off? Now you high shoulder is 9 to 12 inches off at 200 yards and you've got a gut shot deer. If your guide asks you where you shot the deer, what do you tell him? Anyone, and I mean ANYONE who talks about shooting deer with a distraction of inhumanity to an ethical shot should simply stay the hell out of the woods to begin with. The 80% of Americans who do not hunt and have no opinion either pro or con about hunting certainly won't agree with your logic either.


"If I provoke you into thinking then I've done my good deed for the day!" Nice quote. Doesn't seem too sincere but still a nice quote.

quote:

Originally posted by jwp475:

quote:

Originally posted by Outdoor Writer:

quote:

Originally posted by KC Carlin:
So what do you guys feel is acceptable rifle accuracy for whitetail hunting?

My 2 cents:

After sighting, almost any rifle out of the box will provide the accuracy required to hunt deer and most other big-game.

Show me a guy with a $5,000 custom-everything rifle that shoots caliber sized groups, and I'll show you a guy with comparable shooting skills who owns a factory 110 Savage that will kill just as many deer.

Now, if you're asking what is the acceptable accuracy for the rifle/shooter combo, that's a 'hole 'nother subject.

In general, IMO, if someone can consistently hit a 5-6" circle out to 200-250 yards from FIELD shooting positions (that doesn't mean it has to be Off-hand!) he'll be eating lots of venison. -TONY

Another good post Tony... Good solid reasoning

Guys my question was rhetorical.
It was also the ORIGINAL question, seems the answers went a tad bit askew.

Stick a fork in this one. It's done.

KC

quote:

Originally posted by george roof:
Alf, OW, those were very good and thought provoking comments. Obviously I don't share all of them, especially since we've tended to center around "deer" as targets. Some physical phenomenon has to explain why a praire dog can be disintegrated with a hyper velocity round and simply punctured by a .22 rimfire. I don't know if it's ft.lbs, joules, or hydrostatic shock, but certainly it hasn't been explained in any of the c&p's thus far..

Since ALF is an expert in the field of wound ballistics, why would you not buy into his explanation? Oh Yea I remember, your george roof

quote:

Anyone who's ever shot a milk jug full of water has observed the water goes about as far uprange and it does downrange or laterally. That's hydrostatic shock.

The term hydro applies here since one is shooting a a jug of water

quote:

The term hydro applies here since one is shooting a a jug of water

And it applies to a human or a deer or pretty well any animal. The reason for that is they are all made up of roughly 2/3rds water

I believe two things about hydrostatic shock:

First, it is probably the main motive force in tissue damage that leads to death. I believe this because in the more than half century I have spent killing animals one constant in examining the wounds of rifle killed animals has been the amount of damage to the animal is always greater than the maximum diameter of the bullets. That bloodshot meat is from ruptured blood vessels. I have seen enough deer hearts that similarly ruptured without the bullet directly touching them to know that is occurring. The great vessels of the chest and abdomen, can and do similarly rupture. Their rupture can result in as rapid a death as a bullet through the heart for all intents and purposes.

Second, The effects of the hydrostatic shock are limited to the area very proximal to the wound.

Make no mistake about it, the damage within say four inches of the bullet path when bone/bullet fragments are not involved is the result of hydrostatic shock. It will rupture all manner of tissue from individual blood cells to hearts. Lungs are particularly vulnerable to hydrostatic shock because they are extremely delicate tissue that has a huge amount of blood in it and it is so well perfused. Dessicated lung is like that airy sugar candy

Beyond that four inch area there is little effect that contributes to the immediate death of the animal. Depending on the variables involved, the bullet, it's velocity, whether it hit bone on it's path, the animal etc, the four inch distance may be more or less. But, we all rely on hydrostatic shock to assist in the killing. Were we not thus assisted, we'd see a whole lot more animals run off mortally wounded. Ball ammo is not designed to produce the effect to anywhere near the degree of hunting ammo. It is designed to penetrate instead of transfer (dump) it's energy to the target

If the explosion of a water filled jug is hydrostatic shock, then the same bullet hitting a heterogeneous medium made up of some varying percentage of water will produce hydrostatic shock with the resultant effects being moderated by the makeup of the medium and the percentage of water. That's all the physics of this problem will allow for.

I want my guns to shoot as accurately as I can make them shoot to give me the most forgiveness for my mistakes. I want my bullets to deliver far more energy to my target than the minimum necessary to make a mortal hole for the same reason. I would have trouble living with myself if half my best was acceptable as good enough. I want to measure my skill well and often that I might know well my limits or to raise my sights as the case may be.

George, your at it again.
George and I got into a similar discussion about high fence "hunting" a few febuarys back.He walked in in the middle of the debate,called anyone who didnt agree with him queer ,and pretty much acted just like he is now.A pompous ass.When he gets boxed into a corner,he claims hes had enough and runs off.
Must be bored.I sure am.



AND,to the topic on hand,I have seen guns that wont group in a paper plate at 100 yds take venison every year,in my home state of minnesota.Up until the last few years,I dont think I shot a deer, IN MINNESOTA,at much over 50 yards,and I have been hunting here for 33 consecutive years.
However,I value accuracy very much,and if a rifle wont shoot enough to meet my satisfaction,down the road it goes.