Leupold BX-4 Rangefinding Binoculars

Where does all the rifle BS come from?

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An old friend of my dad's works at a nursery in S.C. and shoots a high number of deer every year with crop degradation permits. 22 mag head shots exclusively.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, 30 years ago in S. Ga, we would lease various farms for hunting. One common practice was for the farmers to use these same crop degradation permits and gut shot the deer on purpose. This was done so the deer ran away from the field and they didn't have to mess with it.


Best education is to hunt in a variety of terrain. Killing an elk harder than most think. Bullet construction mean everything. Then come hunt with me on my property and unless you are real lucky you'll never get a shot under 250. Most will be 350-450.

Over many many years of hunting and guiding elk and seeing dozens and dozens shot, I wont be under gunned. I am a believer in bullet construction and the energy behind it. How much is needed? I dunno, I use a lot because I have too many really well hit big bulls run off when or go down only to get back up from some really really popular rounds.

P.S. growing up I watched my dad shoot dozens of deer between 25 and 100 yards with only iron sights.. Every one with a .22LR shot in the head. None took a step. I cant shoot like him, so I wont try
 
An old friend of my dad's works at a nursery in S.C. and shoots a high number of deer every year with crop degradation permits. 22 mag head shots exclusively.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, 30 years ago in S. Ga, we would lease various farms for hunting. One common practice was for the farmers to use these same crop degradation permits and gut shot the deer on purpose. This was done so the deer ran away from the field and they didn't have to mess with it.
Heard plenty of stories of my family doing that on farms in Ky as well. Made me sick when I heard about it, but things were different back then.
 
....comes from vaxxers and round earthers.

maybe (-:

Some of us who were raised on a farm and started hunting in the 1940's had only our fathers and grandfathers to guide us. Waaaaaaaaay before the internet and T.V. as well as those who had hunted before us could only be studied in books that we could not afford. We had store bought firearms and ammo, which from memory seem to work just fine. My husband and son, like a lot of you fellows enjoy playing with different aspects of shooting and hunting but the actual hunt has not changed that much in my mind, with the possible exception of "long range" hunting, which I have never done, so can not comment. I am sure there is a great deal of satisfaction in being good enough with your rifle ( and bullet, you put together ) to kill something 800, 900, 1000 yards away. I prefer and get possibly the same feeling with finding a way to get within 100 yards or closer. Different strokes for different folks.

I do believe bullets and ammo have improved to a point where a smaller caliber with todays bullet is capable of doing the same damage as yesterdays bullets in a larger caliber
 
It’s mostly crap that gets regurgitated over and over.
There are a few actual studies s that state DNRs have done. All of them come to basically the same conclusions. Shot placement is way more important than caliber.


Most accurate sentence of the thread.
 
Exactly what I was wondering, was there some cow study I’ve never heard about. Like you here some of these numbers said with such authority, I figured I was missing something.

In his books "Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders" P O Ackley talks about putting helmets on a mule's head to approximate what would happen when a soldier wearing a helmet was shot in the head.
 
Shot placement is king, but other factors definitely matter. Running tracking dogs for over a decade, some things become apparent over time.

I have no interest in entering any caliber/bullet/load debates (been there, done that), but I can tell you that all the "5.56 FMJ's will kill a deer just as dead as your fancy bullet" stuff might be true, but that I get way more calls from guys using tackle like that than I do from guys properly placing .30 cal hunting bullets.

I know that's an extreme example, and as I said, no matter what, shot placement is still and always will be the most important factor, but some common sense regarding power and bullet construction is helpful as well.
 
It seems all of the scientific research that has been done with regard to firearm/caliber/bullet construction efficacy has been focused on 1. Military application 2. Handguns (relating to military applications) 3. Lead free alternatives, i.e. recent work on why hunters should switch to lead.

I'm curious how 1000ftlb 1500... whatever, came around and I see two possibilities.

1. Someone killed a deer at their personal max rage say 600 yards, with a 30/06 with a 165 grain bullet. In their egotism they though well, that's the max anyone should shoot a deer at, then looked at their chart saw it was 1000ftlbs and was like 'yep you need 1000 ftlbs to kill a deer."

2. A military created a human facsimile, decided that 4 inches (or whatever) of penetration was what was necessary for lethality and then systematically tested various calibers + loads to determine what was the average min to produce that result. Then years later hunters took those tables, said yeah a deer and a human are similar, and to get an elk lets just proportionally scale the energy up based on the weight difference and then add a nudge for elk having tough hide. I.E. they made an educated WAG.

I'm assuming no one ever did a full protocol on elk/deer/moose.

Some of what I was able to find... curious if there are others. Seems like this is something the Nazi's would have studied using their unscrupulous science.

"After lengthy discussions between the surgeons and technical personnel involved in these tests, it was concluded that the most effective ammunition available for an unobstructed lung strike is the high velocity type which uses pre-fragmented or fragmenting projectiles or those types that caused immediate expansion on impact."
https://guninstructor.net/Strasborg_Tests.pdf

"The deforming lead-free bullet closely resembled the deforming lead-containing bullet in terms of energy conversion, deflection angle, cavity shape, and reproducibility, showing that similar terminal ballistic behavior can be achieved. Furthermore, the volumetric image processing allowed superior analysis compared to methods that involve cutting of the soap blocks. "
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0102015

https://www.astm.org/DIGITAL_LIBRARY/JOURNALS/FORENSIC/PAGES/JFS10376J.htm
 
Bullet testing on live animals. Many years ago it was done at Edgewood Arsenal to see what happened with FMJ military bullet's. It's in P.O. Ackley's manual. Haven't read it in years but as I recall they used sedated pig's or mules, can't remember which.

Now a question. what in the h*ll is a 6.5 man bun?
 
I do believe bullets and ammo have improved to a point where a smaller caliber with todays bullet is capable of doing the same damage as yesterdays bullets in a larger caliber

Incredibly salient point. Energy doesn’t kill. A good bullet in the right spot kills.
 
SCDNR did a study a while back.


I’ve shot a lot of deer on nuisance permits here in S.C. The rules have changed over time. When I started the local game warden would look at damage then bring 5 tags. You filled those and he brought 5 more. This continued until crops had matured enough to survive browsing or the deer had been sufficiently thinned or deer season started. We had specific hours to shoot and weren’t supposed to shoot bucks if it was obvious. You also weren’t supposed to touch the deer. Now you can collect deer and take to a processor.
 
SCDNR did a study a while back.


I’ve shot a lot of deer on nuisance permits here in S.C. The rules have changed over time. When I started the local game warden would look at damage then bring 5 tags. You filled those and he brought 5 more. This continued until crops had matured enough to survive browsing or the deer had been sufficiently thinned or deer season started. We had specific hours to shoot and weren’t supposed to shoot bucks if it was obvious. You also weren’t supposed to touch the deer. Now you can collect deer and take to a processor.

Nice... this is the kinda thing I'm looking for!
 
Best education is to hunt in a variety of terrain. Killing an elk harder than most think. Bullet construction mean everything. Then come hunt with me on my property and unless you are real lucky you'll never get a shot under 250. Most will be 350-450.

Over many many years of hunting and guiding elk and seeing dozens and dozens shot, I wont be under gunned. I am a believer in bullet construction and the energy behind it. How much is needed? I dunno, I use a lot because I have too many really well hit big bulls run off when or go down only to get back up from some really really popular rounds.

P.S. growing up I watched my dad shoot dozens of deer between 25 and 100 yards with only iron sights.. Every one with a .22LR shot in the head. None took a step. I cant shoot like him, so I wont try

I find this interesting when considering the survey on HT from a couple of years ago when we determined that the average distance HTers have killed elk was between 50 and 100 yards. It sounds like you have an interesting and challenging situation.
 
LOL I love these threads. All the perfect hunters in the world who have never made a bad shot or seen someone else do it. Or a really well hit elk run off never to be found?

Speed does not kill. If it did then lets kill elk with a well placed shot from a .222 hornet or a 22.250. Why do we need a caliber bigger than a .338 to hunt in Africa?? Anyone.......... why have a .416, 500? Because you need a big bullet with lots of energy not speed. Anyone know why the FBI many years ago wanted something with more ENERGY than a 9mm? Because a fast moving bullet even hit very well does not put the body into shock. Only Energy does. That's why we have the 10MM today.

You want to get hit with my car or a semi?
 
It's called selling magazine articles. Gotta write something. The one I liked was the one touting the virtues of the big magnums. He actually wrote that you need to be shooting one because deer are tougher now days than they used to be.
 
Anyone know why the FBI many years ago wanted something with more ENERGY than a 9mm? Because a fast moving bullet even hit very well does not put the body into shock. Only Energy does. That's why we have the 10MM today.

The 10mm is completely obsolete now, as the whole energy myth for the 10mm was debunked through ballistic studies. Interestingly enough, there is no distinguishing difference in terminal performance between a 9mm, .40, 10mm and .45. You must reach velocities of 2000 fps+ before any change in velocity makes a difference in terminal performance.

Bullets don’t put people or animals onto shock. Drastic changes in blood pressure/volume cause shock.
 
Rifles (in one form or another) have been around for over 600 years - that's plenty of time for the bullshit merchants to work their magic. Discussions on "what it takes to kill" an animal probably started in some cave over a fire 35,000 years ago.
 

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