Energy

[model 70]

I've always been told that a bullet fired from a rifle for deer hunting should have say...1,000 ft. lbs. of energy at the point of impact.

People hunt deer all the time with .44rem mag revolvers that have around 700 ft. lbs. of energy at 100 yards and a bit over 800 at the muzzle.

That's alot less than 1,000. Can anyone shed some light on this?

[Rocky Raab]

Interesting. I just read an article on that very topic...somewhere.

Personally, I disregard all those "thumb rules" about energy and hydrostatic shock and such. If they were absolutes, it would be impossible to kill animals with arrows (or people with box cutters).

There ARE calibers which are poor matches for some game: hunting deer with a .22 Hornet is not a good idea, nor would it rank at the Einstein level to whack a grizzly with a .204 Ruger.

However, almost any .44 Magnum will shoot completely through any deer that ever walked, and most will do it end-to-end. That's plenty enough "oomph" to kill that deer.

The three factors that kill game are: bullet choice, bullet placement and bullet performance. Period. A suitable bullet that's placed in the vitals and does not disintegrate before it penetrates those vitals equals a dead critter.

Picture-perfect mushrooming, stopping under the offside skin (or exiting with a large exit wound), having impressive "paper" ballistics - and what gun they are fired from - are completely irrelevant. Interesting, maybe; but irrelevant.

Handguns and rifles are different, and they perform differently, but they'll both kill animals just fine - within the above constraints.