Karl.
I cannot ad to what this man has already said.
Steve
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I am not a new member, indeed I have been part of this site and the old one longer than you mate, although I admit putting something like this in the FAQ section does seem like a good idea.
Karl.
[This message has been edited by Karl (edited 04-28-2001).]
Only the Barnes stayed together and stayed true at high velocity.
However, other people have told me that the barnes monolithic solid did not penetrate as deep as some other ones.
The best test medias are elephant, Buffalo, Lions and Eland...Cull hunting being the best source of information availably today...
I used to believe that a test media would at least compare one bullet to another, but have about decided that may not be the case...Everytime I or anyone else runs one of these scientific projects they get a different result....
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Ray Atkinson
The only tests that I feel are worth a flip are real world experience. You can take all the ballistics gelatin, computer modeling, and wet phone book tests and throw them out the window. The variables associated with live animal/actual hunting circumstances are tremendous and are impossible to reconstruct in a test environment. I have yet to run across the plywood elephant or the gelatin kudu. Muscle and bone react to bullets much differently than gelatin.
The beauty of this forum is that you have available to you a wealth of real world experience. The concept here is to exchange knowledge and actual field observations. No question, no matter how often asked, is a dumb one. Each day we learn more about hunting. In short, things change. I will step off my soap box and go earn a living so that I can obtain more field experience in Africa.
Z
While some people may approach ballistics tests as "fun and games", for me at least it is a serious attempt to learn something. My job is penetration modeling and my hobby is an extension of that (or maybe its the other way around...).
Anyhoo, the point of modeling or testing in a surrogate is to permit you to make comparisons for the purpose of analysis and design refinement. Models are intended to represent the reality of the tests. If you try hard enough, you can get the one to emulate the other.
Real tanks behave differently when hit by anti-tank missiles than stacks of steel or even complex range targets when shot by shaped charges on a test stand. But governments the world over perform such testing because it is ridiculously impractical to shoot real tanks every time you want to test performance and because of the very reason that you cite, Zero Drift: uncontrolled variables. With that situation making valid comparisons between two designs with subtle changes is totally impossible because there are so many other things going on.
Same thing goes for field experience. Sure, its the real thing, but lets be honest. Until somebody takes the time to seriously make careful and accurate observations of the shot location and path, measurements of the damage caused and bullet performance, and to document those observations then all the field experience in the world is of very limited value to anyone, even the person who has it first hand. Its too easy to mistake what is happening if you give it all a casual examination and simply commit it all to memory. Until you analyze the facts in relation to one another objectively and carefully you likely will not see the real trends and you will certainly make misjudgments. That happens even when you are careful, so it will only happen more when you don't study the problem.
I am as frustrated as anyone with the problem of how best to test or assess the performance of bullets in a consistent manner, but I object strenuously to the argument that it can't be done to any degree of satisfaction. I don't say that I have done it, but I certainly believe it can be done.
Ray, if I had the time and money I would beg onto one of your culling hunts for the sole purpose of running around with a steel ruler and a notepad in my bloody hands scribbling down all the information I could glean from the kills. Thats what we really need in order to make any meaningful conclusions about these things. I know that you and others have the first hand knowledge, but the rest of us can only benefit (as far as comparisons are concerned) if that can be quantified in some manner and clearly communicated. To date, only Hatcher and few others have ever had the inclination to do this sort of thing and few have done it with the degree of consideration that the problem requires.
Not ranting, just arguing.
I have always been a bullet collector and up to my neck in the blood and gore looking at what happened, strictly out of interrest and I have learned a little from that, but mostly based on common since and nothing conclusive has come from it other than I have a fair idea of what bullets work up to a point. I know that they all fail from time to time and that bullets have come a long way in the last few years...
In know that Hornady, Speer, Nosler and all the bullet manufacturers run these test under quit controlled circumstances and yet they still produce bullets that FAIL!!...I also know that they always try them in the field prior to production as I, from time to time perform this function or arrange for it to be done, for some of the companies.
I also know that gun-nuts get awfully eat up in technicalities that are meaningless, and make since only to thier egos and wishes to be correct, so I take a lot of it with a grain of salt, and I do not exclude myself from that assault....
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Ray Atkinson
I myself have asked on quite a few threads-
Why don't a few p.h's record range, species, calibre and bullet, distance travelled by shot game, after every kill for a year or two?
No more gut feelings, just a table of figures in yards and seconds about which bullet works best.
If someone like yourself were to do that you could do some tricky mathematical stuff correlating kill times to the wound measurements and other tricky stuff beyond my ken.
I think we would get some interesting results.
The most experienced hunters like Ray would take it in stride(after all they have been doing the job successfully for years), but it may help to explain some of the things they have witnessed but could not articulate, or weird phenomena they have seen over the years.
As you said it would quantify what experienced hunters 'know in their hearts', to the rest of us.
All in all such hunting study would be like a 577 T.Rex.
Of dubious necessity but really fun.
Karl.
[This message has been edited by Karl (edited 04-28-2001).]
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Gerard Schultz
GS Custom Bullets
I wage this argument on the job too. Friday I was emailed a series of photos from a recent test conducted here of a new missile system against a tank. It blew it literally to smithereens. The engine lay 65 m from the impact point. The road wheels were at least 200 m away. The turret flew so high that it buried itself in the earth when it landed. Conclusion? Well, sfor some its that tanks are completely vulnerable to this weapon. Is that reality? Sure. But its also reality when you hit it differently and the only immediate effect is to blacken the paint job.
At some point you have to do real tests in the field against real targets. I don't want to sound like I think thats not meaningful or anything less than crucial. But those experiences can be just as misleading as the seemingly hokey tests against surrogate targets or the models.
Here's another argument. If the only time you know how a bullet will perform is when you first use it in the field then we all are taking significant risks with any new bullet (and that includes familiar designs in new calibers because dimensions change performance).
As far as Australia is concerned I go in a trice if I were independently wealthy. As it is I save for quite a while to make such expeditions and I can't take off from work for very long (thats not strictly true - I could but then I'd never have enough money to make the trips). I plan to hunt buffalo in Australia some day and maybe I can arrange to do some donkey culling at the same time. But what you suggested, Karl, is a better idea (except that there is no real incentive other than knowledge), which is to convince a lot of PHs to make notes and measurements of all the kills that they witness. That must run into the thousands each year in Africa alone.
[This message has been edited by Harald (edited 04-28-2001).]
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Ray Atkinson
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'Trapper'
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Ray Atkinson