I call BS...
- Thread starter Daekar
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jhgreasemonkey
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Daekar there is always the safety factor as well. Hitting a deer with a fmj bullet in the vitals with a high powered hunting rifle, say a .300 win mag, the fmj bullet will most likely pass clean through without hardly slowing down and will still retain it's energy. Then you have a renegade bullet traveling beyond the intended target at nearly full speed. Now imagine the woods crowded with hunters and everbody is using fmj bullets. You take the same rifle and use an expanding hunting bullet and even if the bullet passes through it will have mushroomed open, dumped most of it's energy and steam. Meaning it will soon hit the dirt. With fmj bullets you also have the richocet problem. Fmj bullets will richocet and skip off the ground like crazy compared to expanding hunting bullets. If I were you I wouldn't think of it as b.s. but an important safety factor, at least for the sake of other hunters and the surrounding area that you are hunting in.
Come and take it.
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my own experience has shown me that fmj usually zips right through animals. that unless that fmj hits the skull or spinal column that the animal will run away at full tilt as if it were missed.
if fmj were such a reliable killer than why is the us military wanting to switch to a hunting bullet for their troops to use in combat? because they need something that will drop the bad guy immediatly instead of bleeding him out over several minutes or hours.
if fmj were such a reliable killer than why is the us military wanting to switch to a hunting bullet for their troops to use in combat? because they need something that will drop the bad guy immediatly instead of bleeding him out over several minutes or hours.
phil mcwilliam
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I stuffed up several years ago in trying to buy cheap quality factory hunting ammo. What I ended up with was 200 rounds of Lapua .308 150 grain club match ammo in FMJ.
This ammunition was extremely accurate. Problem was it would pass straight through thin skinned game, even with quartering shots, with little effect unless of course a head shot or direct heart shot was made.
Plenty of goats & pigs that I was culling were chest shot, but continued as if not hit with the Lapua 150 grain FMJ.
I find 150 grain soft point hunting ammunition provides more shocking power due to the expansion of the bullet when it strikes thin skinned game such as goats & deer.
There may however be a place for FMJ bullets in hunting thick-skinned game. Some 30 years ago, I hunted the Northern Territory of Australia for the first time & water buffalo & pigs were on the menu.
We were using .308's & had obtained a quantity of ex-military ammo in FMJ. We found the FMJ ammunition just as effective as factory soft pont .308's with chest shots on water buffalo.
If you're culling with head shots, no difference. But if you are hunting thin skinned game such as deer or goats, there is a huge difference in the bullet performance between FMJ & Hunting bullets.
This ammunition was extremely accurate. Problem was it would pass straight through thin skinned game, even with quartering shots, with little effect unless of course a head shot or direct heart shot was made.
Plenty of goats & pigs that I was culling were chest shot, but continued as if not hit with the Lapua 150 grain FMJ.
I find 150 grain soft point hunting ammunition provides more shocking power due to the expansion of the bullet when it strikes thin skinned game such as goats & deer.
There may however be a place for FMJ bullets in hunting thick-skinned game. Some 30 years ago, I hunted the Northern Territory of Australia for the first time & water buffalo & pigs were on the menu.
We were using .308's & had obtained a quantity of ex-military ammo in FMJ. We found the FMJ ammunition just as effective as factory soft pont .308's with chest shots on water buffalo.
If you're culling with head shots, no difference. But if you are hunting thin skinned game such as deer or goats, there is a huge difference in the bullet performance between FMJ & Hunting bullets.
It's apples and oranges fellas, FMJ bullets have their niche in society, but hunting animals is not it. Fast expanding or even controlled expanding bullets were designed to harvest animals "QUICKLY AND CLEANLY". Here at the hooligan school of animal harvesting, we use the fastest, accurate, means for dispatching animals. Why would anyone like their ammo to pass through with little effect of the animal,(SHOCK) is beyond me. I had to read this OP's thread three times before I finally decided to respond. I really don't think he's serious about the scientific rerason, but to merely raise an Ethics question. Because really it's hard to believe that "any" hunter would try to take an animal with a projectile that IS designed to do the least ammount of damage to muscle tissue. Maybe that in itself explains why the op has even posted this question.
Use hunting ammunition!! and collect all the game your shooting at!!!! 
Use hunting ammunition!! and collect all the game your shooting at!!!! One thing that has not really been touched on that much is energy transfer.
This last fall i shot a Mullie doe with a .25-06, 115gr barnes TSX. No exit hole.
This means that all of the bullets energy was transfered. intern hydrostatic shock killed the animal instantly. Think if it sort of like a defibulator being used on a heart that is beating.
I do not believe a FMJ of the same caliber and weight would have stopped in the animal, releasing all of its energy. a FMJ would be more like an archery kill. it is going to pierce the animal leaving a small wound channel. The animal will die, it will take much longer and it will not be a humane kill.
This last fall i shot a Mullie doe with a .25-06, 115gr barnes TSX. No exit hole.
This means that all of the bullets energy was transfered. intern hydrostatic shock killed the animal instantly. Think if it sort of like a defibulator being used on a heart that is beating.
I do not believe a FMJ of the same caliber and weight would have stopped in the animal, releasing all of its energy. a FMJ would be more like an archery kill. it is going to pierce the animal leaving a small wound channel. The animal will die, it will take much longer and it will not be a humane kill.
silvrjeepr
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The only deer I ever lost was with a remington core lokt that didn't expand. I found her the next day (after the coyotes did) with a tiny hole on each side right behind the shoulder...
You stole my answer!
The goal in combat is to stop the threat, not necessarily to kill. You are trying to make the enemy a non-effective force.
To kill with intent is known as murder. Why do you think the opposing guy's snipers are hated so much? (while your own, of course, are seen as life-saving heroes...)
The prohibition against hollow point ammunition is because it causes "undue suffering" under international law. No, not everybody plays by the laws of war, but we're supposed to. We're the good guys...
~Dan
Art Eatman
Staff in Memoriam
Back 60 years ago I had access to a bunch of GI Ball ammo for my '06. Shot jackrabbits. A center-punch at 200 yards didn't necessarily make a quick kill. Poor ol' Jack would sorta hump up in the middle and look sad. Died in a few minutes, of course, but I wouldn't claim a "quick, clean kill".
On Bambi, a spinal hit in the neck with any sort of bullet will work. But an expanding bullet will ruin his day if it's an inch or so off the spine. And in my .243, the Sierra 85-grain HPBT turns the heart/lungs into a double-handful of mush.
I'll take mush over pencil-pokes, any day. Expanding bullets do far more internal damage than FMJs, and a less-than-perfect hit with an expanding bullet can still be quickly fatal from bleed-out.
And forget all that nonsense about military bullets and wounding. The idea of medics or buddies dealing with wounded was pretty much limited to our side and to some European action in WW II. We haven't fought anybody since then who had their wounded tended to during any combat action. Nam? Somalia? Iraq? Afghanistan? Duh? Mostly, the deal is that FMJs are cheaper to manufacture.
On Bambi, a spinal hit in the neck with any sort of bullet will work. But an expanding bullet will ruin his day if it's an inch or so off the spine. And in my .243, the Sierra 85-grain HPBT turns the heart/lungs into a double-handful of mush.
I'll take mush over pencil-pokes, any day. Expanding bullets do far more internal damage than FMJs, and a less-than-perfect hit with an expanding bullet can still be quickly fatal from bleed-out.
And forget all that nonsense about military bullets and wounding. The idea of medics or buddies dealing with wounded was pretty much limited to our side and to some European action in WW II. We haven't fought anybody since then who had their wounded tended to during any combat action. Nam? Somalia? Iraq? Afghanistan? Duh? Mostly, the deal is that FMJs are cheaper to manufacture.
Longdayjake
New member
Try a vmax on those varmints you shoot and you will see a HUGE difference. I hunt rockchucks on a very regular basis with my .223. I started out using FMJ because I figured that velocity would be good enough. After I got sick of wounding them I switched over to vmax and it does a TON more damage.
What you can do to give yourself a visual confirmation of how much more violent expanding bullets are is to fill up a bunch of milk jugs with water. Shoot a few with fmj and then shoot a few with soft points. You WILL see a difference. You can call BS all you want because it doesn't seem that different in your mind, but in the real world it is called "delusional" if you disregard what everyone else knows to be true because your mind simply can't comprehend.
What you can do to give yourself a visual confirmation of how much more violent expanding bullets are is to fill up a bunch of milk jugs with water. Shoot a few with fmj and then shoot a few with soft points. You WILL see a difference. You can call BS all you want because it doesn't seem that different in your mind, but in the real world it is called "delusional" if you disregard what everyone else knows to be true because your mind simply can't comprehend.
L_Killkenny
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We have a couple centuries worth of information that says your
Instead of trying to back up your false beliefs why don't you listen to what 99.9% of the hunting world is telling you and learn something .
LK
is completely wrong. I personally have 30 years and 1000's of dead critters to back up the fact that you are wrong too.
Instead of trying to back up your false beliefs why don't you listen to what 99.9% of the hunting world is telling you and learn something .
LK
A FMJ cuts a clean hole with minimal surrounding damage. An expanding bullet causes more damage around the actual hole.
What makes the difference is the frontal area, not the diameter. The frontal area is a function of the radius of the bullet squared (1/2 diameter times itself), so it goes up quickly as the diameter increases.
Where did you get this idea? An FMJ is more likely to pass through than an expanding bullet, but an expanding bullet can certainly pass through and commonly does. It will just have done a lot more damage on the way.
Seriously faulty logic. An expanding bullet does MORE damage. That's no guarantee it will result in a quick kill, but it certainly improves the odds. The "bouncing bullet" theory is nonsense.
It's good that you want to figure things out. You might want to try posing polite questions next time you run across something you don't understand instead of belligerent statements of "fact".
I suppose this all comes down to what you consider humane. cordesr1 pointed out that a FMJ kill is like an archery kill, and that it is inhumane. Does that mean that the legions of bowhunters out there, from the Native Americans to somebody's uncle Joe that loves compound bows, are all inhumane monsters? Something doesn't add up here. Either cordesr1's comparison is invalid, or something else has to shift. It is absurd to suggest that hunting with a bow inherently makes someone irresponsible and cruel - otherwise we are forced to condemn every primitive society in human history.
I understand better about why an expanding bullet matters now - it really has practically nothing to do with the expansion itself, and everything to do with the rapid energy dissipation that is the result of the expansion. I have never seen it put in those terms, and so I believed that rifle projectiles functioned on a different level than those from a handgun. It just didn't make sense, and still doesn't, that a kill would be contingent on the difference between a .30" hole and a .50" hole... now the turning the innards to jelly around that .50 and preventing the destruction of useful tissue for the hunter, that makes sense.
What does everybody think of the archery comparison? What do you think that means for our concept of "inhumane?" Does this mean that everybody who has ever killed an animal without utilizing a round that effectively creates hydrostatic shock is now morally repugnant? Or simply using less effective equipment?
I understand better about why an expanding bullet matters now - it really has practically nothing to do with the expansion itself, and everything to do with the rapid energy dissipation that is the result of the expansion. I have never seen it put in those terms, and so I believed that rifle projectiles functioned on a different level than those from a handgun. It just didn't make sense, and still doesn't, that a kill would be contingent on the difference between a .30" hole and a .50" hole... now the turning the innards to jelly around that .50 and preventing the destruction of useful tissue for the hunter, that makes sense.
What does everybody think of the archery comparison? What do you think that means for our concept of "inhumane?" Does this mean that everybody who has ever killed an animal without utilizing a round that effectively creates hydrostatic shock is now morally repugnant? Or simply using less effective equipment?
Art Eatman
Staff in Memoriam
Seems to me that "inhumane" means unnecessary or lengthy pain. A proper hit from a gun minimizes that, particularly if the bullet causes a lot of tissue destruction--so the length of time from impact to death is short. (One reason I've commonly used neck shots.)
Not all wounds cause instant pain. Seems to me that it is quite possible that a good hit with an arrow would cause bleed-out and death before the initial numbing shock wears off. I have no way of knowing that as fact, but it seems reasonable. I only know from reading, but it seems that bleed-out from a good hit with an arrow occurs fairly rapidly.
Not all wounds cause instant pain. Seems to me that it is quite possible that a good hit with an arrow would cause bleed-out and death before the initial numbing shock wears off. I have no way of knowing that as fact, but it seems reasonable. I only know from reading, but it seems that bleed-out from a good hit with an arrow occurs fairly rapidly.
Hague convention, not Geneva. The Geneva convention you people keep bringing up has to to do with treatment of prisoners not the use of bullets.
Bad shot is a bad shot no matter what bullet you use but you will still have more chance of trailing blood and maybe finding that medium to large animal lying in shock someplace than if you just pushed a small hole in and a small hole out. I'm not a real big fan of hollow points but the bullet companies put a lot of time and money into the design of bullets for maximum efficiency. Using hardball on a deer is false economy, a lost animal and inhumane in my book. Especially when you have perfectly good and accurate hunting bullets designed for the game you are hunting.
There is nothing particularly inherent in a jacketed bullet that makes it any more accurate unless you have a specifically designed match bullet for long range hunting. I shoot standard issue hardball, match hardball and hunting ammo, specifcally 180 gr Remington Core-Lokt's out of my M1 Garand and I guarantee that the hunting bullets are more accurate at 200 yards in my gun than the ball ammo is. I never shot a hunting bullet at long range, ie. over 300 yards so I wouldn't know about it's performance out of my M1 but I don't shoot game animals at that distance anyway so it is a moot point for me.
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