What caused the Rokslide shift to smallest caliber and cartridges?

[rileybassman]

I think the Hornady guys talked about this on a podcast, not sure which one. Their theory was that it depends on the animals blood pressure at the time they get shot. Relaxed, feeding critters have a low blood pressure and thus the blood flow to the brain stops faster. Rutting, stressed, or like you said, alert and ready to run, it takes longer for blood flow to the brain to stop.

Their analogy was a garden hose full of water. If you sever a low pressure hose, its leaks for a second and quickly stops. A high pressure hose will spray for longer before the pressure bleeds off.

Of course, that doesn’t take into account variable such as breaking bones i.e. shoulders, hitting spinal cord, etc. And every animal is different at the end of the day. I shot a relaxed, feeding whitetail doe through the chest with a 30-06 and she still ran 80 yards once

I would add adrenaline presence as well as blood pressure... hyped, anxious, or stressed animals seem to just take longer to convince they are dead sometimes. Rutting bulls seem like a good example of this. I shot a little satellite early sept. a few years back (archery) that was grazing with some cows, not a care in the world... wind was perfect, never saw me, tipped over within site, 40 yards of where he stood and was completely expired in the amount of time it took me to walk up to him... and that was with an arrow. I've seen the exact same shot on rutted up or angry bulls and they can go 1/4 mile in 30 seconds it seems like sometimes. Almost every deer, elk, or antelope that I can think of that I shot or have seen shot that either didn't know we were there or was super calm, died within feet of where it was shot (with good shot placement obviously). The flip side is my wife shot a doe antelope a few years back that had others shoot at it that morning, lost her boyfriend (sister shot the doe's boyfriend buck an hour before), and that doe took too long to know she was dead. When we gutted her, still had a bullet hole through 1 lung (her shot was a little high admittedly) but that little doe just didn't want to go down easily that day.

 

[Thegman]

I would add adrenaline presence as well as blood pressure... hyped, anxious, or stressed animals seem to just take longer to convince they are dead sometimes. Rutting bulls seem like a good example of this. I shot a little satellite early sept. a few years back (archery) that was grazing with some cows, not a care in the world... wind was perfect, never saw me, tipped over within site, 40 yards of where he stood and was completely expired in the amount of time it took me to walk up to him... and that was with an arrow. I've seen the exact same shot on rutted up or angry bulls and they can go 1/4 mile in 30 seconds it seems like sometimes. Almost every deer, elk, or antelope that I can think of that I shot or have seen shot that either didn't know we were there or was super calm, died within feet of where it was shot (with good shot placement obviously). The flip side is my wife shot a doe antelope a few years back that had others shoot at it that morning, lost her boyfriend (sister shot the doe's boyfriend buck an hour before), and that doe took too long to know she was dead. When we gutted her, still had a bullet hole through 1 lung (her shot was a little high admittedly) but that little doe just didn't want to go down easily that day.

My -guess- would be adrenaline and its overall effects as well. That's more or less what adrenaline is for. An alert animal -probably- has higher blood levels of adrenaline.

Blood pressure and adrenaline are both almost untestable hypotheses. It could be done, but not worth anyone's effort and money I'd think. The guys at Hornady are way deep into their guessing.

 

[Sled]

But what about all the energy?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I get all kinds of energy after a good shot.

 

[Big_wals]

The guys at Hornady are way deep into their guessing.

Lol. Not gonna argue with you there. Its way over my head, I just know that generally, relaxed animals die faster.

 

[pathnz]

I like data.

Regarding higher recoil affecting overall hit rates--this link to a paper from the US army research lab (linky) squarely looks at the effect of recoil on shooter performance, including accuracy. Accuracy conclusions are on page 978 and 979 of the PDF (dont worry, its not a 1000 page doc, just an excerpt from some collection of papers). Their findings:

hit rates and "critical hit" rates with various cartridges to show effect of recoil--this is at short range so this isolates shooter performance, ie the difference is not contingent on ballistic differences:
5.56: 81% overall hit rate/59% critical hit rate
6.8spc: 76% hit rate/41% critical hit rate
7.62 nato: 76% hit rate/36% critical hit rate
So this^ shows a clear degradation in hit rate as recoil increases, with a 39% reduction in rate of critical hits, and a 5% reduction in overall hits, between 556 and 762 cartridges.

Also, they looked both at single shots versus paired shots (so including a follow-up shot) accuracy “mean radial error”--this shows a degradation of accuracy as recoil increases, while it shows a very significant degradation of accuracy on paired shots, almost a 30% increase in second-round mean radial error for the higher-recoiling cartridge:
View attachment 747451

Thanks for posting this.

To add to the answer for the OP - None of the "rokslide special" approach is particularly new. I am a small calibre shooter - I shot my first deer in 2003 with a .223. I have not hunted with a cartridge larger than 6.5x55 in the last 15+ years. I have had tremendous success with the .243, various small 6.5mms. I have not shot a game animal with anything other than a .223 in the last 5 years or so, although I do have a 6mmGT on the way - largely for increased splash on steel for competition. I use match bullets exclusively except where required otherwise by work and have since around 2009. Generally ELDMs (previously the old Amax) and have no particular need to try anything else as they work perfectly. As a New Zealander and involved in wild animal management I am in a situation where I shoot reasonable numbers of animals, and the small calibres just demonstrably work on animals up to red stag size.

All that said I have long been a believer in increased shooter accuracy with reduced recoil, but have been short on evidence - my own experience is anecdotal, all the posts on here have been "telling not showing". It's good to see some sort of quantification.

 

[JGRaider]

The hornady guys would be one of the last places I'd go for good info (remember the melting tip fiasco?) IME, after hundreds of big game animals killed, "double lunging' and animal is a sure way to have them run off a ways, and high shoulder shots (outside of head shots) give you the best odds of having them drop the quickest. If you've killed enough animals you'll know that nothing is for absolute certain (outside of head shots again), and you can't expect the exact same results 100% of the time even if you're using the exact same load/bullet/rifle on the same animal. That's just reality.

 

[HingleMcCringleberry]

What's the "melting tip fiasco"?

 

[JGRaider]

The Hornady Amax drew rave reviews from everyone who seriously used them for shooting and/or hunting. Everyone loved the performance. Along came Steve Hornady, who also mandated every employee get the farce of a Covid jab, who proclaimed after further testing the Amax bullet tips actually melted in flight so they announce the ELDM so they could charge more money. They're a bunch of clowns IMO.

 

[atmat]

The Hornady Amax drew rave reviews from everyone who seriously used them for shooting and/or hunting. Everyone loved the performance. Along came Steve Hornady, who also mandated every employee get the farce of a Covid jab, who proclaimed after further testing the Amax bullet tips actually melted in flight so they announce the ELDM so they could charge more money. They're a bunch of clowns IMO.

Can I ask why you so often bring up Covid while discussing bullet manufacturers?

 

[HingleMcCringleberry]

The Hornady Amax drew rave reviews from everyone who seriously used them for shooting and/or hunting. Everyone loved the performance. Along came Steve Hornady, who also mandated every employee get the farce of a Covid jab, who proclaimed after further testing the Amax bullet tips actually melted in flight so they announce the ELDM so they could charge more money. They're a bunch of clowns IMO.

So you believe their ballisticians are lying when they explain how they discovered the melting tip issue after doppler radar testing? Do you believe they are lying about the bc numbers, amax vs eldm?

How do you believe the "melting fiasco" correlated with "covid jab mandate"? I'm not really seeing it, but perhaps you can connect the dots for us.

 

[ElPollo]

Can I ask why you so often bring up Covid while discussing bullet manufacturers?

I generally advise against engaging in a logical conversation with an illogical person. Momma said don’t talk to crazy people.

 

[JGRaider]

Covid was the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people, and Steve Hornady was part of that, and I have zero respect for people like that. BTW, I don't think I've ever brought it up outside of Hornady.

With regards to the melting tip fiasco, there was never a bad review, whether by a professional or anyone else who supposedly shot alot, that disputed the BC numbers, accuracy, or hunting successes of the Amax bullets. If there were actually a melting tip problem it would have been discovered long before. The Amax still draws rave reviews by those that still use 'em when they can find them.

Pollo, is that the best you've got? You'd often times be better off taking notes than talking, and I bet your momma told you that too.

 

[HingleMcCringleberry]

So covid had nothing to do with "the melting tip fiasco"? Ok.

I guess I will take your word for it that hornady is lying.

I just ordered another case of 6 creed 108eldm.

 

[ElPollo]

Someone’s tinfoil hat must have fallen off.

 

[mtnwrunner]

Gentlemen........keep the thread on the original topic. And I'm not even going to say please.

Randy

 

[Axlrod]

Deleted

 

[Marbles]

Gentlemen........keep the thread on the original topic. And I'm not even going to say please.

Randy

If this is not relevant enough to the original topic, let me know.

I think the Hornady guys talked about this on a podcast, not sure which one. Their theory was that it depends on the animals blood pressure at the time they get shot. Relaxed, feeding critters have a low blood pressure and thus the blood flow to the brain stops faster. Rutting, stressed, or like you said, alert and ready to run, it takes longer for blood flow to the brain to stop.

Their analogy was a garden hose full of water. If you sever a low pressure hose, its leaks for a second and quickly stops. A high pressure hose will spray for longer before the pressure bleeds off.

Of course, that doesn’t take into account variable such as breaking bones i.e. shoulders, hitting spinal cord, etc. And every animal is different at the end of the day. I shot a relaxed, feeding whitetail doe through the chest with a 30-06 and she still ran 80 yards once

The most obvious problem with that is if you have a active pump with a fixed volume in the system, the high pressure system will empty faster than the low pressure system from the same hole.

Beyond the clearly observed reality, every simple answer breaks down. Adrenalin (will just assume we are talking all stress hormones/pressors) can only explain so much. I think some of it probably comes down more to psychological, an alert animal has a clear idea that something bad happened and running must be the answer. An animal that is not alert is probably having a "what the hell just happened" moment. But, one cannot discount things like the metabolic state of muscle cells either.

Given that theory must always bow to reality, in many cases the theory doesn't matter as we have the outcomes, so long as one doesn't try to predict other outcomes based on the theory.

The guys at Hornady are way deep into their guessing.

This. People who I respect very much when it comes to what they say about shooting still say some ignorant stuff about pathophysiology and medicine. Put differently, you will probably listen to your surgeon about the issue he fixed, but might not listen to his opinions on ballistics.

One of the less ignorant, but still wrong, examples is that a double lung shot kills by being a sucking chest wound. Which is almost never true. Anyone who is a nerd is free to open the spoiler below for a short explanation.

Spoiler: lung shot

1. A sucking chest wound requires a hole 2/3rds the size of the wind pipe. Yet lung only shots with a small entrance and no exit still kills well.
2. Sucking chest wounds (simple pneumothorax) simplely don't kill efficiently, despite looking impressive. This was acknowledged by CoTCCC (Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care) as no coalition forces in Iraq or Afghanistan died from a simple pneumothorax.
3. Lungs are highly vascular (all the blood must pass through them before being pumped to the body). A bullet in the lungs tends to cause massive bleeding, the the closer one gets to the edges, the less bleeding.
4. Removal of half a healthy individuals lung capacity through surgery is minimally impactful on daily life, it takes a long time for heathy individuals to die simply from inefficient breathing and respiratory fatigue.
5. Tension pneumothorax/hemothorax kills quickly not because the lungs collapse, but because it causes rapid circulatory collapse through compression of the venacava and right heart, stopping blood from returning to the hear (simplified, but largely correct).
6. The arteries run beside the airways, sever an artery and an airway and you might start filling the healthy lungs with blood, but drowning taks several minutes, and this would be slower as the lungs must fill, so not likely to cause rapid incapacitation like we want hunting.
7. While a sucking chest wound can have tension pathology, that requires a hole at least 2/3rds the airway diameter and a flap of tissue that will let air in through that hole, but not out.

Edited for grammar and spelling.

 

[fwafwow]

If this is not relevant enough to the original topic, let me know.

The most obvious problem with that is if you have a active pump with a fixed volume in the system, the high pressure system will empty faster than the low pressure system from the same hole.

Beyond the clearly observed reality, every simple answer breaks down. Adrenalin (will just assume we are talking all stress hormones/pressors) can only explain so much. I think some of it probably comes down more to psychological, an alert animal has a clear idea that something bad happened and running must be the answer. An animal that is not alert is probably having a "what the hell just happened" moment. But, one cannot discount things like the metabolic state of muscle cells either.

Given that theory must always bow to reality, in many cases the theory doesn't matter as we have the outcomes, so long as one doesn't try to predict other outcomes based on the theory.

This. People who I respect very much when it comes to what they say about shooting still say some ignorant stuff about pathophysiology and medicine. Put differently, you will probably listen to your surgeon about the issue he fixed, but might not listen to his opinions on ballistics.

One of the less ignorant, but still wrong, examples is that a double lung shot kills by being a sucking chest wound. Which is almost never true. Anyone who is a nerd is free to open the spoiler below for a short explanation.

Spoiler: lung shot

1. A sucking chest wound requires a hole 2/3rds the size of the wind pipe. Yet lung only shots with a small entrance and no exit still kills well.
2. A sucking chest wound
Sucking chest wounds (sple pneumothorax) simplely don't kill efficiently, despite looking impressive. This was acknowledged by CoTCCC (Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care) as no coalition forces in Iraq or Afghanistan died from a simple pneumothorax.
3. Lungs are highly vascular (all the blood must pass through them before being pumped to the body). A bullet in the lungs tends to cause massive bleeding, the the closer one gets to the edges, the less bleeding.
4. Removal of half a healthy individuals lung capacity through surgery is minimally impactful on daily life, it takes a long time for heathy individuals to die simply from inefficient breathing and respiratory fatigue.
5. Tension pneumothorax/hemothorax kills quickly not because the lungs collapse, but because it causes rapid circulatory collapse through compression of the venacava and right hart, stopping blood from returning to the heart.
6. The arteries run beside the airways, sever an artery and an airway and you might start filling the healthy lungs with blood, but drowning taks several minutes, and this would be slower as the lungs must fill, so not likely to cause rapid incapacitation like we want hunting.
7. While a sucking chest wound can have tension pathology, the requires a hole at least 2/3rds the airway diameter and a flap of tissue that will let air in through that hole, but not out.

Wow. How did you do the spoiler button? I don’t have any specialized skill or knowledge, at least relevant to RS, so I could put all of my posts in such a button and save lots of people a lot of time.

 

[Marbles]

Wow. How did you do the spoiler button? I don’t have any specialized skill or knowledge, at least relevant to RS, so I could put all of my posts in such a button and save lots of people a lot of time.

LOL, but seriously please don't make me have to click extra that much.

Orange circled icon followed by the red circled icon.

 

[fwafwow]

LOL, but seriously please don't make me have to click extra that much.

Orange circled icon followed by the red circled icon.
View attachment 748347