Handgun
Hunting Loads-A Critical View
By
J. Marshall Stanton
Elmer
Keith launched the notion of a heavy sixgun as not only a viable tool of
opportunity in the field, but as a primary tool of harvest for the accomplished
hunter. His viewpoints on the
subject of heavy revolver loads and handgun hunting forever changed perceptions
of the handgun as a legitimate hunting weapon.
Too, the development of the .44 Remington Magnum launched a race for
higher velocities and heavier loads for those handguns taken afield hunting.
Now
fifty years down the road of handgun hunting and development of specialized guns
and loads for what is now a very popular and lucrative pursuit;
the vast arrays of handguns specifically designed for this distinctive
niche, and the ammunition to feed them are available from the mass producers of
firearms to the vogue boutique revolversmiths of the present day and many
semi-custom suppliers in-between.
Fueling
an exponentially expanding handgun-hunting market in the firearms industry has
been a virtual who’s-who parade of noted gun-scribes promoting bigger, better,
faster, heavier-hitting cartridges, all imminently superior to their has-been
predecessors, thereby attempting to relegate reliable field-proven standbys to
obsolescence with the stroke of a pen.
No
doubt that this fervor to create the “perfect hunting revolver” has spawned
not only some useful, but highly efficient handgun cartridges. From these developments come such cartridges as the .454
Casull, the .480 Ruger, .475 Linebaugh, .500 Linebaugh and the burly .500 Smith
& Wesson. These relative
newcomers are indeed awe-inspiring, accurate when properly loaded, and pack
fearsome terminal potential when loaded to extremes of their potential.
In
addition to the many cartridge developments in the hunting handgun race are
multiple monuments to mechanical engineering genius in the form of brute-strong
pieces of precision workmanship and design represented in the new breed of heavy
revolver design excellence we now enjoy. Accompanying
these feats of mechanical design are incorporation of the highest technology in
modern metallurgy, creating revolvers of incredible strength while exhibiting
superb durability, resistance to the elements and wear, and possessing
incredible reductions in overall weight, feats that two decades ago were only
fanciful daydreams. Today products
incorporating all these design benefits not only are available in relative
abundance in sporting goods stores and gunshops throughout the country; they are
generally affordable for the average hunter.
While
cartridge and firearms design engineers have artfully and successfully delivered
a multitude of firearms and cartridges imminently suited to harvesting any game
animal on planet earth, yes, there
are times that nothing less than a fire-breathing revolver throwing bowling-ball
dimensioned projectiles is not only comforting in hand, but imminently
necessary. However, for the North
American hunter confining his pursuits to the lower 48 states, this type of raw
handgun horsepower simply isn’t necessary.
The
purpose of this article is not to minimize the recent development of
increasingly more powerful handguns and cartridges, but to take an honest and
critical assessment of practical handgun hunting needs, and the attributes
necessary for reliable, decisive and humane big game harvests.
Interestingly
during the true settling and taming of our American West, the two principle
revolver cartridges carried and used were the .45 Colt and the .44-40 WCF.
In capable hands these fine old cartridges dispatched crippled and
diseased stock, harvested wild game, defended the homestead, and warded off
predators, both two and four legged. By
today’s standards, neither of these cartridges in their original
factory-loadings would raise even an interested eyebrow, but non-the-less, the
day-to-day chores of frontier life requiring the sixgun as tool of daily
survival were well served by these old blackpowder cartridges and their
revolvers.
Today
the shooting public as a whole, and handgun hunters specifically, are bombarded
with a marketing blitz attempting to convince them that today game is tougher,
the hunting conditions more severe, and that bigger, faster handgun cartridges
and revolvers will somehow insure more filled game tags and fuller freezers.
This of course is the rhetoric that leads to increased firearms and
ammunition sales for those companies dependent upon the fickle nature of the
shooting public who hangs on the latest word dripping from the gun-scribe’s
pen.
Reality
in the game field however, is an entirely different story.
It is not complicated, complex or otherwise unintelligible.
The truth is, that other than those of us who are blessed to live either
in the Pacific Northwest, or the Rocky Mountain States, the most pursued,
hunted, sought-after and harvested big game animal in the United States, is the
whitetail deer. In fact, many
places in the country have much more liberal bag limits on deer than we do in
Idaho on forest grouse! Putting
handgun hunting into this context, the requirements of the guns and loads taken
afield acquire an entirely different list of requirements than if grizzly,
leopard, lion or cape buffalo are on the agenda.
The simple truth is that neither whitetail nor mule deer require all that
much killing! After all, there’s
only so much penetration can take place on a deer or pronghorn.
Even throwing black bear into the mixed bag doesn’t materially change
the physical requirements necessary for reliable, humane, and consistent
terminal performance from a revolver and load.
Too,
when examining the physical wound channel necessary to efficiently, and cleanly
harvest a deer, the requirements aren’t too demanding.
In truth, deer and pronghorns are relatively fragile critters, and
knocking a permanent wound channel ranging from a half an inch, to an inch and
a quarter in diameter, all the way through the body results in near instant
incapacitation so long as that wound channel passes through the heart and lung
cavity, regardless of the angle of the shot.
A permanent wound channel as described above nearly instantaneously drops
the cardiovascular blood pressure to zero when a wound is pumping a thumb-sized
or larger stream of blood from the chest cavity.
This of course equates to no oxygen delivered to the brain, and immediate
incapacitation.
Please
keep in mind that the preceding paragraph relates primarily to the permanent
wound channels created by non-expanding bullets.
The dynamics become somewhat more complex when an expanding bullet enters
the equation, and often times the terminal performance of an expanding
projectile on game isn’t as predictable as that of a wide-meplat non expanding
bullet. I don’t pretend to
understand all the dynamics that occur when a game animal is impacted with any
projectile, but am simply relaying real-life field experience and the reports of
hundreds and hundreds of our customers over the years.
In
examining the worth of a cartridge for hunting purposes in the revolver, the
first consideration, other than basic accuracy of the gun and ammo in concert
with one another, is the design of the bullet in question, the frontal area, or
meplat of that bullet, and the striking velocity of the bullet when it arrives
on-target. Regardless of popular
opinion, urban legend, or mythology of ballistics, the actual permanent wound
channel created in a game animal is entirely generated as a function of the
diameter of the frontal area of the bullet, and the velocity of that projectile
upon penetration.
To
some extent, increased velocity in handgun cartridges does enhance penetration
potential of the bullet, but this benefit is not linear in its gains, nor is it
entirely necessary in many applications. The
greatest gains in penetration capacity or potential are contributed by an
increase in projectile weight. Interestingly,
this increased penetration is nearly a linear function of the increase in bullet
weight, provided that velocity remains constant in comparing one load to
another. However, bear in mind,
that there is only so much terminal performance that can actually be utilized on
deer-sized game! Increases in
either velocity or bullet weight while enhancing potential penetration, also
generate more recoil, muzzle blast, and muzzle flash as a general rule.
Now,
taking a look at some numbers generated by the Ballistician’s
Corner Calculators found at www.BeartooothBullets.com
it is time to compare some practical hunting numbers. In the chart below are listed the nominal bullet caliber
designations as well as the nose design configurations as offered by Beartooth
Bullets, and the meplat diameters of each of those designs.
Also in the chart notice a listing for wound channel diameter as
calculated at the listed impact velocities for the given meplat diameters.
From studying the data presented in the chart below, it immediately
becomes apparent that impact velocities of what seemingly might be considered
very conservative, mild loads can and do deliver devastating game harvesting
potential to deer-sized game.
|
|
Predicted Wound Channel Diameter
At Given Impact Velocities
|
|
Bullet Caliber &
Nose Design
|
Meplat
Diameter
|
1100 fps
|
1000 fps
|
900 fps
|
800 fps
|
700 fps
|
600 fps
|
|
.38/.357
Caliber
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Keith
|
.250”
|
.688”
|
.625”
|
.563”
|
.500”
|
.483”
|
.375”
|
|
FN
|
.280”
|
.770”
|
.700”
|
.630”
|
.560”
|
.490”
|
.420”
|
|
.41
Caliber
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LFN
|
.280”
|
.770”
|
.700”
|
.630”
|
.560”
|
.490”
|
.420”
|
|
WLN
|
.320”
|
.880”
|
.800”
|
.720”
|
.640”
|
.560”
|
.480”
|
|
.44
Caliber
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Keith
|
.300”
|
.825”
|
.750”
|
.675”
|
.600”
|
.525”
|
.450”
|
|
LFN
|
.300”
|
.825”
|
.750”
|
.675”
|
.600”
|
.525”
|
.450”
|
|
LMN
|
.320”
|
.880”
|
.800”
|
.720”
|
.640”
|
.560”
|
.480”
|
|
WFN
|
.340”
|
.935”
|
.850”
|
.765”
|
.680”
|
.595”
|
.510”
|
|
WLN
|
.340”
|
.935”
|
.850”
|
.765”
|
.680”
|
.595”
|
.510”
|
|
.45
Colt Caliber
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LFN
|
.320”
|
.880”
|
.800”
|
.720”
|
.640”
|
.560”
|
.480”
|
|
LMN
|
.340”
|
.935”
|
.850”
|
.765”
|
.680”
|
.595”
|
.510”
|
|
Keith
|
.350”
|
.963”
|
.875”
|
.788”
|
.700”
|
.613”
|
.525”
|
|
WFN
|
.360”
|
.990”
|
.900”
|
.810”
|
.720”
|
.630”
|
.540”
|
|
WLN
|
.360”
|
.990”
|
.900”
|
.810”
|
.720”
|
.630”
|
.540”
|
|
Sledgehammer
|
.370”
|
1.018”
|
.925”
|
.833”
|
.740”
|
.648”
|
.555”
|
|
.475/.480
Caliber
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LFN
|
.350”
|
.963”
|
.875”
|
.788”
|
.700”
|
.613”
|
.525”
|
|
WFN
|
.390”
|
1.073”
|
.975”
|
.878”
|
.780”
|
.683”
|
.585”
|
|
.500
Caliber
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LFN
|
.370”
|
1.018”
|
.925”
|
.833”
|
.740”
|
.648”
|
.555”
|
Note
that by carefully selecting the bullet nose configuration, the actual
permanent wound channel may be specifically tailored to a desired on-game
outcome based upon anticipated striking velocities. Too, when the necessary permanent wound channel on game
for consistent clean, humane harvests with well placed shots is ideally
somewhere between ½” and 1 ¼”, high muzzle velocity from handgun
ammunition assembled with wide-meplat hard-cast bullets is not necessary. Take note that all of the given wound-channel diameters
listed are for impact velocities of 1100 fps and less, yet many loads deliver
potentially very effective harvest performance down to a lowly 600 fps.
Taking
into consideration the data provided thus far, I’d like to make some pertinent
observations in regard to selection of a load for practical handgun hunting
applications. Putting aside game
outside the lower 48 states, and looking at strictly deer, pronghorn and average
black bear sized critters, an effective hunting load need not be over 1100-1200
fps with careful bullet selection. In
fact, both my experience, those of hunting partners, and countless customers
attests to the fact that cast bullet loads with muzzle velocities in the 1000 to
1100 fps category are truly amazing in their terminal performance!
While
wound channels are what causes hemorrhage and quick kills, this is only one
facet of the terminal equation. Penetration
potential must also be balanced into the mix in order to insure that the
wounding capacity of the projectile of interest possesses sufficient penetration
qualities to reach vital organs even with deep penetration from hard angle
shots.
Interestingly,
simply selecting the heaviest bullet from within those available within a given
caliber designation is often not the correct solution to this issue.
Too, arbitrarily choosing the widest possible meplat and not considering
the penetrating qualities of the bullet can lead to just as dismal an outcome
simply due to compromised depth of penetration.
By comparing the wounding capacity of various nose configurations in the
table above, and then studying the relative penetration index of the same
bullets from the chart below, a much clearer picture of the overall bullet
performance emerges.
The
relative penetration index (RPI) as listed below is just that:
it is simply a relative figure for the comparison of the potential
penetrating qualities of different bullets based on a function of the meplat
diameter of non-expanding bullets, and bullet weight.
The resultant number is not indicative of inches of penetration or any
other quantifiable unit of measure, but rather simply a basis for comparison of
potential bullet penetrating qualities.
Also
included in the accompanying table is the foot pounds ft/lbs of free-recoil
generated by an 1100 fps load using the corresponding bullet found in the chart.
This recoil is calculated of course using the bullet weight, the 1100 fps
velocity and factoring in a 44 ounce handgun.
The weight of the handgun is designed to represent an average weight of a
practical hunting revolver. Yes,
there are many heavier models in use, and lighter ones as well, but for a
meaningful comparison to be made in regard to potential recoil generated, an
average weight had to be established. This
handgun weight, for the purposes of calculations for this study is 2.75 lbs. or
44 ounces.
|
Relative
Penetration Index (RPI) values do not represent quantifiable
units
of measure, but are presented as a viable tool for comparing
actual
the actual penetration potential for non-expanding bullets, and
are
calculated as a function of meplat diameter and bullet weight.
Recoil
values in ft/lbs were calculated using all bullets at 1100 fps
muzzle
velocity fired from a 2.75 lb. (44 oz) handgun.
|
|
Bullet
|
Meplat
|
RPI
|
Recoil ft/lbs
|
|
.38/.357
Caliber
|
|
|
|
|
160g FNBB
|
.280”
|
29.15
|
5
|
|
165g FNBB
|
.260”
|
|
