Questions for Form and other "small caliber for big game" folks

[bergie]

For me, with a light recoiling caliber, the follow up bullets are going into vitals again (not meat), in that pause as the animal stands there—not destroying large muscle groups. I find they stand there when hit only in vitals and rarely move until they start to feel effects. Hit in muscle group, they take off running like a cat but them out of reflex.

I am not always shooting “until they are down” when they start running/walking away to risk damaging good meat, if I know I got a couple good vital hits.

With effective precision and accuracy, in part, I personally see it as more ethical to shorten the death by follow up shots. As well as the chance for a bad hit or rare bad bullet performance. Nothing is 100%.

Hard to argue anything stated there. My original comment was against the 'shoot em till the fall so they dont run a little farther'. Pretty tough for me to get on board with that when I think my initial shot was well placed. When the lungs look like this, I am not sure that another bullet (or three if you can work that bolt fast enough) is going to shorten the time to death all that much. The pic is from the deer that I was talking about in my original comment.

If I don't think my initial shot was well placed, damn right I'm putting more down range.

 

[hereinaz]

Hard to argue anything stated there. My original comment was against the 'shoot em till the fall so they dont run a little farther'. Pretty tough for me to get on board with that when I think my initial shot was well placed. When the lungs look like this, I am not sure that another bullet (or three if you can work that bolt fast enough) is going to shorten the time to death all that much. The pic is from the deer that I was talking about in my original comment.

If I don't think my initial shot was well placed, damn right I'm putting more down range.

Yup. No need for follow up.

I don’t count on perfect performance every time, that’s why I follow up. But, I agree with you, it’s not necessary the vast majority of time and the risk of a bullet failure is small.

For the record, I have never been aware of any bullet failure during any hunt, whether my tag or not.

But, I haven’t been able to perfectly call good hits.

 

[Formidilosus]

Hard to argue anything stated there. My original comment was against the 'shoot em till the fall so they dont run a little farther'. Pretty tough for me to get on board with that when I think my initial shot was well placed. When the lungs look like this, I am not sure that another bullet (or three if you can work that bolt fast enough) is going to shorten the time to death all that much. The pic is from the deer that I was talking about in my original comment.

If I don't think my initial shot was well placed, damn right I'm putting more down range.

Until you get a bullet that does something weird (almost always failure to upset) and then you have a rodeo. Or, the shot isn’t exactly where you thought it was- because no one can call the shot correct 100% of the time.

I have watched a bunch of animals that were “hit perfectly” with the shooter refusing to shoot again- get up and run off. Most were found after chasing, some weren’t. I am uninterested in chasing wounded animals.

 

[rclouse79]

My tikka 270 has been too good to me to get rid of it. I have also started down the small caliber rabbit hole as I start planning my daughter’s first rifle. I was originally thinking a suppressed 6.5 cm, but am now considering a suppressed 243.
I have not yet hit the part about not cleaning the barrel. I usually clean my guns once at the end of hunting season. I am curious about the cliff notes version of not cleaning. I also wonder if that would hold true when shooting an all copper bullet. I seem to hear a lot about copper fouling.

 

[hereinaz]

Until you get a bullet that does something weird (almost always failure to upset) and then you have a rodeo. Or, the shot isn’t exactly where you thought it was- because no one can call the shot correct 100% of the time.

I have watched a bunch of animals that were “hit perfectly” with the shooter refusing to shoot again- get up and run off. Most were found after chasing, some weren’t. I am uninterested in chasing wounded animals.

Never personally had the rodeo, but I know it is inevitable.

Bottom line, for me, the worst feeling is seeing unnecessary suffering. That’s enough reason for me to risk spoiling meat, and why I keep shooting, always.

The reality of wasted meat is a reasonable objection to make. For me, as soon as I factor in the meat lost for the one time if I were to let one go, then it’s worth the possibility of possibly ruining meat with a shot to the shoulder.

 

[hereinaz]

My tikka 270 has been too good to me to get rid of it. I have also started down the small caliber rabbit hole as I start planning my daughter’s first rifle. I was originally thinking a suppressed 6.5 cm, but am now considering a suppressed 243.
I have not yet hit the part about not cleaning the barrel. I usually clean my guns once at the end of hunting season. I am curious about the cliff notes version of not cleaning. I also wonder if that would hold true when shooting an all copper bullet. I seem to hear a lot about copper fouling.

“Never clean” is a bit overstated, IMO. I don’t clean a lot, but sometimes a clean is necessary.

But. Many overclean their barrels, especially during break in.

 

[Unckebob]

After listening to @Formidilosus on a podcast, I concluded that what he was saying made a lot of sense. Consequently, I decided to take a sip of the Kool Aid this year.
- I bought a 223 Tikka Lite to hunt and plink with. Unfortunately, I did not get my rifle in time to work up a good hunting load in time for my hunt.

Experiment: I went on a S Texas white tail hunt and took a 6ARC rifle and a 280AI.

My daughter took her first deer at 100 yards using the 6ARC and I took a buck at 150 yards with the 280AI. Both of us made nice shots.

Looking at the two wounds while dressing them out, I concluded that the more powerful 280AI didn't make my deer more dead than hers.

The little 6ARC is so easy to shoot well, my daughter easily made a nice shot despite minimal training. For Texas deer, it is the better choice imo.

Plan for next year:

I want to help my son a deer using the .223 Tikka. He has never shot a rifle, but I am confident I can get him shooting well enough by next fall. I now have some 77g TMKs to load up.

I'll keep my 280AI and 6.8W, but I know they aren't really needed. They do suppress well though.

 

[JNDEER]

I've been working on trying to summarize the "small caliber for big game' argument into a quick "best practices" summary. Here is my first draft. I'd love feedback, edits and ideas of what is missing or shouldn't be in here:

The Best Practices For Affective and Humane Killing of North American Big Game
or
The Form Rokslide Way

1- The number one reason for wounding loss is that we as shooters suck.

2- To suck less, we need to practice weekly throughout the year with field and stress simulating drills.

3- A shooter's accuracy and ability to visually track an animal after the shot and apply an accurate follow-up shot is significantly worse as recoil increases.

4- Furthermore, a traditional high-recoil hunting rifle discourages hunters from practicing a lot which results in even poorer accuracy and field performance.

5-Shooters should practice and hunt with guns with less than 6.5 fp of recoil.

6- The quickest way to incapacitate and kill an animal is through a larger permanent wound channel with the ideal average diameter being 2 1/2" with diminishing returns (and more meat loss) when wound channels go beyond that.

7-Softer and more frangible bullets are much more effective at creating this size of wound channels than the typical bonded or mono-metal type bullets commonly sold as more effective on big game.

8- So-called tougher game animals do not pose a penetration challenge for softer frangible bullets

9-Given these facts-- the "best practice" for ethically and effectively killing game animals is to use smaller than typical calibers such as .223, .243/6mm and 6.5mm using a softer more frangible bullet than the typical recommendation. Examples of these bullets are Hornady ELD-X, ELD-M and Berger Elite Hunter.

10-The large majority of shooters should not consider ever taking a shot on an animal beyond 500 or 600 yards. There are various ways to test one's limits and to train to become better that one can explore, but wounding loss on animals goes up drastically beyond 400 yards and hunters typically overestimate their affective max shooting range by double to triple.

11-A hunting rifle should be built in a way that requires near zero maintenance to operate smoothly and to reliably hold zero. Tikka is a great low-cost option.

12-There are only a few scopes that are reliable enough to hold their zero through years of rigorous hunting use and these should be utilized to reduce zero shift and wounded or missed animals. Any scope from Nightforce or SWFA as well as many scopes from Trijicon and one scope from Maven all have passed rigorous testing. Scope power need not be any higher than 15 for hunting.

13-A new rifle should be dissasembled, degreased, and re-assembled using blue loctite, nail polish or paint pen as thread locker. If there is a lot of play between action and stock consider bedding. Action screws should be torqued to 55 or 60 fps, ring to rail screws should be torqued to 40 fps, and scope ring screws torqued to 30 fps.

14-A rifle should be zeroed by shooting a group of 10-15 rounds (cooling every 3-4 rounds) and then adjusted so the center of the resulting cone of fire is at the center of the target. A 10 round group of less than 1 MOA is quite rare and the difference between that rare gun and one that averages 1 to 1.5 MOA in field hunting affectiveness is nil.

15-Don't worry about cleaning your gun, ever.

9) - So what do you shoot if you have to shoot copper only bullets?

 

[ehayes]

9) - So what do you shoot if you have to shoot copper only bullets?

Piggy back on to that question.

If the ELDM type bullets are such that you won’t notice a wound difference from .30 cal down to 6mm, can the same be said for copper bullets?

Will all LRX (pick your copper) make an indiscernible wound channel from .30 cal LRX down to 6mm LRX given the same velocity?

 

[Dobermann]

Thanks for sharing Nathan Foster’s work. I’ll take a look at his website in greater depth over the coming days/weeks. Always good to have multiple perspectives to consider. For others reading this, I started off by reading Mr. Foster’s article titled “Effective Game Killing” (Effective Game Killing). Plenty of parallels to opinions being shared on this platform.

All I'll say is that, before I discovered Rokslide, I bought and read all of Nathan's books.

I now severely regret that as a waste of time and money - a lot of what they contained was just plain wrong or out of date.

The only real practical thing I think I got from them was the value of a boonie hat.

 

[Formidilosus]

9) - So what do you shoot if you have to shoot copper only bullets?

DRT.

Piggy back on to that question.

If the ELDM type bullets are such that you won’t notice a wound difference from .30 cal down to 6mm, can the same be said for copper bullets?

It is functionally there isn’t much difference between most calibers. 30cal ELD-M’s (especially 155/168/178gr) at high impact velocities in deer sized animals- there is a notable difference in wound size.

Will all LRX (pick your copper) make an indiscernible wound channel from .30 cal LRX down to 6mm LRX given the same velocity?

In standard copper monos- yes. There is not a notable difference in wound size- functional or otherwise. All generally make a 1” to 1.5” diameter wound.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

In standard copper monos- yes. There is not a notable difference in wound size- functional or otherwise. All generally make a 1” to 1.5” diameter wound.

Beating on the horse a bit on monos... Most of us all agree velocity is key and notable more velocity than barnes states is needed for "full" expansion, along with shot placement that a narrow wound channel will rapidly kill. With that out of the way do you have any thoughts/observations on velocity vs internal damage. IE 2700fps vs 3100fps with the same bullet (both are well into the effect velocities), is the faster one tearing up more soft tissue internally in any discernable magnitude due to the forces radiating outward perhaps tearing more tissue or do things top out once the bullet is at full expansion?

I've shot quite a few things in the past with a 7mm 145lrx from 50-700yds which all fell and died relatively quickly if not bang flops but I cut nearly everything gutless and paid little attention to the internal damage, I'd break a rib or reach through the diaphragm to grab the heart if it wasn't hit. The damage on meat was all pretty similar and was only increased if bone fragments was involved. I can't readily say too much about the internals unfortunately to comment about the above question.

 

[Macintosh]

In standard copper monos- yes. There is not a notable difference in wound size- functional or otherwise. All generally make a 1” to 1.5” diameter wound.

Maybe asked another way…assuming similar penetration, is a 50% difference in wound channel size (1” to 1.5”) significant in terms of incapacitation, and is the increase more a function of caliber or of velocity? Does a .243 lrx at 2800fps make a bigger hole in the critter than a .308 at 2500fps? Or is it literally equivalent to mushroomed diameter?

I think youre saying 1” or 1.5” wound doesnt make a difference, but if wound channel size is what matters its hard for me to believe that a 50% difference isnt significant.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

I think youre saying 1” or 1.5” wound doesnt make a difference, but if wound channel size is what matters its hard for me to believe that a 50% difference isnt significant.

I think the size of the wound channel has to do with the probabilty of tearing through something that is rapidly lethal. Yes a 50% increase is useful in that comparison but if its being compared against a 3-4" wound of a fragmenting bullet then the "difference" isn't nearly as dramatic.

 

[Macintosh]

@pods8 (Rugged Stitching) yes, both 1” and 1.5” are small compared to 3” but thats not the question. Im not comparing to any lead bullet, Im comparing as quoted—a 1” wound to a 1.5” wound (regardless of what made it). I understood the statement to be that there was no functional difference between a 1” and a 1.5” wound and I want to confirm my understanding of that statement—it’s only in the CONTEXT of a larger wound channel up to a couple inches wide being what matters in effectively killing an animal, that a 50% difference from 1” to 1.5” intuitively seems like it would make a major difference. So if there is a way to predictably get a 50% larger wound thru equipment choice, then that would be significant (I think)—Thats what Im wondering.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

@pods8 (Rugged Stitching) yes, both 1” and 1.5” are small compared to 3” but thats not the question. Im not comparing to any lead bullet, Im comparing as quoted—a 1” wound to a 1.5” wound (regardless of what made it). I understood the statement to be that there was no functional difference between a 1” and a 1.5” wound and I want to confirm my understanding of that statement—it’s only in the CONTEXT of a larger wound channel up to a couple inches wide being what matters in effectively killing an animal, that a 50% difference from 1” to 1.5” intuitively seems like it would make a major difference. So if there is a way to predictably get a 50% larger wound thru equipment choice, then that would be significant (I think)—Thats what Im wondering.

I knew what you were saying, I was just framing it in a different context. Sure a 1.5" broad head might cut more than a 1" broad head and gives more room for error but both need to be close to the "right" place compared to something that cuts much wider. In the grand scheme a cartridge you shoot well that makes a 1" wound is going to statistically do better than a cartridge you shoot poorly that makes a 1.5" wound.

This is just ballistic mental masturbation to an extend and I absolutely get caught up in it too at times. In this one I'd just prioritize velocity down range, shootability, bullet BC, etc. over a 1" vs 1.5" wound channel.

 

[ehayes]

I’m not the expert but 1-1.5 inches is not linear expansion correlated directly to caliber. .243 to .308 is a 20% difference. In theory they all expand in a linear scale, so at full expansion, still a 20% difference. But the wound channel will be slightly larger, call it 1-1.5 inches.
So if a .243 caused a 1” wound and .308 caused a 20% larger 1.2” does that really matter. Either could slightly over or under perform.
This is the conclusion I am drawing from controlled expansion bullets.

 

[Formidilosus]

Beating on the horse a bit on monos... Most of us all agree velocity is key and notable more velocity than barnes states is needed for "full" expansion, along with shot placement that a narrow wound channel will rapidly kill. With that out of the way do you have any thoughts/observations on velocity vs internal damage. IE 2700fps vs 3100fps with the same bullet (both are well into the effect velocities), is the faster one tearing up more soft tissue internally in any discernable magnitude due to the forces radiating outward perhaps tearing more tissue or do things top out once the bullet is at full expansion?

Not to a “discernible” effect. 2,700 compared to 3,100- yes there is a bit of difference between the amount (width) of permanent tearing or bruising from the temporary stretch cavity on average- however it does not seem to cause any notable difference in time to incapacitation.

 

[Formidilosus]

Maybe asked another way…assuming similar penetration, is a 50% difference in wound channel size (1” to 1.5”) significant in terms of incapacitation, and is the increase more a function of caliber or of velocity? Does a .243 lrx at 2800fps make a bigger hole in the critter than a .308 at 2500fps? Or is it literally equivalent to mushroomed diameter?

I think youre saying 1” or 1.5” wound doesnt make a difference, but if wound channel size is what matters it’s hard for me to believe that a 50% difference isnt significant.

You read that incorrectly, or didn’t state it correctly. All the standard monos have a range of wound channel size that they exhibit. In general that is normally between slightly smaller than caliber size, to around 1.5”- regardless of caliber. The difference in wound size per caliber is about the difference in actual caliber size- half the diameter of the bullet difference. If .224 LRX creates a 1” wound, a 30cal LRX is creating a 1.1” wound (ish).

 

[huntnful]

You read that incorrectly, or didn’t state it correctly. All the standard monos have a range of wound channel size that they exhibit. In general that is normally between slightly smaller than caliber size, to around 1.5”- regardless of caliber. The difference in wound size per caliber is about the difference in actual caliber size- half the diameter of the bullet difference. If .224 LRX creates a 1” wound, a 30cal LRX is creating a 1.1” wound (ish).

What do you think about the TTSX? I've been there for several of my hunting partners kills, around 400 yards, with a 300WM and 180 TTSX, and the wounds "can be" substantial. Is it just that bullet? I'm not a mono fan at all, but just genuinely impressed with the damage of that specific bullet compared to others I've seen in person as well.

He also hit a buck in the neck with that same bullet and it wasn't fatal. And I have not a single doubt in my mind if it would have been an ELDM it would have been 100% lethal.