Bullet failure what does that mean?

[JJHACK]

I think this question requires a definition. What exactly is bullet failure? It seems we are all considering this definition much differently.
I have read this statemet several times in my life now: "At what point during the animals death did the bullet fail"

Or the bullet exited with a bore size hole so it could not have expanded, must have failed.

Well, with any opinion somebody relates it needs high resolution to have any credibility,.........at least to me. How significant is a single event, or even a dozen to try and prove or disprove a theory or function? As many of you know my background, you know I don't refer to single events to draw my conclusions from. I'm also not stuck with a single firearm type, caliber or cartridge. My hunters bring everything under the sun to shoot with. As in: archey, muzzleloaders, handguns, Crossbows, you name it I've probably had somebody hunt with it. They typically take well in excess of 100 big game each year. In the last 13-15 years I would say without question they have taken more then 2000 head of big game from the tiny 15 pound steenbok up to the elephant. This does not incude the many years working in Alaska with goats, both species of bears, deer, wolves, cariboo, moose, etc.

With this kind of resolution you would think bullet failures would be seen eventually on at least some of these species. You would be correct. But then My definition of bullet failure may not be the industry standard (whatever that is) or even another persons opinion.

My simple definitions are
#1 lead and jacket seperation at any point after impact.

#2 Not penetrating in a dead straight line.

I have seen both of these more times then I can count with cup and core bullets, I have seen the lack of straight line penetration more times then I can count with several versions of the Barnes X bullet.

In order to have seen or witnessed these failures, I would have had to recover the game. So the theory of "at what point during the animals death did the bullet fail" is absolutely silly to me. If the bullets performance was unacceptable and you still lucked into the location of the dead animal why would you trust it on a second animal? That is failure plain and simple in my book!

I could go into a list here of specific animals just from last season that I have seen failures on. However it's a safe bet that cup and core bullets are not the prudent choice for todays hunting where big game is important to recover. The original "premium" bullet is the Nosler Partition. Fully three times the cost of a cup and core bullet when released and remains double the cost or more. This was the baseline bullet for big game hunting for probably 20 years or more.

Today you can buy a bonded core bullet which is so vaslty superior to the partiton at less then half the cost of the partition.

Recent catalog prices for example:
165 grain .308 Nosler Partition 23.16 per 50
165 grain .308 Hornady interbond 31.39 Per 100
165 grain .308 barnes X 28.83 per 50
165 grain .308 Swift Aframe 44.18 per 50

Standard cup and core bullets
165 grain .308 Speer 17.42 per 100
165 grain .308 hornady 16.15 per 100
165 grain .308 Sierra 17.58 per 100

I have seen everyone of these bullets shot and recovered. The majority of the cup and core bullets in many little pieces with the jacket seperated.

More then half the partitions recovered had no front half lead core attached. Not automatically bad. It's the design to do this. However it does leave many people with a bad feeling to see a bore diameter exit hole even though the bullet had violent internal expansion. It's still not as good at retaining the momentum of a bullet that will maintain all its weight or the majority of its weight. It's also hard to beat a bullet that doubles its diameter or more and can maintain that diamater with straight line penetration. Those big exits leave a hella good blood trail!

I suppose in the end it's up to your definiton of bullet failure. Regardless if it's a sub 3000fps cartridge or over. Standard cup and core bullets will crumble and seperate. The frequency of this is higher the faster they travel, and the more massive the animal. Standard bullets from a 30/30 work well, standard bullets from a 30/378 are a failure waiting to happen. If the issue is an important one for you then shoot the cup and core bullets all you want for practice, switching to the premium bullets for use on game. At least that's what I do with my rifles.

As far as my recommendations go, sub 3000fps rifles will work far better with the Hornady interbonds. They are soft and stay in one piece very well. Rifles over 3000fps might be better with A frames or X bullets. They are much harder and withstand the much higher impacts better.

I would say the same for most bigger bore rifles as well. When shooting 338 or larger the A frame would be my bullet of choice on the bigger species. If you're lucky enough to have a rifle that can shoot the newest versions of the X bullet then that is a great choice as well. Not all rifles deal well with the X bullet though.

 

[noharleyyet]

JJ, I'm very pleased with the 7mm Ultra Mag 175 gr. A-Frame.

 

[BuzzH]

JJ,

Pretty good post and I agree with you on everything but the partitions leaving a bore diameter exit. In my experience they leave exits slightly smaller than a golf ball in 243's, 25's, and 270's. In the 284-338 a golf ball size hole or larger is pretty typical.

I've never seen a poor blood trail from the exit wound made by a partition.

 

[fowladdict]

Huh?....Wow I didn't know that there was a such thing as hunting geek speak!! Guess I'm just plain stupid and need to learn much more than just what a bullseye looks like!

 

[snake river rufus]

I'm going to go on record and state that there are no "bad" bullets being made. There are however bad bullet choices for the intended target, being made by poorly informed hunters. I hold the industry and gunwriters responsible for this situation.

 

[wyomingtim]

Good post JJ. The only experience I have had with the Barnes X was not a good one. Yes, the elk died, but I was very unhappy with the performance of the bullet. I had the straight line penetration, problem is, I had 3 bullets go through the chest cavity with no expansion. THe lungs had perfect little holes in them rather than more like a jell-o consistency that I have experienced with other factory loads. THe round I trust most in my rifle (300 WM) right now are teh Winchester Power Points. They have not let me down yet.

I have also seen some bullets basically disintigrate on impact and have very little expansion, but this I think was mainly due to loading hot loads and shooting too light of a bullet at too big of an animal.

 

[FLIPPER]

I had the same results when I was loading Barnes X bullets...caliber hole in, caliber hole out on deer. But as Snake River Rufus said if it kills the animal, it did its job.

 

[danr55]

JJ, It's an interesting opinion with regard to the "#2 Not penetrating in a dead straight line". Considering that the heaviest bullet can be deflected by a twig or a stick, it's hard to imagine what ribs, shoulder blades and leg bones will do to a bullet's path.

Not to mention the hydrodynamic mechanics that take place when a bullet hits a semi-liquid mass. I shot a cow elk with a 7mm Rem Mag (150 grain partition) from about 40 yards. She was quartering away facing to the left. I aimed just behind the ribcage on the left side toward the right shoulder. The bullet entered where intended and exited just behind the left fore leg. After some time trying to figure out how a bullet could enter and exit on the same side, the only viable option was that the impact had caused the body of the animal to twist and the bullet once inside the body cavity had turned with the mass of the body. The resulting wound made it appear that the bullet actually turned in mid flight or bounced off of a rib. Both very unlikely. The point being, it's difficult to tell what path a bullet may take once it makes contact.

I agree that the Partition is one, if not the best performing bullet available. That's all I shoot for big game.

 

[JJHACK]

Dan, Please bear with me on this as there are some misconceptions that many people have regarding a bullets travel path and various effects a projectile has on flesh after impact.

You are correct that a twig will deflect a bullet. Those folks who think a big slow bullet is a "brush gun" have taken the words way out of the intended context. The term "brush gun" was due in part to the close range shooting in thick brush. Not that the guns bullets could actually shoot through brush.

When I attended the Professional Hunting Academy in South Africa years ago we ran tests on a bullets deflection by brush and branches. Not even a 458 win mag could penetrate straight line without deflection by slender twig sized branches. They only rare functional accuracy was with the impact target right behind the brush. If the impact target was more then 3-5 meters behind the target the shots were never close to the aimpoint. We also found that brush did not deflect the bullets as much as it caused tumbling problems. The majority of holes in the targets were made from bullets going sideways or on an off axis impact.

With that said bullets are supported by the mass of the animal with a more consistant pressure once penetration occurs. It's a completely different situation then having no support in the air and having a branch or twig deflection. Light weight bullets at very high speed(over 3000fps impacts) can have a more serious deflection effect after impact when hitting a heavy bone like a leg or scapula, but not likely much from a rib.

A bullet with an impact of under 3000fps should travel straight through what ever animal is hit, or it's not performing as well as it should. That's one of the main design intentions manufacturers consider, weight retention and jacket thickness/ peel back rates. This is what tends to control the direction of travel.

Regarding a "semi liquid mass". Although it's true that mammals are made up of mostly water weight. It's not true that there is any single organ that holds any volume of water or liquid. When shooting a jug of water the explosive effect is seen by some as similiar to the "shock wave" that would occur in big game. Nothing could be further from the truth! It would be much more accurate to shoot a stack of damp sponges in a cardboard box for similiar explosive effect.

There is no organ that holds the volume of liquid that would compare the jugs explosive visual impact to that of an animal. The heart has minimal blood storage, the kidneys are much like a sponge as are the lungs. The bladder and stomach have the largest liquid capacity but are not a target( I hope). The internal organs are at best damp to wet, when functional in a healty animal. They do have a lot of moisture content. They don't contain any volume of liquid in one massive area that would provide that same explosive effect.

The terms tossed around like Hydrostatic shock, are out of the context of how things work and what is actually going on inside the body after bullet impact. This is just another example of how industry terms, or those terms tossed around by various uneducated gun writers get into the mainstream of hunters and somehow become "real". It's just like the muzzle energy formula showing many thousnads of pounds of energy in a projectile, yet even a 3000ft lb of energy rifle bullet cannot move a 50 pound block Anyone know why that is? Because you would need to calculate the bullets momentum not it's energy! Momentum is weight X speed divided by 7000. That will give you a real number of momentum or impact to better understand the force a bullet can apply.

Bullets kill with hemorage or nerve damage. Both occur when those centers are struck. As in the heart or brain. Other less vital organs can also kill within a reasonable time, like the lungs, liver, major arteries, or spine. If Hydrostatic shock was the high velocity killer many assume it is then hitting an animal anyplace in the body would deliver that "killing shock". We know that does not work, it's why we shoot for the vital organs.

Regarding an animals body twist after bullet impact causing a change of direction. ............Hmmmm That remined me of Muhammad Ali saying he was so fast he could hit the light switch in his bedroom and be in bed before the room was dark.

Yeah, that bullets going so fast that the event is completely over before the animal can possibley move, or the shooter is gonna need to add a bit more powder to the shell! Nope this cannot happen, it's much too fast to have anything that animals doing change the direction of the bullet.

Although not mentioned but another kinda misleading comment I hear all the time about a bullets damage path is the mushroomed jackets effect as it spins through the flesh. Calculations show that a bullet is spinning at possibly 200,000 rpm (an average across the board) as it leaves the barrel. I've heard countless times that the effect is really a huge benefit with the high velocity bullets of magnum rifles. It's 100% true that the bullets spin is incredibley fast, however if the barrel has a one in ten twist that means the bullet is rotating one time in ten inches. If your targeted animal is 30 inches in Diameter that bullet will rotate only three times as it passes through him.

The massive amount of spin many people refer to is measuerd in unusable units for a bullet. It's RPM or revolutions per minute. How far does that bullet travel in a minute? How many miles could it go? It's only a couple seconds to do a 1/4 mile from a slow rifle. Now you would have to figure out how many rotations per mile and you see that's it comes out to 1 complete 360 degree rotation in 10" so don't be suckered into that non-sense either!

This post was not directed at anyone, just meant to help anyone interested see the facts regarding a bullets effect on game. As an Engineer by education and a Professional hunter by trade I have tried to combine the education I have with the effects I have seen to better understand them. I certainly don't have all the answers but I work very hard to figure out what I have seen make sense with what I know.