“Your bullets and ammunition are subpar! The bullets you load should not even be considered a hunting bullet,” ranted the person across the table from my long-time friend. “The worst terminal performance I have ever seen. You and your company should be ashamed!” Several hunters gathered in the booth, obviously the one who had nothing good to say about ammo produced by the company whose booth he was in, enjoying being the center of attention.
When the complainer stopped his tirade, my friend, a representative of the ammo company asked in a quiet voice, “Did the bullet kill what you were shooting at?” The red-faced screamer nodded a positive. “And how far after the shot did it go before it died?” asked my friend. “Less than ten yards,” said he with his eyes now looking at the ground.
“So where in the process of passing through the animal’s body, which obviously created a wound channel large enough to cause rapid blood loss, thus putting the animal into shock, did our bullet fail to perform?” There was no response from the loud-mouthed one, who never looked up before walking away. The hunters who remained in the booth simply smiled or laughed.
The purpose of the bullet is to enter the “target” at the aiming point, do critical damage to vital tissues and/or bone, causing a substantial wound channel and hydrostatic shock, thus killing the animal quickly and humanely, the duty of the hunter.
Regarding terminal performance; should the bullet deliver all of its energy and remain in the body, or do substantial tissue and bone damage and then exit on the opposite side, hopefully creating a double blood trail?
If the bullet was placed in the vital area of the heart and lungs and stays in the body, that body has received and accepted all the energy produced by the bullet. On the other hand, if a bullet does great damage to vital tissues and then exits on the opposite side of where it entered the body, that animal should in theory bleed out quicker and leave an easily followed blood trail. Both trains of thought have merit.
Accuracy and terminal bullet performance are paramount when it comes to a good hunting bullet. The bullet has to be placed in the vitals and when it strikes, it needs to do the job it was designed to do.
Hunting bullets are generally either controlled expansion or solids. The latter are generally used on large dangerous game where substantial bone has to be penetrated to reach vitals.
In past years I worked as a research biologist and as a manager on numerous ranches where the largest game animals were elk. I had the opportunity to shoot or watch many, many animals being shot, and, then do the eviscerating chores giving me the opportunity to see how bullets performed. I have always paid particular attention to wound channels and bullet performance. I have also done complete necropsies on animals I have taken throughout the world to determine bullet performance on many species, including elephants down to blue duiker in Africa; buffalo and deer in Australia; red stag, reindeer, fallow deer, ibex and roe deer in Europe; red stag, wild hog, deer, tahr and chamois in New Zealand; and moose, elk, caribou, big bears, many deer and other species here in North America.
On these hunts I have used a substantial number of calibers and rounds, from 577 down to 22, solids and wide variety of controlled expansion bullets and I have learned much.
Today, when asked my favorite hunting bullet and or loads I use in my Ruger rifles, I quickly respond Hornady’s ELD-X and Hornady’s Precision Hunter, depending upon the species hunted and where I am hunting. These bullets are extremely accurate in all the guns I have shot and the terminal performance of these bullets is in my opinion, perfect! I like hunting with some of the other bullet designs such as the Hornady GMX where copper bullets are required, but I am enamored with the ELD-X for most of my rifles, and I strongly believe in Hornady DGX (expandable) and DGS (solids) when hunting dangerous game.
Occasionally I will read or be told about someone who shoots a deer or elk more than once and proudly proclaims putting those additional shots nearly into the same entrance hole as the first shot. Sounds impressive, but from a practical perspective, after the first shot there already is a wound channel, so why would you want to shoot the animal in almost exactly the same place? Would it not be better to place the bullet two or so inches from where the first bullet entered, thus creating a second wound channel, or with a third shot placed another three or so inches from the first or second shot creating different wound channels?
From real world experience and much research, I can assure you it is better to create more than one wound channel through vital tissue, particularly on larger animals, if they do not go down immediately.
I am also one of those who strongly believes in putting bullets into an animal as long as it is standing or moving. I would rather trim away a pound of blood-shot venison, which I can feed to a pet, than having an animal get away, thereby losing all the meat.
When I go on a hunt, particularly if it is for a species I have not previously hunted or taken apart, I carefully study their anatomy, look at photos and determine precisely where I would place my bullet through the vitals, depending upon the angle the animal is standing.
Accuracy and proper terminal performance, the two things I demand of my hunting ammunition and certainly why I choose Hornady!
Photo credit: Larry Weishuhn Outdoors