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S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S • 101 W e hunters, always interested in the quickest, cleanest killing shot possible, have debated projectile mass and velocity since at least 1895. That's the year smokeless powder hit the commercial market and allowed velocity to begin offsetting projectile mass. Einstein came along not long after to explain it all with some wild theory about a single electron having the energy of 10,000 suns if it approached the speed of light. We've used that information to send probes to Pluto, but back here in the elk mountains we're still trying to figure out if slow and heavy bullets are better than fast and light . . . According to the laws of physics, doubling the mass of an object doubles its energy. An object with enough mass doesn't have to be moving to be painful. Rest a piano leg on your toe if you doubt this. But with enough velocity, an object doesn't need much mass to be painful. This is why golfers yell "Fore!" and poachers can floor 14,000-pound elephants with a single bullet weighing less than a half-ounce (175 grains, the 7mm bullet W.D.M. Bell flung at most of his 1,000-plus elephants). In the mid-20th century these puzzling wonders of physics led to the squabble between Elmer Keith and Jack O'Connor, with Roy Weatherby throwing his hyper- velocity theories into the fray from time to time. rifles by ron spomer Bullet Mass – soMe Myths and Mistakes For those of you fortunate enough to not remember these 20th-century characters (ah, to be young again), Elmer was a crusty old Idaho cowboy via Montana turned gun writer who thought a .270 Winchester an adequate coyote round. Keith figured a decent deer round should start with the .334 OKH (wildcat predecessor to the .338 Winchester Magnum). Elmer wanted mass over velocity but would take both if he could get it. O'Connor was an English professor turned gun writer who hunted durned near everything with a .270 Winchester, including brown bears. Successfully. He started with the .270 in 1926, the year after Winchester had introduced the speedy new round. Jack loved velocity and its resultant flat trajectory and, one guesses, didn't object to the minimal recoil of a 130-grain or 150-grain .277 bullet pushed 3,100 to 2,900 fps. Weatherby was the creator of all the Weatherby Magnum cartridges, his favorite being the .257 Weatherby Magnum, which pushes a 100-grain Both bullet mass and velocity contribute to terminal performance, but so do materials, construction, and shape. There is no perfect bullet, no perfect compromise, except perhaps, precision shot placement.