Exit or not

P

publius

New member
roy's thread on penetration vs. expansion made me think of this. to begin with let's assume that your bullet has expanded sufficiently. Some people say they want an entrance and for the bullet to stop somewhere in the vitals "dumping all it's energy in the target" I believe this theory is flawed. I want a good expanding bullet to pass through tearing up as much vital area as possible and leaving a great blood trail. This bullet has transferred it's energy through the animal and continued out the other side b/c it had remaining energy. The animal has actually been hit harder with the pass through round b/c it transferred energy to a larger part of the animal. who cares if there is energy left over and wasted after the exit?
 
I want an entrance and an exit hole with that good bullet expansion. Energy doesn't kill anything, and is in fact a poor measure of killing power. Every time we pull the trigger we experience the same amount of energy in recoil as the animal experiences when hit by the bullet. What we need is to maximize tissue damage to the vitals and maximize blood loss, and that happens when the bullet makes large diameter and long wound channels.
 
I want an exit hole .That makes sure that the bullet is doing damage all the way through .It also provides a better blood trail as entrance holes don't bleed much .I agree that 'energy' doesn't mean much.You have to penetrate into and damage vital organs .The bullet should be picked that will be penetrate into the vitals from any direction .A quartering away shot requires much more penetration than a broadside shot .
 
Foot pounds of energy doesn't kill anything. Broken body parts do. A bullet that goes all the way through AND expands breaks more stuff. I want 2 holes and expansion.
 
All else being equal, I want an exit wound.

That said, all else is not usually equal.

I can shoot a 25 grain Hornady bullet from my .17 Rem at 4000 feet per second. I can shoot a 25 grain Berger match bullet at the same speed.

The Hornady will usually exit a broadside coyote, yet the Berger seldom exits. If I'm saving hides, I don't want an exit. They kill equally well from what I've seen and experienced.

Energy doesn't kill anything, but a high velocity bullet that fragments inside of the vitals is a very effective killer of animals. Such fragmentation causes massive trauma when it happens in the right place.

I regularly shoot a 7mm Rem Mag on a lot of big game animals. I shoot (almost exclusively) 145 grain bullets from it. Those 145 grain bullets will exit a deer every time, and said deer drops in it's tracks pretty much every time as well.

On elk, I sometimes get an exit, depending on the distance and angle of the shot. From what I've seen, whether it exits or not has little to do with the bullet's effectiveness. The only real difference is the increased blood trail if the animal runs a short distance before it becomes "dead forever".

I've also shot buffalo with the same bullet and load, and they almost never exit. I've never had one live more than about 2-3 seconds after being shot, and most died quicker than that. While the bullet usually won't exit, it does pass through the vitals and into the far shoulder and/or ribs. The last one I shot, the bullet went in behind the close side shoulder and into the far side shoulder. That buffalo weighed around 1000 lbs, and lived long enough to swap ends, shudder slightly, and fall dead. It was on the ground in less time than it took me to cycle the bolt

Given a choice, I'll take the exit on big game to increase the blood trail in case it's needed. That said, it's been a rare occasion for me that I actually needed it.

I usually hit 'em right, and they fall dead quick.

Daryl
 
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I like two holes, I have seen double lung shot elk (was not a bad shot
) go almost a half mile, makes the follow up alot easier.
 
The best possible outcome would be a bullet that BARELY exits, dumping all of its energy into the animal and having just enough to drop on the ground after breaking the skin on the opposite side.

Since it is impossible to reliably make that happen, excess energy that results reliably in two holes but also "wastes" some energy to insure complete penetration is a better solution.

However, the round that penetrates both sides reliably with the minimum "wasted" energy is best.

After all, any energy that comes out the other side of the animal serves no purpose except to swat the shooter harder.
 
I guess i like both but for different purposes. On deer i shoot the hornady sst in a 7mm mag and don't have many pass thru's and don't have deer go more than a few steps. I also use a old 308 and 125gr Balistic Tips and have had only one deer go more than two steps. That deer was crazzed over a tarsal gland i had out. He ran 20 yards. I have hunted many,many deer shot with a nosler partition from a 7mm mag when young. Thats all a friend would shoot. Always found them just worked our butts off on some to find. I do watch my bullet placement more with the BT but it works great.All these BT deer were shoot under 100 yards. The sst have been out to just short of 400 and that was the only pass thru shot. That deer still went down where it was at. For heavy game or dangerous,Its one bullet,, BARNES X. Breaks shoulders or punches thru. Shoots one muley while elk hunting when the X first came out and had 51" of travel in that deer. Went in next to the ,a, rear end , broke the back in three places took out one back strap and most of a ham, went through the front shoulder blade and stopped under the skin at the front shoulder.Shot was at about 125 yards. Never used on deer again.
 
on an animal for hunting I would prefer an exit wound made with just barely enough energy to exit so I can track more easily if I need to.
For SD I want the bullet expanding, bouncing around, fragmenting, and leaving all the energy in the target. I am not tracking the target.
 
If I can break a neck or severely disrupt the CNS I don't really care. For a H/L shot it's nice insurance to have an exit wound dumping bright blood along the green mile. If the blood is dark it's going to be a long tracking job. Last year I help work a black blood/clot track for several hundred yards over a couple hours. She ended up not too far from where she was shot.
 
I knew people who really know about guns would agree with me that you want an exit. Looks like we are all in agreement and who cares how much damage is done to the air after the exit.
 
I want an exit wound. A bullet that stops at the vitals hasn't dumped all it's energy there; it expended all its energy getting to the vitals. That's a big difference in my opinion.
 
Exit wounds in elk, which is what I primarily hunt, are a luxury for me. Though I'd prefer to get one, since I use a .308, it's just not very likely. I use a deep-penetrating 180gr bullet, but it's just not something that is going to happen that much. Of the four elk I've taken, only once did I get a pass through, and I had to track that one for a while, even though it was a good, killing shot. The other three I didn't get exits on, and two of those dropped in their tracks...go figure. However, on those three, all the bullets were recovered on the far side of the animal, lodged between the hide and last layer of muscle, so all their energy was dumped in the critter.
 
I don't know if I can make up my mind on this one. I have used so many different calibers and bullet combinations with varying results, I just can't go one way or the other. Either way seems to work well. The only thing I do disagree with is the energy thing. Energy is what most modern light weight bullets depend on to kill deer. The difference between a .22 center fire and a .22 rim fire is fairly obvious.
 
Given the three "good" shots, head, neck, and heart/lung; it really doesn't make much difference if the first two penetrate or not. If the heart turns to mush it doesn't matter that much either. With a lung shot it might better if the lungs fill up with blood so non-penetrating could be a better call.
Any other shot imho it's better that the blood leave the body as quickly as possible, so penetrating fits the bill there.

Given the size of the deer I shoot, it'd be surprising if the any bullet didn't penetrate. It sure would be nice to take one of those 300lb mule deer I read about, but that hasn't happened yet.
 
"Energy is what most modern light weight bullets depend on to kill deer. The difference between a .22 center fire and a .22 rim fire is fairly obvious."


Energy doesn't kill anything. In any way, shape, or form. If it did then arrows wouldn't kill anything. Tissue damage and blood loss are what kills, not energy.

I don't think that this argument holds any water.

Let's assume we have 2 different cartridges firing the same diameter and weight bullet but at different velocities. One is let's say 1000fps and the other is 2000fps.

Now if it only requires 1000fps to completely penetrate a deer at X number of yards, then the bullet at 1000fps is going to be just as effective as the one at 2000fps. The extra velocity doesn't accomplish anything. As long as there is enough energy to go clean through, anything extra doesn't matter.

However if one was 800fps (less than our 1000fps threshhold), it would be less effective than either one at 1000 or 2000fps.

So in short, a 22 rim fire is less effective on deer because it lacks the energy to go clean through (assuming bullet construction would allow it to pass through). If you pushed a 22 rim fire to just enough velocity to go through, it would be just as effective as a 223WSSM or 220 Swift or 22-250 (again assuming bullet construction would allow it to pass through).

But since most center fire 22's won't pass through (due to bullet construction), they instead kill by having the bullet come apart and effectively become shrapnel in the vitals. This creates lots of tissue damage and blood loss. This is why people think the "energy" of these high velocity rounds killed the animal, when in reality it was just plain old tissue damage/blood loss. You will hear all sorts of claims about hydrastatic shock, temporary wound cavities, & lord knows what else. It's all hog wash. The only two real differences is that the blood loss is internal because there isn't an exit hole for it to flow out of. And there isn't as good of a blood trail to follow because its bleeding is largely internal.

Think of a can of gasoline. It has the main spout on one side and another smaller hole on the other side. If you don't open the smaller hole, it pours slowly. However if you open both holes it flows faster and with more regualrity. An animal bleeding out is very similar. This is why I like two holes. One to let cold air in the other to let blood out.

All that being said, if you choose to take the high energy route over the high penetration route, who really cares as long as you humanely kill your deer.
 
Think of a can of gasoline. It has the main spout on one side and another smaller hole on the other side. If you don't open the smaller hole, it pours slowly. However if you open both holes it flows faster and with more regualrity. An animal bleeding out is very similar. This is why I like two holes. One to let cold air in the other to let blood out.
Click to expand...

No, the can of gasoline example does not work. You are talking about an issue of pressure equalization where one hole is dedicated to the release of fluid and one hole to the intake of air. The only reason why one lets liquid out and the other lets air in s because it is being poured in such a manner for that to work. If you open both holes and turn the can upside down such that both holes are flooded, then one the scheme of one letting air in and one letting fluid out falls apart.

If you are trying to pour blood from a deer (ala the gas can example), you would need to shoot such that one hole is decidely higher than the other so that the top of the deer would infill with air and blood drains out the bottom. Ever seen that happen?

A deer most definitely can bleed out internally with just a single hole. However, if you are going to use the argument of pressure equalization, then you should probably come up with some sort of study that shows that for a given amount of fluid lost, the deer's body is infilled with a comparable volume of air. You will also need to be able to show how it is that the blood knows to exit out of one hole and how it is that the air knows to enter the other.
 
What nonsense. The day you show me a softball sized hole through a deer made by a .22 rim fire is when I read all the facts and meaningless figures you wrote. Don't start with the expansion talk either, I never saw a .22 centerfire expand to 5 inches. I would not be surprised if the side of the deer was parting before the bullet even hit it.
 
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