Just got done reading an Overkill thread on power, and the effort to transfer it to game.

Seems to me the only real benefit to kenetic energy tables is to tell you how hard the rifle is going to hit YOU.

How can you tell how effective a bullet will be on a given type of game, using softpoints, as the bullet weights go over 500 grains and the diameters increase?

How does that 500 grain soft out of a 470 Mobogo
compare to the 700 NE, or 600 OK?

s

The only way I know is by using both calibers on a lot of dangerous game and observing the reaction and autopsy...all else is guess and by gosh....and my way isn't always accurate, but at least you will know what works best most of the time.

But I have to say when it comes to DG and the use of solid bullets, Taylors formula is smak dab on the button IMO....and that only makes since.

It has pretty much come down to the point that the big dog sleeps on the poarch..the more powder and the bigger the bullet the better it kills, not to complicated when you think about it..

So smart money goes on the rifle that can be "carried" all day and still get the job done reasonably well, and that equates to the 375 H&H through the 500 Jeffery, 505 and its ilk...for me its the 40 calibers at 10 lbs. and under, preferably under...

Ray:
You have pointed out the noticeable increase in stopping power, with lion, using the 500 grains soft point bullets, vs. the 300, or 400 grain, bullets.

Now here is my theory. As the bullet diameter, and weight increase, the velocity has to increase, and I believe these to be geometric proportions, to allow the 500 grain plus bullet to expand, yet still retain enough velocity to create a large wound channel.

In other words, 416 worked, 458 Lott better.

Well, how about a 600 grain bullet, at what caliber, at what velocity, expanding softpoint as a stopper?

for a 458 Lott, is 2300 fps enough for a softpoint, to create a long, even wound channel, without velocity decreasing the effectiveness of the bullet?

The 460 Wby would be the round to look at, with soft points, and velocity. How fast does a 500 grain sp have to go to lengthwise an elephant?
Cape buffalo? Lion? and expand to full diameter?

In otherwords, what softpoint can expand to 1", yet go through an elephant, cape b, or lion, and still retain it's initial velocity, or enough to still create a huge wound channel?

Maybe the 600 OK has a place, with 750-900 grain bullets, soft points, at 2400 + feet ps. They open up to over 1.5", and go through anything, and keep going...

s

Socrates!

The kenetic energy tables is telling how hard the bullet is going to hit the animal not how hard the rifle is going to hit you, and it will also show how much Stopping power and shock the bullet will have. The more foot pounds of energy the bullet have the more "stopping power" and shock it will have!

OK:
What I'm trying to tell you is the only valid reason for doing KE results is to see how hard the rifle is going to kick your ass.

With rifles, you have two things going:
Penetration, and penetration, after bullet expansion.

In other words, a 375 H&H will penetrate pretty much anything, with a solid, and kill, if shot is placed right.

Only reason for a larger round is if you want a larger hole, or, if you want to use a soft, that expands.

If that's the case, the question becomes at what distance from impact does the bullet slow down so much as to be less, or, non-effective? (i.e. bullet weight has to compensate for expansion, in other words, 500 grains, or bigger.).

IN short terms:
KE= recoil

KE is worthless against a target that weighs 4 X, or 6X, what my car weighs, and, if it pisses him off, ALL bets are off.

OK:
The only valid contribution you can really make is the effect, penetration wise, a 500 grain WBY soft point has on game, the wound channel diameter, and how deep it went, before getting smaller.

I believe Wby had a very good idea with the 460. 500 grains of soft, at 2400-2700 fps, hit, and expand, yet, with so much bullet weight, and velocity, retain energy, and penetrate deep and straight, causing great damage, and dropping the animal. KE has little to do with it. It's wound channel diameter, caused by a heavy, expanding, high velocity soft hiting it's target...

s

Socrates!

What animal has a weight 3-6 times a car? Elephant maybe. But a swedish bear have a weight of around 330 pounds. My own weight has been just a much I have lost weight now. And I think that a .700 HE will stopp and knock over a 330 ibs bear easy. If I had body armor on me and someone were shooting me whit a 1000 grain bullet at 3200 FPS I would been smacked down. So the KE nubmers is not only how hard the rifle will kick you.

My .460 loaded with a 500 grain hornady SP will go trough a moose I think. I havent get a chance to shoot a "standing moose" yet with my .460 I have just killed a moose that was already shoot and was lying. I hope that I get a chance to shoot a moose this year. And if my .460 loaded whit a 500 grainer at 2600 fps dont knock the moose down then I am not going to talk about "stopping power" any more.

Overkill,
I knwo we've talked about this before.. but a 460 will NOT "knock" a reasonabley sized animal down. It cant. You can only kill an animal 3 ways
1: structural damage.... shoulders/hips/organs (not instant kills)
2: electrical damage... damage to brain/spine ... instant kill
3: blood pressure / loss (sometimes hydrostatic is lumped in here). catastrophic loss in blood or blood pressure can cause "instant" kills, or can wait till they bleed out.

here's a good case in point.
I've SEEN a frontal hit with a 577 nitro, loaded with SOFT nose/hardcast lead bullets, at 1900fps. On a 120 LBS pig. The pig, while reacted to the shot, was NOT dead... turned, headed for the brush, and took another 577 BEHIND the shoulder... and made it abotu 10 feet after. I saw the shooting, and would have sworn it was over on the first shot.... the pig didn't even go DOWN until it exsaguinated.

jeffe

It sounds like I have to forget the "stopping power" talk. But I am going to do a last test. I am going to put sand in a 200 liter barrel so the weight will be around 200 pounds. And then I will weld a 150 mm stel plate on the barrel. And then I put up the barrel on 4 legs and then I shoot at the steal plate with my .460 loaded with 500 grain horandy solid bullets at 2600 fps. If the barrel dont went down. Then I promise to forget the knock down power. I will post the results here.

Forget all the calculation/kinetic energy stuff! Leave that for the AXEL's of the world. The real measure of a cartridge is how well it penetrates and how big a hole it creates.Assuming you can hit your target, The bigger deeper hole wins every last time! I can assure you that I can shoot a .600 Overkill at 2250fps with a 900 gr bullet more accurately at 50 yrds than I can a .50 Alaskan in a Marlin Guide gun at the same range . Same goes for all the other high power bad recoil reduction rifles out there! Particularily on repeat shots. I'll be glad to let any of you prove me wrong! A .600 solid bullet will GO through an elephant asshole to elbow at that velocity and make a .600 Diameter STRAIGHT wound channel! You have NEVER seen anything penetrate like this thing can. Don't even bother with softpoints as they are irrevalent with over .50 caliber rifles! You can also hit it in the correct spot. Thats in direct conflict with the foot shot you'll get with the .50 Alaskan because your so afraid of it! That's the absolute truth!-Rob

Rob- Bullseye on that one. I couldn't agree more.

This has always been a confusing and argueable subject for many moons, when one gets into velocity Vs. bullet size....

It is not a simple subject, if only it were....but I believe the 460 Wby loaded to the gills is just as good a killer as the 600 NE, I believe the 577 will out penitrate the 600 and on and on...fortunatly I do not dwell on such nonsence because I can get the job done with a 416 or 404 or 375 even knowing the others do it better..I can live with that.

OK, you don't have to go to all that trouble. I shot met. sil. competition for years w/ a handgun. The 100 meter pig probably weighs in @ 30#-35#. If you hit the pig low w/ a 120gr bullet @ 2000fps impact = 865ft.# approx., sometimes the plate doesn't go down. In theory 865ft.# vs 35#, the target should fly off the rail, but reality sets in and no. That's why no one hunts buffalo w/ a HV .22. Velocity increases energey much faster than increasing the bullet weight. Increasing bullet weight insures penetration (to a point). It's a physics thing & I didn't do well in that class, but that's the way it is.

frejd338!

If the metal pig has a weight of 35 ibs and was smacked down by 865 foot pounds of energy. Then what will my .460 wby do with around 7000ft?

Overkill,

It will do serious damage to the 35# pig. I blasted a 25# steel target with my .458 (only about 5000 ft lbs) and it threw it back 5 feet and penetrated the 1/4" steel plate. I'm sure the .460 would do far more damage

But it will not knock over a moose or bear.

35 pound steel pig does NOT Equal a real moose.
s

Socrates!

I have shoot a barrel full with sand with my .460 and it was knocked over. The weight was 40 kg. 80 ibs.

I shot a couple of buffalo with my 500 A2. They both fell over! Does that count?

Lucs

500A2!

Did they run after the shoot or were they knocked down?

Overkill,
They fell over at the shot. As I recall one just laid there and gushed out blood, while the second one lay on it's side and kicked one hind leg for a few minutes. Nothing too impressive about the "toughness" of these two buffalo, or perhaps it is the "knock down power" of the 500 A2 that is impressive.

I am thinking 'bout using the 500 on an elk this fall in Colorado. I have shot elk with a 300 Win mag and a 375 H&H. To me there was little difference between those two cartridges. I am curious to see if the big 500 A2 is more impressive or not.

Lucs

I have given up on single units of measurement to define bullet effectiveness because there are too many variables to consolidate everything. I now use the following diagram to give me a picture of performance.

1. Draw a right triangle with the hypotenuse on the upper left.
2. Draw a second right triangle off of the first, with the hypotenuse to the right, so that both triangles share the same height. Make the hypotenuses very light.
3. The shared height line is diameter in inches times 2000 (D2k), the base of the left triangle is sectional density times velocity (SDV) and the base of the right trisngle is kenetic energy divided by 10 (KE/10).
4. The height and two bases should extend from the point Zero, where they intersect, to 1000 where they terminate at the 3 apexes. These axes can be extended as required for diameters over .500.
5. Compute D2k, SDV and KE/10 and plot the points on the respective bases and height, and connect them with dark lines.

You now have a good and complete picture of bullet performance. The left triangle indicates wound channel potential and the right triangle shows the "Whack Factor", or knock down potential. The areas of each triangle divided by 1000 give a useful number for making comparisons.

500 A

I wouldn't get too caught up in the power of your gun, the next buff will probably eat your lunch...

I have seen two buff take 9 shots from two 470's and another took 13 hits from a 500, 470 and 577 before expiring, and only then because they ran out of gas...

They almost always die quite quick and I have killed them instantly with a 375 and a 416 on ocassions, but when one get the adrenline dumped they become an industructable force, I have a great respect for a mad dugga boy...

Ray,

Those examples you site, were they shot with soft points or solids? I have found that solids just don't have much of an effect unless the brain or spinal cord is struck. A gentleman in my hunting party was using solids and he emptied his 416 Rem into a buffalo with no discernible effect. The buffalo did run off, but didn't seem to be too badly injured. It is my understanding that this is very common. The solid versus soft debate rages on though. I prefer the soft points, but the penetration is not nearly as good as that possible with a solid. In the two buffalo I shot with 570 Woodleigh soft points, the bullets only penetrated about 24". That 24" was enough to give an instant kill with a lung shot in both cases. The recovered bullets were over an 1.25" in diameter! The wound channels diameters were impressive if not incredibly deep, although deep enough as the bullets were both recovered on the offside under the skin.

This is true with deer as well as buffalo. I have shot 3 whitetailed deer with a 375 H&H using solids and they have all ran off. I lost two of them too! In both cases the deer must have clotted up as we started the track with good blood trails, but over a distance of about a mile the trails gradually reduced to nothing! Now, using a soft pointed 300 gr pill in that 375 H&H the two deer I have shot with that load went right down and hard!

I guess I can see the benefits and disadvantages with both bullets. The soft point will generate more damage to the animal's tissues and promote quicker bleed out, but at a substantial loss of penetration. The lost penetration potential could be a very bad thing if you are shooting at a buffalo running away from you since your bullets will have a hard time reaching anything vital. While the solid will provide maximum penetration, but generate minimal tissue damage with a much slower bleed out. This potentially means that you have to pump more solids into the animal to kill it.

Lucs

[ 07-06-2003, 00:15: Message edited by: 500 A2 ]

500A2!

When you have been on elk hunting in colorado I want to hear how the effet was on the elk with your .500 A-square

The Taylor scale is a good indicator,theoretical kinetic energy values really do not mean that much in the actual hunting situation.

I only have experience of moose,quite a lot of that though. Say,when a soft .30 cal bullet goes through a moose,shot from 15 yds, it definitely has not given the energy to the animal.The moose may run for half a mile and still need a finishing shot,been there.

I wish I could chrono the exit speed one day to measure the lost energy. The blood pressure shock just ain�t enough for a bull that has already been chased,it is so full of adrenaline that only a spine shot will do the job. Still,better watch out,they may get up and run away after a bad spine shot quite surprisingly.

On the other hand,a soft .458 caliber 400 grain bullet at 150 yds can give an instant drop,meaning a couple of steps and that�s it. With less kinetic energy compared to the above example and less ruined meat,too.

Lung shots,both. Just my two Euros. I do not look for a total penetration... well,Bears are another thing altogether. Fast hard cast 458 all the way.Breaks bones,penetrates,no worry about the wasted meat.

Basically I measure them by the number of dead animals at my feet!- More lead in the right spot usually equates to dead animals. Caliber only adds to thev drama!-rob

KE is not the best judge of killing power, knockout etc. etc but if you could choose only one value along with calibre to 'describe a cartridge' KE would be the best.

Since it stays relatively stable across all the bullet weights in the cartridge.

Momentum, Ko etc. does not.

I have read in a hunting magazine that the diamter of the bullet not is so important if you hit the vital parts in game.. So is it only the leaved ginetic energy in the vitals that is important for the effect on game like moose?
If you shoot a moose in the shoulders at 50 yards with a .308 Win "low kinetic energy" and then make the same shoot with a .30-378 wby high velocity(3500 fps with a 180 grainer) and ginetic energy. Will the effect be much better with the .30-378? Is there a "shock effect"?
I have shoot at 20 l cans full with water with a 6,5 x 55 swedish mauser and it was not any explosion. But when i shoot it with my .460 wby (500 grainer at 2600 fps) then it was a very big splash. The hole can explod. The pressure "splash effect" has to do shock in the vitals as lungs.
Last year I shoot a moose right in the heart with the 6,5 x 55 swedish mauser and the heart explod. That is the best shoot placment to turn of the blood pressure in game. BUT the moose still run for 100 yards. And my buddy say that if you make the same heart shoot with your .460 The moose will die on the spot.