Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/769056
about 25 yards before expiring from a double-lung shot. I could relate incidents like this all day. You probably could, too. I've seen it all, and my conclusion about bullet terminal performance is that you can absolutely, positively count on . . . no particular effect every time. Fast, slow, light, heavy. Whatever. The critter might die instantly or launch a death run. On rare, inexplicable occasions it even gets away. In Jack O'Connor's Gun Book, O'Connor related a couple of bullet performances that exemplify the confusion surrounding this topic: "I once autopsied the carcass of a 600-pound grizzly shot with a 41-grain bullet fired from a .22-250 at about 4,200 foot-seconds. First bullet blew up on the shoulder blade and made a superficial wound. (Conclusion: the .22-250 is no good on large game.) The second bullet slipped between two ribs and killed the bear instantly. (Conclusion: the .22-250 is a deadly grizzly cartridge.)" I've got no argument with anyone who insists on a heavy, slow bullet or a light, fast one, or anything in between. Just understand and appreciate this: At some distance, even the fastest bullet is going as slow as the slowest. They all slow as a result of air drag. This is why it makes no sense to argue that a 220-grain .308 round nose from a .300 RUM is going to land on an elk like the hammer of Thor at 300 yards while a skinny little 140-grain Nosler AccuBond Long Range from a .264 Win. Mag. is too light for the job. At 300 yards that 140 grain, thanks to its efficient shape, is still carrying 2,116 foot-pounds of its original 2,798 foot-pounds of muzzle energy. That 220-grain .308 bullet, even though it started life with 4,397 foot- pounds, has shed all but 2,179 foot- pounds. If one of those projectiles is the Hammer of Thor, they both are. At 500 yards the lighter bullet thumps with 1,746 foot-pounds. The big one is down to just 1,293 foot-pounds. If you think the extra 0.044-inch rim of bullet diameter is going to have a significant affect on impact, I'd be interested in an explanation as to how that might work. Meanwhile, I'm concentrating on my aim more than my caliber. n bullet at 3,600 fps. He argued for the incredible "shock effect" of lighter bullets at extreme velocities. However, he liked speed in his big bores, too. Check out the .460 Wby. Mag. sometime. A 500-grain bullet at 2,650 fps burns through the atmosphere with 7,799 foot-pounds of kinetic energy and must surely leave a contrail. A near miss would induce heat stroke in a small mammal, no? I guess physicists can prove all these mass and velocity energy laws. Hunters, on the other hand, don't seem to be able to. One expert says his aspirin pill at 6,000 fps smacked a moose into the Promised Land in less than 1/1,000th of a second. Another says his bowling ball at 400 fps crushed a moose before it even got there. The truth is that both big, slow, heavy bullets and small, fast, light bullets can kill cleanly and, often, instantly. But not always. It depends on their construction and, mostly, where you put them. Experienced hunters know this because they've seen it happen or have done it themselves. I once flung a 75-grain Sierra hollow-point coyote bullet from a 6mm Remington (good old M788 Remington) at a running whitetail doe. (We did that back in those days.) And I mean she was running, not just skipping along. She probably wasn't 80 yards away. Collapsed and never twitched again. The bullet had landed behind her shoulder in the ribs. No major bones hit, no spine. Just a solid lung hit. At that impact distance, the bullet was flying about 3,200 fps, fast enough to have a legitimate claim for "high-velocity shock effect." Another time a coyote came across a barren wheat field in answer to my call. This was about a 100-yard shot through the chest with a 180-grain bullet driven by a .300 Winchester Magnum. According to Elmer's .270 Win. comment, the .300 should have qualified as more than sufficient to knock down a 25-pound coyote. The slug was cruising at about 2,900 fps and carrying some 3,400 foot- pounds of energy when it hit fur. That's enough energy to lift one pound more than 3,400 feet off the ground. The coyote was not so much as knocked sideways. It just spun around and dashed 102 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S