Over expansion at short range. How much of a problem really?

[Lorgar]

construction of bullet.

I'd suggest that it would be more a case of poor choice of projectile/bullet design and construction than anything else.

Just speaking for the one bullet here, but I've pulled 180gr Nosler Accubonds out of the back of tree stumps at 50m and their weight retention and expansion is still great.

A nice little mushroom and no fragmentation after going through a foot of wood and being pulled out on the other side.

No such thing as too close for them. In my experience.

[Manimal]

Dont do texas heart shots

Hunters in Texas must love that they've been coined in that phrase

[Westy]

Well you know the saying only thing to come from Texas is steers and quires !!!!

[Jack V]

You know I would love to actually see a picture of an animal has suffered only a surface wound from a high velocity cartridge, we did it with a heap of old work boots filled with silicone(err, there were a few tubes go missing in an unexplained way from the workshop store once) and all we had at the end was a heap of old silicone filled workboots with holes through them.

I know it is not conclusive but the high velocity stuff seems to drill right through at close range, at 100 it was far more damaging but they still went through. The varmint grenades were a different story but that was all. At 200 with the .243 with the plastic tips it was impressive but the steel jacked .308 still drilled a hole.

I wonder if some of these exploded rabbit heads are because the projectile actually disintergrated or was it the shock of the projectile going through and perhaps bone fragments that did the damage. I know with a head shot rabbit and a .22 it is often the brain trying to get out that does the damage not the pill fragmenting.

More work needs to be done I reckon.

Exactly , the varmint grenades are the weakly constructed bullet we are talking about . A boot full of silicone is not exactly a hard target either .

What you are doing is trying to apply what is an extreme case to the average bullet and that will not work. It is even possible for a bullet to blow up in mid air without striking anything I have seen some Bergers do it . It can be traced back to jacket failure due to popped or cracked jackets and or barrel conditions and excessive velocity for the condition . There is about a dozen variables in this issue that can all affect terminal ballistics in some way .

As I said before the bullet companies take into account most of these potential variables so their bullet is suitable for a certain job .

One example is Berger has redesigned some of it's jackets to a thicker stronger jacket to resist blow up from cut rifled barrels .

The trick is we have to buy the right bullet for the job . Not always easy I know.

[sha]

I know it is not conclusive but the high velocity stuff seems to drill right through at close range, at 100 it was far more damaging but they still went through.

Even though it shoots through, if wonder if it's not still adding extra damage due to the extra force it goes through with when closer?

Must send a bigger shockwave or whatever through the target with the extra velocity.

Trading one type of kill for another is maybe all that happens?

[Jack V]

Higher impact velocity would equate to extra shock wave with penetration and wound channel aside. To make any meaningful test you would have to section a target something like ballistic gel and measure the wound channel. It is not all that easy to judge a wound channels size and shape in a dead animal autopsy. I know I have tried.

You can have two bullets go through a target and appear to do the same thing but if one expands and the other don't then the wound channel shape will be different inside even though on the outside it looks about the same, usually the bullet that does expand will leave a bigger exit hole. The target could drop just as quick in both cases depending on what it is and where it got hit making it seem that they do the same job. However the bullet that gets inside and then expands reliably and stops just short of exiting will be the more reliable killer as it has given up all it's energy into the target.

[Carter]

However the bullet that gets inside and then expands reliably and stops just short of exiting will be the more reliable killer as it has given up all it's energy into the target.

That's the decider. If it sticks inside 100% of the potential energy was transferred into the animal, if it passes through it still had energy to do damage with but took it out the other side instead.