Energy (ft/lbs) required for Deer???

[sport240]

I've often read and heard that the minimum energy (ft/lbs) required from a gun/projectile combination to cleanly take a deer stands at 1000 ft/lbs.

I'm running data on my muzzleloader/"777"/295gr. PowerBelt combination and at certain yardages, with certain loadings I'm coming up with theoretical data of 895 ft/lbs, 945 ft/lbs and 972 ft/lbs.  Some of these are at 125 yards while others at 150 yards with different loadings.

My question to you....is the 1000 ft/lbs rule an absolute for a clean kill on deer or do other factors such as fragmentation/damage from a .50 cal projectile have an effect?

I'm really asking this question in order to determine what is the greatest yardage that I can responsibly take a deer with my muzzleloading combination. It's a confidence thing...

PS...I only take heart/lung shots, never neck, never head, never etc...

Thanks...

Sport240

[Tony D]

When shooting a rifle, with relatively small diameter bullets as compared to a muzzleloader, kinetic energy is more of a concern.  You will be shooting much larger diameter and heavier bullets in your smokepole.  

Bullet placement is the most import consideration in cleanly taking game, then bullet performance/construction.  With the setup you're considering, you will easily punch that bullet through both sides of the ribcage making for two big holes to leak blood.

[Cabin4]

I've often read and heard that the minimum energy (ft/lbs) required from a gun/projectile combination to cleanly take a deer stands at 1000 ft/lbs.


I am not questioning that you saw this information. I will question the source of it. To me, this is not an accurate representaion of what it takes to kill deer. FPE by itself is not IMHO, whats the test for killing any animal.

A 357 mag revolver with the right bullet & load will cleanly take any deer within its effective range and at the muzzel, its fpe is far less than 1000.

I would concentrate on bullet diameter, wieght, quality of bullet and range way before fpe.

I think the combination you have will do the job on deer very well.

Good luck

[Rick Teal]

I'm with cabin4 on this.  As far as I'm concerned trying to equate killing power with energy is virtually meaningless.  I believe it started by certain writers trying to quantify something that isn't quantifiable in order to simpilify the concepts for their readers.

On-game performance is a combination of many factors.  Bullet placement is the most important, but other factors include such things as velocity, bullet weight, bullet construction and bore size.  Attempting to quantify such a thing would be a pointless and frustrating exercise - unless you did something based on a preset group of assumptions, then you'd still end up with something as meaningless as the Taylor Knock-out Formula.

[Cabin4]

Rick Teal,

Do you have any thoughts on this:

The only time I think FPE has relative meaning is when comparing two differant loads of the same caliber combination. Again, its only a relative measure even at this. As an example, I think its fair to say that a 45-70 load that delivers 3000fpe is likly a better killer than a 45-70 load delivering 2500fpe. Again, these are the same caliber. Even at this I still want to understand bullet quality and wieght of the 2 loads being compared.

Am I close here ? What do you think of using FPE in this manner ?

Thanks

[Graybeard]

Is it absolute? Oh yeah you better betcha. That 999 won't do. No way Jose. Gotta have a full 1000.

Horse feathers and BS and all that rot.

Paper energy has NEVER killed an animal yet and ain't likely ever gonna. And that's all kinetic energy is. It is only PAPER ENERGY. It is energy on paper only and no where else. Otherwise if you hit a container filled with sand that weighted say 10 pounds with a bullet having a ton or more of that paper energy it would knock that container a long way. But it won't.

Critters die for one of two reasons. You either disrupt the Central Nervous System CNS with the bullet or arrow and it dies from the shut down of brain or you damage tissue causing blood loss which in turn shuts down the brain from lack of oxygen. That's it. Ain't no other ways to do it in a hunting situation.

People often say that handgun rounds like the .44 magnum which pales in comparison to even the lowly .30-30 in the paper energy department are poor killlers and have no place in the hunting fields as a result. Actually they are excellent killers of game all the way up to elephant in size as those who done it know.

The .220 Swift has basically the same paper energy as the .45-70. Which would you rather use to swat an enraged grizzly bear? Why? Don't you believe paper energy is paper energy and both are equal? Neither do I.

Forget the garbage the rag writers preach about paper energy. Use a properly constructed bullet and put it in the right place and game will die.

GB

[Cabin4]

GB,

it would be much better if you stop beating around the bush and tell us how you really feel about this! being diplomatic is fine, but enough is enough.

 

[les hemby]

i agree the energy level is paper. There was a man proving this in an article that held a steel plate in front of him and another man shot it with a 458win mag it did not knock him down. if the 3000 or whatever pounds were real it should of hit him like a ton of bricks but it didnt even move him where did 3000 or whatever pounds go. PLEASE DONT TRY THIS AT HOME to see if it works. just something i read. i saw a friend shoot a doe with 338 mag. it knocked the deer down , it jumped up and ran off we never found it. I think bullet was to solid to expand on 100lb deer, energy went through woods doing no good. if it had of been a lowly 243 or 30-30 we would of had backstraps instead of all day search with no bloodtrail. :money:

[Graybeard]

cabin4, Nope I like to keep them guessing.  :-D

 :music:   :oh:   :yeah:

[Ron T.]

Sport 240Â…

I, too, have read many, many times over the past 40 years that a “1000 ft/lbs of bullet energy”  is the “minimum energy” that should be used as a “rule of thumb” for clean kills on deer.

ItÂ’s a good thing Elmer Keith didnÂ’t believe thatÂ… or he wouldnÂ’t have been able to kill a deer at a measured 600 yards with a .44 magnum 6-shooter that the client he was guiding in Idaho wounded with a rifle.  Back then, I remember reading comments made by a good many individuals and possibly-envious gun-writers questioning whether or not the event ever happened.  However, this “kill” was witnessed by several other men along with the hunting party..

Over the years from then ‘til now, IÂ’ve read various nimrod and gun-writer comments to the contrary, but I remember READING Elmer KeithÂ’s column in either “The American Rifleman” or “Guns & Ammo Magazine” wherein he wrote, but never bragged, about the feat.  Few people, today, remember what a fantastic handgun shot Elmer Keith was.

Elmer Keith was many things, but one thing he WAS NOT was a “liar”.  If he said he killed a deer at 600 yards with a .44 magnum 6-shooterÂ… then he killed a deer at 600 yards with a .44 magnum 6-shooter.  And, obviously, there wasnÂ’t anything NEAR “1,000 ft/lbs of bullet energy” left in that 245 grain hard-cast .44 caliber “Keith-type” bullet backed by 22 grains of 2400 rifle powder (KeithÂ’s favorite .44 magnum load) after flying 600 measured yards.


I corresponded with Mr. Keith back in the early to mid-1960Â’s before his deathÂ… and recently found a letter from him in the bottom of the big drawer of my loading bench.  The typed letter, signed simply “Keith” in blue ink, was dated May 28, 1965.  In the letter he was advising me on the best, most accurate deer load for my Model 70 in .338 Winchester Magnum.  His “deer load” was a charge of  74 grains IMR4831 and a 275 grain Speer soft-point using either CCI magnum or Federal 215 primers.  He practically guaranteed me this load would “shoot into an inch or less at 100 yards.”  While he seemed immune to recoil, that load was really hard on my shoulder off the bench restÂ… even at my age thenÂ… in my late 20Â’s.

As was pointed out previously, your .50 caliber rifle makes large holes in the game you shootÂ… and itÂ’s been my experience with both the .338 Win. Mag. and my old Ruger .44 magnum Carbine that big bullets make big holesÂ… and big bullets & holes seem to have a proportionally GREATER EFFECT on game compared to smaller holes.

My little Ruger .44 magnum carbine I bought back in the fall of 1968 for a deer hunt on the far-most, eastern tip of Sugar Island, located in the river on the “Saute” (pronounced “Sue”) between Saute St. Marie, Michigan, USA and Saute St. Marie, Ontario, Canada, dropped a 200+ pound Kentucky whitetail buck “on-the-spot”… the huge buck dropped like a bag of rocks and never moved out of his tracks when the 240 grain .44 caliber Nosler Hollow-Point hit him on the “point” of his shoulder… AND that bullet BARELY had 1,000 ft/lbs by the time it got to him, yet it’s effect of devastating!

IÂ’m convinced that the DIAMETER of the bullet, regardless of velocity, has a great deal to “do” with the bulletÂ’s pure “killing power”.  As others have already saidÂ… this “1,000 ft/lbs.” isnÂ’t a “hard & fast rule”… itÂ’s simply a “guideline” which changes, depending on the caliber size of the bullet that hits the animal.

At least, thatÂ’s my opinion based on many years of hunting.


Strength & HonorÂ…

Ron T.

[Rick Teal]

cabin4:

The energy figures quoted in the various shooting manuals etc. are simply numeric interpretations of the forward momentum of the particular bullet - it doesn't even take into account the rotational energy of the projectile (which must be significant - for example a 3000 fps bullet in a 1:12 barrel is rotating at 180,000 rpm).  However, a bullet kills primarily from internal damage caused by the primary, secondary and tertiary projectiles that come from impact and expansion/fragmentation of the bullet.

If your 45/70 examples are with bullets of the same weight, then they must be travelling at different velocities.  If the bullet in the load producing the 2500 fpe expands properly within the frame of the animal you're shooting - dropping it on the spot -, then this same bullet "may" not perform as well at the higher velocity - doing the legendary rapid expansion shallow penetration thing.  

If a "tougher" bullet is used in the 3000 fpe load, the bullet may not expand sufficiently poking a small hole all the way through the animal, allowing it to get up and run off - dieing somewhere but not necessarily where it can be recovered.  This tougher bullet in the 2500 fpe load would probably do equally poorly.  Therefore, the actual "on game" performance of these two loads is dependent on several of the other inter-related factors, and the higher energy load could produce inferior results when compared with the lower energy load.

[John Y Cannuck]

How much energy would the 45-70 have at two miles? Thats the distance it was fired, at black powder velocities, by your government durring the "Sandy Hook" tests. It still penetrated 6" of pine board backstop! Think that won't kill a deer?

Energy, like velocity, are only variables. Also include, diameter, sectional density, bullet composition, and shape.... most important bullet placement, and it gets kinda complicated.

[onesonek]

I'm not a 100% sure, but I think it Whelen whom first stated the 1000fpe  for deer thing. And if I remember right, he was refering to bullets under .358 cal., with notations on bullet cunstuction and sectional density  Another well known scribe stated, energy is what makes the bullet expand, penetration kills.  With large diameter bullets, you don't need much in the way of expansion, just enough mass(sectional density) to ensure complete penetration. onesonek