Some Ideas on the Calibers and Velocity of the Guns

By: rhusain
While go for hunting it is very important to know the distance between the hunter and the target. And each of the guns doesn't cover the same distance. In this article you will find out some ideas which you might use while shooting the target in particular distance.

I borrowed a gun in which is used the .30/06 cartridge and killed four deer with it. The first was standing at an estimated distance of three hundred yards. (It measured 270 paces.) The deer was hit in the spine and practically all of one vertebra was destroyed. The second shot was at another standing deer at a distance of 310 paces. The bullet hit the deer in back of one shoulder, passed through the lungs and hit the leg bone in the opposite shoulder. It died almost instantly, but the meat of one shoulder was practically destroyed. The third was standing about fifty feet from me and I shot it in the head. Apparently the bullet failed to expand in passing through the head, as the exit wound was little larger than the entrance hole. The fourth and last deer on which I used this gun was another standing shot at a range of about fifty yards. Another headshot, the bullet entering just above the right eye on a slight upward angle so that the entire left antler and a good portion of the skull were removed when the bullet left the head. Four deer with four shots proved the killing ability of this load, but I doubt my ability to handle the gun fast enough for running deer. Every time I used this gun, I felt that I was over gunned for the game. I have the same personal objection to other high-velocity loads in the larger calibers.

Except for the .250/3000,1 have never used the small- caliber guns with high velocities on deer, but I object to their muzzle blast on the target range. I am quite sure that this muzzle blast would have an adverse effect on my marksmanship. Some of these high-velocity bullets in the smaller calibers have a tendency to explode, or disintegrate, on contact with the bone or muscle of the larger game animals, causing a large shallow wound, which might or might not prove fatal. The bullet makers may possibly overcome this fault as they design better bullets with controlled expansion.

Smaller-caliber bullets without high velocity do not have the force or the weight to kill deer consistently, except when fired by an expert. I have seen a bullet from a standard .22 caliber gun driven through the cover from a kitchen range. A neighbor had a horse killed by a stray bullet of this caliber which traveled for about a half-mile before hitting the horse between the eyes. But a more humiliating experience occurred when I attempted to use one of these guns to kill a deer that another hunter had wounded. I had to use three shots in the head before the deer died. Each shot would knock the head to the ground but it recovered from the first two shots. Later I examined the head and found that one bullet had gone through the base of the nose.

Another had hit a sloping part of the skull, cracking the bone but not penetrating the skull and the third had entered the brain passing through the skull but lacked sufficient power to get through the hide on the opposite side. Had any of these hits been made with a heavier bullet with correspondingly greater force, the deer would have been killed by the concussion or by bone splinters penetrating the brain. For my money, the successful use of this and other small low-velocity loads, depend on the shooter's having a thorough knowledge of a deer's anatomy and the ability to place a bullet in the exact spot which he chooses.

Some of these high-velocity bullets in the smaller calibers have a tendency to explode, or disintegrate, on contact with the bone or muscle of the larger game animals, causing a large shallow wound which might or might not prove fatal. Hunters must know the proper gun that he has to use to shoot the animal.
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