Major Dave (retired)
New member
Why are they the only lethal choice for dangerous game, but WON't KILL DEER?!!!
I'm just saying.
I'm just saying.
FMJ Bullets
- Thread starter Major Dave (retired)
- Start date
Recheck your information.
I had the great fortune to hunt in South Africa during August of 2010. The outfitter and pH I hunted with are very well versed in dangerous game hunting as well as plains game hunting.
For dangerous game i.e. cape buffalo and elephant, they carry and shoot a mix of "solids" (fmj if you) bullets and soft points (expanding bullets). It depends upon your shot, which type of bullet they preferred for a first shot.
For a frontal brain shot, they prefer use of the solids but for a heart/lung shot, they prefer expanding bullets.
Since most deer hunters try to get and make a heart/lung shot, expanding bullets are definitely preferred. Fmj bullets do not offer any expansion and thus make a small hole on both entry and exit. This does NOT provide a good blood trailing opportunity should the animal run any distance before expiring.
It is NOT that fmj bullets "won't kill a deer", it is that they are NOT a good choice for killing the deer effectively and recovering the animal.
I had the great fortune to hunt in South Africa during August of 2010. The outfitter and pH I hunted with are very well versed in dangerous game hunting as well as plains game hunting.
For dangerous game i.e. cape buffalo and elephant, they carry and shoot a mix of "solids" (fmj if you) bullets and soft points (expanding bullets). It depends upon your shot, which type of bullet they preferred for a first shot.
For a frontal brain shot, they prefer use of the solids but for a heart/lung shot, they prefer expanding bullets.
Since most deer hunters try to get and make a heart/lung shot, expanding bullets are definitely preferred. Fmj bullets do not offer any expansion and thus make a small hole on both entry and exit. This does NOT provide a good blood trailing opportunity should the animal run any distance before expiring.
It is NOT that fmj bullets "won't kill a deer", it is that they are NOT a good choice for killing the deer effectively and recovering the animal.
I have a feeling you're just trolling a little.
Mostly because an elephant has an 8 feet long bullet path, and a deer or elk has possibly a 1 foot path to the heart.
A deer bullet weighs about 20% of an elephant bullet, and depends on high damage in the initial impact. The elephant bullet is being used on a beast that is what, ten times the mass of a deer, at least? You won't get a big splash when you hit an elephant/hippo/rhino/cape buff in the ribs. You are counting on blowing a hole clean through the thing, hoping for a lot of shock value, and wanting broken bones, cut nerves and arteries, and eventually, death by exsanguination.
Examine the tactics of killing.
Gophers and rodents: 50 grain bullets meant to blow the things to alpo.
Deer: Expansion and shock, intense tissue damage.
Elk: Controlled expansion and deeper hits, for heavier bleeding.
Grizz and polar: Heavier, not necessarily faster, little intended expansion, deep, bleeding wounds intended to break down body systems.
Bison: Traditional shot? through the lungs, heavy lead bullet, buff collapses and bleeds to death right there, drowning in blood.
Elephant: Shot cleanly run through the heart. damage to heart and shock from the extreme injury causes systemic shock, and more quickly than would be anticipated, loss of circulation stops the thing. Most importantly, you are NOT reliably going to make a brain shot work with a soft point. You might as well shoot through a cinder block.
keep in mind, I don't think I have ever heard of anyone taking Full patch bullets after lion. Expanding bullets are more reliable killers on soft bodied critters like lion and bear.
Mostly because an elephant has an 8 feet long bullet path, and a deer or elk has possibly a 1 foot path to the heart.
A deer bullet weighs about 20% of an elephant bullet, and depends on high damage in the initial impact. The elephant bullet is being used on a beast that is what, ten times the mass of a deer, at least? You won't get a big splash when you hit an elephant/hippo/rhino/cape buff in the ribs. You are counting on blowing a hole clean through the thing, hoping for a lot of shock value, and wanting broken bones, cut nerves and arteries, and eventually, death by exsanguination.
Examine the tactics of killing.
Gophers and rodents: 50 grain bullets meant to blow the things to alpo.
Deer: Expansion and shock, intense tissue damage.
Elk: Controlled expansion and deeper hits, for heavier bleeding.
Grizz and polar: Heavier, not necessarily faster, little intended expansion, deep, bleeding wounds intended to break down body systems.
Bison: Traditional shot? through the lungs, heavy lead bullet, buff collapses and bleeds to death right there, drowning in blood.
Elephant: Shot cleanly run through the heart. damage to heart and shock from the extreme injury causes systemic shock, and more quickly than would be anticipated, loss of circulation stops the thing. Most importantly, you are NOT reliably going to make a brain shot work with a soft point. You might as well shoot through a cinder block.
keep in mind, I don't think I have ever heard of anyone taking Full patch bullets after lion. Expanding bullets are more reliable killers on soft bodied critters like lion and bear.
tahunua001
New member
not all states have the same game laws. for instance IOWA probably outlaws anything smaller than 25-06 and also bans FMJ ammo
idaho however has no caliber or bullet construction restrictions besides a ban on hunting big game with rimfire ammo
montana has absolutely no restriction whatsoever on ammo. if it goes bang you can hunt with it.
I would assume that a texas resident would have a very similar amount of leeway to montana or at the very most idaho since I normally hear about texans killing wild hogs with 223s.
now for the OP. I normally would hunt with a soft tip bullet for any game I was after. if I was allowed to hunt a turkey with a rifle I would load up FMJs for it just to avoide ruining as much meat as possible. if I was hunting with an old mosin nagant or an enfield or springfield then those are large enough that I would trust them to kill up to elk sized game. however that's about the extent to what I would use FMJ for...someone did bring up the point though that if you are aiming for organs you want expansion and high collateral damage but if you are trying to penatrate a skull then an FMJ is a better option...if you want to hunt a deer I would go the same route...organ shots is iffy with an FNJ but that same 55gr bullet will do a through and through on any deer skull in america
FMJ will kill deer, just not as quickly. More of a chance of it getting away. The softpoint ammo kills quicker, but at the expense of penetration. On very large animals you probably won't get the penetration you need with soft point ammo. Solids or FMJ give the needed penetration, but you rarely get the DRT effect on really large game. Everything is a compromise.
of course he has been. If there is any contradiction between the things we say, there's going to be a lot more agreed on. Where his professionals used alternating rounds as a general carry condition, would they have carried alternating rounds as a specific hunt weapon for a big bull elephant? Probably not.
Generally speaking, african elephant hunters would not carry soft points that may fail to give the last full measure of penetration on buffalo or elephant. Obviously, the old school professional hunters were a different breed and africa is not what it once was.
Once again going back to the good old elmer keith, he preferred the
577 nitro in full patch bullets for anything bigger than a kudu, iirc. It was a different time, and different people, and far different ammunition. he may have gone with a bonded soft point for buffalo on side shots, but not likely. he hated gimmicks.
warbirdlover
New member
FMJ will kill deer, just not much "shocking" power to knock them down. They are also very dangerous to use in deer hunting situations as they will go through trees and travel a long way after exiting the animal. We did an experiment years ago where one of our guys used a Mauser 7mm. He happened to have a solid on him and we lined up a number of trees and shot it. We quit counting after five (BIG) trees.
Shotgun693
New member
Some of the BP rifles pretty much punch a full caliber hole through game. The best guess I've heard is the a big flat ended bullet moving through game does transfer quite a bit of energy. All I know for sure is that if a .45-70 goes completely through a large deer it will die pretty quickly if vitals are hit.
Art Eatman
Staff in Memoriam
FMJs for US hunting typically are in 30-caliber, weigh 150 grains or less, are pointed, and don't expand to make a large wound channel.
The FMJs used on large and/or dangerous game are typically 40-caliber, and above, are round-nosed, weigh 400 grains or more, and are designed to break bone and penetrate though feet, not inches of meat after penetrating hide which is much thicker than on any US deer or elk.
IOW, it's an apples and oranges thing...
The FMJs used on large and/or dangerous game are typically 40-caliber, and above, are round-nosed, weigh 400 grains or more, and are designed to break bone and penetrate though feet, not inches of meat after penetrating hide which is much thicker than on any US deer or elk.
IOW, it's an apples and oranges thing...
Some states allow a hard cast bullet for hunting deer with a handgun in an appropriate hunting caliber, and these can perform very well. However, a hard cast hunting bullet is much different than a range FMJ bullet. A hard cast hunting bullet has a frontal area that is blunt and almost as wide as the bullet. There is not much if any expansion, but the blunt and wide frontal area of the bullet does a lot of tissue damage, can deliver very good penetration and produces a lot more shock than a range FMJ bullet.
markj said:
Here in the Gret Stet of Louisiana we aren't prohibited from using FMJ bullets for deer, nor any other type of quadripedal game. They won't let us kill deer with a rimfire, nor are we allowed to use a lance. If we're in remarkable physical shape, we can't run 'em down and kill them with a knife. But we can shoot 'em with full-patch ammo. Can't shoot them from a boat, nor an airplane, but we can shoot them from the front seat of the truck, as long as you're off the road and the engine isn't running.
I guess, maybe that you could shoot them from an airplane if the engine wasn't running, but then you'd have more problems than dragging the deer out of the woods.
The laws are different everywhere. Sometimes they don't make sense, but they're always the law.
CPTMurdoc30
New member
The last time I looked you don't use a FMJ to hunt Dangerous game. You use Solids. A-Squared calles them Monolithic bullets. http://www.midwayusa.com/product/17...0-grain-monolithic-round-nose-solid-box-of-25
A solid Brass bullets is NOT a FMJ and it is NOTHING LIKE a FMJ.
FMJ bullets are not made to expand. Why would you want to shoot an animal (One that god provided for us to harvest) and make it suffer by using a worthless FMJ bullet. They are no good for killing Taliban what makes you think they are going to be any good at killing a deer.
A solid Brass bullets is NOT a FMJ and it is NOTHING LIKE a FMJ.
FMJ bullets are not made to expand. Why would you want to shoot an animal (One that god provided for us to harvest) and make it suffer by using a worthless FMJ bullet. They are no good for killing Taliban what makes you think they are going to be any good at killing a deer.
BlackJackID
New member
Tahunua,
Looked in the Idaho regulations and it seems you are right...I know there used to be an expanding bullet only regulation as late as two years ago here in Idaho, but it seems they did away with it without me noticing. Thanks for pointing it out. I am thinking they probably unrestricted it for handgun use, I have always preferred full metal jackets in my pistol for hunting/backup.
Looked in the Idaho regulations and it seems you are right...I know there used to be an expanding bullet only regulation as late as two years ago here in Idaho, but it seems they did away with it without me noticing. Thanks for pointing it out. I am thinking they probably unrestricted it for handgun use, I have always preferred full metal jackets in my pistol for hunting/backup.