Learning from What is Happening in Indiana

[Flatland Crusoe]

Please show me where Hornady publishes their momentum tables.

Your thread isn't showing me you understand what factors are acting on the bullets, just that you spent 4 hours searching wikipedia physics pages trying to shoot holes in my arguments..

 

[hunterconservationist]

Please show me where Hornady publishes their momentum tables.

Your thread isn't showing me you understand what factors are acting on the bullets, just that you spent 4 hours searching wikipedia physics pages trying to shoot holes in my arguments..

The links to Hornady's ballistics were in my post. I spent 2 minutes recalling knowledge I learned in 9th grade and have been applying to my choices in arrow/broadhead combos, bow draw weight and arrow weight considerations, rifle load choices, etc. ever since. You don't see momentum discussed in ballistics because they either don't understand it or want to talk about it. You can very easily shoot different round and gun combos into a variety of mediums and see what happens. Hands on experiment is much more valuable than math when it comes to hunting applications anyway. It's been done in archery - shoot multiple combos through bone/meat/hide, etc. to see which combination of arrow shaft material (drag), arrow weight, front of center %, broadhead type and weight (single bevel, single blade vs mechanical) and the video and measurables tell us exactly what happens.

What this boils down to is that no ethical hunter with a slug gun would ever attempt a 400+ yard shot. A guy with a 300 win mag with practice can kill effectively well beyond that range. Apply this to Indiana. None of the ballistics calcs, or ricochet projections or fragmentation hypothesis in the world on the slug gun or muzzleloader matter because hunters aren't taking those shots with those guns. That's why the restrictions were in place to begin with, and all other recently legalized cartridges (44 mag, 357, etc.) were chosen, because they eliminate long shots.

You didn't answer my question about "holing back technology" and drones. How about remotely triggered guns - guy at his desk pushing buttons and killing animals 3000 miles away?

Here are the Hornady links again.

http://www.hornady.com/store/12-GA-SST-Slug-300gr-SST/
http://www.hornady.com/store/300-Win...Superformance/

 

[Flatland Crusoe]

Pardon my fat fingering, it was holding not holing. My physics didn't end at 9th grade, it only went about 7 years past there. While you were being a grammar driven person I was becoming a number driven person.

A lot of this is counter intuitive so hold on, or hole on, whatever. Ammo manufactures deal in energy, not momentum. In an inelastic collision energy IS conserved, just not kinetic energy. The rest of that energy gets turned into sound, heat, work and physical deformation of the metal. The problem is that measuring all of the these variables is basically impossible and you have at least 2 materials interacting assuming you consider earth to be homogeneous and its an all copper bullet of uniform properties which it likely isn't because that bullet was cold worked during manufacture and the grain structure is highly distorted in the process without considering it to be a bimetal bullet. Once you get past the yield point of a metal the modulus of elasticity no longer is fixed and all the calculations become multivariable and differential really quickly. Bullet impacts have loads of plastic deformation so the math is really really nasty unless you have at least a masters in materials science. The difference is that you think you can solve these issues with high school math and I don't believe myself with a lot more experience could approximate whats happening after knowing a little more. As a result I yield to real world testing and will use the listed source until you can find me a less biased version. The world is not a feather falling in a vacuum tube.

Momentum is a nice clear way to deal with an impact in first year physics because figuring out who got what energy is not easy. Bullet manufacturers don't publish momentum data because its an incomplete view of the picture and that it can be calculated from the velocity and bullet weight. The common ways the ammo industry deals with all these variables would be gel testing and listing the sectional density of a round. Ballistics gel gives a homogeneous material that is a relative approximation of flesh and sectional density is the weight divided by the frontal energy. This is essentially analogous to the ballistic coefficient as it measures friction of movement through a fluid or similar material as I don't think ballistic gel is a Newtonian fluid. The higher the sectional density the deep a round will go. This means that a 100 grain 6mm round will penetrate roughly as well a 165 grain 30 caliber round at the same speed in the same material.

The problem with sectional density on an errant impact is that rifle bullets like to tumble quite a bit because their length is often 5 times their diameter or more where as a saboted slug is closer to a 2 to 1 ratio because its basically a large caliber pistol bullet. Once the impact occurs and the sectional density likely gets a lot worse because at 5 times the diameter in length and an assumed square profile to the side of the bullet vs a round front you get a sectional density that is 6.3 times worse whereas the slug is only 2.5 times worse. You basically turned an arrow into a beating stick.

A really good real world analogy from box o' truth and others is that 00 buck shot penetrates more layers of dry wall than a .223 round because the .223 bullet yaws and turns where the pellets maintain a constant sectional density. At a certain but common angle to errant shots slugs do go further than rifle bullets because they are one piece. Lower velocity and lower length to diameter ratio rifles will at a certain point act more similarly to slugs than high speed rounds breaking apart or yawing.

Generally shotgun only rules are based on assumptions that as far as I can tell were untested at the time the laws were passed. Deer hunting in the Midwest is a tradition driven sport where people don't really question a whole lot and are adverse to change. Way more hunters get killed every year falling out of treestands and of hypothermia than the lightning strike chance of catching an errant bullet.

 

[charliebravo77]

What this boils down to is that no ethical hunter with a slug gun would ever attempt a 400+ yard shot. A guy with a 300 win mag with practice can kill effectively well beyond that range. Apply this to Indiana.

I'm not seeing the point of this statement. If it's to address the fact that Indiana is flat and that real rifle calibers are somehow dangerous, then maybe Kansas, Nebraska, or Wyoming should disallow bottleneck center-fire cartridges since they have areas of wide open plains and prairie as well. They also have fairly low numbers of deer harvested compared to Illinois (150,000) or Indiana (120,000). In 2014 Kansas harvested 97,000; Nebraska 52,000; Wyoming 40,000. As far as I am aware those states are pretty well regarded for deer hunting and in no hurry to outlaw the more 'effective' rifles.

I understand the concern for safety, but rather than simply looking at the numbers in the form of ft-lbs of energy, momentum (as ambiguous a measurement as it is), velocity, etc. you also need to take into account for what happens to that projectile when it skips off the ground or hits a bush, tree branch or corn stalk. A rifle bullet is going to break apart, deform, or tumble violently slowing its velocity rapidly whereas a 1 oz chunk of lead is going to retain its mass and keep on trucking unless it hits something pretty solid.

I sense that from your article and from your posts here that the biggest concern you have is a negative impact on your own personal opportunity in the field. Coming from a long lineage of sportsmen you have grown up accustomed to a certain expectation of the quality of your experience hunting, number of deer you are able to harvest, and a desire to not only continue to have that same opportunity but be able to pass on those experiences to your children. That's admirable, and I certainly wish that I had the same experience growing up, but I didn't come from a family that hunted. Midwestern deer hunting is steeped in tradition and that's largely the only driving force behind its continuance and opposition to new legislature and changes. I can see how other factors impacting that tradition like CRP enrollment going down, EHD/CWD, loss of public and private land access would contribute to hesitation to allow another method of take.

Having only really been active in the hunting world for the past 4 years or so I have had the opportunity to harvest 2 deer and 4 antelope along with 2 turkeys, a handful of ducks, two pheasant, and a dozen doves. All on public land, and with the shotgun/muzzle loader restrictions in place here in Illinois. Could I have killed another deer or two with a 'high powered' rifle? Maybe? I did see one deer in a cut field during shotgun season that was well out of range of a 12 gauge slug. It also wouldn't have been an ethical shot to begin with as it was transitioning from timber edge to timber edge and not wanting to be out in the open very long. I'd wager that's probably the norm and from what I've seen in the field an encounter in, or very near timber is more likely than happening across a group of deer standing out in the open presenting a 400+ yard shot. How many deer, during the hunting season and legal shooting hours, have you actually seen standing in the middle of a cut field.

Does that mean that 'high caliber' rifles should be disallowed, simply because their utility is questionable? Absolutely not. Ultimately the danger comes down to the idiot behind the trigger and not the caliber, momentum, energy, or whatever other attribute decried as being 'dangerous' or whatever the reasoning is. A .308 bolt gun with a 2-10x44 scope on it would probably be ideal for most deer hunters since it's effective, accurate, and allows for ease of practice due to reduced recoil and cost per round. How many people do you regularly see at the range flinging $4/rd deer slugs down range to practice before the season? 5 rounds get shot to verify zero, if you're lucky.

I will agree with you that the "high caliber" bill in Indiana should not have been passed. However, I agree not because I think that rifles are somehow more effective, efficient, or dangerous, but because it should be a level playing field across private and public land.

Here in Illinois, 25% of the 600,000 tags issued are landowner (not counting 'county' tags that end up being used on private land) tags and I'm sure Indiana has a similar ratio. By not allowing 'high caliber' rifles on the ~2.2% of the state public land open to hunting there is merely a perceived impact on safety as I'd wager the vast majority of tags in Indiana are used on private land. If it's safe enough for 97.8% of the state, why not the rest?

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I have no dog is this fight but as a westerner it seems extremely peculiar that in Indiana you can use a .243 win and a .300 RUM but not a .270 win. I'm assuming there is an extremely long and convoluted story behind this and if anyone with some knowledge about it makes their way to Montana I would love to buy you a beer and hear about how it happened.

 

[hunterconservationist]

The theme of the essay I shared is that loss of access is a huge issue facing the future of hunting in the US, and that apathy and political inactivity are our future's worst enemy. My example of Indiana was meant to highlight what can and is happening elsewhere. The drivers may vary from place to place but loss of access is an issue everywhere. The rebirth of the public lands transfer/sale idea has made it a bigger threat west of the Mississippi.

The overreach of the bill is the point of issue noted in the text. Here's what it says. "In the last few weeks alone back in my home state of Indiana, the state legislature, misled by Governor Mike Pence, ignored state Game and Fish, and hunter and voter opposition, and passed what I consider to be two terrible laws, legalizing game farms and high caliber rifles for hunting on private land. Regardless of how you feel about either piece of legislation, the bigger issue at hand is that the state legislature, led by Gov. Pence, circumvented the process. The reached over game and fish, hunters, conservation organizations, and most importantly, voters, to pass both pieces of legislation in spite of overwhelming opposition."

The voter opposition is to legislative overreach, that's why I said "regardless of how you feel about either piece of legislation". I stand by my analysis of the situation regarding potential safety concerns, although those concerns were not mentioned in the article because it wasn't central to the point.

Flatland you entered the discussion by posting research, analysis and maps deep diving into why the rate of privatization is increasing in NWI. Discussing the how and why of NWI Indiana was clearly not the point of the essay. It was that it happened and what my experience might mean elsewhere. As I said, the variables driving privatization and loss of access may vary from place to place, but at the end of the day, whether we work together to fight it is the issue.

Charlie, your note "I sense that from your article and from your posts here that the biggest concern you have is a negative impact on your own personal opportunity in the field." I don't get that at all. I'm writing a blog with the intent of educating on access issues and creating advocacy for hunting access and opportunity for everyone. Please scroll through some of the other essays on the site. I care because I want hunting culture to exist for my grandkids, not because I want 80 acres good acres in IN to hunt during my lifetime.

 

[hunterconservationist]

I have no dog is this fight but as a westerner it seems extremely peculiar that in Indiana you can use a .243 win and a .300 RUM but not a .270 win. I'm assuming there is an extremely long and convoluted story behind this and if anyone with some knowledge about it makes their way to Montana I would love to buy you a beer and hear about how it happened.

It's actually really simple. Special interest (gun and insurance lobby) driven politicians wrote the legislation without input from hunters or game and fish. They rammed it through the legislative process vs. going through G&F. G&F intentionally sat on proposals to add rifle calibers because they didn't want to. Lobbies got impatient and politicians did their bidding.

 

[1_pointer]

I have no dog is this fight but as a westerner it seems extremely peculiar that in Indiana you can use a .243 win and a .300 RUM but not a .270 win. I'm assuming there is an extremely long and convoluted story behind this and if anyone with some knowledge about it makes their way to Montana I would love to buy you a beer and hear about how it happened.

I don't know exactly why .243" and .308" diameters were chosen. However, this law was passed with a sunset of 2020. At which time the DNR must complete a report on the impacts of the "test". It's set up sort of as an experiment.

What this boils down to is that no ethical hunter with a slug gun would ever attempt a 400+ yard shot. A guy with a 300 win mag with practice can kill effectively well beyond that range. Apply this to Indiana. None of the ballistics calcs, or ricochet projections or fragmentation hypothesis in the world on the slug gun or muzzleloader matter because hunters aren't taking those shots with those guns. That's why the restrictions were in place to begin with, and all other recently legalized cartridges (44 mag, 357, etc.) were chosen, because they eliminate long shots.

FWIW, a gunsmith I use in Tipton county builds a lot of 358 Hoosier (based off the 308) rifles. He's used them and variants based off the WSSM case to take deer to 600yds. Those cartridges are legal under the rules passed that made the "44 mag, 357, etc" legal and being used for most of a decade already.

To get back to the reason for this thread and the blog post, I agree that access is a big issue. In states like IN or any other that is largely privately owned, the best we can hope for is that we can maintain or increase the amount of acres that are in state that can support wildlife. Sprawl and development, IMO, are the biggest issues in the midwest and that was the take away I had from your blog article. Not that there's not access, but lamenting the loss of places you used to hunt to development. I am not sure how that can be appropriately dealt with and not trampling property rights at the same time...