Explain this?

[Will Beararms]

I have been hunting Whitetail in the river bottoms of SE Arkansas for 29 years. I have used the .243, .30-.30 and the .30-06. My longest shot has been roughly 80 yards.

Of the Bucks and Does I have taken, I have knocked deer down with the .243 and .30-.30 and they never got up again. With the .30-06, I have never lost one but they always ran from 40 to 75 yards. I shot a 19" spread 8-point that weighed 200+ #'s before dressing at 80 yards with a .30-06 in 1994 right through the right shoulder and heart with the bullet stopping just before it exited from the left side. He ran 75 yards like nothing had hit him and then dropped like a rock.

Granted, with the .243, I have always made neck shots but with the .30-.30, I have shot them in the shoulder and they have dropped on the spot. I did shoot a doe one time at 50 yards right between the eyes with the .30-06 and she dropped in her tracks.

Inside of a hundred yards, why does'nt the .30-06 with a Wal Mart Special 150 grain Remington Core Lokt drop em like the .243 and the .30-30? The reason I use this ammo is because it is so easy to obtain and where I hunt is in the boonies so exotic ammo is hard to find.

Thanks for your time. Heck, I gotta do something to get me by until November!


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"When guns are outlawed;I will be an outlaw."

[Art Eatman]

That's a good question and I don't got no good answer. I had a .270 that was like that. Blow the heart out, and the deer would drop--and get up and run 50 yards and fall dead. I lost one deer, and sorta dropped the .270. Could have tried different bullets, of course.

I recall a heart-shot doe that did the same sort of deal, with my .243.

I don't recall any whitetail running after a chest shot from my '06. I hit one mule deer a little behind the heart, and he just looked insulted. But he sorta trotted off, rather than running--looked a little sick...

Most of my shots, though, have been neck shots.

How's this for a variation on the theme: If a deer is pretty much unconcerned about the world around him, a decent hit will make him drop like a rock. If he's nervous and twitchy, the same hit might have him go down, but he'll come back up and run. A lot of my old-time huntin' compadres subscribed to this...

Later, Art

[Paul B.]

Will Beararms. Maybe this will answer your question, although, nobody knows for sure. With the heart shot you described, I think the deer would have run, regardless of what you shot it with. The theory goes like this. If the heart is full of blood when hit, the deer drops on the spot, for all practical purposes. But. If the heart has just pumped a supply of blood to the body and brain, the deer can take off on a frantic run, sometimes for as far as 200 yards or more.
While I did not work out this theory, it makes sense to me.
I guess that's as good an idea as any, although I can't think of any way to prove it.
Paul B.

[dZ]

i had a heart shot buck run 60 feet after i shot it with my 30-06.

i had a 20 guage slug hit deer that dropped on the spot from a heart shot.

Both deer were unaware of my presence ~60 feet away.

Zip thru vs wallop?

dZ

[Art Eatman]

dZ: Deer Do Dat.

The only deer my grandfather ever killed was via a heart shot with a .22 rimfire. He saw the deer nibbling oats, in among the cows. He walked his old plow horse in fairly close as a mobile blind, and Plink! Dropped like a rock.

I guess that's part of what makes the whole deal so much fun...

, Art

[raggiejack]

I am from South Africa and this is my first visit to your board.
I read the following article in "ManMagnum" by author "Ganyana".

"...Unless the heart is hit by a bullet doing at least 2200fps during the systolic phase (ie when it is atually pumping blood out) the buffalo doesn,t collapse instantly. Dissection of the heads of buffalo that instantly collapsed revealed that they had suffered strokes.
After discussing this with the veterinary surgeons we reached the conclusion that it was the hydrostatic shock caused by the bullet passing through the heart that caused the massive surge in blood pressure that burst the blood vessels in the brain, killing the animal instantly. It is interesting to note that if carotid artery is hit by even a low velocity bullet from a Martini Henry (1300fps) the shock wave set up in the blood vessel is enough to cause a stroke.
Animals hit through the heart by a bullet doing under 2200fps, or during the heart's diastolic phase (at any velocity) did not instantly collapse..."

I have no tested this theory myself (am not all that handy with scalpels) but it makes a lot of sense.

Regards Jacques.

[Art Eatman]

raggiejack: Welcome aboard! And thanks very much for an interesting bit of information. I'm in accord with you; it definitely makes sense.

Regards, Art

[Keith Rogan]

Jack,

I too, adhere to the hydrostatic shock theory. The most dramatic deer kills I ever saw were with a hot-rodded .243 using light bullets.
As you point out though, its unreliable because it depends on perfect hits and even the phase of the heart contraction (a new one to me but it makes pefect sense).

There is also plenty of evidence that a frightened animal thats already adrenalized is pretty much immune to hydrostatic shock - the blood vessels are contracted, heart racing, adrenaline flooding into the system.

Brown bear guides will tell you that a bear in a relaxed state is no more difficult to kill than a cow.
A wounded or enraged brown bear can take multiple hits with heavy slugs to bring down - you basically have to break down the skeletal structure or mush his brains to stop him. There are some amazing stories about that and all of them true.




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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan

[Glamdring]

What bullets did you use in the 243, 30-30, and 30-06? If you just buy whatever is one the shelf or cheap your more likely to get a deer bullet/load for the 30-30 than the other two.

I myself would probably pick a 165 grain bullet for deer with the 30-06 either nosler partition or speer.

[Dogger]

A few years ago I shot a spike buck at a range of 20 yards with a 12 guage slug. Broadside... couldn't miss. After the shot all I heard was the thunder of hooves. I couldn't believe it. Went to where the deer was standing and started walking circles. Found blood spoor about 5 yards away and guessed the critter had run down a trail into a ravine. Found him lying in a hole about a 100 yards away. The slug entered his chest, clipped his heart (had a tear you could stick your thumb through) and passed out the other side of the deer. This deer field dressed at 91 pounds. I was absolutely amazed that he did not drop on the spot. The deer had been walking along a deer trail and browsing. At the last minute he looked my way just as I pulled the trigger. Perhaps the sudden burst of fear took him all that way, despite the devastating wound.

[Will Beararms]

Hey Raggiejack: I grew up in the timber harvesting industry in SE Arkansas. We used to use Bell tree harvesting equipment in the place of saw operators to cut down the trees. The Bell is made in South Africa and is was the finest implement of its kind. For some reason, the supply has dwindled and Bell closed its Office in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Your input interests me. I only have experience with the Whitetail deer. I do believe however, that a nervous, excited deer is harder to kill due to the fact that the blood is pumping adrenalin throughout the body.

With reference to the cartridges used. I have always used the Remington Core Lokt due to its easy access in the area where I hunt. All sighting in is done prior to the hunt and we frown on an uneccessary shooting or four-wheeler riding on our lease. It is only 250 acres and we have found that because those hunters around us are always shooting their guns and riding four wheelers instead of hunting like they should be, the big Bucks slip onto our lease for refuge. When you are hunting sign in hardwood creek bottoms and pine fields, the less activity the better. My longest shot ever was only 80 yards and most are around 60. I have had deer walk within 20 yards of me while sitting on the ground in a the fork of a fallen tree. Only two of us hunt this ground so it's not that crowded.

.243 - 100 Grain
.30-06 - 150 Grain (Might' use 165 instead)
.30-30 - 150 Grain

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"When guns are outlawed;I will be an outlaw."

[Will Beararms]

One more thing, I have seen more deer taken with a .243 than any other caliber in all my years of hunting. The old-timers like this round due to its quickness and easy recoil. I will probably go to it before it's all over with.

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"When guns are outlawed;I will be an outlaw."

[raggiejack]

Will Beararms. This is probably a little of the thread but i hunt with a .30-06 exlusively using 180 grain.
For me the .30-06 is a little more forgiving in that you cannot always guarantee a perfect shot.(not through lack of trying)
The .243 is an extremely popular caliber in this country for open plain hunting. (springbuck and blesbuck)

Regards Jacques

Mind if I jump in guys?

I read this thread and it intrigued me. I would not be quick to adopt this hydrostatic pressure=stroke theory. If this was true we would see strokes quite frequently from blunt trauma to the chest, and this is a phenomena I have never heard of.

A pressure wave(like sound) can be created from nonpenetrating trauma as well as penetrating trauma. Presumably the pressure for the "stroke" would be propagated through the blood in the heart all the way through the carotids into the brain- like an expanding hose. The origin of the wave should not matter, the skin versus the heart, as its prescence in the heart would cause the presumed spike.

Now if you hit someone in the chest with a larger surface area and heavier instrument, like a baseball bat, the resulting pressure wave would be at least as large as a bullet. Or maybe even a fall onto the ground from 10 feet impacting the chest- this is a tremendous amount of energy and a huge pressure wave.

How about a rapid deceleration injury from a lap belt in a car accident compressing the abdomen sending blood under tremendous pressure up into the head so that it ruptures vessels in the neck and eyes? A common injury yet no strokes.

Not to mention the penetrating chest trauma that hits the heart in a human. If people/animals had resultant strokes from being hit during the systolic phase the autopsies would show hemmorhage into the brain. I have never heard of this being reported.

Now as far as an adrenalized animal/human not knowing its dead, well, adrenaline is a very powerfull drug. There is a good reason it is universally the first drug given during a code when someone is clinically dead.

Anyway- my .02,

Olazul

[Keith Rogan]

Olazul,

I think you may be taking the hydrostatic shock thing farther than its meant to go. Blunt trauma to the chest is not going to raise BP in any kind of wave. You have ribs supporting the cavity that prevent that.
Fill a galvanized tin bucket full of water and shoot a rifle bullet through it - how high will that water shoot in the air from the open top?
Now strike a similar bucket with a bat - you may knock the bucket over but you aren't going to get that 20 foot geyser of water shooting out because you're not raising the pressure in the water much.
It doesn't take a whole lot of pressure to destroy the circulatory system. To dredge what remains of my A&P out of the rotting recesses of my brain - think of the veins and arteries not like a hose but as a piping system with one-way valves every few inches. You destroy those valves and the blood pressure drops to zip.
Junkies destroy the veins in their arms by just putting a tad too much pressure into their injections - they destroy the valves. Think about what a high speed mushrooming bullet does in the really large veins and arteries around the heart.
That pressure travels right up the large arteries (thick as your thumb) directly to the brain, the lungs and all the major organs. Blood pressure and oxygen supply drop to zero, immediately.
In addition to that, it doesn't take a whole lot of pressure to simply shut the brain "off". A hard blow to the head will "shake" the brain and the resulting concussion knocks you out. What will a blast of internal pressure up the carotids do?

Its a real phenomena, you just can't rely on it. Best to have a bullet thats designed to exit and provide a blood trail.







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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan

[Al Thompson]

Great thread!

I would also note that round nose bullets are much better at transmitting shock that spire points. Deadliest load I've seen in a .30-06 was a 170 grain Partition loaded to about 2700 fps.

Would an autopsy of a guy shot in the chest with a rifle look in the cranium?

Giz

Mr. Rogan,

I have really enjoyed your threads on bear maulings- lots of good info. I suppose on this issue though, we will have to agree to disagree.

First, the chest is covered with ribs but this in no way will significantly stop a pressure/sound wave as they move well through semi solids. A pressure wave is a pressure wave. It does not matter where it started, as long as it is in the real estate in question it will have it's effect on local pressure.

The water column in the bucket example is only a splash caused by the sudden refilling of the hole left in the water by the bullet. The bat has more surface area and displaces water in a different distribution- but this has nothing to do with the resulting pressure wave.

Arteries do not have valves. It is a "high" pressure driven system. The only valves are in the heart and are one way, therefore a heart hit in systole vs diastole will both have the valves push open if there is pressure.

Veins do have valves, since it is very low pressure and relies on the negative pressure of the chest during inhalation to "suck" blood into the heart, also muscle compression in the legs help "push" the blood up. Addicts do not destroy veins and valves by pressure, rather their veins are destroyed by the talc and other junk used to cut the drugs(they attempt to filter this by sucking up the drugs through a cotton ball in the spoon- introducing even more microparticulates). Their veins get hard (ie tracks) by continued local inflammatory irritation of the endothelium, in effect causing scaring.

Shutting the blood off to the head is more difficult than you think. Even a heart shot with a bullet will continue to maintain a blood pressure as long as there is blood, it does not fibrillate, and there is enough of the pump left(a hole vs the left ventricle missing)

A hard blow to the head causing unconsciousness, or concussive sydrome, has nothing to do with blood pressure but a sudden stunning of the CNS.

For the reasons in my last post which include no mention of this "phenomena" in trauma literature, clinical pratice, or autopsies- and no other evidence of sudden strokes with other large pressure wave type accidents, I don't think this theory makes any sense.

Gizmo99- exactly. I do not know of any connection. If there is the pathologists, trauma surgeons, and ER docs keep missing it. I will do a literature search however.

Respectfully,

Olazul

[raggiejack]

Olazul,

I would like to pose the following, maybe running the risk of over simplification.

If I open the chest cavity of a deer, antelope or human, could I exert enough direct pressure/trauma on the heart to increase the bp to such an extent as to cause blood vessel failure, resulting in a stroke?

Regards Jacques.

raggiejack and all,

Honestly, I do not know if it is theoretically possible. I just know it is not an injury pattern that is seen/picked up with any frequency. It will take me several days to talk to some people and research the literature.

I can't remember why, but the arterial system is resistant to pressure spikes but very susceptible to long term moderate elevation. Offhand I think it has to do with the compiance of the arterial walls acting as a dampener.

regards,

Olazul



[This message has been edited by olazul (edited July 17, 2000).]

[Raymond3]

Wil,

Your Rem corlock may not be expanding. Without the expansion most animals will run due to only a pencil hole injury.

[Keith Rogan]

Olazul,

Thanks for the correction on the "valves" in the arteries vs the veins.

I think you're wrong though on hydrostatic shock. I think it is a real phenomena.
I'm sure you know that the chest cavity is not an air filled space with organs stuck randomly around. Its densely packed with tissue and fluid.

When you shoot a fluid filled object (a milk jug filled with water, say) with a high speed rifle bullet you can SEE the results of that pressure - it explodes. Not only is the back of the jug going to disintegrate, the cap on top is also going into the stratosphere.

An animals chest cavity is not a lot different than that milk jug, its a fluid filled cavity with a tough skin covering - that pressure is going some place! Why not up the carotids to the brain - which as you point out have no protective valves?

Think about this. You've seen deer drop like a stone upon being shot - why? The brain and organs can live several minutes without oxygen - hold your breath and see. If the only factor in killing an animal was tissue damage (and bleeding) then every deer would run away before dropping. That doesn't usually happen.

There is a place where it nearly always happens though and thats with archers! Why do arrow shot deer usually have to bleed out but rifle shot deer normally just fall? The only difference between the two missiles is velocity and frontal diameter - the explanation must lie there.
Shoot a milk jug with an arrow. Shoot a milk jug with a rifle. See any difference?

The best theory I've seen (the only theory) to explain it is hydrostatic shock. A rush of pressure up the arteries that "concuss" the brain and cause the central nerve system to shut down.




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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan

[freestate]

I don't know who is correct on this subject, but I will say that it has been extremely interesting reading through this thread. Keith and Olazul make great arguments. I tend to believe that the energy imparted by a bullet from a high powered rifle is much more substantial than that from a baseball bat, however. I've seen milk jugs full of water absolutely disintegrate from being shot by a rifle. Whether or not this translates into the kind of hydrostatic pressure that reaches the brain as Keith has argued, well, I just don't have a clue. But thanks guys for some stimulating discussion. Please keep it up.

[C.R.Sam]

Welcome and thanks Jacques.

Keith Rogan so far is the ony one who has touched on an important point made in the original post by Jacques.

Velocity of the projectile penetrating the blood filled heart.....2,200 fps or higher.

Bout fifty years ago I made my first neck shot, been tryin for them ever since. The results seem very consistant with anything from .22 LR through .405 winchester. Had a shoulder, lung heart shot with 220 gr 30-06 go bout hundred yards. bullet left the muzzle at bout 2600fps, expanded nicely and did horrendous damage, probably pretty slow by the time it traversed the heart and maby the heart was on the wrong stroke.

I also think that only token autopsies are usually done on bad guys with holes in their hearts. Easy to miss a hydraulic blow out in the brain. Exception being when somebody wants to pay the extra bucks for a detailed autopsy.

Jacques premise lends credence to the many tales of bad guy continuing to be a bad guy after a heart shot. Low velocity cause mostly handgun projectiles; AND then the timing has to be right even if a rifle is used.

Sam...my favorite 9mm handguns are 9X32R

[dZ]

Hydrostatic shock creates a temporary cavity in the medium the bullet transverses. When the size of the container is smaller then the area of displacement, the container ruptures.

Milk jugs & ground hogs are smaller than a .308's temporary cavity.

dZ

[freestate]

dZ, I've read your post several times and given it a lot of thought. I've come to the conclusion that what you said makes no sense whatsoever.