(Originally posted 9/7/2020)
farleg
Platinum Member
Gday all
shinbone got me ticking
my question is @ what impact velocity ranges have people seen the best kills please exclude spine &head shots
cheers
harperc
Global Moderator
I had to think on it a bit. First thought is how to isolate velocity velocity as a parameter.
The closest I can come is using .338's, Accubond's and antelope. We've used from the 180 to 250, pretty much side by side. Using .338 Winchester, .338 RUM, and the .338 Edge. with MV 2850-3550fps.
Breaking that down to impact velocities 2500 to 3400 fps.
No surprises, any of the .338's with about any bullet kill antelope pretty good. Considering the effect of velocity on bullet performance itself. 3400 fps is completely devastating. Meaning face plant, at free fall, and sticking horn into the prairie. completely dead on impact and no attempt to control or recover from the fall, almost making the complete cartwheel. Life force left out the exit hole.
Tissue destruction bad to the point I said I wouldn't do it again, but find myself with that as the likely back up rifle this season.
cbjr
Senior Member
Two years ago, I dropped a 250lbs+ New York whitetail. I was using a 25-06 120gr bonded bullet with a muzzle velocity around 3000. The buck was quartered towards me at around 80 yards. It was instant lights out. No kicking, nothing. Heart had 3/4 inch hole through it, no exit. BUT, later the same year my brother in law shot 140 lbs buck broadside at 30 yards with 300 win mag and 150 grain bullets(not sure of velocity, factory loads). Again, hole in heart, lungs destroyed and it managed to run over 70 yards before he fell.
Just started getting into Hammers so nothing shot with them yet. My scenarios show both sides of a similar velocity range with commonly used projectiles.
farleg
Platinum Member
sides of a similar velocity range with commonly used projectiles.
Gday cbjr thanks great info
Love that 25 very underrated in my opinion seen a massive amount of animals fall to it in Africa & few in tassie With a very high proportion Drop on the spot that aside you’ve made a very valid point I should have included shot placement ( just didn’t want to get into shot placement Being of the most emphasis as thats a whole Different world but relevant yes )
no two shots will ever produce the same identical results but there has been a common pattern in most circumstances that I’ve witnessed With velocity impacts ( on non reved up animals )
im sure your gunna love how the hammers preform , I do
cheers
Steve Davis
Administrator
Pure lung shots instantly shut animals down once in a while. Crowd into the shoulder harder and it happens more often. I will say we have seen more animals drop to the shot since we started our bullets. I would never count on it though. The higher impactvel is the more shock the more dramatic the kill tends to be. Bigger calibers seem to be able to have more effect with less vel.
Enough shock in the pump house will cause a sudden spike in blood pressure causing the animal to stroke out resulting in the sudden death without hitting the spine or brain.
riceman
Global Moderator
Have you noticed this more with hh or sh?
ButterBean
Platinum Member
25-06 with an 80gr Barnes@ 3500 ( this was before I had ever heard of Hammers ) This was out of ab Rem Sendero, and Please don't take this as bragging as I was in North Carolina hunting over corn, I bought the rifle new in 2000 and when I sold it , it was 36 for 36 on Whitetail, not a one of them took a step, up to that point I had been using a 270 with 80gr Sierra's and a 220 Swift with 52 grainer's , they both were deadly, Speed is my friend
cbjr
Senior Member
I believe this to be a large part of what happens at the shot. Whether they are "non-reved up"(have no clue you are there) vs. even slightly wary that something might be amiss.
harperc
Global Moderator
A bullet/rifle/cartridge combo that is scaled to the game size, and all but cuts the animal in half will likely have repeatable results. Like shooting varmints. The antelope I mentioned, a clean, behind the shoulder lung shot to save meat for a friend actually popped the gut, filled the chest cavity with browse, as well as into the muscles of the neck.
Velocity is part of that, but I don’t know that it can be isolated.
farleg
Platinum Member
Agree with that part of the equation Harperc but there is no doubting the effectiveness of the 220 swift like velocity in the smaller calibers in my opinion It just makes a caliber punch above its weight
in simple terms for me I’ll take a 220 swift velocity Impacts ( projectile capable ) over 22 hornet velocity any day as a extreme example
hope that makes sense
cheers
yorketransport
Platinum Member
I haven't pinned down a velocity range that gives a "lights out" kill; I've had non-central nervous system hits with impacts ranging from 900 fps (handguns) to over 3000 fps and had deer drop in their tracks with shots across the whole velocity range. My preference is for moderate impact velocities of around 2500 fps though. This seems to be the sweet spot for good results without a lot of meat damage.
farleg
Platinum Member
Gday yorketransport
You had to go & throw a spanned in the works lol
something that’s puzzled me for a lot of years & that’s the handgun part
now I’ve got extremely limited experience with these & only in 357&44 on animals so my knowledge on this is basically worthless
what I’ve witnessed is they seem to kill above their ability on the raw side of figures
would you have any idea on why this is if it’s the norm to what I’ve witnessed
cheers
yorketransport
Platinum Member
cheers
I've found that the large bore handguns are much more effective than they should be on paper. The results get more dramatic as you get over the .45 range though. The .475 and .500s are incredibly effective, even at the low end of the velocity range. I've always just credited it to the size of the permanent wound cavity. Even a hardcast solid like a 400gr bullet from a 480 Ruger or 475 Linebaugh at 1100 fps will leave a permanent wound cavity larger than many rifles. It's even more dramatic when you use an expanding bullet in a large bore revolver. I shot a small buck (130#) with a 480 Ruger and a 275gr Barnes XPB at 74 yards with a clean broadside shot, impact velocity would have been right about 1000 fps. The guy I was with said he could actually hear the wind getting knocked out of the buck at the impact; he described it as sounding like the buck go hit with a bowling ball.
I've always just work with the saying "Velocity makes them drop, a big hole makes them die".
farleg
Platinum Member
Very interesting yorketransport thanks that’s some info that can’t be ignored
Love that saying
Cheers
carsyn22
Senior Member
My most dramatic kills have been with the muzzleloader and hardcast WFN 30-30, dramatic as in poleaxed... sit them on their but and tip over kinda performance, this typically happens more with a quartering to or frontal shot that connects with the front leg bones and/or brisket. A WFN bullet passing an inch under the spine will do the exact same thing without touching a bone. I've really become a believer in a wide me plat or shank anywhere in the front half of a deer.That's the key behind Hammers too I think.
Least dramatic were .243 95/100 grainers designed for big game hunting, almost always ran over a hundred yards and in one instance where it ran toward me, I saw it holding it's head up 1-2 minutes later.
farleg
Platinum Member
Gday carsyn22
your on the money along my thoughts as well ( meplat is so underrated or not understood) & any new hunter could do well to listen to your shot placement for anchoring animals quickly ( it’s not everyone’s cup a tea & I understand why )
cheers
harperc
Global Moderator
Fairly hard to view in the field, but in gel, slow motion, one can get an idea of the pressure wave, or bubble is what I think some are talking about.
I've only managed to see the effect of that wave on the entrance hole once. 3 of us saw it, or I would question what I saw. This is likely the only place I would tell the story.
Small bear, 100 lbs +/-. .358 Ackley Improved, 3000 fps, 100 yards downhill, rifle and bear pretty much in the same plane, somewhat quartering to, gravity may have had some pooling of fluids. Perfect shot. For split second pressure wave turned the bear inside out, when the bullet exited every thing pulled back in.
Higher velocities are somewhat new to me, the old divide being somewhat drawn along the lines of the small bore high velocity, big bore moderate velocity. Fortunately with bullet technology changes one can have both.
Variables seem to be velocity, bullet diameter, bullet weight, target size and consistency. If you have smaller bullets, 3500 fps could be the number, I think in the medium bores 2900-3000 is where it starts. Although many years back a paint can filled with H20, on a plank expanded, and before the lid blew off broke the board it was sitting on. Probably more in the 2400 to 2500 range.
farleg
Platinum Member
Gday harperc
the bubble does interest me to what it does in the body
Thanks for telling it’s how we all get a better understanding of what’s going* on thank you
man that’s a perfect observation to see with the bear wish I was there to witness that or had footage that would be gold
The exit is also important for me as it’s not a blowup of the projectile
On that bear was there any indication of blowback
Cheers
harperc
Global Moderator
We didn't really look. It was summer, getting hotter by the minute. Bears are almost like goats in the alpine berries, when they "let go" of the hill they fall until they hit a level spot or brush. There really wasn't any trailing, one person grabbing pack frames, the youngster and high went down to start the dressing chores. Which like I said was steep, and was vertical enough we didn't want to duplicate the tumble the bear took.
I did shoot a deer from close enough to get splatter on my hat.
farleg
Platinum Member
Thanks harperc it’s still great info
They sound a bit like tahr in that terrain
a little more about the deer if you don’t mind
cheers
harperc
Global Moderator
14 year old me, last day of season, skipped breakfast and headed out in dark. I set up to watch a crossing 200 yards out. That ridge line was clear of brush and deer would cross from one brush pocket to the other. I had a comfortable size log for a rest, and a good spot to lean and wait.
A little bit goes by and I hear footsteps. I raise up for a look around, but see nothing. After an appropriate look around I hear it again, and repeat the look, still nothing. 3X is a charm, and when I raise up, the deer is on the opposite side of the log. He snaps his head around, and we both freeze eyeball to eyeball. He blinked, and lowered his head to feed, from there he couldn't see anything but log between us. I move the rifle slowly around, and start looking for him in the scope. I could reach out and poke him with the barrel, but I'm focussed on the 4x Unertl, and nothing but hair. I finally get the idea to raise the muzzle until I can see crosshairs against the sky, then lower it until I was where I thought best. .30-06, 220 grain core loct, and about 50-70 yards downhill where he smacked head first into a tree full speed. If I had missed the crash would have killed him anyway.
Whitetail have the reputation of being in thick cover. My experience is the blacktail hold up tighter. I never seen a whitetail brush up so tight the only way out was the way in. When there are plenty of deer sometimes they make little almost tunnels to a bed. When I was younger I would crawl into these, and have them leave over the top of me. Never managed to get one in that fashion, but with a ground eye view you might not see any thing but legs, but at least you were seeing something. Those early seasons in California, 100* plus days they don't move much in the day. Dogs were legal back then to drive the deer. We didn't have any dog's so the youngsters did it. I didn't need coaxing, I was already doing it without a rifle, just because I liked seeing how close I could get.
crawling to get in on them
BigGame
Full Member
To me best performance is when the bullet performs as designed. I recently shot an elk and placement was too far forward. Bullet broke the first femur, through the chest, broke the far femur, and existed.
Bullet was HH .284 131gr and velocity was about 2,300 fps on target.
Steve Davis
Administrator
I think when it comes to instant performance it has much to do with how quickly the bullet gets to a large flat frontal area. The big slow handgun bullets are already there before impact. Therefore the initial impact is very jarring. Our Hammer Hunters make that transition from point to flat very rapidly and the Shock Hammers start out closer to the terminal form with the larger hp. I always tell people that they just hit harder.
When we were in Africa we saw many animals with lungs hanging out of the entrance hole. I attribute this to extreme pressure as the bullet is passing through with no where to go but out the entrance.
farleg
Platinum Member
Gday all
shinbone got me ticking
my question is @ what impact velocity ranges have people seen the best kills please exclude spine &head shots
cheers
harperc
Global Moderator
I had to think on it a bit. First thought is how to isolate velocity velocity as a parameter.
The closest I can come is using .338's, Accubond's and antelope. We've used from the 180 to 250, pretty much side by side. Using .338 Winchester, .338 RUM, and the .338 Edge. with MV 2850-3550fps.
Breaking that down to impact velocities 2500 to 3400 fps.
No surprises, any of the .338's with about any bullet kill antelope pretty good. Considering the effect of velocity on bullet performance itself. 3400 fps is completely devastating. Meaning face plant, at free fall, and sticking horn into the prairie. completely dead on impact and no attempt to control or recover from the fall, almost making the complete cartwheel. Life force left out the exit hole.
Tissue destruction bad to the point I said I wouldn't do it again, but find myself with that as the likely back up rifle this season.
cbjr
Senior Member
Two years ago, I dropped a 250lbs+ New York whitetail. I was using a 25-06 120gr bonded bullet with a muzzle velocity around 3000. The buck was quartered towards me at around 80 yards. It was instant lights out. No kicking, nothing. Heart had 3/4 inch hole through it, no exit. BUT, later the same year my brother in law shot 140 lbs buck broadside at 30 yards with 300 win mag and 150 grain bullets(not sure of velocity, factory loads). Again, hole in heart, lungs destroyed and it managed to run over 70 yards before he fell.
Just started getting into Hammers so nothing shot with them yet. My scenarios show both sides of a similar velocity range with commonly used projectiles.
farleg
Platinum Member
sides of a similar velocity range with commonly used projectiles.
Gday cbjr thanks great info
Love that 25 very underrated in my opinion seen a massive amount of animals fall to it in Africa & few in tassie With a very high proportion Drop on the spot that aside you’ve made a very valid point I should have included shot placement ( just didn’t want to get into shot placement Being of the most emphasis as thats a whole Different world but relevant yes )
no two shots will ever produce the same identical results but there has been a common pattern in most circumstances that I’ve witnessed With velocity impacts ( on non reved up animals )
im sure your gunna love how the hammers preform , I do
cheers
Steve Davis
Administrator
Pure lung shots instantly shut animals down once in a while. Crowd into the shoulder harder and it happens more often. I will say we have seen more animals drop to the shot since we started our bullets. I would never count on it though. The higher impactvel is the more shock the more dramatic the kill tends to be. Bigger calibers seem to be able to have more effect with less vel.
Enough shock in the pump house will cause a sudden spike in blood pressure causing the animal to stroke out resulting in the sudden death without hitting the spine or brain.
riceman
Global Moderator
Have you noticed this more with hh or sh?
ButterBean
Platinum Member
25-06 with an 80gr Barnes@ 3500 ( this was before I had ever heard of Hammers ) This was out of ab Rem Sendero, and Please don't take this as bragging as I was in North Carolina hunting over corn, I bought the rifle new in 2000 and when I sold it , it was 36 for 36 on Whitetail, not a one of them took a step, up to that point I had been using a 270 with 80gr Sierra's and a 220 Swift with 52 grainer's , they both were deadly, Speed is my friend
cbjr
Senior Member
I believe this to be a large part of what happens at the shot. Whether they are "non-reved up"(have no clue you are there) vs. even slightly wary that something might be amiss.
harperc
Global Moderator
A bullet/rifle/cartridge combo that is scaled to the game size, and all but cuts the animal in half will likely have repeatable results. Like shooting varmints. The antelope I mentioned, a clean, behind the shoulder lung shot to save meat for a friend actually popped the gut, filled the chest cavity with browse, as well as into the muscles of the neck.
Velocity is part of that, but I don’t know that it can be isolated.
farleg
Platinum Member
Agree with that part of the equation Harperc but there is no doubting the effectiveness of the 220 swift like velocity in the smaller calibers in my opinion It just makes a caliber punch above its weight
in simple terms for me I’ll take a 220 swift velocity Impacts ( projectile capable ) over 22 hornet velocity any day as a extreme example
hope that makes sense
cheers
yorketransport
Platinum Member
I haven't pinned down a velocity range that gives a "lights out" kill; I've had non-central nervous system hits with impacts ranging from 900 fps (handguns) to over 3000 fps and had deer drop in their tracks with shots across the whole velocity range. My preference is for moderate impact velocities of around 2500 fps though. This seems to be the sweet spot for good results without a lot of meat damage.
farleg
Platinum Member
Gday yorketransport
You had to go & throw a spanned in the works lol
something that’s puzzled me for a lot of years & that’s the handgun part
now I’ve got extremely limited experience with these & only in 357&44 on animals so my knowledge on this is basically worthless
what I’ve witnessed is they seem to kill above their ability on the raw side of figures
would you have any idea on why this is if it’s the norm to what I’ve witnessed
cheers
yorketransport
Platinum Member
cheers
I've found that the large bore handguns are much more effective than they should be on paper. The results get more dramatic as you get over the .45 range though. The .475 and .500s are incredibly effective, even at the low end of the velocity range. I've always just credited it to the size of the permanent wound cavity. Even a hardcast solid like a 400gr bullet from a 480 Ruger or 475 Linebaugh at 1100 fps will leave a permanent wound cavity larger than many rifles. It's even more dramatic when you use an expanding bullet in a large bore revolver. I shot a small buck (130#) with a 480 Ruger and a 275gr Barnes XPB at 74 yards with a clean broadside shot, impact velocity would have been right about 1000 fps. The guy I was with said he could actually hear the wind getting knocked out of the buck at the impact; he described it as sounding like the buck go hit with a bowling ball.
I've always just work with the saying "Velocity makes them drop, a big hole makes them die".
farleg
Platinum Member
Very interesting yorketransport thanks that’s some info that can’t be ignored
Love that saying
Cheers
carsyn22
Senior Member
My most dramatic kills have been with the muzzleloader and hardcast WFN 30-30, dramatic as in poleaxed... sit them on their but and tip over kinda performance, this typically happens more with a quartering to or frontal shot that connects with the front leg bones and/or brisket. A WFN bullet passing an inch under the spine will do the exact same thing without touching a bone. I've really become a believer in a wide me plat or shank anywhere in the front half of a deer.That's the key behind Hammers too I think.
Least dramatic were .243 95/100 grainers designed for big game hunting, almost always ran over a hundred yards and in one instance where it ran toward me, I saw it holding it's head up 1-2 minutes later.
farleg
Platinum Member
Gday carsyn22
your on the money along my thoughts as well ( meplat is so underrated or not understood) & any new hunter could do well to listen to your shot placement for anchoring animals quickly ( it’s not everyone’s cup a tea & I understand why )
cheers
harperc
Global Moderator
Fairly hard to view in the field, but in gel, slow motion, one can get an idea of the pressure wave, or bubble is what I think some are talking about.
I've only managed to see the effect of that wave on the entrance hole once. 3 of us saw it, or I would question what I saw. This is likely the only place I would tell the story.
Small bear, 100 lbs +/-. .358 Ackley Improved, 3000 fps, 100 yards downhill, rifle and bear pretty much in the same plane, somewhat quartering to, gravity may have had some pooling of fluids. Perfect shot. For split second pressure wave turned the bear inside out, when the bullet exited every thing pulled back in.
Higher velocities are somewhat new to me, the old divide being somewhat drawn along the lines of the small bore high velocity, big bore moderate velocity. Fortunately with bullet technology changes one can have both.
Variables seem to be velocity, bullet diameter, bullet weight, target size and consistency. If you have smaller bullets, 3500 fps could be the number, I think in the medium bores 2900-3000 is where it starts. Although many years back a paint can filled with H20, on a plank expanded, and before the lid blew off broke the board it was sitting on. Probably more in the 2400 to 2500 range.
farleg
Platinum Member
Gday harperc
the bubble does interest me to what it does in the body
Thanks for telling it’s how we all get a better understanding of what’s going* on thank you
man that’s a perfect observation to see with the bear wish I was there to witness that or had footage that would be gold
The exit is also important for me as it’s not a blowup of the projectile
On that bear was there any indication of blowback
Cheers
harperc
Global Moderator
We didn't really look. It was summer, getting hotter by the minute. Bears are almost like goats in the alpine berries, when they "let go" of the hill they fall until they hit a level spot or brush. There really wasn't any trailing, one person grabbing pack frames, the youngster and high went down to start the dressing chores. Which like I said was steep, and was vertical enough we didn't want to duplicate the tumble the bear took.
I did shoot a deer from close enough to get splatter on my hat.
farleg
Platinum Member
Thanks harperc it’s still great info
They sound a bit like tahr in that terrain
a little more about the deer if you don’t mind
cheers
harperc
Global Moderator
14 year old me, last day of season, skipped breakfast and headed out in dark. I set up to watch a crossing 200 yards out. That ridge line was clear of brush and deer would cross from one brush pocket to the other. I had a comfortable size log for a rest, and a good spot to lean and wait.
A little bit goes by and I hear footsteps. I raise up for a look around, but see nothing. After an appropriate look around I hear it again, and repeat the look, still nothing. 3X is a charm, and when I raise up, the deer is on the opposite side of the log. He snaps his head around, and we both freeze eyeball to eyeball. He blinked, and lowered his head to feed, from there he couldn't see anything but log between us. I move the rifle slowly around, and start looking for him in the scope. I could reach out and poke him with the barrel, but I'm focussed on the 4x Unertl, and nothing but hair. I finally get the idea to raise the muzzle until I can see crosshairs against the sky, then lower it until I was where I thought best. .30-06, 220 grain core loct, and about 50-70 yards downhill where he smacked head first into a tree full speed. If I had missed the crash would have killed him anyway.
Whitetail have the reputation of being in thick cover. My experience is the blacktail hold up tighter. I never seen a whitetail brush up so tight the only way out was the way in. When there are plenty of deer sometimes they make little almost tunnels to a bed. When I was younger I would crawl into these, and have them leave over the top of me. Never managed to get one in that fashion, but with a ground eye view you might not see any thing but legs, but at least you were seeing something. Those early seasons in California, 100* plus days they don't move much in the day. Dogs were legal back then to drive the deer. We didn't have any dog's so the youngsters did it. I didn't need coaxing, I was already doing it without a rifle, just because I liked seeing how close I could get.
crawling to get in on them
BigGame
Full Member
To me best performance is when the bullet performs as designed. I recently shot an elk and placement was too far forward. Bullet broke the first femur, through the chest, broke the far femur, and existed.
Bullet was HH .284 131gr and velocity was about 2,300 fps on target.
Steve Davis
Administrator
I think when it comes to instant performance it has much to do with how quickly the bullet gets to a large flat frontal area. The big slow handgun bullets are already there before impact. Therefore the initial impact is very jarring. Our Hammer Hunters make that transition from point to flat very rapidly and the Shock Hammers start out closer to the terminal form with the larger hp. I always tell people that they just hit harder.
When we were in Africa we saw many animals with lungs hanging out of the entrance hole. I attribute this to extreme pressure as the bullet is passing through with no where to go but out the entrance.