I'm Travis Bader and this is The
Silvercore Podcast.
Join me as I discuss matters related to
hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits with the
people in businesses that comprise the community.
If you're a new to Silvercore, be sure to
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ensure you are properly covered during your
outdoor adventures.
Have you ever looked at the information specs
on an ammo package and wondered what all
those numbers mean?
Do you have questions about what the best
cartridge or calibre.
For your hunting needs.
This episode was created for you and
also has a supplementary blog posts on the
Silvercore website.
If we missed anything or you want to
know more email Podcast@Silvercore.ca.
So I'm sitting down today with my longtime
friend and hunting partner, Paul Ballard.
And if you're a listener of The Silvercore
Podcast, you will have definitely heard
Paul before talking about many different
subjects, actually, Paul you're on our,
our very first podcast.
I think that was the very first one
with Nick and I.
That's right.
That was a fun one.
Yeah, no, I look back on that the, uh, the
studio's changed, the equipment's getting
better and, uh, you've really embraced the
concept of the podcast.
And I think as a method of communication to
people, it's, it's, it's working it's,
it's, it's hip it's now, it's happening man.
So we'll stay with that.
You know, one of the podcasts that we did
together, that I get a lot of comments
on, was information for new hunters.
And a lot of people have said that they've
derived a lot of value out of that.
And really all of the podcasts that we
do ,I do with a mind towards the end user.
If we're going to be asking for their time to
listen to the podcast, we want to impart
some value to them.
Yeah.
And I agree.
And I, and we pitched this one when we were
talking, uh, sort of as a part two to that.
So we talk about equipment in the form
of glass and rifle and type of action and so on.
This one becomes more specific, I think today,
because we want to talk about the calibres.
What, what, what calibre should I be
looking at for hunting?
The age old debate.
Right.
And I mean, everybody's got an opinion on
this one, but let's give some options for
people to think about.
We'll go from sort of a basic approach
that, uh, I've picked up my bolt action
rifle, what calibre should I pick it in?
Right.
And what are the pros and cons?
And so we got some sort of, uh, you know,
we'll talk historically a little bit.
We'll talk about a little bit of math,
but not really get into the math of it.
Right, right.
But there is some science to this thing, uh, to
understand why certain calibres are effective,
uh, understand some of the emotional side to
think, oh, well maybe emotional attachment
to certain calibres or cartridges, we should
actually say cartridges.
I think, uh, calibre does factor into it, but
the specific cartridges have their own nature.
And let's see where we go.
Well, one of the feedback points that I got, and
I got this from a couple of people and they said
really, really liked it had to listen to it a
few times cause there is a lot of information
and some people said, although you and I,
as we're talking, we didn't feel like we're
talking at any sort of like high level stuff.
We also got to remember when somebody brand new
to the game, it can be a little overwhelming.
So after we're done here, what I'm going to do is
I'm going to make a blog post because you've got
some material here in front of us, and we'll
probably reference a few things throughout here.
So after the listeners go through, we'll have
a more detailed account with some visuals and
some graphs and, and for them to reference back.
And the ability to help them out.
Yeah.
I agree.
That's good.
So, whatever, um, you caught in your ear, you
can, uh, you can see how it plays out when you're
looking at the page.
Absolutely.
So when we're looking at different cartridges
and different calibres, at the very like
introductory level, w what do you think
are some of the things that people
should be thinking of?
Like, for, for my mind, uh, cost, recoil and
efficiency of the round.
Yeah, well, I, I kind of, I made some notes, so I
wouldn't forget things, but how about, uh,
effective killing and, and effective killing
needs to have some empathy for the animal.
Um, it needs to be humane needs to be quick to make
it, you know, empathetic.
And, and that's the thing.
Of course, you know, the regulations say any
centrefire cartridge is suitable for big game.
British Columbia.
In British Columbia.
Yeah.
Let's keep it, uh, where, where we're living, but
that's not realistic.
Like there are plenty of those small, you know,
22 calibre centrefire cartridges, which are
totally inadequate for, you know, anything larger
than a varmint size game.
And then that immediately takes away
that effectiveness and you know, where,
we want a quick kill.
We, and, and there are certain things between,
you know, not only cartridge selection,
but some to do with bullet placement
that can lead to that humane quick kill.
Right.
There's some understandings about
bullet placement that might be reflected upon
the cartridge you choose.
That uh, so when you're looking at maybe using
a lower velocity, uh, cartridge, still a
centrefire adequate for the, the job, uh,
because some of the characteristics, the
terminal performance, what it does when
it physically hits a flesh target, what is
what's going to do?
So there are these things, but again,
uh, effective killing, absolutely understanding
the, uh, you know, the need for follow-up
shots, which has to do with recoil.
Like you were saying, uh, let's take a little
historical trip, uh, you know, back not so long in
our historical timeline, there were no firearms.
Uh, people were using spears and arrows
and everything else.
And when they look back historically on some of
the bows that were being used, a lot of those
bows were about 25 to 40 pound pull weight on
the recurve style bones made of horn and glue
and sinew and the like.
And What that was, was getting close enough
to an animal to drive that arrow in there
to, to make the kill.
There was some, uh, other, you know, heavier
draw weights, obviously for the bigger game, but
it all still relied on getting close, you know,
and making the shot.
So we should never, ever get too far
outside of that idea.
And when I talk today, my opinion,
medium to close range.
I don't want to, uh, there is a bit of a
trend towards these extreme long distance,
you know, hunting.
Right.
I question the ethics in it, I don't question
the ethics in it.
Uh, I think if you're not highly skilled and
the circumstances aren't considered, I then there
becomes an ethical issue in it for me, trying
to really reach out.
Well, when you talk about medium range
and close range, just for the listener.
Yeah.
Oh, hey that's a good point, in my mind
I completely know.
So, um, the range is let's, let's put the
furthest out, we'd say is maybe 400 yards.
Okay.
Now I say at 400 yards uh, if you're looking
at ground that doesn't include a huge ravine
between you and your objective, um, so that
you can eventually get to the animal.
I can easily say that's ethical now
when I push it to 400 yards, have I trained
to shoot that far?
Um, you know, is the, is the cartridge sufficient?
All these things have to come into play for that.
Realistic hunting ranges, my own experience, I
think are under 200.
Most of the shots I've made.
And in fact, a remarkable number of
those shots have been right in that 60 to
a hundred yard range.
Right.
And, uh, you know, depends on, on the
terrain that you're in the habitat, the animal
enjoys, all these things that are there, but,
uh, to be ethical, uh, to try and keep it at
200 or less is good.
Right.
Be prepared with shooting sticks, rests
all the other things to steady that shot.
If you're going to push it beyond those ranges.
Because there's a few considerations, not
even just including the cartridge and the calibre
and the performance of at that distance if the
animal doesn't go down right away, trying to
locate again afterwards.
Totally.
And I've watched a few, you know, uh, shows
where they're shooting out to seven, 800
yards and they're doing it across a ravine.
And so now an animal that's wounded at that
kind of distance, the time it's going to
take for you to get to where the animal was
actually hit and then commence to follow a
blood trail from there.
That's the part that I really, you know,
that circle doesn't square for me.
Yeah.
Some animals are going to leave more of a
blood trail than others.
If they got heavy.
Some cartridges are going to leave more
of a blood trail.
Right.
And how that bullet expands within the
animal, it may not exit.
And you know, so it's just,it's out there.
Well, this is exciting.
Okay.
Well let's try and keep this at, the target
audience here is if you're a, you know,
someone who's in the first couple of years of
hunting or looking to get out there and you haven't
really made the decision what cartridge you should
be starting out with.
We want to address that, or maybe been into this
for four or five years and you want to branch
out a little bit and maybe look at, you know,
adding a lever action rifle and, you know,
large bore to that and see, you know, some
of the applications.
So we can try and cover that as we go through.
Did you want to first talk about
how animals die.
So we can kind of dispel a couple of those
things before we get into, or do you want
to get into that after?
And one of the things, you know, what does
a bullet actually do?
Okay.
You know, and, and how, how do you kill it?
So the bullet does a couple things.
It makes direct contact with elements of the
central nervous system in the animal, the brain,
the spinal column, um, and so on, or it makes
direct contact with organs uh, major blood
vessels and so on.
So in the direct contact of the bullet, in the
flesh of the animal, there's a wound channel
going to be created.
Now the diameter or calibre of the bullet,
you know, at even a relatively low velocity
that permanent wound channel, the destruction
of tissue or meat, uh, will be roughly,
slightly larger than the bullet itself, that
permanent wound channel.
But as we now add velocity to that impact,
okay, we start to take a transference of kinetic
energy to the animal, and then we start looking
at shock waves going through the animal.
And those shock waves can now extend the way
the bullet kills in, in some other fashion.
So we look at hydraulic shock and
hydrostatic shock.
Right.
And often those are interchanged incorrectly.
Hydraulic shock when the bullet hits the flesh
and starts to move the fluid particles faster
uh, in that flesh, you create hydraulic shock.
So this will create movement of that flesh.
It will, not create a permanent hole, but
what it will do is it will create a bit
of a temporary wound channel that is larger
than that permanent hole by direct contact.
Right.
Okay.
So if we think in terms of, if you have the
experience of where you've seen a bullet hole
in an animal, that's kind of that jellied bit of
tissue that's around the bullet hole, that you
know, was part of that, that temporary wound
cavity that was created through hydraulic shock.
So that's just the destruction of tissue
around the permanent wound channel.
Hydrostatic shock now is where we take that
same shockwave, but it delivers through the
tissue of the animal to where it interrupts,
you know nerves, central nervous system and so on.
One of the interesting concepts of hydrostatic
shock, when you talk about killing is, is
that that knock down or, or, you know, uh,
immediate, uh, instant collapse that we might
see in an animal.
Uh, and every hunter who's got a bit of
experience can talk about that one time where they
just, the animal just dropped, like it had
been poleaxed and that's really a good example of
that instant collapse.
And that typically has been from some form
of interruption of the central nervous system,
a shot through the spine shot through the neck,
um, brain shot, you know, or a headshot.
Those can almost in every case caused
that instant collapse.
And that's just like a light switch
being shut off.
Correct.
But instant collapse can also happen when we've
hit in certain areas of the body where there's,
you know, ma major nerve clusters and so on, which
can also cause that, but then it can turn
around with that instant collapse and the animal
returns to its feet and starts to move off.
So we still need to consider bullet placement
into areas of the animal, lungs, heart, and so
on that will, uh, bring on a rapid or quick
death, uh, and, and, and, you know, allow us
to get to the animal.
Correct.
So I've, I've always looked at that and
we've got CNS, central nervous system, brain,
spinal column, or as you're saying through
hydrostatic shock interrupting the
central nervous system, and that's one way
that's the off switch.
The second way would be through massive
cardiopulmonary decompression through
hypovolemic shock.
And that's basically the pressure in the creature
drops to a point where it can no longer transfer
oxygen to its brain and it's good night.
So the fastest way to introduce that is either
through multiple holes, like draining a bucket
of water or through proper shot placement
into heart and lungs.
And then the drain is within the animal itself.
Right.
It doesn't have to drain out.
So in the old days when they were shooting,
you know, musket balls, muzzle loading, a big
diameter ball that punched a hole in,
punched a hole out, you know, without
particularly high velocity to create
that hydrostatic shock.
Uh, the bigger, the, the width of the day of
the calibre, you know, the, the more efficient
it was, to a point.
And those were non expanding bullets right.
We got to understand that those, those lead
round balls, you know, they would deflect,
they would, uh, yaw in the animal, which
would create a larger permanent wound cavity.
Uh, the other side to it was eventually they
went from round balls to conical bullets,
again, not intended to expand, but certainly
capable of tumbling, uh, going into yaw, which
would then take the round diametre of the
bullet and then turn it broadside, which would
create a bigger wound and so on and so forth.
Yaw's not great for accuracy, but it's great
when it hits an animal.
Right.
And if the bullet travels accurately and then
begins yaw once it enters and without getting in
too much of the subject, that's a military, you
know, uh, desirability, particularly in a
full metal jacket type of bullet as well.
So that, that's an interesting one too.
So we we've had people talking about full metal
jacket and the different theories on that.
So originally we had smooth bores and we're
throwing different projectiles down,
different materials down, and someone said,
hey, there's lead, it's cheap, it's ductal,
it expands on impact.
It's got great sectional density, which I'm sure
you're going to talk about in some detail.
A little bit.
A little bit and it's just not super accurate.
And then they decided I know what
we're going to do.
Let's spin it.
Let's spin it like we spin a football when
we throw it and it will eliminate pitch,
eliminate yaw on the inherent obstacles of
an object in flight.
And they did that by introducing rifling
and that rifling worked awesome until they came
up with some heavier duty powders, some smokeless
powders, and they found that they're shoving
that projectile down the bore so fast and so hard
that it was stripping past the rifling, that
soft lead and couldn't engage and some bright
individual said, well, why don't we keep all
those great properties of lead, but put a harder
metal jacket around it.
And that's when they came up with these full
metal jacket cartridges.
And from my research that I've done full
metal jacket, it's great, doesn't expand
as well as you'd want.
And when we talk about the military side, just
as a bit of an aside, there is a factory
outside of, I think it was Dum Dum India, and
they decided to basically expose the tip so that
we no longer had a full metallic jacket, usually
copper is sometimes steel or nickel that
went around the bullet.
But we have now an exposed tip, so to expand
more and do more damage.
And if anyone ever watched Joe Peshy and
lethal weapon talking about getting shot
in the hand with a dum dum round, right,
that's where that, that term came from.
But for the military side, they figured out
just was designed to do more damage than a full
metal jacket cartridge.
And it was a Hague convention that said.
Yeah, you needed to send people home and
in, in, uh, you know, uh, function, more
functional state.
I think they were still reeling from the civil
war where, because the lead, instead of the,
you know, of preceding times lead round ball,
they were again, you know, large 75 calibre
in some case, you know, conical led bullets
400, 500 grain bullets.
And just, you know, even traveling at seven or
800 feet per second, that would take somebody
in the elbow and just tear the arm off.
Right.
The transference of energy of that massive
amount of lead would create huge damage
to the extremities.
Whereas actually even taking one of those in
the body, you'd probably still might get a through
and through penetration, certainly leak a lot
of blood, but probably infection was going to
get you in those days.
Right.
So they kind of, towards the end of the 1800's
with the conical bullets sort of found around 45
calibre was the optimum.
And playing around again with it was, it was
that diametre with a rounded nose was giving
you that hammer like impact the penetration
that you wanted.
Right.
Again, all lead non expanding bullets that
would maybe turn into y'all a little bit.
Maybe they'd hit a bone, they get a little bit
larger, but they were giving an effective
permanent wound channel with penetration.
And that was happening at velocities, you
know, that were compatible with lead.
As you say, you move into full metal jacket.
A lot of what they did in the military was
they played with those, um, pointed bullets and
hey, let's just call them pointed bullets.
Cause nothing was pointed until they
started to do that.
Right.
Putting things like aluminum and everything
forward into the point to change the centre of
gravity of the bullets so that when it did
penetrate, it tumbled.
Right.
So instead of relying on a bullet that expanded.
It was tumbling with it and, you know,
stoner's famous, you know, 556 cartridge.
Uh, you know, they talked about the
tumbling bullets in Vietnam and, and, and
one of the interesting thing is that 55 grain
hard point bullet, uh, has the tendency on,
on ballistics is when it penetrates, it goes
into yaw, the stress becomes too great on the
cannelure and the bullet then breaks into pieces.
And just so the listeners know when we're talking
about yaw, we're talking about essentially, if
you have a stabilized bullet in flight
spinning like a football.
It doesn't have yaw effecting, if that
football's nose starts making a bit of a
circle and kind of wobbling around that,
that's essentially yaw.
Yeah, or skidding, you know, a skidding car,
a car that no longer.
That's a good one.
Travels in a straight line goes into yaw when
you see those tire marks where the back tire comes
out off the track of the front wheels, that's yaw,
going out of alignment.
And then you brought up another term cannelure.
Cannelure, the shoulder, the rounded P well,
it's not truly the shoulder from the
point to where it.
The ogive.
The ogive comes into the body so.
The ogive is that kind of, we'll have all of
these on the website.
On the football where the, in Canadian football
where the white line is.
Yeah.
That's the cannelure.
There you go.
How does that sound from this point to the fat
part of the football?
All right.
The rim around.
So now we get into this jacketed bullet thing and
they start playing with it for a hunting round.
And this is where things change exponentially.
Up to that point, we're relying on big diameter
penetrating efficiently.
Well, what happens is when you get a pointed
bullet, it penetrates in a much straighter line.
So instead of relying on the energy transference
to the big diameter, now we're heading
for the vitals and at different angles, we can
become more effective.
So by changing the centre of gravity,
when that bullet can now become more stable
in flight, but now the tip is exposed either
in a hollow point or a little bit of lead at
the end there, as that now penetrates, the
hydraulic forces of the flesh push back against
it and the shoulder of the bullet changes,
which means its centre of gravity comes back.
You know, we get like that classic
mushroom shape to the bullet changes.
So that even though it was a smaller diameter
when it went in, it increases, but it
maintains a straighter trajectory inside of the
animal, which leads us to the ability to add a
bad angle on an animal, be able to rely more on
the pointed bullets and then bullets that have a
boat tail on them that, uh, will again move
the centre of gravity forward on the ball.
You get longer range accuracy.
So we think of it.
We're probably going above where we want to
be here, maybe a bit.
If we just think about it like a marker
and a pencil, right?
So the pencil, you sharpen it up and it's
got nice and pointy sorta like your, they
call it a pointed or spitzer bullet, right?
Yes.
And that will penetrate with greater ease
then would the blunt marker, but they
would impact energy in a different way.
And then we got to factor in something
else, the speed that the bullet is traveling.
So speed and
Massive.
Weight, speed, and weight are there.
So as speed goes down the bill, you know, the,
the, the velocity as it drops, the more efficient
a flatter or rounder nose bullet can become.
Sometimes with expanding bullets, they
also lose, um, their ability to expand.
Depending on the structure of the
bullet and how, you know, toughen
metal you're using.
But I, I just want to the, we went back
to where we talked about the, um, uh,
hydrostatic shock.
Right.
Now, hydrostatic shock needs the right
combination of velocity and bullet weight.
Right.
Okay.
What happens is a bullet, as it gets further out
there, and that's what we got to talk about ranges.
Starts to lose velocity and then its ability then
to deliver hydrostatic shock is gone.
The larger the diameter, in many cases, the
more hydrostatic shock can be created
at lower velocities.
There you go.
Kind of like punching the water with a
fist or sticking your finger into the water.
You're going to create different
hydrostatic shock.
Correct.
The 30-06 cartridge, which everybody's
familiar with.
My personal favorite is the 35 Whelen, which is,
was created initially as a Wildcat cartridge,
they took the 30-06, hardly changed a thing,
opened up to take 358 calibre bullet instead
of a 30 calibre bullet.
And every says, well, why do you want to do that?
Well, of course the 30-06 heavy bullet for
instance, would be 180 grain Spitzer bullet.
And in the case of the 35 Whelen, how about
a 250 grain blow?
So first of all, you have that heavy bullet,
but what really matters more than anything
is the diameter of those bullets.
They both launched from the rifle at
about 2,500 feet per second, give or take.
Couple of hundred feet per second.
So as the bullets get out there and they
start to drop into that neighborhood of maybe
2200 feet per second, the 30-06 will lose the
hydrostatic shock that it would have retained
at closer ranges and higher velocities.
Whereas the 35 calibre 358 calibre
is still capable of hydrostatic shock.
And with almost identical recoil between the
two rifles, I feel no difference between my
35 Whelen and a 30-06.
Some people do, but you know, it is a
consideration and it seems to be, uh, for
hydrostatic shock bullets from 243 calibre
to 338, like to be going more than 2,600
feet per second, to do that transference.
If you're going to rely on hydrostatic shock and
you should never have to rely on it, cause
bullet placement into, you know, the heart and
lungs is always most important, but if you're
gonna, you know, you want everything going for ya.
High velocity with those size bullets.
Right.
If you're going to get into closer ranges,
lower velocity, than you gotta go for width
of calibre, 35 to 45 calibre so there's.
For the hydrostatic shock.
At lower velocity.
At lower speed.
Takes away range.
In a generality, I need to buy a hunting rifle
that's going to cover me for what I'm going to do.
So let's just keep everything at that
200 yard range and the common velocity.
So this, we start looking at the 270 Winchester,
280 Remington, 30-06, 308 Winchester, all of those,
um, in factory loadings by him across the counter
at your favorite, you know, ammunition, retail
source, uh, can be got in a combination
of bullet, weight and sufficient velocities.
So that all the way out to 200 yards
hydrostatic shock is still on your side, along
with penetration and expansion of the bullets.
A little bit of research by looking at, you
know, what brand name you want to pick.
But I mean, you know, the Hornady, Nosler,
all make ultra high quality bullets.
Mmm.
Sometimes we're seeing, you know, um, different
ammunition companies buying these known
named bullets and loading them into their
premium ammunition.
It has been my experience that if you look and
there's a, you know, a white box or a blue
box, that's 10 bucks cheaper than all the
other ammo, there's a reason for that.
And usually what happens is, is the construction
of the bullet is going to be disappointing
at ranges beyond 50 yards, they'll all kill
easily and quickly at 50 yards well-placed.
But when you start getting into strange
angles, non-typical angles something
other than a broadside shot, those bullets
tend to let you down.
And it doesn't matter what calibre they're in.
They shed jackets, they break apart,
they don't penetrate deeply enough and
it's a disappointment.
There is all sorts of theories about, well,
this bullet is really good all the way out
to 200 yards and then it falls off and that's
pretty much, you know, the normal thing.
But then there's other bullets where people
talk about them at 400 yards, the bullet
performs famously, but inside of that, over
penetration, no expansion and so on and so forth.
And it, it behooves, behooves
I like that word.
Yes, yes.
You know, it will pay off in spades for you to do
a little bit of research and put together.
But the optimum is, uh, a well-constructed bullet,
like an A-MAX bullet from, you know, Hornady,
uh, that will take you out there to those
distances ballistically.
Uh, it has a good ballistic coefficient.
Uh, it will fly well, it won't go into yaw and
it will expand when it hits at 50 or it hits
it 250 or 300 yards.
So you're introducing some new terms like
ballistic coefficient and I think maybe we
just touch on that after, but maybe I'll just do
a quick summarization of will co if, how my mind
works, I usually like to break things down
into small parts, right.
And then I'll take that one small part and then
I can branch off after.
So if we talk about bullet, all
right, so we're not even talking about
calibre or anything.
We're just talking about the bullet construction
and something a hunter would want to know about
would be, how is that bullet constructed?
So you already talked about a jacket coming
off, and so that'd be the full metal jacket
on some of your, the traditional, you've got
an extruded metal with lead inside it, uh, when
it hits an object, if it falls apart inside
the animal, you're, that energy that it
would be transferring is going to be a lot less.
You're gonna have fragmentation going
through, which could work in your advantage.
But if you really want to get that hydrostatic
shock that you're talking about, and that
penetration, you want to hold it together.
So bullet construction, we've got partitioned
bullets where they had the bottom part of
the bullet that would.
Remain solid.
Right.
Or an A-frame style bullet.
Or bonded.
Bonded.
And that that's the, so the original
jacketed bullet was a cup and core model.
Cup and core.
Okay.
So they made a cup out of thin jacketing material.
Molten lead got poured in there, bit a molten
lead appeared at the tip.
The hydraulics of penetration would push
against that lead tip.
The copper would open up a bit.
The lead would mushroom and at too much of a
velocity, it would just shed that copper thin
copper jacket, somewhere on the original entry.
And then the led blob now, which is what
it would amount to, would continue on
its penetrative path.
Uh, so then the idea through all sorts of
proprietary methods, they're bonding the
jacket and the lead together, they're
changing the lead, you know, the antimony
content of the lead so that it bonds
better, all sorts of.
Ways to hold it together, the partition or a
monolithic bullet.
Yeah.
Now that's the thing like, you know, no led
a tall, we're talking copper, copper alloy
combinations now, uh, that have some
huge benefit, uh, the barns and, and, uh,
the GMX bullets from Hornady where they.
What they really have is the ability to penetrate
at crazy angles.
And crazy angles, you know, you, we all
like to look at the target downrange, the
piece of paper, the one dimensional piece
of paper that has that animal standing
broadside, looking at you and truth be known,
a properly placed shot from virtually any
centrefire cartridge, at those kinds of angles,
will get to the heart.
It just has to get maybe through a rib that might
be the most in, and if you're lucky, it goes
between the ribs, but it penetrates in there.
And that's why, yeah you could kill a moose
with a 243 Winchester.
But now as soon as that moose turns, you know,
away from you, so instead of the broad side, now
you're kind of looking at a three quarter angle,
you know, to try and get in penetration in the
line that it follows.
And those all copper or monolith type bullets
are the answer to them.
You know, the, uh, to that penetration effect.
There's another name that they're giving
them to the homogeneous.
Yes.
Homogeneous, homogeneous.
Homogeneous.
That same throughout.
Yeah.
And, and so, again, the change with those is
typically if you were shooting a particular
weight of bullet for the calibre of the
cartridge that you're firing, when you get into
these monoliths bullets, because there's no jacket
to separate or shed away yet they're engineered
to expand, often we see is to go lighter.
So if you're shooting a 180 grain, 30 caliper
go to a 165 grain, you get a very similar
performance and, you know, the increase in
velocity to, to help.
I mean, there, the bad angle thing is there.
Sometimes they can transfer more energy
than a traditional jacketed lead bullet.
You know, so at closer ranges sometimes the,
you know, the, the hydrostatic shock can
cause a little bit of gut rupture or other
things like that.
Well what those, those monolithic bullets not
having lead in them, not having that sectional
density or that, that weight behind it in
order to get more weight into them, they can't
make them larger in diameter because the
calibre is a calibre.
They got to make them longer.
Right.
And when they make them longer, they were
finding a couple of problems with them.
So they're finding that you had more
bearing surface on the bore as it went down.
And so you've got some drag and you, they were
more susceptible to yaw.
We got some smart people make an ammo
and they've come up with some solutions to
that and they've got little speed grooves
and, um, they, they cut grooves so they've got
less bearing on a bore as it goes through.
And, and, and again, lightening the
bullet up as well.
Right.
You know, allows you to introduce that spin
from the rifling, you know, more rapidly,
more efficiently.
There's all, you know, the engineering that's in
this it's, you know, from the days of guys taking
a, a 22 casing and then actually forming their
own jacket from that, you know, in their garage.
And a lot of guys were, you know, the,
the founding names of Nosler and Hornady
and all those guys.
They were garage experimenters, you
know, but they've since hired very,
very established, uh, knowledgeable engineers
to move themselves on.
So we've talked a bit about the bullet as in,
how it's made up, so.
And what it does and what we achieve, what
we want to achieve.
But the other things in the bullet.
So if we'd look at the basic construction,
there's going to be weight of the bullet and
why that's important.
And I think you got some, some thoughts on that.
And.
Diameter of the bullet.
Diameter of the bullet and.
But you know, it's.
And speed.
And speed right, the velocity.
So all of those, how do we work with that.
Well, let's never forget shot placement,
whatever you're shooting, you need to put it
where you want it.
Right.
So when I talk about bad angles, I know
where I want the bullet to go, but it's not in
a traditional sense.
I've got to get to the heart and lungs, but
I may be doing that by going through the
floating rib and the diaphragm, or maybe,
you know, risking now I have a texas heart shot,
which means the animal's not presenting itself,
anything other but square on, on its backside.
So now I'm going to have to shoot into its ham,
losing that meat, but maybe I'll, I'll hit,
uh, the, uh, artery.
Okay.
That's in there, the femoral artery to try and
bring the animal down.
You know, there's all these considerations.
Sure.
Shot placement, understanding where
to put your shots.
So sometimes you're hedging your bet by
going with these better constructed bullets.
Generally speaking, spend good money
on your ammunition.
Yes.
The cheaply constructed cup and core bullet.
Great for punching a hole in the paper or ringing
the gong, but um bringing home, you know, the
winter supply meat, you know what, that meat is
worth, how much to you in the end, the ammunition
should be worth, you know, the time it takes
to get the better.
I mean, not everybody's going to hand load
other handloading changes the whole thing.
The perspective is gone now, you.
Sure.
You pick and choose what you want.
The, you know, the world's your oyster
when you handload.
Hand loading going back to the old days was done
because there was really poor animal selection.
Even in this time of, you know, like today.
Absolutely, today there's probably less,
uh, stock available to you, it's still good.
Well we have quality ammo, that's for sure.
We never, it was never like this before.
If this had been me starting out, I probably
would have never got into hand loading.
You know, we've been just as easy to buy
it off the shelf.
Kind of, we need to get back though, the general
rule, a good quality ammo, well-placed shot
velocity of sufficient, um, to create some
hydrostatic shock along with, uh, with an
expanding bullet should cover most of the big
game hunting situations in British Columbia.
So.
North America for that matter, but.
We talk about a couple of things and we'll
throw it up on, on the blog as well.
So people can have a cross-reference
sectional density.
Sectional density is a, when you, when you
look it's, it's, it's a numerical value
assigned basically to the penetrative
effect of a bullet.
So without getting into, you know, measuring its
length and its diameter and its weight and, and
squaring those, and you know, all the stuff that.
The easiest way to really think about
it is how heavy is it compared to another
cartridge made at, at something different.
Another bullet made at as some maybe
lighter material.
Yeah.
So sectional density is the, uh, the ratio
of an object's mass to its cross sectional
area with respect to a given access.
If that makes sense.
So is it heavy?
Right.
Can we get something in that diameter
that's heavier, it'll have a greater
sectional density.
If it's lighter of the same diameter, it'll have
less sectional density.
Yeah.
So when you're looking at the catalog at these
bullets, they will always have the weight
in grains, they will have the calibre of course and
then it will say SD in BC, sectional density is
important to the hunter.
BC is important to accuracy, so ballistic
coefficient is important.
That number is important to you.
You will that low ballistic coefficient
number, basically how slippery that bullet
is, how aerodynamic it is, becomes
important for distance.
So the bigger, the number, the more
aerodynamic that is.
For for, for ballistic coefficient, just
how well it can, how streamline
that bullet is.
So, and that's when you're talking about
the pointed ones being more streamlined
or the boat tail.
And the boat tail with the, and centre of
gravity and everything else, you know, is, is
a factor there to make that slippery bullet, get
out there and travel on the line that you want.
Right.
Sectional d, so ballistic coefficient
gets it there.
Sectional density is now what you're going to
rely on once it arrives.
Once it gets there.
That's your terminal ballistics.
Yeah.
And ballistics are always, you
know, internal, you know, in flight,
terminal ballistics.
You know, you can look at it all different
ways, but sectional density has a lot to
do with termination.
Man you got a lot of information.
Yeah.
You know, there is, and.
We gotta make this.
That's what blows it away.
So now getting back to it.
Yeah.
Good sectional density.
Uh, and it, it typically, uh, all game is looked
at in North America in particular is, you
know, class one, two and three and four.
So class one, small game, uh, coyotes, varmints,
uh you know, bunnies, that sort of stuff.
And so a relatively low sectional
density is just fine.
So, uh, something like a 223, uh, round, um, any
of those are just fine.
Then we move into class two.
So medium-sized game, antelope, they always
throw antelope in there, but we don't have any
in BC, but, um, you know, something in
the domestic goat size is slightly larger.
So everything from white tail deer, black
tail, uh, mule deer, uh, black bear, uh, would
we in that medium size.
And so a sectional density that typically
is in that range of, oh, about, you know,
250 works, nice, you know, 250 and a
little bit higher, uh, sectional density,
um, you know, going on and up from there.
Um, you know, we have a range, I mean, basically
sectional density from 220 to, oh, maybe
two, you know, 200.
That's all good for that medium game.
The next larger, class three game,
that's moose and elk.
Uh, when you know those type of animals,
you want a greater sectional density.
So the high 200 numbers, for sure.
You want to look for something that's going
to come in 275 or better .275 and better.
And you know, some of the shockingly small
calibres, like the 6.5 has amazingly good
sectional density.
And that comes from this long pencil bullet,
uh, that has a great penetrative effect.
Uh, but the classics, you know, when you compare,
um, one of the greatest cartridges really in the
Magnum class is the 338 Winchester Magnum, great
sectional density in all ranges of it's bullets.
The 300 Winchester Magnum another great
one right across the board for everything
from, you know, uh, depending on the bullets,
but getting back to the standard classes.
Uh, and we look at the heavier weight, the 308
Winchester, 180 grain, 30-06, uh, 200 grain.
You can get good sectional density,
and that's a really adequate cartridge
for moose and elk.
So let's, let's break this down a little
bit and let's say we've got something
that's heavy, right?
Let's see, we've got a bowling ball and
we rest that bowling ball on our foot.
Yeah.
That's not going to do too much damage.
Let's say we pick it up a foot or so above
our foot, we drop it.
Okay, that's not going to feel too good.
And we pick it up above our head and
drop it on her foot.
We'd be lucky if we don't break our foot.
So, we're dealing with gravity.
Gravity affects everything at the
same rate, 32 feet per second, or 9.8 meters
per second squared, per second, per second.
So that is creating velocity in the bowling
ball as it's coming down.
So just one way, I guess, kind of look at it,
let's say we're talking about our projectile now.
So we've talked with a sectional density,
so looked at different bullet construction.
So now we've got a heavy object that's going
out, but it's going very slowly when it impacts
we're going to have maybe less penetration,
but maybe different transference of energy
than it would if it's going out really quickly.
Really quickly, you talked about the primary
and secondary cavitation.
Yes.
I think you use a different word.
Hydraulic and hydrostatic shock that, that falls.
So if we go to a very big, heavy,
slow bullet, we get the hydraulic shock.
It's still there.
Okay.
Yep.
And sometimes penetration with those heavier
bullets is just the fact that retained energy
harder to slow it down.
Okay.
So you might be able to, your kid comes
racing at you on his BMX bike, and he's coming
at you at 20 kilometres an hour and your kid
weighs 60 pounds.
The bike weighs 40 pounds and you grab
him by the handlebars so you can stop him.
Right?
Right.
Okay.
So now the kid is now grown up a little
bit and he's on his 175 CC motorcycle and
he's coasting at you..
Now that motorcycle weighs a couple of
hundred pounds, the kids 150 pounds,
try and stop that at the same velocity.
Right.
When it gets there.
So, you know, we are seeing how that weight
of the bullet can go on.
Right.
So let's say a 35 calibre to a 45 calibre
bullet driven at a lower velocity maybe,
or, you know, less than 2000 feet per second.
You get that good penetrative effect
by that heavy bullet.
Right.
Now, another thing you can do to get
something out of that bullet is to increase
the frontal surface of the bullet, make it
out around, or meplat.
Right.
French word.
We've got to give credit to the French.
We don't give enough credit to the French.
They.
They get enough credit.
They were the ballistic forerunners
of the 1800's.
They were.
And they were coming up with the idea of, uh,
of a 60% flat frontage of the overall diameter
of the bullet for efficiency transfer of
energy at low velocity.
Uh, followed up by the great Elmer Keith
in the, you know, when his development
of the 44 special end of the 44 Magnum
as a pistol calibre hunting bullet, the
idea was non expanding, all lead bullet, big
flat front, 60% of the overall diameter.
Which puts us into this, hey, I want to
get a closer range rifle and you know, you can
get a lever action.
Traditionally, everybody looks at the 30-30.
30-30 Winchester killed a lot of game in north
America, all kinds.
And one of the things that, uh, you know,
traditionally because of the tubular magazine,
there was a blunt or a round nose front to the
bullet, lower velocities.
And we would see in some of the other
centrefires that are out there, but it worked.
Because of that big front end on the bullet helped
to transfer the energy as it went through 44
Magnum lever action.
It's a shockingly good close range.
And I mean, and with an all led bullet,
shockingly good for, you know, the sub 100
yard ranges, really not so good once we
push past a hundred.
So when we look at weight, and
we look at speed.
The interesting thing with speed, is
that you square the energy, essentially.
Right.
So if you double the weight of your projectile
going out, you'll double the energy transfer, but
if you double the speed, it's that speed squared.
And that's what you can get greater penetration
with greater speeds.
And I think this is where a lot of people Sterk.
The difficulty that people have is number
one, they start looking at the physics and
they look at the math and they're trying to
apply that to something that may be a moving
or stationary object at unknown distances, with
unknown makeups and all of this extra stuff kind
of comes in and then it becomes the great debate.
So hoping not to have the great debate with the
listeners here, but just letting them know some
of the variables that kind of come into play.
I mean we've talked lots about it and like you
say, let it, but now let's take the great
debate and dumb it down.
Yes, yes.
Okay.
So what should I buy?
Well, see that 30-06 rifle right there.
You like it cause it looks good, it's a
high quality, you know, modern bolt action 30-06.
You don't have to look any further son.
You're there.
There you go.
You got it.
That's the short answer.
And that is the short answer.
But then the next answer is well how
about that 308?
Why shouldn't they buy that?
Well, absolutely no reason whatsoever.
What's the main distance, or difference between
the 308 and the 30-06?
It's that heavy bullet thing in the end.
And what is, so we've got three laws
from Newton, right?
What, first law is an object in rest
tends to stay at rest.
An object in motion tends to stay in
motion unless affected by some other force.
Uh, law two is to do with the, uh,
energy essentially.
Uh, it's the, the amount of acceleration of a
body is proportional to the acting force and
inversely proportional to the best the object.
And third law is one that everyone knows
is for every action, there's an equal and
opposite reaction.
So law two and three play into this
decision because.
Recoil.
And, you know, I look at my Chuck Hawk's recoil
table here and let me just see what he, oh,
see what he assigns to the 30-06 as opposed
to the 308 Winchester.
Yeah, Chuck was a pretty prolific
writer wasn't he?
Oh yeah.
And I mean, I think he, he actually stole a lot
of the stuff too, but as, and let me just.
Everyone does.
Let me just put in a plug.
If you got a question relating to firearms or
fighter aircraft, you just put that question
in and then add the words Chuck Hawks.
And you will come up with some plain
language information of great value.
Okay.
So let's go hunting with our, uh, 308 Winchester,
180 grain bullet, uh, being driven at 2,800
feet per second, the recoil fell, which
has felt recoil.
Uh, it gets an assigned number of 17.5.
With the 30-06 at 180 grains uh, it's 20.3.
So let's go for instance.
So you get a bit more recoil.
A bit and really, yeah, not much.
So if you take it down to, um, the recoil that
you would get from the absolute smallest, uh,
centrefire cartridge, uh, like 17 Hornet or
218 Bee, you might get 1.3 or 0.7 felt recoil.
Which is nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
No, it barely, uh, over a 22 long rifle.
To go to the other end of the scale and let's
go for kind of a common, the 375 H&H Magnum,
a long, lived, a big, heavy hitting Magnum.
It's going to rate about 37 to 40 on that scale.
I think that's your minimum for big game
hunting over in Africa.
Yeah, in a lot of cases.
And you know, the 375 H&H depending on
how you load, it will cover everything from
Dik-Dik to, you know, Cape Buffalo and, uh,
you know, they, they, it's all about what
you load in there.
But, you know, as generalities speaking,
you know, with recoil.
So recoil should be a consideration
and honestly hard pressed to feel the
difference between a 308 and a 30-06.
And I think for a brand new person kind
of getting into it.
They shouldn't worry about that.
The most offensive things from a firearm
are gonna be the noise.
Yeah.
Right.
How loud is this saying?
And putting a muzzle break on is a sure-fire
way to make enemies with everybody around you,
because you're going to hear a lot more noise
and recoil, does this thing kick like a mule?
And there are things that people can do to.
Fit the gun to you properly.
That's the biggest one.
Fit it.
Yeah.
Fire it.
Wait.
So when you talked about felt, recoil is
not that recoil changes on a heavier firearm
other than the fact that it's dissipated
over a longer period of time and it makes
it hard snap feel like more of a harder shove
and that could make it more manageable as well.
And it's a game of length of pole, you know, from
the trigger face to the buttstock, we all
are, you know, that's established by you from
your fingertip to the crook of your elbow is
your length of pole.
So you need to get in there.
Um, this is the wonder of today's modern stocks
that come adjustable.
Right.
You know, they either come in a telescoping
fashion with a pistol grip on them.
A lot of those are quite good.
There's other ones where you can take
all the spacers out of the buttstock and
shorten or lengthen.
You can change the height of the comb for your
cheek weld to line up all these things you can, and
you should, you should buy that kind of stock.
In the old days, you, you bought your beautiful
piece of, uh, you know, American Walnut and then
you had the gunsmith whiz off or add to put
a new recoil pad or whatever the case and,
and you move from there.
But today you can do it in the comfort
of your home.
And you can take, you know, the allen keys
that come with the stock set and go to
the range and practice.
And again, I always say too long of a gun
will never work, but if the length of pole
is too small, a big guy can always shoot it.
Right.
Just.
Big person.
Just, just watch how you hold it so you don't
punch yourself in the face with your thumb.
I'll share a tip from an adjustable stock.
I remember one of my first adjustable stocks
that I got and I saved up and I spent more money so
I can get a quick adjust one so I can just press
the button and I can adjust the comb height.
I can adjust the height, the length of pull on it.
And typically they cost more.
And I thought this was just fantastic until I
accidentally press that button and everything's
adjusted out on me when I needed it the most.
I would say, if you're getting into it, save
your money, spend the time to adjust it to you
properly have something that just hard locks in,
and then you're done.
Unless you're planning on having everyone and their
dog, shoot after you.
Get it set to yourself.
Save the money.
Hey, did I ever mentioned before that
I like simplicity?
Mhmm.
A lot less goes wrong when it's simple.
And same thing, I'm dead on with scopes.
I don't need a scope that's got a rangefinder
built in there and a whole bunch of
other stuff to, you know, confuse and
attract my attention within the field.
You know, in a long range, target shooting
competition who cares?
Uh, you know, training as a professional, as
a sniper who cares?
Holy smokes, that's a deer.
I just want to be able to bring that gun up,
get a good cheek weld and away I go from there.
So keeping simplicity.
But we're getting back to, Hey, sectional
density, the available sectional density in that
308 or that 30-06 takes you all the way into
the class three animal.
No problem.
If you want to get up where you might want to
be considering dangerous game, then really, since
they took grizzly bear out of the picture, uh,
here in BC kind of leaves us with may, I don't
think so much bison is dangerous game, but it
certainly, there's a lot of tissue there that
you have to consider.
So of course the 30-06 is way better at launching
a 220 grain bullet, uh, based on case
capacity and overall case length, then you
would get from the 308.
But if you're going to be a moose hunter,
you're going to be a deer hunter.
You're going to be, you know, a mountain goat
hunter, certainly the three-way or 30-06 are
totally interchangeable for the rest.
Maybe you want to get some more
range out of it.
Maybe you're gonna look at 'em right.
Later let's talk about that, but let's
stick with these standard calibres.
And I call the standards, the 308 Winchester,
30-06 Springfield, 270 Winchester.
You take the 30-06, ya narrow the case
down at the mouth.
You reduce the, the calibre.
And first of all, you get higher speed bullet.
So the trajectory of the bullet is flatter.
So therefore, you know, your considerations as
range increases, uh, there's less issues
with hold and placement.
You get a little bit more from the
270 in that realm.
So a 270, uh, in the heavier grain bullets
at 150 or 140 grain will certainly get you
in that, uh, mid range of the 200 numbers in
sectional density, like 260 to 275 or better in
those weight bullets.
So perfectly adequate for moose, shot moose
with 270, no problem.
Uh, good penetrative effect, uh, good
expansion on the bullet.
It was there.
Now, those were moose shot at well under
a hundred yards.
Uh, if I was now looking at a moose at
400 yards, would I be thinking that my 270
would be adequate for it?
And I might question that a little bit
more because remember these light bullets,
once they get out to.
Energy.
To distance.
Now, the other thing though, that you can,
you know, if you're going to retain energy
out there, that's good.
But the construction of the bullet, these super
long distance hunting bullets are very soft
metals so that they still, you know, will
retain their super good accuracy out there,
get their penetrative effect and you will
get, um, expansion from low velocity.
Normally you need velocity to get
the expansion, that velocity is getting
lost with distance.
Um, but softer metal, the ELD.
Hornady's.
Hornady's ELDX I'll tell you I just
loaded a bunch.
And the first thing that happened was I
noticed a ring forming above the cannelure.
Yeah.
I immediately called up my friend
who's very familiar with the product.
And so what's going on and I had to get a
different bullet plug for my dye so that it
didn't mark the ogive.
So, uh, currently have that installed at home,
gonna load it up because I wasn't overly impressed
with the accuracy of, of the bullet and.
The factory stuff's pretty damn good.
And yes.
And it could have very much been that
big indentation in.
That I'm sure had some effect.
So at any rate, getting back to standard calvers
270 grade, what happened was Remington looked
at the success that Winchester had with that
270 cartridge and they made a 7mm version of
it, you know, basically taking the same dimension
cartridge and increasing it to some millimeter.
And the wonder of the 7mm bullet is it's
sectional density.
It's just, it's, you know that.
It just sounds dirty when you say it like that.
I know, but it's just that length of the bullet
and everything else and the 280 Remington, which
is the saddest thing in the world never beat out
the 270 Winchester, but that's a great cartridge
man, oh man, if you've got a 280 and the way
to go now it's actually a 280 Ackley Improved
and it's just slightly different dimensionally.
You can load 280 Remington in there,
you shoot it.
And then it'll fire form to the chamber,
but there's no problems in initially starting
out with 280 Remington cartridges, factory
loaded by our them, what a great, great cartridge.
Totally overlooked by so many people.
And a great long range.
You're very effective you know.
So there's one piece of the puzzle here
that I think would be good to talk about.
I think it was Townsend Whelen, ascribed.
My hero.
For energy, uh, a 1000 foot pounds of energy for
putting down most deer.
And I think it was about 1500 . For like elk.
Elk, moose.
And moose and.
Bison.
When people look at their ammunition that they
get from the factory.
There's going to be either on the box or
they can go online and check it out and they'll
have the average energy.
Right?
So you've talked about internal and
external and terminal ballistics, internal
ballistics, being everything that happens
inside the firearm, the primers hit the
powders, burdening the projectiles going out.
It's all internal.
We've talked about external ballistics,
everything that happens the second and
leaves the firearm.
Gravity.
Everything.
Affecting, humidity, elevation, wind, all
of these things in terminal ballistics,
as it hits the animal.
And so they see the factory can't account
for every little variance or length of barrel or,
but they'll, they'll give you a good, fairly
close generalization.
Like a grounding yeah.
Right.
And they'll say, hey, at this distance, here's
how much energy your projectile should have.
So if you start looking at these charts and you
just kinda use the swag system, the scientific
wild ass guess and say, well, it's going to be
about this distance.
Will it have that energy?
Will I I'm shooting on a deer?
Will it have a thousand foot pounds of energy?
Well, yes.
Guess what?
You've got a cartridge that would be applicable
for deer hunting within that range.
I think that's a quick way.
And that's a good, yes, I totally liked that.
And you know, so you look at the box and
you know, it's leaving it out 3000 pounds or
whatever the case may be, but certainly we'd
like to say it hits with a ton of energy
at a hundred yards.
So you're still double what you need for a
deer at 200 yards, it's hitting, you know, pretty
much at a time, you know, 308 hits with a ton at
200 yards, 150 grain.
And then once you push it out to 300, it might
be dropping down and you've still got more
than you need with a 308 or a 30-06 in that
medium weight bullet loading, 150 grain, 165,
you you're, you're good.
So, take comfort in picking the
308, take comfort.
Uh, it, well, one of the things that has always
hurt a cartridge is if it was never adopted by long
distance target shooters.
Or military.
Or military to some degree, but the 308,
oh, became the love child for so many long
distance target shooters.
And then they started to change it around.
Oh, good old 30-06 became the base for
hunting cartridges.
It was the best known.
And I think in a lot of cases, pretty
good in the United States, the best known
hunting cartridge had started as a military.
Right.
The 270, wasn't a long distance target shooting,
but it was a great long distance north American
game cartridge, the 35 Whelen, another variant
of the 30-06, you know, the 338-06, another
big bullet coming out of a necked up 30-06,
never was a long range target cartridge.
Well along comes the 308.
And the next thing, you know, 243, they
neck that down.
And man, you got a great long range target
shooting cartridge.
243 gets super popular as a light deer cartridge.
In addition to of Armenian cartridge
and long distance.
Then the 6mm start to show up and, you
know, without doing too much wild, some
cases, they actually cut the case down.
They use the, the same head and
completely reformed a case out of it.
But then, you know, stuff like this, you
know, the 6mm's just couldn't get ignored.
The 260 Remington, uh, you know, and so on where
this smaller bullet, you know, was doing wonderful
things at long ranges for target shooters.
Well Europe.
Europe they have the 6.5 x 55, right?
Well yes!
And here
It's like 1800.
Was this crazy thing I remember all the
surplus rifles, it would, people would buy.
Guys would turn up with these 6.5 Swedes.
That's what it's called.
6.5 Swedes.
Yeah.
Mouser action.
And oh, kill moose, like crazy.
And you look at this thing and it, this.
Like, how does this to kill a moose?
This, this hideously long, skinny little
pencil bullet in there.
Yeah.
Two words, sectional density.
That's how it works.
So now today, the new kid on the block, it's
a 6.5 while there's it's being surpassed a
little bit, but the 6.5 Creedmoor and then the,
uh, the PRC, the 6.5 PRC, they are using sectional
density to the nth degree in a super low rate.
You know relatively speaking.
And here's the other kicker target shooters
want repetitive accuracy.
They like a nice stiff action.
Well, if you take an inch or two out of the
overall length of the action, it stiffens up
and you know, people say, well, why does the
308 Winchester seem to be a little bit more
accurate than the 30-06?
Well it's that stiffness of the receiver.
The short action.
Short action could be one of those things.
Now there's a huge argument too, in throwing
the length of the action in the heat of battle.
And although I have used that as an excuse
for myself, I don't think it's true.
I really, maybe if you're trying to throw
a bolt on a, you know, 378, uh, Whetherby
Magnum or something, those are, that's a
long throw on that bolt.
There are some places where an
inch matters, but.
Yeah.
I don't know if it's there.
But again, so stiff, stiff action,
308 accurate.
So a lot of people are looking at the 6.5 and
when you read the hunting magazines and the writers
and everything else, everybody's liking it a
lot, but there's more and more coming back about
some failures on elk and moose size animals.
Even though the numbers look like
they should work.
Right.
A bit, a bad shot placement is not helping.
I think one of the big things about
these, like the 6.5.
So a few years back, I reached out to
International Barrels.
They make premium high grade rifle,
barrels team really good at what they do.
And I had a 260, great calibre.
Yes.
And I thought it was on a Seiko 85, a friend
gave me and I said, well, let's, let's
try putting a 6.5 Creedmore on this thing.
See how your barrels work and see how
this thing shoots.
Because I figured I wanted to set the thing
up and let my wife or my kids shoot it
because it is a lighter recoiling cartridge.
Oh a 260's a bit of a vicious bastard, it's.
Well the 6.5 is a little nicer.
Yeah.
But that 260 boy, that's surprising
for what it is hey.
So I ended up keeping it for myself.
I liked it so much and they got, they
got their own, but it come, came down to,
for them particularly.
Shot placement and the ability to
manage that recoil and feel comfortable
shooting that firearm.
My, my daughter, she's going to be 14 and a
couple of months here and she fired about 10 rounds
off the, standing off a bi-pod a round after
round having the time of her life saying, oh, this
is so much fun to shoot.
So I, I think while there are lovers and haters of
different calibres and cartridges, if people
can understand the energy transference at distance,
if they can understand shot placement, if they
can understand that maybe it's time to pony
up a couple of bucks and get the better, maybe
bonded ammo or monolithic ammo, or do their own
research and make.
Those those are going to be well, that's
going to be the dominant, uh, cartridge.
I honestly think, I think probably the 6.5 PRC.
It's probably going to.
It's picking up isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
It's in the, you know, so again, without having
the tables in front of me, just to me, you
know, but the, the, the writers, the, you know,
they say, if you already own a 6.5 Creedmoor, you
probably won't appreciate the difference.
But if you're thinking of buying a 6.5 Creedmoor,
a lot of the writers are saying now, and maybe you
should get the 6.5 PRC because it's going to be
just that much better.
It's going to edge it out in the end.
And therefore what will happen is, you know,
bullet selections will be identical between the
two they're loading the same bullets, but it's
case capacity in, in what you can establish
from the PRC that that might make it the
better hunting bullets.
And it'll, it'll have more velocity in that
one too, doesn't it?
Yeah.
So, so those, those factors are going
to play into it, you know, you're, you
could kill yourself by trying to stay on top
of all these trends.
And I did for the longest time kinda buy
different cartridge, you know, chamberings
for my different rifles and then base hunt's
around that and, and.
So I go back to my, my deer and black
bear cartridge is a 308 Winchester.
I, uh, I, I love the rifle that it's in,
in particular and God bless the good people at
Ruger for their designs.
And I love that rifle.
Um, but that is my that's my go-to
medium game cartridge.
I like to shoot iron sights and
therefore, I like to get a little closer.
So I do love my 30-30 Winchester.
I use the Hornady, um, GM GMX bullet, the, the, uh,
the, the gummy bear tip.
Uh, but, uh, I have duplicated, you
know, through my hand loading the same as
the factory Hornaday lever evolution 30-30
and you know what that.
Talk about bullet placement.
I usually make a neck shot and that
bullet is just, that really does give that
knockdown appearance to that cartridge.
And I'm talking range is a 45 to 60, 70 yards,
but boy, it works.
And yet I confidently can shoot my rifle,
my 30-30 lever action to 200 yards.
And I know that bullet will transfer enough
energy to still do the job at two at 200 yards.
I think there's a lot to be said for that
old saying beware the person with one gun.
Yeah.
And I'm not, I'm not though, but yeah.
But what I'm saying is don't, rather than
chasing all the new cartridges, you found
about one gun for certain situations that
you're comfortable, you know, you know, it's
got the energy, you know, you can shoot it.
Uh, and, and what I've done.
So in my, my, my big calibre is the 35
Whelen, and it's really, those are the three
centrefires that I use.
And with that 35 Whelen, I started playing
around now with a lighter weight bullet,
traditionally shot at 250 grain partition bullet
out of that for moose.
I started playing around with a 200 grain and
now a monolith bullet, uh, TTSX, uh, Barnes,
TTS, TTSX bullet, which significantly increases
velocity, and therefore takes it from a, a 200
to 250 yard rifle out into more than capable
at 350 to 400 yards.
The retained energy of that bullet is that.
The ex, you know, and it's now the diameter
of the bullet that gives me what I need
as the velocity drops.
The diameter is up there, so it works, you
know, I'm waiting for Hornady to get on the
stick and make a better 358 calibre bullet.
The only one they make now would be for, you
know, something like a, a 35 Remington, a
lever action, style bullet, but they're
not really making it a good, uh, you know, good
ballistic coefficient, boat tail bullet for,
for that sort of stuff.
Well, how about a couple of, uh, questions
that club members have put forward?
Because couple club members caught wind
and one question was.
Do you want your bullet to transfer all of
its energy into the animal and stop inside?
Or would you personally prefer to see it go
through and through and perhaps create a
better blood trail for tracking afterwards?
What are your thoughts on that?
That's a good question.
I would rather see my animal just drop with
one shot, literally no blood trail or anything.
Oh totally.
That typically comes from that huge transfers of
energy within the animal.
Okay.
A well-placed shot, um, in the ribs will
probably be a through and through shot.
It's gonna, it's gonna, you know, if, if you've
got enough retain energy that's in there, 180
grain is going to push right out the other
side of a deer for sure.
150, 165.
Um, I did see a 150, um, Nosler ballistic
tip, uh, stayed in the chest cavity of the
deer, one that I shot.
I gotta tell you when it's deer, I shoot it
in the neck, unless I'm risking that I think I
might, you know, knock a great antler off of
a good, you know, a trophy type of head,
but most, you know, if we're hunting meat, cause
there's really a lack of, um, meat waste for
an neck shot and, and most of those standard
calibres just, you know, you're gonna, you get
the ganglia, the, you know, all the other
stuff that's in the neck, the processes in
the neck, just make that such an effective shot.
Well.
I say that.
Yes.
To answer the question, I'm off track.
I want the bullet to transfer as much energy
to the animal as possible in the first instance.
So you want it to stop in the animal.
I would like it to, so if, if I'm making
a, you know, um, uh, a hilar type shot, you
know, maybe forward of the shoulder and, and
yes, I definitely want to have that happen
because I want it all.
I want, I'm firing into those nerve clusters
and the bunched up portion that's going
to bring on that, you know, catastrophic drop
that I want to achieve.
Yeah.
So that's going to come from that.
If I got too much and that's going to come from
combination of expansive effect of the bullet and
the energy and speed of the bullets all there.
If I got a little bit too much speed, too
much velocity on the bullet it's going to
blow through, then I got the ability to track.
And that typically when you say you're
already almost always setting yourself up
for failure, when you say, well, I want to
be able to track it.
You see in Europe, they actually pick
different target areas.
They consider certain things to be inhumane.
You know, uh, one of those things being
a neck shot, they don't like that.
Uh, we typically, when we look at a broadside shot
on an animal, we look at a line going down the
back leg of the animal.
And then I would always say up one third
into the chest cavity to get that lung,
heart type location.
Sorry, to be clear the back of a front leg.
The back of the front leg.
Is that what I said?
Okay.
So the, the back of the front leg
and the, that line.
Europeans tend to look at the front of the front
leg and draw up into there, which is that
hilar response or the, you know, that, that
portion of the nerve clusters and everything
that are in there.
And that's what they tend to shoot for.
And particularly when you spot an animal,
that's looking at you, you get a really good
presentation of that frontal area that's there
to make the shot up.
Just one of those things.
Interesting.
Okay.
We can talk more on that, but, and it's
really hard in a, a verbal interaction.
Like we're having to talk about shot placement.
We need pictures and drawings and diagrams
and everything else.
I'll see if I can do that on the website.
Yeah, yeah, I guess, but more importantly,
we're talking about the standard north American
approach and like I see by all means, never
forget those standard calibres look hard
if you're concerned about recoil and size
of the firearm with the 6.5 Creedmoor but
let's not forget those universal magnums.
When properly loaded are just fine for fairly
close ranges, but when it comes down to that
400 yard shot, the retain energy, the expansion
of the bullet, man, you know, that universal
300 Winchester Magnum.
If the recoil is not an issue to you, that
is a great cartridge.
Great cartridge.
Well, let's talk about the next question.
Okay.
So last question we have here.
Oh.
And it's to do with shot placement
and bear hunting.
Bears will have their fur and it will trap
a lot of blood, make it more difficult to
track, and they're a dangerous animal.
So some people are advocating for shooting
the bear in the shoulder and having a round
that's heavy enough to penetrate through that
shoulder into the vitals.
They said, sure we'll lose some meat, but
then I don't have to track this bear.
I don't have to worry about having this thing,
maybe not be able to find it or having an angry
bear when I do find it.
Thoughts on that?
No disrespect to black bears, they taste good.
They're wonderful animals that are out there.
I find them to be a bit of a sissy.
They are actually one of the easier
animals to go down.
I still go back to, I would rather put shot
placement and energy transference into it.
I shot a black bear at less than 60 with
my, actually would have been my 300
Winchester short magnum.
And that bullet went in and I'm talking 65
yards, so here's your through and through.
That bullet went in, uh, made a perfect entry hole
of, you know, 30 calibre and made an exit of
about oh 8 inch calibre.
It blew a big three-quarter hole right
out the other side of the bears, rib cage.
I mean, went through the heart and everything else
that bullet just carried everything out with it,
that bear, like they do, and I see bears as they
will immediately turn around and this black
bear was biting at that exit wound, weird enough
and then turned and bit at the entrance wound
and then it was dead.
Bears when they take off, if they're wounded,
usually take off at a very high rate of speed.
They leave a pretty good bear trail that you can
follow, whether there's blood in it or not.
Uh, one of the things that I see it always,
you get to where you've actually shot at the
bear you get down low and there's, I always
say if it's tight cover, there's a tunnel.
You can just see, they just clear
out a tunnel in the direction they went.
Does it make it easier than to track
if they're bleeding?
I don't think so.
I think it's all about shot placement.
I just, I got a default back to this.
Right.
So it's.
I, I wouldn't, I would in a, in an imminent bear
attack, I would shoot for the shoulders absolutely.
I want to plant that bear or, or break its
legs so that the wheels are gone and it, and
it can't come on me.
I I'm all about that, but if I'm going
to hunt the animal, I want to, I want.
Want some Meat.
To drop it.
Hey?
I want the meat, I want to drop it.
And again, that's where the hunting part
of this comes into.
We always say, do I want an adrenaline charged
animal for the table?
Never.
No.
Never.
Right.
I want to get that animal while it's,
you know, relaxed.
You know, eating, grazing, doing
whatever it is.
And you know, and even if it's a bear, I don't
want, I don't want to jack the animal up.
So the chance of getting in their spot and being
a little bit patient, let him change his position.
If it's a bear that it's not going to
give you, you know, you're able to take it.
You feel good about the shot.
It's not the best shot, maybe are
going to have to try.
But we should never think that we want the quick
kill, not the slow kill.
Remember a bullet can also kill through
blood poisoning.
That'd be a very slow.
Right.
And, and again, a lot of, you know, a, a
poorly placed shot, a gut shot, and that
animal can go a day or two before it dies.
So, no you want enough gun for what you're
shooting as well.
And like I say, if you can satisfy that
the 6.5 is that gun.
It, that's probably, you know, in 25 years when,
you know, two other guys are sitting here, but
they'll only have little tiny microphones that
are the size of a grain of rice and they won't
even have headphones on.
It'll be implanted in their head.
But there'll be talking about, you know,
providing the, uh, no, let's not say it, but you
know, providing hunting is still something
that people can do.
You know, there'll be something again for
them to talk about and there'll be talking
about, yeah when I started, I had the
6.5, you know, boy, it was great, but now
I'm shooting whatever.
Whatever.
All right.
Well, does that get most of the
information out that?
I don't know.
Probably way more information that you
wanted to put out, but we're always open
to question here at Silvercore I hear.
And that is the beauty about being a Silvercore
Club member is you guys get preferential
treatment for any questions coming through.
Right.
So we can blog those, you know, we can put
them in writing and we can answer them.
We getcha thinking here.
I really, like I say, continually, how many
people have I taught the Canadian Firearm
Safety course to who, you know, say, I want
to get into hunting.
How many people have I taught the CORE
program to, I want to get into hunting.
And it's always the same question.
It's always the same.
Do I get a 308?
Do I get a 30-06?
You know, you know, and, and really it's
those standard calibres.
You can't go wrong.
Manageable recoil, performance down range.
You're good.
And then when you kind of get, you
know, the addiction.
Start looking at the other stuff.
Paul, thank you very much for sharing your
knowledge with us on The Silvercore Podcast.
That was my pleasure.
And we'll, what's coming next?
Ooo.
Why don't we get the listeners to let us
know what they'dlike to hear next?
Yeah.
Would you like to hear something maybe about,
uh, getting yourself ready for your first
self guided fly in Northern adventure?
Ooh.
That could be something.
That sounds good.
We can talk about that.
And you got a lot of pictures we could
throw up as well.
Yeah!
Dig those out.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
That'd be fun.
All right.