JVB testing the 77gr TMK for elk hunting

[Wprinkle]

 

[rabbithuntr]

One of JVBs favorite places to hunt elk

 

[cuerro viejo]

View attachment 956278
View attachment 956279

He didn't want to show that the 338 did not penetrate after hitting the knuckle either. Kinda blew his own theory.

This JB guy is a fraud, who would of a guessed that a guy that kills 2-3 animals a year isnt a terminal performance expert.....

 

[BCsteve]

View attachment 956701

No, thats only the first half to get to the vitals.

 

[Bugger]

 

[cuerro viejo]

What's your deal with showing up in replies and saying I said things I did not, and wanting to nitpick on general statements like we were at a university debate? I didn't realize I needed to give a physics lesson on the exact why's and wherefores of what I said in off-hand comments, but since you have pointed out my deficiency in this regard, let's do this.

I never said caliber was the driver of penetration. I said if you're comparing like for like bullets, a 338 will out-penetrate a 243 every time. I just randomly picked 243 and 338, because they were good examples to compare to make the point. That said - the deeper penetration from a 338 is not because it's larger in diameter, it's because of the physics involved. Since you like sectional density, let's talk about that. The lightest 338 Accubond and lightest 338 ELD-X both have a higher sectional density than the heaviest 243 Accubond or 243 ELD-X. They also have substantially more mass (and therefore more momentum), which contributes to penetration. But, perhaps, most pertinent of all, when we are discussing "continuously expanding bullets" like an ELD-X (or a TMK or a ELD-M etc), the bullets of this type will keep fragmenting as it passes through tissue until there is no more mass left to fragment, so therefore, a substantially heavier weight bullet of identical or even somewhat less sectional density, will out-penetrate the lighter one 100% of the time, because with the heavier one, there is still enough retained mass to continue penetrating as it fragments when compared to the much lighter bullets in this current topic.

However, all that said, I actually agree with you totally on the key point - a 224 caliber bullet of sufficient mass (a 77 is certainly sufficient), of a fragmenting design, well placed into the chest cavity (or neck/spine/skull), will 100% kill a critter just as dead and just as fast as any larger/heavier projectile will, and on non-CNS shots, will indeed to it faster than a different projectile type such as if we compared a 77 grain TMK to a TTSX of any flavor or size, because the fragmenting projectile causes far more wounding over a wider area than a mono of any type.

Yet, still the related point I made, is also factually correct; you aren't likely to make a successful 'Texas heart shot' on an elk with a 77 TMK (or various other undesirable angles that requires penetration be measured in feet not inches), but you might very well pull it off with say, a 338 Windbag shooting heavy mono or bonded bullets designed to retain enough weight for deep penetration. In other words, the guys who point out that the 77TMK has more limited penetration than bigger/heavier bullets, are also correct.

All of which brings me to my closing statement, again, all cartridges and bullets and bullet designs have strengths and weakness, and all of us who take those into consideration before we shoot yee olde critter with one are Good to Go(tm), and all carrying Enough Gun(tm).

I'm honestly kind of "meh" on the whole "77 TMK" debate. It's been proven many (many) times over, that a well placed 77 TMK will kill basically anything that walks in north America. A well placed 22LR will also kill anything that walks NA as well. So will a well placed arrow. So will a well placed 338 UltraUberMassiveMagnum. And if you've got a good arm, a well placed rock to the head would get it done as well. The key words for all of those statements is (and always has been) "well placed".

All that said, at the fundamental core of "how do you kill things with projectiles", two items are non-negotiable, and everything else is just nice to have. Shot Placement, and Penetration. As you go up and down the scale of bigger to smaller cartridges (and heavier and lighter arrows, and whatever else), the one thing that bigger buys you over smaller when all else is more/less equal (eg: .243 Accubonds vs 338 Accubonds or 243 ELD-X to 338 ELD-X) is more penetration. Since that's one of our two non-negotiables, that does have value and merit, if you happen to need more of that.

There absolutely are angles at which a 77 TMK won't penetrate enough to reach the vitals for a quick clean kill (think through the hindquarter, through the guts, though the liver, and then to the heart/lungs), where a heavier bullet of tougher construction absolutely could do that. Are any of those shot angles recommendable? Well, probably not, LOL, but they exist.

But to stop rambling and get to the point I'm trying to make; all of us with ethics and morals or that kind of thing, understand that different weapons and different cartridges and different bullets and so-on all have varying capabilities, and we will consider the capabilities of the weapon in our hands before we Send It(tm) at a living critter. As long as we're all doing that, any gun is "enough gun".

From data set perspective, What is the minimum number of Animals killed with a bullet to validate its usage?

 

[gbflyer]

View attachment 956733

Not to be confused with moose knuckle hahaha.

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

From data set perspective, What is the minimum number of Animals killed with a bullet to validate its usage?

Since I stated, I thought pretty clearly, that ANY bullet that is properly placed with reasonable consideration given for it's performance characteristics, impact velocity, etc to ballpark what "proper placement" is for that bullet, is Enough Gun(tm), I don't think there's any further validation needed for any of them. We are There(tm). 77 TMKs, 55 grain Horandy SP's, 45 grain TSX's, etc, all will Git Er Dun(tm) if well placed.

I guess you could say from a data perspective, that there should be at least some gel testing to determine a bullet's generally expected performance profile (eg: will it frag and only penetrate 6 inches? Will it not exapnd and to through 6 feet like a drill bit? something in between more likely), but to my knowledge, there are no such 'unknown performacne expectations' bullets on the market today.

 

[BlackTail]

There seems to be just as many closed minded folks not wanting to watch a differing test than what they want to believe.

Seems quite hypocritical when someone naysays the effectiveness of the 77TMK, and the defenders always scream “did you read the thread”. Yet when someone shows a differing body of evidence they don’t even take the time to watch and see if there are biases OR if maybe there’s some validity to their testing.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Mike, I totally agree that a lot of people in this world are all too happy to live in their echo chambers. However, in this instance for me, I just don’t want to support someone like JVB through clicks and views. Not at all about being a hypocrite. If he came on Rokslide and started a thread and posted a non-monetized video of his findings, I’d be more than happy to see what he came up with.

And that’s not to say anything about whether or not he was even trying to gather any data in search of information or whether his test was trying to “prove” a point.

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

Because you keep saying stuff like this, and this is wrong:


Mass has nothing to do with penetration. Neither does caliber, as you strongly implied in your original post.

Except what I actually said is not wrong, and what you said I said is not what I said.

Mass does have something to do with penetration, particularly if we're discussing bullets of like construction that 'continuously expand', because (for example) a 300 grain bullet that keeps expanding/fragmenting until there are no chunks big enough left to continue penetrating will penetrate deeper than a 77 grain bullet that also expands/fragments until there are no chunks big enough to continue penetrating, because the 77 grain bullet has a lot fewer chunks it can create before it's out of mass.

Further, I never said "caliber" makes for more penetration, I said a 338 (for reasons I didn't mention, which include higher sectional density of commonly available 338 bullets, typically tougher construction of 338 bullets, etc) would out-penetrate a 243, which it absolutely will.

I don't mind at all if I'm actually wrong and someone calls me out, in fact I kind of enjoy that sort of thing in a technical discussion context, I love learning new information or learning deeper nuance about things I already know. However, you appear to intentionally misinterpret what I say for what I can only assume is for the purpose of being argumentative about it. If i want to play that kind of game, I'll go have a conversation with my wife, LOL.

 

[cuerro viejo]

Since I stated, I thought pretty clearly, that ANY bullet that is properly placed with reasonable consideration given for it's performance characteristics, impact velocity, etc to ballpark what "proper placement" is for that bullet, is Enough Gun(tm), I don't think there's any further validation needed for any of them. We are There(tm). 77 TMKs, 55 grain Horandy SP's, 45 grain TSX's, etc, all will Git Er Dun(tm) if well placed.

I guess you could say from a data perspective, that there should be at least some gel testing to determine a bullet's generally expected performance profile (eg: will it frag and only penetrate 6 inches? Will it not exapnd and to through 6 feet like a drill bit? something in between more likely), but to my knowledge, there are no such 'unknown performacne expectations' bullets on the market today.

Far enough. I find it interesting that there are properties that cull a magnitude of animals(deer, aoudad, elk, nilgai , hogs, Axis etc) a year by state program mandate/carry capacity mandate and have mountains of data but people who take 2-3 animals a year toss it out as irrelevant.

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

Far enough. I find it interesting that there are properties that cull a magnitude of animals(deer, aoudad, elk, nilgai , hogs, Axis etc) a year by state program mandate/carry capacity mandate and have mountains of data but people who take 2-3 animals a year toss it out as irrelevant.

To repurpose an old trueisim, I would suggest that "wherever you find two gun guys, there you will find three or more opinions on any given gun related subject." Hahahah

 

[wind gypsy]

Far enough. I find it interesting that there are properties that cull a magnitude of animals(deer, aoudad, elk, nilgai , hogs, Axis etc) a year by state program mandate/carry capacity mandate and have mountains of data but people who take 2-3 animals a year toss it out as irrelevant.

Where can a guy find this data?

 

[cal30_sniper]

Except what I actually said is not wrong, and what you said I said is not what I said.

Where have I done anything other than directly quote what you wrote?

Mass does have something to do with penetration, particularly if we're discussing bullets of like construction that 'continuously expand', because (for example) a 300 grain bullet that keeps expanding/fragmenting until there are no chunks big enough left to continue penetrating will penetrate deeper than a 77 grain bullet that also expands/fragments until there are no chunks big enough to continue penetrating, because the 77 grain bullet has a lot fewer chunks it can create before it's out of mass.

This is not correct. It's not clear what "continuously expand" actually means in this context. Are you referring to bullets that mushroom or bullets that fragment? Your statement seems to use the terms interchangeably. There are fundamental differences in terminal performance depending on whether a bullet primarily does one or the other. Interestingly, at higher than centerfire-rifle velocities and with materials other than lead, some of what you wrote above does start to be true, but is not relevant in the 2000-3500fps impact velocity band and bullet materials/construction we should be considering here.

I said a 338 (for reasons I didn't mention, which include higher sectional density of commonly available 338 bullets, typically tougher construction of 338 bullets, etc) would out-penetrate a 243, which it absolutely will.

This is also not correct, likely due to the same flawed conceptual thinking as the statement above. See below for explanation of what I think may be the main flaw in your logic.

What you're neglecting to consider is that a larger caliber MUST and WILL shed more mass to reach the same depth of penetration, because it has greater frontal area in contact with the medium it travels through. Frontal area is proportional to caliber squared, so it affects the larger caliber non-linearly. For mushrooming bullet designs, a larger caliber that expands the same percentage of its original diameter in a medium has far greater frontal area being resisted by the medium than an equivalent bullet of smaller caliber. This does not aid in penetration. For fragmenting bullet designs, all bets are off, as the size and shapes of fragments generated will govern penetration of each, which is not predictable or proportionate to caliber in any way. The behavior you describe above is pretty close to how spalling projectiles work, but is not behavior typically seen at rifle bullet construction type and velocities.

Now, since you seem to think I'm zeroing in (out of context) on small bits of what you wrote (maybe I am), how about the "fundamental core" of your first post:

All that said, at the fundamental core of "how do you kill things with projectiles", two items are non-negotiable, and everything else is just nice to have. Shot Placement, and Penetration.

Penetration is not how you kill things with projectiles, wound channel is. If penetration were the principal factor, you likely wouldn't have the arm strong enough to kill things by throwing rocks as your original post correctly points out as possible. Penetration is only part of one dimension of a three dimensional problem when it comes to wound channel. Lest you leap at the opportunity to argue that a bigger projectile has more material to cause damage in the other two dimensions, first remember that at the rifle caliber velocities under consideration here, you must consider both the secondary and primary wound channel. The size of the secondary wound channel is governed primarily by velocity, not momentum or mass. Now:

• At tolerable recoil levels in a hunting weight rifle you can drive smaller calibers and correspondingly lighter bullets to significantly higher velocities.
• For the human-wielded weapon, weapons system recoil has an impact on accuracy of shot placement.

What happens to your proposed fundamental core concept when considering those two points?

However, you appear to intentionally misinterpret what I say for what I can only assume is for the purpose of being argumentative about it.

In the means in which we are communicating, one can generally only interpret what is written, which is what I have done and responded accordingly. If you don't want to be misinterpreted, it may help to stop using psuedo-science and hand-waving in an attempt to argue aristotlean physics principles several centuries after they were debunked. I'm not intentionally going out of my way to be rude or argumentative, and I don't think I've intentionally mis-represented anything you've wrote, but engineers do get the tendency to argue when they see claims touted as physics-based that in fact aren't.

 

[cuerro viejo]

Where can a guy find this data?

Depends on what you mean by find? I should have said personal data.

The data would be and is personal observation by one’s self with assortment of calibers.

There are two primary locations in the world that have mountains of opportunity to do this; aNew Zealand and Texas, Texas offering more diversity in species.

With that said if I end up culling WT’s, cow elk and or doo-dads ewes this year, I will take plenty of pictures to document wound channels on multiple shoot angles. I will ask friends to do the same. From experience 77 Tmk/80 eldm etc in 5.56 and 22Cm/22-250AI/22-6mm pretty much mirror the 223 thread.

I haven’t put one through an elk hip to opposite shoulder yet and doubt I will on purpose but have an aoudad and animal recovery results mirrored same bullet placement with 7prc. Both bullets found under skin off side shoulder neck crease, to be far the 7prc was a much further shot though

 

[Mike D Texas]

Mike, I totally agree that a lot of people in this world are all too happy to live in their echo chambers. However, in this instance for me, I just don’t want to support someone like JVB through clicks and views. Not at all about being a hypocrite. If he came on Rokslide and started a thread and posted a non-monetized video of his findings, I’d be more than happy to see what he came up with.

And that’s not to say anything about whether or not he was even trying to gather any data in search of information or whether his test was trying to “prove” a point.

There were definitely some biases in his video. Shot was close, I don’t recall how close but not typical hunting ranges. The bone he used for the video IMO was not representative of what you would find on an elk.

And it was very disingenuous at the very end of not showing the full shot and aftermath of the shot with the alleged 338 Ultra.

That said, if all you doo is see one side of data then you are in an echo chamber. I like to look at all sides when I can. Frankly, I’m not 100% sold on the .224 caliber use for larger game, but I’m open minded to it.

Regarding clicks and monetization, who cares? He’s gonna get paid one way or another and the few pennies he makes off your clicks isn’t going to drive him bankrupt or make him rich.

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

Where have I done anything other than directly quote what you wrote?

You did that with every word you wrote that wasn't a quote from me.

This is not correct. It's not clear what "continuously expand" actually means in this context. Are you referring to bullets that mushroom or bullets that fragment?

Well, since we're talking about TMK's and by inference other similar bullets (ELD-X, ELD-M, etc), we are obviously talking about fragmenting designs, and the term "continuous expansion" is a marketing term I've seen at least one company (hornady I think?) throwing around in that regard. My apologies for confusing you if you weren't familiar with it.

What you're neglecting to consider is that a larger caliber MUST and WILL shed more mass to reach the same depth of penetration, because it has greater frontal area in contact with the medium it travels through.

Sure, bigger diameter bullet will shed more weight to reach the same depth, but it also has far more weight to shed, and among common commercially available bullets, a higher sectional density, so it still wins.

If you (or anyone) thinks I'm wrong on this, go do some penetration testing on any of the usual mediums (water, gel, etc) with a 224 77 TMK and a 308 195 TMK (to use like-for-like examples; heaviest available for the given caliber), and then you tell me which one penetrated the most. I'll give you a hint - it won't be the 77 TMK. Or to revisit my earlier example, the lightest 338 ELD-X available is 230 grains (Sierra doesn't make a 338 TMK, so we have to improvise), so penetration test it next to a 80 grain ELD-X (or a 77 TMK), and gain, the lightest 338 will out penetrate the heaviest 224 of similar design.

Now, since you seem to think I'm zeroing in (out of context) on small bits of what you wrote (maybe I am), how about the "fundamental core" of your first post:

Yes, yes you are.

Penetration is not how you kill things with projectiles, wound channel is. If penetration were the principal factor, you likely wouldn't have the arm strong enough to kill things by throwing rocks as your original post correctly points out as possible.

You are further misconstruing what I said when you say I said penetration is the principal factor in terms of what kills. I did not, I said sufficient penetration is a non-negotiable requirement if you want to kill something with a projectile. I said that, because, if some portion of the projectile does not penetrate the thing-which-cannot-be-lived-without, you won't kill the critter. It matters not if it's primary, secondary, or even a tertiary wound tract caused by bone fragments shattered by the projectile, something has to penetrate deep enough to irrecoverably damage the thing-which-cannot-be-lived-without, or death will not occur.

Since you bring up the rock throwing topic; if a rock is thrown with sufficient force and strikes a critters skull, it will fracture the skull driving bone shards into the brain, and the critter will die. That is 'sufficient penetration' for the projectile in question with that particular shot placement.

Penetration is only part of one dimension of a three dimensional problem when it comes to wound channel. Lest you leap at the opportunity to argue that a bigger projectile has more material to cause damage in the other two dimensions, first remember that at the rifle caliber velocities under consideration here, you must consider both the secondary and primary wound channel. The size of the secondary wound channel is governed primarily by velocity, not momentum or mass. Now:

• At tolerable recoil levels in a hunting weight rifle you can drive smaller calibers and correspondingly lighter bullets to significantly higher velocities.
• For the human-wielded weapon, weapons system recoil has an impact on accuracy of shot placement.

What happens to your proposed fundamental core concept when considering those two points?

Absolutely nothing happens to my concept, because as I covered above, you misconstrued what I said. My concept is/was, that penetration is a requirement, and it is. Once the required penetration is achieved, then we get into the dimensions of the type of wound, the nature of the wound, how it was produced, recoil, shooter capabilities, etc. So nothing you said above refutes the original concept in any way, and in fact does not even address it at all, because all of the 'dimensions' you are going on about pre-assume sufficient penetration.

In the means in which we are communicating, one can generally only interpret what is written, which is what I have done and responded accordingly. If you don't want to be misinterpreted, it may help to stop using psuedo-science and hand-waving in an attempt to argue aristotlean physics principles several centuries after they were debunked. I'm not intentionally going out of my way to be rude or argumentative, and I don't think I've intentionally mis-represented anything you've wrote, but engineers do get the tendency to argue when they see claims touted as physics-based that in fact aren't.

You are correct, in the means with which we are communicating, we can only interpret what is written by the other person. I interpret what you keep writing in replies to me as definitively (and likely intentionally) argumentative, and having all the appearances of being asinine in nature.

For the gamblers among us, I would suspect that the Kashi or Polymarket odds of me adding you to the site ignore list before the end of October are very high, currently, LOL.