Some thoughts on bullet performance...

gitano

Well-Known Member
Many, many times, I have observed bullet performance that was either not what the “experts” swore it was, or even what I thought it might me. In most cases, these surprises were with hollow point bullets. As I have recently begun to use slow, “fat” bullets, I am seeing more surprises in performance. In the end, I have come to the personal conclusion that there’s a lot more to “knockdown power”, or “hammer effect” than can be easily quantified. Furthermore, I am unimpressed with kinetic energy as THE SOLE measure of terminal performance.

I have read several authors that have developed “equations” or formulas to try to quantify the contribution of bullet diameter on terminal performance. Most were either poor results due to the author’s lack of math or physics training, or they were simply self-aggrandizement. The only one I have ever cared much for was Water’s formula, and truthfully, even that one is of marginal value. At least as importantly to me, is the fact that there is no way of quantitatively evaluating the effects of high speed and/or hollow point bullets.

Lest someone jump to a conclusion, I am not about to propose any such equation in this post. I have no great new idea about how to easily quantify the effects of bullet diameter on terminal performance. Nor do I have any such idea about how to easily quantify the effects of fast hollow points. But I do have some opinions on WHY those bullet characteristics are so effective, and I do have an idea about how to test these ideas, albeit neither simply nor inexpensively.

First I want to introduce a new measurement characteristic to the discussion of terminal performance and "lethality"– work: more specifically, work per unit time, AKA power. In classical mechanics, work is defined as force applied over a distance. English system units of work are foot-pounds (don’t confuse with energy – very easily done) metric system is joules. How much work is accomplished per unit time, power, is watts in the metric system. The math and terminology is very confusing in the English system of units, so I am going to stick to doing calculations in the metric system. The ratios would be exactly the same in the English system of units. Also, before you take me to task on terms and units, 1) hear me out, and 2) please only correct my arithmetic errors, or erroneous use of a term.)

Before I get to the description of how to measure the work done and power exerted by a bullet in an animal, let me talk about my ideas regarding what’s going on in the animal as the bullet transfers energy and disrupts tissue. I think most of us will agree that tissue disruption, in all its many forms, will kill the (big game) animal. If we poke a .50 caliber hole through the heart of an elephant, sooner or later, it will bleed to death. What many do not agree on, is the effect of a phenomenon generally referred to as “shock”. “Shock” is a nebulous “force” that is not connected to the direct physical damage that the physical bullet does. It is instead often referred to as hydro-static shock, implying (and often stating outright) that a shock wave created by the bullet compressing body fluids (interstitial fluid and blood), create a physically destructive wave that disrupts tissue or “shocks” (whatever that is) the animal. Others argue that there is a physiological shock to the central nervous system (hereafter CNS) created by the shock wave. The effects of the physical shock wave are easily demonstrated – those of the physiological shock wave to the CNS, are not. Personally I have faith (since I cannot see it, or otherwise empirically demonstrate it), in both phenomena contributing to the “lethality” of a bullet. So, let me put succinct terms to these three components of “lethality”. The hole I will refer to as direct tissue disruption (hereafter DTD), the tissue damage caused by the hydrostatic shock wave I will refer to as cavitation damage (hereafter CD), and the physiological shock to the CNS simply as “shock”. Let me define another term – dead. Doesn’t seem to be too ambiguous, but I want to define it in terms of hunting, not physiology. Therefore, for this discussion, I consider an animal “dead” if it is on the ground and cannot gather its feet underneath it to escape me. If I can walk up on an animal to apply a coup de grace it was “dead” when it fell to the ground.

OK, if I don’t think the bullet’s kinetic energy is the sole explanation of why “fast” bullets, especially HPs seem to “hammer” most critters to the ground, than what is it? In a word – power. The question of lethality is answered in my opinion by how FAST a bullet drops its energy in the animal (power), AND over how much AREA is this force applied (pressure).

Let’s take a big, fat 300-grain, ‘solid’ .458 caliber bullet doing 2000 feet per second (~610 m/s) at IMPACT. (Muzzle velocities are irrelevant.) Its impact energy is 2664 ft-lbs (~1964 J). The frontal area over which that bullet transfers energy to the animal is 0.165 square inches (~106 square mm).

Now let’s take a 225 grain, round-nosed, ‘solid’ .308 caliber bullet doing 2309 f/s (~704 m/s) at impact. Impact energy is the same 2663 ft-lbs (~1964 J). Frontal area over which that bullet transfers energy to the animal is 0.075 square inches (~73 square mm).

Now let’s take a 115-grain hollow point .284 caliber bullet with an impact velocity of 3230 f/s (~985 m/s). Again, the impact energy is the same 2664 ft-lbs (~1964 J). Frontal area is 0.063 square inches (~41 square mm).

Now let’s “shoot” a couple of animals behind the shoulder and between the shoulder blade and the heart, hitting neither the shoulder blade or the heart, and let me suggest what I think happens up to the point that the bullet stops or exits.

The animal will be a 220-pound (100 kg) whitetail. It is my belief that the .458 will exit the offside (hereafter ‘perforate’) of the deer. Therefore, some unquantifiable amount of its 2663 ft-lbs of energy will be “wasted” on travel past the deer. However, it will make a .458” hole creating a DTD volume of at least ~1.5 cubic inches, (the volume of the tissue disturbed by the bullet assuming it travels through 9” of deer), plus there will be some CD, and probably considerable shock. Unfortunately, we can’t really calculate any numbers other than a conservative wound volume, because the bullet perforates the deer. However, it is well recognized by those that have shot deer with this caliber bullet, that they die (remember the hunting definition) quickly. Whatever proportion of the 2664 ft-lbs of energy was dropped on the deer, was dropped ahead of a half-inch frontal area. We cannot calculate the power (work per unit time) accomplished by the bullet because it perforated the deer. However, if we assume that the bullet traveled trough the deer at impact velocity, it then spent 0.000375 seconds in the deer. If we assume it dropped ½ of its energy in the 9” of deer, then the power exerted was 1964 j divided by 2 (the change in KE is the work) or 982 j. 982 j divided by 0.000375 seconds (the time it takes the bullet to travel the 9 inches), yields 2.619 megawatts – the power needed to cause the bullet to drop ½ of its energy. Or, put another way, the 982 j was the work needed to convert half of the KE to other forms of energy and rend flesh.

Next is the .308 bullet. Same impact energy, but about 300 fps more speed at impact. Being a round-nosed solid, I will say this bullet also perforates the deer. It makes a wound channel with a volume of ~1.0 cubic inches. As a RN solid, the frontal area it has with which to create a shock wave is less than half of what the .458 has. And while we cannot calculate exactly what that value is, we can know that the energy transferred is proportional to the resistance, and the resistance of the .308 is probably about 45% of the resistance of the .458. Furthermore, the .308 will actually spend less time in the deer by virtue of increased impact velocity, and decreased resistance. Therefore, it is a certainty that it will convert less of its 2664 ft-lbs of energy to tissue damage, than the .458 will. Let’s assume some numbers: since the frontal area ratio is 75/165, let’s say that the dropped energy is 45% of the .458’s dropped energy, or 444 j. The bullet stayed in the deer only 0.000322 seconds, therefore, the deer only generated 1.389 megawatts of power in slowing down the bullet as it did.

Now to the .284 HP. It is unlikely that the HP will perforate the deer, and for this discussion we’ll say it doesn’t. At impact, the HP starts to open up, and is fully “mushroomed” within 6 inches of the entrance hole. It stops inside the chest cavity without penetrating the far side of the rib cage. The whole 2664 ft-lbs of kinetic energy are transferred to the deer in the form of DTD, CD and shock. The DTD will be significant, but indeterminate prior to a necropsy. Whatever physical wave was created by the bullet, the frontal diameter would likely have been on the order of 2x the original diameter, or .568”. But to my way of thinking, the most significant point is the TIME over which the energy is dropped. The power required to stop the bullet will be considerably more than the power dissipated in the above bullets. 1964 J/0.000155 seconds equals 12.687 megawatts, or almost 5 times the power needed to slow the .458 down, and 9 times the .30 caliber bullet. I want to stress that these calculations are strictly “seat of the pants” stuff based on reasonable guesses and proportions. While the exact values are most likely wrong, the proportions are probably not far off.

Let’s take those values on their face for the moment, and talk about “toughness” of critters. Personally, I DO think some critters are tougher than others. Also, I think there are two parts to “toughness”. The first is purely physical. Elephant bones are denser (tougher) than most smaller animals because they have to hold up such enormous weight. Whether Cape buffalo bones are tougher than other large ungulates is debatable, but measurable. (However I do not have access to such measurements.) The second part of “toughness” is what I will call “attitude”. Now before someone takes me to task for anthropomorphizing, (ascribing human traits to animals), let me clarify that opinion. Certain animals, especially after they reach sexual maturity, “realize” or have an understanding of their “vulnerability” to predation. Here’s where I would acknowledge the “special” toughness often ascribed to most of Africa’s Big Five – elephant, rhino, Cape buffalo, lion, and instead of leopard, I would substitute hippo. I would add to the African list, eland and giraffe. These animals, especially mature bulls, “know” (have a conscious awareness) that they are basically “beyond” danger from predators. (Size does matter.) As such it doesn’t enter their ‘psyche’ that they are ‘mortal’. Hence when they get shot, they’ve got an “attitude” that may very well sustain them long enough to stomp mud holes in you before the effects of a non-shocking bullet take effect. Hence the need for brain shots in elephants and bone-breaking shots in the others.

Smaller herding herbivores, otherwise known as “food for everybody” never develop this “attitude”, and when shot are just as likely as not to lay down and die or run off, instead of “defending” themselves. While I have not hunted Africa, I have seen this very “attitude” many times in brown bears (”immortal”) vs. caribou (“I’m food”).

Now, “attitude” and actual physical “toughness” aside, in my opinion, there is another factor that plays a very important roll in an animal’s ability to withstand “punishment” as gun writers are wont to say. That is sheer mass. Consider the above numbers. Which animal would be more capable of withstanding a 12-megawatt power surge, a 100 kg (220 lb) whitetail, or a 1000 kg (2200 lb buffalo)? We can actually calculate that to a certain degree in the form of watts per kilogram. In the whitetail, the figure is 12.687MW/220kg, which equals 57.668 kW/kg. In the buffalo, the figures are 12.687MW/2200kg, which equals 5.767 kW/kg. What that means is, each kilogram of the buffalo only has to dissipate about 6 kW of power, whereas every kilogram of the whitetail’s flesh has to dissipate 10 times as much, or 60 kW.

The larger the animal, the more flesh it has available to dissipate power. If it has more flesh to dissipate power, the less any one kilogram of “flesh” will have to take. That means that a specific organ, or the CNS will dissipate less power per unit mass in a large animal than it will in a small animal. The less power dissipated per unit mass, the less the damage incurred.

So… not only do very fast bullets cause massive DTD, and CD, they also cause the critter’s body to dissipate a greater quantity of power even if the two bullets are delivering exactly the same kinetic energy. In the case of “big” critters, where their mass is sufficiently large so as to be able to "manage" the power dissipation, only big, fat, deep–penetrating bullets can provide the necessary DTD (especially to skeletal structures) to disable the critter until it “realizes” it is “dead”.

Here’s how these “theories” can be quantitatively tested. A 12”x12”x24” (or any appropriately sized) block of ballistic gelatin is set up at the appropriate distance to permit the desired impact velocity. In the gelatin at specific and uniform distances in 3 dimensions, 3-axis strain gauges are imbedded. Upon impact and transit through the block, the strain gauges will measure not only the pressure, but more importantly, the pressure per unit time. The pressure-time curves, will illustrate clearly the effect of each type of bullet tested. Of course, this would be very labor and instrument intensive. Which translates to expensive. Why would premium bullet manufacturers want to conduct such a test if the results might demonstrate that their “premium” bullets aren’t so “premium” after all?

Paul
 
Very interesting but I would suggest that if a bullet/calibre is working for 98% of the time for you stick with it.
All the sums in the word won't make the animal any dead'(er).
Also with a wealth of opinion/experience such as on forums as this, its now very easy to ask, what works in this calibre for this deer at this range.
I do like reading things such as above and this is not intended as a dig.
regards John
 
I sort of get it and i really enjoyed reading your thoughts, your theories make sense to me and your understanding of maths is far beyond mine.

Question is what is your next step?

When something does go wrong (and occasionally it does) if you cannot find the deer(or whatever) what do you put it down to?


As John said above if it works for you 98% of the time why change and you can compare or ask others from all over the world on these forums what results they have had.....
 
Wow...

I've just run your figures through my 17 squilliebite computer and seconds before it overheated it spat out the answer.......



"6.5x55SE129gsst2675fps"
 
Wow...

I've just run your figures through my 17 squilliebite computer and seconds before it overheated it spat out the answer.......



"6.5x55SE129gsst2675fps"

I must have a glitch, mine said 6.5-284,140gsst,2900fps.

Paul, if you shoot a whitetail broadside, you'll likely get a smaller wound channel and a thru&thru. I can't see your power to weight ratio's working out in that instance.... but you should still get venison for dinner :thumb: Another really interesting read though.
 
Hmmm if we did not question and change then we would still be using the 215 grain .31 cal bullet at 2040fps after said bullet killed Elephants so of course it can kill Roe, Muntjac, Fallow, CWD, Sika and Red deer quite comfortably. Luckily some question if what we have is best or could it be bettered ;)

Sadly a lot of Bullet makers are economical with the truth about their products and in cases downright lie :mad:


Now my maths or computer knowledge is no where good enough to do this so i am grateful that there are those who do have the ability to do so and question in a scientific way their claims :D. Now if we shoot enough we can all get an idea as to what works well for us but often we don't really know why or what we could do to improve upon it. Some of us don't care and just go buy more of the same or the latest fad pushed by the gun trade/press and carry on happily whilst filling their coffers with often overpriced and in fact a mediocre product :eek:.
 
I'm not much for "telling" other people what they should do. I'm more interested in laying out the facts as I see them, presenting opinions, and letting people make their own decisions. Even for as few responses as there are to this thread so far, we have seen a range of responses.

I would never expect a "regular Joe" (or "Noel" as the case may be ;)), to go through such an exercise. Heck, I'm not likely to do it again. Neither do I want to "win anyone over". As was pointed out by http://www.yourkshireroestalking, and I paraphrase - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." An adage I adhere to staunchly. But... there were some widely-held "truths" I wanted to test.

First among those was the general attitude that "hollow points" are "bad" bullets for big game. I have too much personal experience to the contrary to let that myth 'recline'. However, the debate over bullets terminal performance has raged ever since we went from "round ball" to "pointy". In the past century, the debate has condensed to the "keep it inside" group vs the "through and through" group.

I'll admit readily that as a general rule I'm a "keep it inside" fellow. However that attitude - developed because as a young man I believed everything Jack O'Connor wrote - has 'tempered' over time and with experience. I don't care for "arguing". If something can't be repeated at will and quantified, then any discussion - however stimulating - is fundamentally "us vs them". That gets old to me pretty fast.

For the past 30 or so years, I have searched for a way to get a grip - personally - on explaining what everyone knew. Namely, some bullet types seem to "flatten" animals while others don't. I knew from considerable personal experience that certain HP bullets were excellent big game projectiles. Furthermore, I also knew that gunwriters (ptooey) and bullet manufacturers also KNEW this to be true. However, they had ignorantly bad-mouthed HPs so vigorously and vehemently that when the truth finally was 'out', they had to find a way to 'change their tune' without (gasp) "losing face". They preserved their "expertness" " (if not their credibility) by inventing the "ballistic tip" bullet. The truth is, all those little bullets with plastic inserts that so many people like because they have killed so many big game animals "dead right there"... are in fact functional hollow points. That little plastic insert is there for improving the ballistic coefficient NOT for ANYTHING to do with terminal performance of the HOLLOW POINT they "fair" during flight.

So... the 'itch' I needed to scratch was a personal one. I needed to figure out "why" certain HPs were so effective on big game. The "power" calculations above are the 'scratch' that 'itch' needed. For me alone is sufficient. I present such ruminations not to convince, but simply to present, and am not offended in any way when someone else finds no value there. I do get a little "testy" when I get told I'm "wrong" because "right" and "wrong" are not the issue.

By the way, you may have noted that I have written "certain HPs" a couple of times. There is a big difference in terminal performance between different types of hollow point bullets. The "match" type of "hollow points" are "hollow" only in a technical sense. Most of their meplats are completely closed. They make VERY poor big game projectiles. However, those like the 130-grain mentioned above have very large, OPEN meplats and are veritable 'hammers' on big game.

Also, I only looked at a very small part of
http://www.rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/b.../wounding.html

While I suspect I would find much to agree on with this author, (we're both interested in debunking myths) the little I read - his treatise on "through and through" vs "keep it inside" - is flawed both logically and quantitatively.

Finally, mostly I present this analysis to 'introduce' myself. I am:
1) New to this site, AND
2) A "foreigner".

Those two facts taken together, make getting to know me a bit of a challenge. I like this site, and intend to stay a while. I would like people here to understand 'where I'm coming from' when I respond to a particular post or about a particular subject. This is a mature site. You folks know each other both as fellow SD'ers but also "culturally" as "Brits". (No offense intended to the Irish or Scots or Welsh or whomever else I fail to appreciate as separate from "British". I just don't know how to address you collectively.)

So take the above analysis as you see fit. It is not my intent to "convince" anyone to 'change their ways'. Truly, my attitude is 'each to his own'. Just please don't try to tell me your unproven opinion is "right" and my unproven opinion is "wrong". If you do... we're gonna 'rumble'.

Paul
 
Last edited:
I have spent over 10 years stalking, not long really and only this year for the first time have I been able to recover a bullet from a deer. The client made an error of judgement and shot the deer in the right rear quarter. Easy enough mistake for a first time and the meat was all useable. I was very pleased finally to recover the remaiins of a complete bullet. In fact the two parts as the front section of lead core had seperated from the remains of the bullet.
The Roebuck dropped on the spot and was easy to recover. It was a privi 6.5 139 gr load as I tend to use that in my rifles used by clients and they shot cheap factory ammo acceptably than premium handloads with any risk or liability.
I have been able to rcover some of these this year from the earth back stop as we changed range layouts but this was the first deer recovery.
I was happy with expansion and despite dropping the seperated lead part into the gralloch and losing it I felt it weighed as much as the dirt bank recovered bullets at a guess.
the wound channel on a deer is difficult to asses for effect as we tend to open them up to gralloch rather than to mend and therefore a lot of evidence seems to be heart damage or shoulder damage etc.
That said a good kill is one where you dont have to track the deer and also one where minimum meat damage occurs (away from the shoulder if possible). I am a firm believer that it is almost impossible to replicate a shot on a live target (field medicine proves this in recent reports but ballistic gelatin is as good as we can get in reality) and therefore mathematics are shot away the moment the deer is hit!
Thanks for the clacs though, I would never have the time to do them!
 
Interesting calculations but I my humble opinion there are too many variables to compare a deer or any other animal to a block of ballistic gel.eg does the bullet strike a bone ,how much bone ,how much hair is on the beast ,fat cover ,angle of shot ,which organs it hits,muscles relaxed or tensed,how the animal is stood,size of the animal etc,etc,etc.Find a bullet,calibre ,velocity combination which works most of the time and stick to it.One thing I have found is that meat damage is secondary.Lost deer = 100% meat damage
 
Interesting calculations but I my humble opinion there are too many variables to compare a deer or any other animal to a block of ballistic gel.eg does the bullet strike a bone ,how much bone ,how much hair is on the beast ,fat cover ,angle of shot ,which organs it hits,muscles relaxed or tensed,how the animal is stood,size of the animal etc,etc,etc.Find a bullet,calibre ,velocity combination which works most of the time and stick to it.One thing I have found is that meat damage is secondary.Lost deer = 100% meat damage
I agree about that but as the bullet designers need somewhere to start testing before production starts thhen the gel is probably the best standard altenative. I would hope that production trials also take place to ensure the design is working and that production hasnt changed any of the characteristics of the prototype. Then we should also see empirical testing on carcasses and then live game!
 
Find a bullet,calibre ,velocity combination which works most of the time and stick to it.
Nothing wrong with that on a practical level, as I've already acknowledged.

One thing I have found is that meat damage is secondary.Lost deer = 100% meat damage
You and I agree 100% on that!

Paul
 
Last edited:
Also, I only looked at a very small part of
http://www.rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/b.../wounding.html

While I suspect I would find much to agree on with this author, (we're both interested in debunking myths) the little I read - his treatise on "through and through" vs "keep it inside" - is flawed both logically and quantitatively.

That's interesting. I though it made a good deal of sense, but that might just be because I agree with him!

If you have time, perhaps you could expand a little on the parts of the arguments you consider logically flawed? The quantitative stuff I understand less well, but I don't mind having a go!
 
I've now had a rather slower read-through of Mr. Gitano's essay.

I must confess that I do not understand the purpose of the expression in terms of watts of the energy presumend to be transferred to the target animal.

Consider this:
In a perfectly-insulated room of known volume, there is an electric fire.
I want to know by how many degrees the temperature of the room has risen as a result of the use of the fire, so I need to know how much energy the fire has put into the room.
If I am told that the fire has an output of 1kW, my next question must be 'how long has the fire been on for', because otherwise I can make no sense of the situation.

My concern is to find out how much energy, work, joules or whatever has been put into the room. It doesn't matter to me over how long this has happened; just how much has been put in.

So also with a rifle-bullet passing through the body of an animal, are we perhaps not in a simililar position?
We want to know how much of the bullet's kinetic energy been converted during its passage through the animal. I suppose, thinking of a few things, the bullet will do work deforming itself, making noise, breaking bone and tearing other tissues, and, let us not forget, harmlessly stretching tissues which suffer no useful damage as a result.

Apart from knowing that, I'm not sure how it helps to estimate over what time period the bullet takes in passing through the animal; with any rifle-bullet, the answer will be 'very quickly', and I suspect that the differences between them in this regard are not very important.

I wonder whether is might be misleading to speak in this context of a '12MW power surge', when we are in fact considering, because of the extremely short duration of this 'power surge', the transfer of a few hundred joules of energy.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top