I agree energy in itself isn't enough, though if you go big enough the percussion itself is enough to turn living matter into soup. Howitzer size.Originally Posted by Randy Bohannon
I don't think you understand still Muskett...
The point being illustrated is that energy in and of itself is not much a metric in determining killing power and that this is illustrated up and down the rifle power and corresponding game animal range.
Try not to get freaked out by the word "elephant", I didn't kill them Victorians with muzzle loaders and starving natives with AKs did.
I agree the "Victorians" did a lot of damage because the supply looked inexhaustible. You could add Carrier pigeon, North American Buffalo, plus a few more to the list. The list is long. Heck Wale populations were "over fished" as late as the early 1960's.
Given poverty and starvation, then the locals can finish off pretty much anything. The UK deer population got eaten out of existence at least twice since the Romans, it took the nobility to bring them back with threat of execution for poachers!.
This conservation larky is all very modern, all a bit late, and still only token.
I think most people agree that until energy get to .22LR levels the bullet/pellets behave like knitting needles more than anything else.
I like to think them as knitting needles.
.22LR a golf ball of devastation.
A.17HMR a tennis ball.
.223 small melon.
.308 medium melon.
.338 Lapua then a water melon with a baseball bat follow through.
Bullet integrity has to be enough to get far enough "in'. Some are too soft and self explode/evaporate against not much resistance. Some so hard they just drill right through.
Shotgun effect is another method where the multiplier is the number of pellets hitting all at once. Number of hits and adequate penetration.
A huge and fascinating subject, a little too much for this farmyard thread.
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