Knock down the buffalo or stop the buffalo.

01 February 2002, 07:27

I think that a 577 T-REX can knock down a 200 kg moose. But a buffalo hm..lets see. I think that the bullet dont can knock down a big buffalo, but i think that the 750 grains bullet at 2500 f/s can stop the buff.

Whit stop i mean that if you shoot a buffalo that are running at you whit a bullet whit 10 000 foot pound of energy and you shoot him in the front of the chest, then he would stop like he has run in to a big wall.

But i think that if the bullet are a soft nose and stop up fast in the animal it maybe knock down the animal.

What do you guys think about that....?

Then i have think about i dont know how you say in english but i mean a half automat rifle.

I think that it would be effective on moose if you shoot three .338 win mag shoots in 2 seconds in the shoulder.

What do you think about that guys...

01 February 2002, 09:53

Kent in IA

You must be dense or something. All the threads recently have pretty much dispelled the bull about stopping rifles and knocking animals down. If the rifle cannot knock you over it sure isn't going to knock over the animal that is ten times bigger than you! Why don't you just give it up man!

Kent

01 February 2002, 12:55

Atkinson

Call it what you want Knockdown or whatever but if someone with a sliderules doesn't believe a 577 or 600 won't end all function of a Buffalo post haste then you have spent more time on the computer than in the field.

Those two calibers certainly give the appearance of knockdown when the Buff hits the dirt like a sack of poop....along with the 505 Gibbs...It ain't BS , that part stays "on line in computer heaven"

those big bores simply devastate Buffalo most of the time, like a 270 on rabbits. Like everything there are exceptions I'm sure.

------------------
Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

01 February 2002, 14:31

Will

Thanks Ray for having the patience to repeat this every week.

Nothing like lack of experience to start recommending stopper rifles!

01 February 2002, 14:37

Kent in IA

Now I am confused. Which is it are they stopping rifles are not. I find the same people saying that the bullet cannot knock over an animal on one thread and then saying the same bullet will stop an animal charging on another thread.

HELP.

Kent

01 February 2002, 15:24

Oldsarge

The argument that there is no such thing as a stopping rifle is like the one the Greeks had trying to prove that Achilles could never catch a tortise! Since I am a witness (and participant) to the .450 Rigby knocking two 40" bulls DOWN I consider such theoretical maunderings the work of a mind with too much time and too little to do. Any Class III DGR will knock a buff down. I am not guaranteeing that he won't get back up again but hit well he will go down. Notice that's "hit well". Skinning the side with a bad shot is not what any of us are talking about . . . except possibly the theorists.

Sarge

01 February 2002, 20:29

Socrates

Sarge:
Could you look at the thread about the 4 bore, and hitting the buff, and having him run 60 yards?

Where do you and Ray think the stoppers really begin, ballistics wise?

Thanks

01 February 2002, 20:31

Socrates

Ray, Sarge: How many buff have you watched get knocked down, and by what calibers?

02 February 2002, 03:03

Overkill

Some of you computer men dont understand that calibers like the 577 T-REX and 600-700 NE,can knock down a buffalo and i think that a 200 kg moose would drop at once.

It not matters what you are sayning if you dont have tried to do the thing you say.

I have shoot mooses whit the little 6,5 x 55 and some moose have been knocked down of the energy of the little bullet when it have stopped in bone when i have hit them in the shoulder.

I dont mean anything bad. I just tried to explain that big bores can knock over a moose and a buffalo.

02 February 2002, 03:36

<Rune>

Overkill, when a 416 Remington Magnum can't "knock" a moose down a 6.5x55 certainly can't do it.
Snap out of it man!!

02 February 2002, 03:49

rick3foxes

Jeez, Louise.

All it would take to end this nonsense is to get a full mount buffalo, stuff it with 1500 pounds of meat & bone, and then let these guys shoot it with their big guns.

I'll shake hands with the guy whose gun "KNOCKS DOWN" the buffalo.

When he comes to, that is. Because there "ain't no way" that he will be standing in the same general area as before he pulled the trigger.

What I think Ray is saying here is that these guns can completely bring to a halt all functions of a living buff.

I've seen a .22 hit the brain of a hog, and he fell down like he was hit with a stick of dynamite. I don't think anyone believes that a .22 can knock a hog DOWN, however.

Like Ray says, there are exceptions. The laws of physics don't have exceptions, fellas. If you hit a buff with a steam locomotive, he will go down WITHOUT EXCEPTION. No matter about his adrenaline level.

A lion is a fraction of the size of a buffalo. But just watch the video of the charging lion in "Jaws of Simba" where he is hit with 3-4 DGR "stopping" rifle rounds.

He doesn't even break his stride. The only hit that makes him flinch is the one that broke his jaw, and that doesn't slow him down.

One more item: You've seen what happens when somebody puts the "insurance" round in a downed buff. What are the effects? Does it roll him over onto his other side? Or does it just make his front leg jerk?

Think about it.

Rick.

02 February 2002, 05:09

Overkill

If a big bore like the 460 wby mag not can knock over a animal or stop a animal. What are you then do whit a big bore. A 300 wby whit a good solid are much better then.

What are they then made for please tell me i relly want to know....?

02 February 2002, 05:26

<Rune>

Man are you for real?
One of the reasons big bore rifles are made is because a .30cal. can't crush the massive bones of lets say a cape buffalo. What about a charging elephant? "Knocking" things over isn't the issue here. Nothing you can fire can stop a 2000lbs buffalo dead in the air and throw it into oblivion, but bigger bullets makes bigger holes.

02 February 2002, 05:38

Kent in IA

Rune,

I don't know what you mean by crushing bones but my 300 Win Mag has not problems busting buffalo bones. I have shot several with this rifle one weighed over 2000 pounds! I have had bullets go clear through both shoulders actually one on the big one I just mentioned and two others.

I agree though there is not way that a shoulder fired rifle will not down a big animal. I put 5 shots into that 2000 pound buffalo to bring him down. He didn't even seem to notice he was being shot.

Kent

02 February 2002, 05:46

<Rune>

Kent, ok I guess I was a little quick there. I know it can be done with good bullets, but will you trust it to get the job done under all circumstances?:-) I would feel safer with something bigger.

02 February 2002, 06:48

Overkill

But if the buffalo run out from a bush at about 50 yards and the bullet cant stop the buffalo just kill and the buff dont die so fast then you are dead.

02 February 2002, 13:23

Oldsarge

When I shoot a buffalo and it sits down and falls over, I call that "knocked down" even though it isn't dead until I put another round behind its skull. When my partner shoots a buffalo in the vital triangle and it falls over, even though it struggles to its feet again, I call that "knocked down." Whatthehell do you call knocked down?

Sarge

02 February 2002, 13:29

Kent in IA

Knocked down is exactly that knocked down. To be knocked off ones feet! It is impossible for a shoulder held rifle to knock a big animal off its feet. Just ask the engineers on the forum or better read their analysis. These guys are smart and can prove what I said above with numbers.

Kent

02 February 2002, 14:00

Paul H

quote:
Originally posted by Overkill:
But if the buffalo run out from a bush at about 50 yards and the bullet cant stop the buffalo just kill and the buff dont die so fast then you are dead.

Yes, that is why it is called dangerous game hunting!

02 February 2002, 14:20

Oldsarge

In other words the engineers have re-defined a term that has been used in a way that has been understood by generations of hunters and told us all that under their new definition what we have called "stopping rifles" or "anchoring rifles" don't exist because they have defined them out of existance? Would anyone be offended if I thought that was a rather silly form of argument? It smacks of the kind of semantic quibbling that we used to do as sophamores. Sorry folk, let the engineers go to Africa and try out their tables and programs on game, I'll take a heavy rifle.

Sarge

02 February 2002, 15:40

<Harald>

I feel like I am getting damned here for something I didn't say.

I have pointed out the fallacy in the idea that the force of impact of the bullet from a "stopper" rifle had anything whatever to do with it "stopping". But I have never undefined "stoppers" or made any pronouncements against using "enough gun".

Stopping is accomplished by one of two things fundamentally. Either a trauma is inflicted on the animal of such a magnitude that it is momentarily "stopped" or "turned" from its charge (examples being a broken shoulder, massive trauma to the heart and lungs, etc.) or else, and more typically, it is hit in or very near to the central nervous system and literally killed graveyard dead outright. Buffalo are incredibly tough and the former type of "stopping" wound seems to have the desired effect with disappointing frequency. That leaves hitting them in or very near the brain or upper region of the spine.

Not to open the debate on how much is enough (or too little), the reason people use big bores is that a .458 caliber gun will effect a region around its path which is .458/.308 times larger in radius than a .308 caliber rifle. It gives you a margin of error, plain and simple. Sure it all comes down to steady nerves and a cool head and all that jazz, but I am made to believe by many of our experienced old buff hunters that this degree of tranquility in a moment of danger is a lot easier to acquire when one is holding a genuine thumper than a .303 loaded with the world's finest solids. Do you want to bet your life on the longest odds or the best odds you can get?

02 February 2002, 15:45

Kent in IA

Sarge what is your definition of a stopping rifle or anchoring rifle as you term it?

I would like to know what an expert considers a stopping rifle to be.

Kent

02 February 2002, 20:11

Overkill

Now i am going to tell what happend in the real world.

If i have a 577 T-REX and loaded whit 750 grains woodleigh soft nose bullets at 2500 f/s. And i see a 200 kg moose at 50 yards he is looking at me, and i point at him right in the shoulder and when i shoot he go down at once, because the woodleigh bullet expand to a big diameter and stop up much on the way in the moose and leave much energy.

Then he is knocked over because off the big bullet whit much energy.

And the other real world whit 6,5 x 55 is that if i shoot a moose at the same range the moose are going to run about 50 yards or it go down at once if the bullet hit bone.

03 February 2002, 09:11

Oldsarge

Not "expert," student of the subject, perhaps. However, in response to the perfectly reasonable question, I consider an anchoring rifle (Class III in the article I wrote for the African book) to be a rifle of such caliber that it delivers a stunning blow to a buffalo when the animal is not fired up by adrenaline. These rifles are in the .458-.510 caliber and deliver 5500-6500 ft lbs. Having seen the result of such rifles on game, I am very confident of their ability to bring to a stop all but the most enraged dangerous animals. Even when a buffalo is not dropped to the ground immediately for keeps, that bull is so sick and stunned that he can be counted on to cause the hunter minimal trouble. This will only happen, of course, when a vital hit is made. No rifle is any kind of stopping rifle when it hits a buffalo or pachyderm in the paunch or merely breaks a lower leg. Power and placement obviously go together and if you can't place the bullet properly, then you need to use less power . . . or practice a lot! To me, "knocked down" doesn't mean an animal knocked off its feet and thrown through the air. I mean that when I hit that bull in the vital triangle, he falls down. He may get back up again, sick and wobbly, but first he falls down. A .450 Rigby does that in my experience. With a lesser caliber, the buffalo may be mortally wounded but run off perhaps 150-300 yards before expiring or he may quickly die. With a Class III rifle he may not be instantly killed but he doesn't go far once he gets back up and he is in no condition to damage the hunter unless said chap does something really stupid like go running up to the animal while it is still on its feet. This is what I used on my last buffalo and what I would use on an elephant in the unlikely case that I could ever afford to hunt them.

Sarge

03 February 2002, 11:40

pertinax

There is a big difference between knocking an animal over, and having one collapse instantly. I'm a physicist, and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing you can pick up and shoulder fire will knock over a buffalo. Period. Conservation of momentum guarantees it. If you doubt this, then why doesn't a dead animal move when shot? (And if you know about conservation of momentum, you also know that you would be sent flying backwards by any gun that will "knock over" a buffalo. But then you wouldn't be arguing this point...)

Now, that said: you certainly CAN drop an animal in its tracks, or have it kick itself over under muscle power. I don't think anyone is doubting that. What calibers or bullets are best, I don't pretend to know. But physically knocking the animal off its feet, like Mel Gibson being blown through a plate glass window by a 12-gauge, is B.S.

Argue what stops best all you want. I'm very interested in that subject, as I'm new to big game hunting. (And I'd very much like to keep hearing how good .458 Lotts are for stopping buff, as I have one being built up right now...)

Solids or softs, anyone?

Pertinax

03 February 2002, 12:16

Kent in IA

Thanks Sarge for clearing that up for me. Pertinax I have been following this whole knock down thing with some interest myself. There is still one area I am confused about and I am hoping that you can help. It has been stated that both momentum and energy are conserved. While I feel I understand how momentum is conserved can you explain how the energy is conserved?
Thanks
Kent

03 February 2002, 18:53

Oldsarge

Pertinax,
The Lott is also a Class III. By judicious loading you can send a 500 gr. bullet out at 2250 fps which will take if over the 5500 ft. lbs. Tell the maker you want the rifle to weigh 10+ lbs. and put a really fat KickEze pad on the back. The Lott has the advantages over the Rigby in that: more of them will fit into a magazine, they can be formed from less expensive brass, it will fit into a .375-length action, and they use less powder. On the other hand, the Lott normally operates at higher pressure and that 2250 is about the maximum you can get without sending the pressure through the roof. Many find it the best compromise in a Class III, especially now that Hornady will be providing factory loads. My preference for the Rigby is based on pure eccentricity though I can probably come up with some good-sounding arguments to cover my tail.

Your assessment of the difference between . . . what shall we call it, "blown away" cartridges versus "knock down" cartridges is succint, accurate and well written. I agree completely. Knock down power isn't about momentum to an inanimate object, it's about trauma to a living animal causing immediate and violent damage to the central nervous system, the cardiovascular system and major skeletal system. This trauma is why the animal drops, not because it was hit by the ballistic equivalant of a 18-wheeler.

Sarge

03 February 2002, 23:48

<Tazman>

Followed this interesting thread for some time now, and decided to post my first reply here on this board to join the hunting jungle

My cents bout this then. What I belive..

A bullet never magically gets more energy when its on route to its target.
So your shooting a 577 T-Rex... and IF that rifle could knockdown a buffalo with pure enery we would see people flying like ragdolls through the windows on the funny videos on this page.
When your shooting with a rifle you are effected to the same force as the target is.
So if the shooter isnt flown back 10 feet out through a window the target wont do it either.

[This message has been edited by Tazman (edited 02-03-2002).]

04 February 2002, 03:05

pertinax

Kent:

Energy is only converved in the broad sense: all the kinetic energy in the bullet does end up doing something to the target, generally ending up as heat (generated as the bullet rips up the target, converting motion to heat via friction). But it's NOT conserved the way momentum is; the shooter does not absorb the same energy as the target!!!!!!!!

The shooter does absorb the same momentum as the target. Well, actually the shooter absorbs much more, due to the powder mass leaving the barrel. (Interesting factoid: .223 and .45 ACP recoil pretty much the same, except for the powder difference. But no one doubts that .223 will do far more damage to the target. This is what you get because of the squared velocity term in the energy calculation.)

The conservation of momentum rule is what allows us to figure out the relative kinetic energies of bullet and gun. I'll spell out the math if anyone's interested, but as you all well know, if you increase the weight of the gun, the recoil goes down. The math is not complicated.

OldSarge: Thanks for the compliments on my writing. My Lott will come in at 10+ lbs., I believe, and I'm eager to get a chance to shoot it. Six weeks to go... A Rigby would be very expensive for me to get, at least in CRF. I'm a lefty, which is one of the reasons I chose the Lott. Win-70 handles it fine. To go to something larger for us lefties gets REALLY expensive, as far as I know. I think only the "custom" actions will handle the larger cartridges.

BTW, where does this "class X rifle" concept come from? I've not read the source material for this.

Pertinax

04 February 2002, 04:28

<Tazman>

pertinax:
yeah, loved to see the math for it

Kinda intresting :P

But u still cant knock over a buffalo with a T-REX or any other hand hold rifle.

04 February 2002, 07:08

Kent in IA

Pertinax,

Harald and I have been discussing the energy convervation thing on another thread. He said that pressure exists in front of the bullet and that the pressure wave travels at bullet velocity. Does this pressure wave add to the knock down effect of the bullet?

After all the pressure is generated in a liquid and this liquid has a mass and is travelling at a velocity.

Let me know what you think.

Kent

04 February 2002, 09:56

pertinax

Kent,

Beats me. I don't pretend to know about terminal effects. I just know that the bullets won't knock an animal off its feet.

I'm not a very experienced hunter, so I'll defer to the more experienced as to actual effects on game.

Pertinax

04 February 2002, 11:45

Kent in IA

Well if the bullet generates the pressure and the pressure produces enough force to cause the animal to fall over doesn't that mean that the bullet knocked the animal over?

This is the question I am trying to understand.

Kent

04 February 2002, 17:18

<333-OKH>

Kent: Reread Oldsarges' last post especially paragraph two. He has understood the problem in this post and clearly answered it. It would seem that shooting game and knocking it down means two different things. Shooting an elk with a bowling ball at 1000fps should pack enough energy to push the animal over, thus knocked down; shooting an elk with a 30 caliber 180 gr. bullet and severing the spinal column will drop the animal, thus again the elk is knocked down. In the first instance the elk absorbs enough energy from the projectile to push it over, in the second the damage done by the projectile results in it falling over. Both are "knocked down" and both are different. Does that make sense? As for the rifle necessary to shoot a bowling ball, I think CZ has one on the drawing board.

------------------
If Elmer didn't say it, it probably ain't true.

04 February 2002, 17:57

<Harald>

Read my latest post on the Knockdown Test thread about the conversion of momentum into knockdown force. In short, there isn't much. Some, to be sure, but not much.

At the risk of seeming too critical I will venture to make a correction of an earlier remark about energy, momentum and conservation. The quantity mass-energy is always conserved. This rule is inviolate. In ballistic events no appreciable mass is converted to energy (maybe an atom somewhere, who really knows?), so we can take it for an absolute law that the total energy is conserved for the event. We can reliably measure the angular and axial kinetic energies of the projectile and perform some hydrodynamic analyses of the penetration event that will describe the motions of the structures of the target internally. Most of the energy is turned into strain energy or remains kinetic or acoustic energy until it is damped out by internal resistive forces. The temporary cavity expands then relaxes to some final position. The bullet may exit with remaining kinetic energy. The remainder is now converted to internal energy in the target by the work fo the bullet. It remains as a slight temperature increase in the shredded and stretched tissues.

On the recoil end you don't try to balance the kinetic energy of the bullet with the recoil energy of the gun. There is no law to justify that. But starting with the total chemical energy of the propellant you can assign the energies of the whole process of propelling the bullet to the heat absorbed by the barrel, expanding gases in the barrel, recoil energy to the rifle, residual thermal and kinetic energy in the gases at muzzle exit (a large fraction of the total) and of course the kinetic energy of the bullet itself. The way to do this analysis properly at the gun and at the target is to begin with conservation of energy. Conservation of momentum is a gross approximation that works wonderfully well for many simple physical systems where we can "cheat" the answer with fudge factors for friction and other resistive forces that are difficult to account for properly. Newton was more careful than most people (including professors) who have quoted him. He said that the change in momentum is equal to the time integral of the resultant of the forces acting on a system. That is absolutely true. Irrefutably so. What is not true is that the change in momentum is equal to the sum of the motions (m x v) of the various bodies in the system. That's only true in an abstract sense that doesn't apply to the real world. It really falls flat in terminal ballistics where things are tearing each other apart. The best approach is always to start with energy and force relationships and extract out the resulting velocities. Beginning with momentum is a lot easier but gets you the wrong answer because it leaves out all the interesting stuff. The knockdown test is a beautiful example of this very thing.

05 February 2002, 06:11

Atkinson

Socrates,
To answer your question, I have probably seen as many buffalo killed as anyone, I have no clue how many and I have shot a lot of Buffalo and I am not going to call it stopping power or any contrived silly name....

What I do know is the bigger the hole in the bore the quicker it will "normally" kill a buffalo at reasonable velocities...

I have seen Buff travel various distances shot with 7x57, 308, 30-06, 338, 9.3's and 375 and probably about in that order will determine how far they will go, I have never seen a Buff make more than about 40 yds. hit with a 500 N,E. or 505 Gibbs and mostly not that far...I have seen them go near a mile or more on many ocassions shot with a 9.3, 375 or 338 on rare ocassions..

If you except the fact that a multitude of conditions will prevail to make certain things happen, then consider this post an accurate account of the question you pose.

If you find disagreement in the above then I suggest that you disregard the post as it is merely my opinnion based on my personal experience and is all I have to go on.

I do, however believe most experienced Buffalo hunters would agree with me. Keep in mind that I have chosen the middle ground and use the 450-400, 404 and 416 for most of my Buff hunting. Ocasionally I use a 9.3,338 or a 375 if the ocassion calls for it..the main thing being is to punch a proper hole in the SOB and let his milk out.

------------------
Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

06 February 2002, 20:30

Socrates

Ray: How can I disregard your comments? I can disregard my own, or some theory of power, when, in fact, watching the beasts get hit with the various rifles is the ultimate test.

You actually support my position in a sense. One view of your post could be that when you fire at a cape buffalo, nothing you can hit him with is going to stop him. It's going to punch a hole in him, and the bigger the hole, the sooner he dies.

If a buffalo can take a four bore, through both lungs, and go 60 yards, I'm amazed your observations say 40 is max with a 50. Still, can't argue with that.

Sounds to me like the better shot you are, with the lighter rifles, the shorter the run.

I guess if I show up for that roundup, and get a chance to fire some of these cannons, I'll bet a better idea of what I can handle,
and add to Saeed's collections of videos.
GS

09 February 2002, 05:26

Karl

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Socrates:
[If a buffalo can take a four bore, through both lungs, and go 60 yards, I'm amazed your observations say 40 is max with a 50.

Don't be amazed.

People seem to go crazy over the 4 bore when they first read of that great .935-1" 1400-2000 grain slug in a 4" case drool drool etc.etc.

Look at the crap job a 12ga slug does of stopping game quickly when compared to a smaller centrefire.

The bore guns were superceded for a reason.

Karl.

10 February 2002, 03:26

MacD37

The only thing, in my experience, that will stop a Buffalo in his tracks every time, is a shot that breaks the spine, or scrambles the brain. No matter the cartridge, turning the lights out is the only "STOPPING" switch I know of! Could be wrong, but that has been the way I've seen it, so far.

------------------
..Mac >>>===(x)===>
also DUGABOY1
DUGABOY DESIGNS
Collector/trader of fine double rifles, and African wildlife art

10 February 2002, 12:00

Atkinson

A lot of you guys have to understand that a Buffalo is not a whitetail deer and he will not succomb to a silly little lung shot very fast...A Buff can go several days on ocassions with a lung shot, some even survive lung shots...

You shott them in the top of the heart breaking the shoulder, then they go 40 to 220 yards or so and die most of the time. A low heart shot gives them considerably more time to do you damage. A spine or brain shot ends the affair immediately....

The bigger the gun the less tracks they make as a rule, but you can't totally depend on that...

Best advise is shoot the biggest gun that YOU as an individual can handle...I use a 404 etc. as thats what I'm comfortable with. and it has served me well..The 375 has served others well, but I know of a hell of a lot of cases wherein the 375's have failed and ended up in disaster or near disaster. Perhaps this is because their are more 375's used than any other DGR, but be that as it may I prefer 40 cal....I have had one shot kills on Buff with both the 308 Win and the 7x57, but that sure doesn't make them a Buff gun...I have also seen Buffalo take 9 shots by a 470 in one instance and 13 shots on another. thes were well placed shots on Adrenaling gulping bulls that decided not to die.

So you see there are no pat answers to these questions. Mostly subjecture....

------------------
Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com