Questions about the irrelevance of energy (ft-lbs)

[TaperPin]

Don’t forget lapping scope rings and refilling the bubble level with higher viscosity bubble fluid.

Since the 22 Hornet isn’t as fun now, I think the backup plan is to put together a fast twist 22 Savage Hi-power barrel for my old Remington. Brass is still available as 5.6x52R.



The original load from 1912 fired a 70 gr bullet at about 2,800 fps. It will be great fun to shoot alongside the 223 fans with a 113 year old Fudd cartridge.

 

[hereinaz]

Well, I am a former/recovering Fudd (thanks to RS) and I still have some Fuddish traits that will probably never go completely away. I love Fudds. They're good folks...at least the ones I know. And they always have plenty of venison stacked in the freezer and big bucks on the wall. Their old ways still work season after season even though many of their beliefs about "knockdown" power, energy, "bigger is better", etc. are completely outdated/untrue.

I agree...unlearning things that aren't true is really, really hard. But...trying to hold on to things that aren't true in the face of overwhelming logic, data, and real-world evidence is really hard also. This forum has a knack for dispensing with all the noise, BS, emotions, and nostalgia and it forces you to either "put up or shut up". Facts don't care about your feelings.

Truth

 

[hereinaz]

Since the 22 Hornet isn’t as fun now, I think the backup plan is to put together a fast twist 22 Savage Hi-power barrel for my old Remington. Brass is still available as 5.6x52R.

View attachment 848114

The original load from 1912 fired a 70 gr bullet at about 2,800 fps. It will be great fun to shoot alongside the 223 fans with a 113 year old Fudd cartridge.

View attachment 848110View attachment 848113

Might not be a tiger gun that can shoot through boiler plate, but my goal is to kill some deer and coyotes with my grandad’s Winchester lever gun in 25-20.

 

[eric1115]

So...

Energy is not irrelevant/meaningless to bullet performance and the work of destroying tissue.

Energy is irrelevant/meaningless as a metric for predicting bullet performance and tissue damage.

So...to just make the blanket over-statement that "energy is irrelevant/meaningless" without the qualifier of "for predicting bullet performance" is incorrect, misleading, etc. It is only irrelevant within the context of conversations about predicting bullet effectiveness, which is a very narrow/specific context.

I think making the blanket statement without the qualifier is where some folks (including me) get confused. And, as I stated before, using the overstatement that "energy is irrelevant" is not at all necessary for making the case for the effectiveness of small calibers.

But now I understand what you guys really mean when you say, "energy is irrelevant".

So, it's all good.

Thanks all!

It's not just that it's not predictive as a metric, it's not a major determining factor in the wound characteristics.

Bullet construction? Absolutely.
Impact velocity? Yes, for sure.
Bullet mass? To some extent, yes. Less than the other two for sure.

The amount of energy required to do the work of cutting/destroying 80-100 cubic inches of tissue is so small that virtually any centerfire cartridge can supply it.

Kinetic energy number is a by-product of all the other factors that determine terminal performance, not an actual factor.

What kind of performance does a 160 HP vehicle have?
That could be a face-melting liter class motorcycle, or a 12v Cummins with 500 ft lb torque, or a 350 TBI Suburban that is slower than a bicycle, or a Mazda Miata that will win a local autocross race. The HP number is in no way predictive or determining of the vehicle's performance characteristics.

If you yank the 160HP Cummins out of the 1-ton Dodge and drop in a 200HP motor out of a BMW S1000 motorcycle, have you increased performance?

Would that Miata have faster times around the autocross track with a 350 TBI that makes 20hp and 80 ft lb more but is double the weight?

The HP number, like the KE number, is meaningless both in terms of predicting, and in terms of determining, the performance that we're interested in. If anything, the HP number is a far more useful metric than KE, but I think it is still a useful analogy.

 

[Lou270]

It has been cover and shared from the research papers that hydrostatic shock does not travel past the wound cavity (temporary and permanent) nor does it follow the blood vessels to affect other areas.

Jay

“Hydrostatic shock, etc., as wounding mechanism is nonsense. It has been studied and tested repeatedly over the last 30-40 years and no evidence of it has ever shown up.

The “shock” that people think they get is the temporary stretch cavity.





No there is not. The very few scientists that try claim that there is, have been demonstrably proven wrong when the effects are measured in labs and tissue.





Yes- they are not wounding mechanisms, and there is no actual evidence in tissue for the effect at all. Despite the desire by seemingly everyone to the contrary- what bullets do in tissue and how they behave is not complicated nor “unknown”.

Shoot bullets into tissue, measure the wounds created. That’s it.

While I agree with Formidilosus that the vast
majority of what people think is hydrostatic shock is from stretch cavity in proximity to something tender there is research and papers on remote effects that clearly show wounding. For ex

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA526059.pdf

Some of the old science/rationale from the originals like Fackler who totally dismissed it were limited by technologies of the day. This is not fully understood and not something to count on though people are studying it. People dieing from things like non-lethal weapons and impacts on body armor seem to rekindle interest in pressure waves traveling through the body. But not something anybody can count on

Lou

 

[Formidilosus]

While I agree with Formidilosus that the vast
majority of what people think is hydrostatic shock is from stretch cavity in proximity to something tender there is research and papers on remote effects that clearly show wounding. For ex

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA526059.pdf

Some of the old science/rationale from the originals like Fackler who totally dismissed it were limited by technologies of the day. This is not fully understood and not something to count on though people are studying it. People dieing from things like non-lethal weapons and impacts on body armor seem to rekindle interest in pressure waves traveling through the body. But not something anybody can count on

Lou

Those are exactly the people I referred to. Their beliefs have been tried repeatedly and have proven to have no validity with medical research- it’s not been able to be shown or proven to exist. Far from it, there are a whole bunch of people running around that have been shot, that had none of these supposed effects.
Every time an entity has tried to do legitimate research to prove these effects in live tissue, they have failed.

 

[Skydog]

Those are exactly the people I referred to. Their beliefs have been tried repeatedly and have proven to have no validity with medical research- it’s not been able to be shown or proven to exist. Far from it, there are a whole bunch of people running around that have been shot, that had none of these supposed effects.
Every time an entity has tried to do legitimate research to prove these effects in live tissue, they have failed.

And even that paper concludes that fragmenting bullets that meet minimum penetration requirements would be needed to generate the high pressure waves. So, even if hydrostatic shock is a thing (not saying that it is) it doesn't really change anything...it seems that all roads lead to fragmenting bullets that reach the vitals.

 

[Macintosh]

And even that paper concludes that fragmenting bullets that meet minimum penetration requirements would be needed to generate the high pressure waves. So, even if hydrostatic shock is a thing (not saying that it is) it doesn't really change anything...it seems that all roads lead to fragmenting bullets that reach the vitals.

View attachment 848147

Remember that bungee I mentioned earlier, where I said that longer deceleration time is a cushion? Well, “transferring maximum energy in a (shorter) penetration distance” IS deceleration time. They are literally the same thing. Ie a “more efficient” APPLICATION of the available energy. Combined with the propagating effect of the bullet fragments on that temp stretch cavity (which is not even energy-dependent the same way), and you have yourself an extremely large hole relative to the available energy.

 

[Stinky Coyote]

The reason that these threads continue to exist isn’t for lack study or evidence, it is because hunters as a whole cling to myths like wallop and bullet proof elk. So few are willing to read the papers themselves or accept the facts derived from them. Or, if they see the .223 for bear, elk… thread they ignore it or disbelieve the hundreds of pages.

Every one is free to believe things, even if they are untrue.

This is a perfect example—you gloss over the fact that there are papers, studies, demonstrations, and evidence. You are perpetuating these threads by ignoring established explanations for terminal ballistics?

There are multiple studies to determine exactly where the damaged tissue ends and viable tissue begins. That is 100% applicable to understanding the effect on game tissue.

There is no huge debate among surgeons about the effect of bullets in tissue. Sure, they are refining techniques, but the field of terminal ballistics has resolved the questions at the level important for hunters.

It’s curious that you didn’t ask where the studies are or find them so that you can see that terminal ballistics has been studied and answered the questions posed in these threads.

The only thing left to do is educate hunters to the reality.

I don't think we are arguing about much, understanding a pencil hole kills slow and a football grenade kills fast isn't really the issue. Those papers and studies are trying to explain shades of dead.

And you see how helpful that is, this thread is a runaway train already two pages behind and I just got to my coffee and put in a pinch.

So will people be able to understand expected inches of penetration and energy transfer per inch? In more layman's terms? To visualize the football explosion or if a mono the 2" sewer pipe at 3' long cone of destruction?

We've all seen the varied work various bullets do inside random critters from random angles etc. Shades of death.

We need to math the rate of change and apply it across the board. As we already know what bullets kill well at what velocities...need something to explain that objectively so we can ALL compare to new bullets being developed (and to drive development to longer and bigger football explosions) and any bullets we may be looking at for a new or upcoming hunt for something we've never chased before.

Varmint bullets included, DG bullets too. Measure em all the same so it's objective. Wanna see what closely mirrors the .204 35gr Berger magic for coyotes? Don't go ask on forums lol...run the calculators on the other options available. Wanna pick the right Alaskan moose combo for your desires? Yes a 22 arc with 88 murders likely work as some crazy bugger here will or has proven but a guy might want the 4'foot 2" abs pipe option for all angles and eating to the hole? Be nice to have an objective way to see this via rate of change actually measured and made usable to automatically see it for what it is. The drt guys will be all over the grenade formulas, the really hungry guys will be all over the other end of the spectrum. Development can go towards making longer football grenades to handle more angles and bigger game the way all the .25 to .3 sd murders do for the usual game we chase.

It's one thing to know what works for what we like in shades of death but man we waste a lot of cyberspace year in year out on the subjectivity of it. And it's 2025....like seriously....a quarter way into the 21st century we're landing bullets into milk jugs at what distances now? And where are we at on trying to explain the terminal side of things? Like pre-school levels.

That's all I'm trying to add. Lets start looking at the bullets, their 'rate of change', compared to each other. And build a calculator around it so people can do the same choosing of projectiles and cartridges as they do with the inflight ballistics calculators. The bullet tells so much more of the story and we aren't looking at it yet. That's what I'm saying, subjectively, in 8 million friggin words lol. Lets move into this century ferchrisesake.

 

[Stinky Coyote]

I read this, twice, and I still have no idea what you are saying.

and yet this is why I say what I say...

but maybe someday you'll understand a 18" bullet that drops 80 ft/lbs per inch vs a 36" bullet that drops 45 ft/lbs per inch

that is something that everyone can understand

would that be helpful? maybe you wanna go to Africa and your goal is 48" dropping 120 ft/lbs per inch? or you could start a thread that will blow up to 50 pages of subjective interpretation lol....

now do you see why I say what I say?

talk to me goose

 

[Stinky Coyote]

we're barely above the 'just throw a 180 out of a 30 and you're good to go' levels here lol....seriously

but love the chats and guys are really starting to think this stuff out and visualize it all in their own ways, so how do we bring it into this century? because we haven't, we're still doing the same sh1t we've been doing since the 80's at least

 

[Stinky Coyote]

imagine the possibilities, your guides and outfitters in distant lands at some point could say....show up with a 36" 100 ft/lb combo please, because they'd understand it too, it would be objective enough and they'd have seen enough to know what already works and see what those inches and pounds are and simply ask for the same to be brought on the hunt

think that would come in handy?

my goodness, look at the above mine comments, elastic? cushion? pushing rope? haha, what the fack are we even talking about here?

looking and talking about shades of death...man we gotta move on from this grade

this is how we recommend bullets for killing? painful

 

[Stinky Coyote]

let's think that through, would we not be able to find minimum thresholds for game classes so much easier? like many have found out with tiny mono's, sure they go deep enough but dropping much fewer ft/lbs per inch, and things dying on neighbours land instead of where you have permission, because most of the work ended up in the hillside, maybe we'd start to notice minimum depths and ft/lbs per inch for game classes, and understand the choice better as in maybe we want things to die on the neighbours land? in that case I'll shoot coyotes on an acreage with the 20 gr xtp vs the 17 gr tnt lol...make my landowner happy and bewilder the neighbours, whatever you wish to choose it would be a lot easier having objective view points of all these things,

how to explain to people my .270 wsm and win with 140 accubonds experience is so different than my 6.5 grendel 123 gr eldm experience and why I'll take the grendel over that higher hp combo all day long...that's a serious difference in hp yet the wimpy one drt's about everything we point it at....we need objective way to explain that, not pushing rope explanations from the peanut gallery haha

 

[The Guide]

how to explain to people my .270 wsm and win with 140 accubonds experience is so different than my 6.5 grendel 123 gr eldm experience and why I'll take the grendel over that higher hp combo all day long...that's a serious difference in hp yet the wimpy one drt's about everything we point it at....we need objective way to explain that, not pushing rope explanations from the peanut gallery haha

You can tell them that you use an optimized combination for a low horsepower cartridge with a frangible bullet with the 6.5 Grendel and a bonded high weight retention bullet designed for minimal fragmentation and straight line penetration with the 270WSM.

Imagine if you used something like a 150gr Combined Technologies Ballistic Silvertip or the 145 ELDX in the 270WSM (since there isn't a ELDM for the .277 caliber) and compared those bullets with more similar design values to the 123 ELDM. Bet ya there wouldn't be much difference between the wound channels when used at the same velocity and the 270WSM would have greater wounding characteristics at the same distance due to the higher velocity impacts.

Comparisons should be done with similar designed bullets or it's worthless noise.

Jay

 

[Wprinkle]

Fixed it for you.

I was waiting for someone to do that lol

 

[WCB]

Well...there is potentially a difference...the one with more energy may make a bigger wound. However, I get that dead is dead and "more dead" is not a thing. I understand the diminishing returns argument.

However, it's also not entirely unreasonable for some folks to think that creating a bigger wound is beneficial and therefore they might prefer a higher energy cartridge. Are there scenarios where a 6" wound might be more lethal than a 2" wound, or incapacitate an animal more quickly (difference between recovery and a lost animal), etc. I would think that there are scenarios where a bigger wound (more tissue destruction) might make a difference. So, I can understand why some folks prefer to hedge their bets with more energy and a "bigger hole" (i.e. potential for larger wounds) and the other folks say it doesn't matter because dead is dead.

Not sure why it has to devolve into different tribes ("small caliber cult" vs "Fudds")...

It depends on how you phrase it. Your original post I responded to said 2-6" wound channel. I took it as anywhere from 2-6" but the 2 options had the same wound channel that was between that 2-6". so lets say .300win mag 4" wound channel entire width of the animal vs a .223 with a 4" wound channel entire width of the animal.

Of course an animal with a 6" wound channel the entire width will more than likely expire faster than an 2" the entire width. But then again we are just talking wound channel and don't have to mention a caliber.

And yes a higher energy cartridge has the potential to create more damage but then we are talking about bullet selection. That same high energy cartridge has the potential to also create a smaller wound channel than a lower energy cartridge due to bullet choice. And somewhere in all of this there is the question of where does the size of the wound channel make no real world difference in the outcome.

 

[Wprinkle]

The idea that a .223 is just as good as a 300 win mag to hunt big game, is asinine. Will it kill it, yeah, sure. Is that really what a sportsman and someone who supposedly cares about game wants though, just to kill it? I like giving animals a quick death and minimal suffering.

If you can't be accurate with a real man's rifle, that's fine. No need to come up with all this fanfare to somehow suggest that what you are doing is somehow better or smarter though. It's laughable and is right there with skinny jeans, IPAs, and balsamic drizzles.

Cartridges don't kill animals, bullets do. Please explain how an animal shot and killed with "a mans rifle" is more dead than an animals shot and killed with "not a mans rifle."

 

[Stinky Coyote]

You can tell them that you use an optimized combination for a low horsepower cartridge with a frangible bullet with the 6.5 Grendel and a bonded high weight retention bullet designed for minimal fragmentation and straight line penetration with the 270WSM.

Imagine if you used something like a 150gr Combined Technologies Ballistic Silvertip or the 145 ELDX in the 270WSM (since there isn't a ELDM for the .277 caliber) and compared those bullets with more similar design values to the 123 ELDM. Bet ya there wouldn't be much difference between the wound channels when used at the same velocity and the 270WSM would have greater wounding characteristics at the same distance due to the higher velocity impacts.

Comparisons should be done with similar designed bullets or it's worthless noise.

Jay

don't worry, been telling the story for a long time, converted quite a few along the way, I started the .25 sd eldm at moderate velocity adventure in 2017-2018 when I could get things off the shelf, some buddies were doing the a-max thing in other cartridges beforehand I was paying attention and keen to get in the game, then seeing it for yourself and exceeding expectations in the field just solidifies all the research etc.

what we lack is an easy button and more objective way for people to figure it out themselves without us keeners who try many things and observe well and not having had to do a bunch of killing along the way to figure it out, it's still a subjective mess of opinions and varied experiences shared campfire style

do you have a better idea on how to make terminal ballistics more objective and to a similar level we've reached in inflight ballistics? something that the broad spectrum of hunters can understand the differences of choices and speak a common language fluently?

 

[The Guide]

don't worry, been telling the story for a long time, converted quite a few along the way, I started the .25 sd eldm at moderate velocity adventure in 2017-2018 when I could get things off the shelf, some buddies were doing the a-max thing in other cartridges beforehand I was paying attention and keen to get in the game, then seeing it for yourself and exceeding expectations in the field just solidifies all the research etc.

what we lack is an easy button and more objective way for people to figure it out themselves without us keeners who try many things and observe well and not having had to do a bunch of killing along the way to figure it out, it's still a subjective mess of opinions and varied experiences shared campfire style

do you have a better idea on how to make terminal ballistics more objective and to a similar level we've reached in inflight ballistics? something that the broad spectrum of hunters can understand the differences of choices and speak a common language fluently?

There are too many variables to base a calculation on. All bullets have different internal structure. All impact mediums have different densities and yield strengths. One bullet will not give the SAME wound when impacting an antelope, an elk, and a black bear at the velocity irregardless of distance because each animal has different body structure, muscle density, and hide thickness/stretch.

The reason ballistics can be considered a consistent calulatable science is that the medium of air is consistent along with the pull of gravity. Temperature and humidity have consistent affects on air density and can be measured from a distance and isn't dependent upon an an animals age or how much the animal has had to eat or drink.

BTW, SD has no relevance on how a bullet will perform in medium. A FMJ and a varmint bullet can have the same SD but performance in tissue is 100% different.

Jay

 

[Bluefish]

There are too many variables to base a calculation on. All bullets have different internal structure. All impact mediums have different densities and yield strengths. One bullet will not give the SAME wound when impacting an antelope, an elk, and a black bear at the velocity irregardless of distance because each animal has different body structure, muscle density, and hide thickness/stretch.

The reason ballistics can be considered a consistent calulatable science is that the medium of air is consistent along with the pull of gravity. Temperature and humidity have consistent affects on air density and can be measured from a distance and isn't dependent upon an an animals age or how much the animal has had to eat or drink.

BTW, SD has no relevance on how a bullet will perform in medium. A FMJ and a varmint bullet can have the same SD but performance in tissue is 100% different.

Jay

No reason you could not use a standard medium to give calculated wound data. It may have to be done at a few different velocities, maybe max and min to start. Then we could have actual discussions on what is needed, not just this wallops better.

It may exist that gel data is available, but I have not found it easy to find or to use for comparison purposes. The idea of comparing bullets on wound channels would be great, but I expect there may be a lot of pushback as it would show many dont work as expected.