Hydrostatic or blood loss?

[Archie]

This is a very interesting subject and fun to read and ponder all the opinions based on actual experience. I think it is amazing how different people perceive events, process them and then come up with theories based on experience and/or education as to why those events occured. Every point made on the subject here in this thread are valid and worthy of consideration. It is a testiment to the gathering of shooting and hunting experience that we are blessed with on this forum.

There is one outstanding fact in all of this discussion that looms over all. We all enjoy the satisfaction that comes with the work of making meat and doing it in a way that sets us aside (if not slightly above) from the average grocery store scavenger. I bow to the collective greatness! :bow:

Wild meat is the candy of the Gods!

 

[Dphar]

Again I agree that is why I pointed out the double lung as in archery being important. I have often talked with friends about the fact that our hill country 100 pound deer are a half inch on both side of meat and bone seperated by 8 to 10 inches of warm humid air.

I have had deer shot thru the lungs with a modern high velocity rifle go a whole lot farther than I ever had with a MLR. The damage is much worse but the deer run a shorter distance when shot with a MLR. Geo. T.

I have seen deer take heavy hits and not even flinch. Dead but did not know it and cover 150-200 yards. (Only talks a few seconds for a deer on "afterburner"). I have others with the same hit pile up in their tracks.
No way to figure it.

Dan

 

[kingsax26]

I agrree with you dan mostly....Ive always applied my Medical backround to hunt and the idea of Lung shots and ...Bullet vs damage. As far as lung shots go .....im 100% believe that death result from more lack of oxygen to brain /body through both hemothorax...and pneumo thorax. IE....the lungs fill with blodd/air and cant expand....body dies. But ive also shot deer throught the lungs and have had them run 50+ yards! The shortest ive ever seen a deer run was with a bow...and i shot it throught the liver..(I flinched but got lucky) the deer literally walked 10 yards and stood for 5 minutes or more until it literally fell over dead from blood loss...ive never seen that happen again and havnt met Anyone whos ever seen it happen....But I always remember that day .... :stir:

 

[Jason Lewis]

I've been following this thread with some interest. partialy because i enjoy reading multiple opinions on this topic, but also in my professional life i've been doing a fair amount of research since i've been creating a ballistic and penetrating trauma training. from what i can tell by reading journals from the International Wound Ballistics Association, FBI tests and basic terminal ballistics. the term "hydrostatic shock" is an invented term made up by gun writers after the WW2 era, to describe why game animals sometimes drop on the spot when shot with modern HP rifles.

the term the military uses is "cavitation", this term is not made up and is a much better description of what CAN happen. the pressure wave created when a projectile is moving faster than 2700fps can travel up through the great veins and arteries of an animal or person (we're all mammals after all) into the cerebral vasculature and cause hemmorages (stroke). to test this theory, hogs were shot in various locations and then dissected, to make a long story short, the found multiple areas of hemmoraging in the brains.

also, while ballistic gelatin is helpful, it really only can give an impression of the possible temporary cavity that a bullet may or may not leave in a mammal. gelatin does not have muscle or connective tissues, nor does it have bones, all of which will affect the bullets path and performance.

your mileage may vary, but proper shot placement is far more important than any amount of cavatation.

later.

 

[longcruise]

I have had deer shot thru the lungs with a modern high velocity rifle go a whole lot farther than I ever had with a MLR. The damage is much worse but the deer run a shorter distance when shot with a MLR. Geo. T.

There is another thing at work here, and that is how blood coagulates. Coagulation is initiated by platelets in the blood. The platelets go to work when blood vessels are severed. However, the speed at which they go to work is based on the degree of trauma to the vessels. The more trauma as in shock and blunt force, the faster they go to work.

If you cut yourself with very sharp instrument such as a razor blade, you will notice that it just doesn't want to stop bleeding. It takes a long time for the platelets to figure out that there is a wound. OTOH, if you have ever cut yourself with blunt force such as slamming in a door, you may have noticed that the blood coagulates very quickly. It's ugly, but fast!

Experienced bow hunters know this and strive to keep their broadheads as sharp as possible. The cuts in flesh, lungs, heart and large blood vessels bleed profusely. Many blwhunters have observed that a big game animal hit in both lungs with a sharp broadhead that does not alert the deer by thumping bones such as shoulder blade or ribs results in the animal continuuing placidly in whatever it was doing such as feeding or simply walking down a trail. Then, within a few seconds, it simply drops.

I've always been of the opinion that a ml projectile such as a rb causes less trauma than a modern bullet. While certainly more trauma than a broadhead, I think the principle is still at work here in that the rb causes less trauma to the platelets and thus a better bleed.

 

[Dean2]

Guns don't kill, the holes they make kill. Simply put, a hole in the right place always kills. With modern, HV bullets, sometimes the hydrostatic shock or cavitation speeds up the process. A muzzle loader will not push a bullet fast enough to cause cavitation.

 

[hanshi]

I have had deer shot thru the lungs with a modern high velocity rifle go a whole lot farther than I ever had with a MLR. The damage is much worse but the deer run a shorter distance when shot with a MLR. Geo. T.

This has been my experience as well. And Dean2, prbs do cause cavitation; just shoot a jug of water. Tissue, and any fluid, is displaced in proportion to velocity AND projectile mass.

 

[FishDFly]

There are so many variables in dispatching critters that cannot be solved here without a lot of critters being shot under controlled conditions.

I have shot a lot of deer with a .264, and Winchester bullets leave them on ground and Remington's lets them run off, different design of the bullet when shot through the chest.

B/P round balls, bigger is better.

I do not have the Medical training to decide if it's hydrostatic or blood loss which kills a critter most times.

I firmly believe it's where the projectile enters the body and where it exits if it does. Head shots and high neck shots are hydraulic death to the brain, chest shots shoots is pooling in the chest cavity from blood and lack of blood to the brain.

Texas hear shots are from trama.

 

[Trench]

I can say it was deffinitely blood loss on my last deer. He took that .570 ball through a lung and than walked 40 yards before expiring from....blood loss.

 

[radman]

as an avid archery hunter with probably 100 kills uner my belt and a background in the medical field my opinion is that the animal dies of multiple organ failure/ lack of blood flow to the heartand brain which can lead to cardiac arrest etc. this is the point most of you guys were making and your right.thats why just as in archery shot placement is key. no matter how big your caliber heavy your load fast your arrow etc.if ou dont put it through the vitals the outcome isnt gonna be good.if you put a whole through both lungs and or the heart youll get your game. no need to really make it more complicated than that.

 

[kingsax26]

makes sense to me....the deer i shot acted as if nothing had happened. I guess in the end....id have to say ....it doesnt matter wether its a bazooka or a blowgun....put it in the right spot and your gonna be successful. I dont measure success in distance the game runs ...i measure it by how tasty it is when its on my plate.....FULL BELLY = SUCCESS

 

[Dean2]

This has been my experience as well. And Dean2, prbs do cause cavitation; just shoot a jug of water. Tissue, and any fluid, is displaced in proportion to velocity AND projectile mass.

Hanshi - you are correct, a PRB moving through a liquid will displace it and create a void and technically that is cavitation. For there to be sufficient cavitation to cause hydraulic shock to remote body parts would require more velocity than a PRB has, though it will cause damage in the immediate vicinity of the PRB. It would have been shorter and clearer had I said, a PRB will not be moving fast enough to cause Hydrostatic shock.

My point remains that in the majority of cases shot placement and penetration, the "HOLE" are the key determinants of death, not bullet speed and on that at least we seem to agree.

 

[hanshi]

IMO measuring cavities in gelatin is useless. Theories don't kill game; well placed projectiles do. In fact I find all these tests starting at the beginning of the 20th century and leading up to the FBI test to be absurd. And if you read my post you already know my opinion of so called "hydrostatic shock". If HS is the "magic bullet" (no pun intended) then the results would be consistent for hits from any given firearm; and they are not. You cannot know in advance the results from hits even with the same caliber and bullets/balls identically placed.

What I'm saying is that it is a case of chaos theory. There are way too many factors, billions at least, that affect each hit on game. We already know if we hit 'um good, they die. I've had better success with prb than I've had with cfs. Theories don't kill; good hits do.

 

[Stumpkiller]

If someone hits you in the neck with a sledgehammer it is not hydrostatic shock that will bring you to your knees.

If a large round ball hits the spine or upper rib near the spine it will drop a deer from impact force. But if it passes through the lower ribs you'd better hope for hemmorage. I bowhunt with traditional (1950's & 1960's) gear, and when I hunt with a muzzleloader I hunt as if it was a bow with 3x the range. That is 75 yards instead of 25 yards.

I go for low double lungs and the heart is a bonus if caught on the way through.

 

[Diggerfly]

I've never bought into the idea of HS killing personally. If it were true EVERY animal hit with a HV bullet would drop dead in its tracks. Obviously that doesn't happen. What I do think HS does is cause more damage around the area of the bullets path, thus probably causing a quicker death through blood loss OR lung collapse. Either of which will starve the brain of oxygen.

But really, the difference in deer reactions to being shot comes down to some deer are just tougher than others.

 

[crockett]

I'll throw in some thoughts. What we are discussing here is also discussed among "modern" cartridge shooters in comparing a big slow bullet like a 45/70 versus a high speed like the .270 Win- which kills better?
I've dealt with this for decades, considering all the examples and it just gets ever more confusing. Deer killed with .22's, rabbits hit with a 30-06 but diving into their holes, etc. etc. I'm sure most of you have heard similar stories. A lot of it just doesn't make sense and maybe that is the answer, that everytime we shoot an animal we have an idea of what "ought" to happen but there are no guarantees. In my humble opinion a 30-30 at 50 yards or less kills a deer "about" as fast as a 30-06. Either kills in about the same time. I think the hydrostatic type damage has to contribute in some measure to a faster kill but how much has a lot of "wiggle" room.
The "science" of ballistics is a lot of fun to investigate and I like it as much as the next guy but practical field experience is probably the most useful information. For example, I don't own a 40 caliber but I've heard they are highly accurate and in FL they are legal for deer and not too big for squirrels so if I build a flintlock I'm thinking a 40 caliber might be a good choice. "Practical field experience" that I would find valuable is something like...
A broadside shot with a 40 caliber ball through both lungs usually results in a 100- 130 lb deer running not much more than 50 to 60 yards however a shoulder shot can occasionally prevent the ball from penetrating the lungs. Information like that is highly useful.

 

[DanChamberlain]

The round ball is a very poor flyer, but it's a very good killer. The very thing that makes it a poor flyer is precisely that which makes it a good killer. The cap and ball pistols were very effective at incapacitation because of the profile of the ball. "Ball" is as close to already upset as you can get with a rounded ogive. The resistance a ball experiences in the air is translated to the resistance it experiences when impacting flesh. The pressure wave is identical.

No, the ball isn't traveling like a high velocity projectile and doesn't rely totally on shock, but the shock effect of a round ball is considerable and shouldn't be discounted simply because its velocity isn't up to par with high velocity ammunition.

I once shot a fox with a .36 Navy and the damage was instantaneous and impressive, greater than I would have expected had I been shooting a 9mm parabellum.

 

[okawbow]

I've shot 3 deer with a .62 cal rb with 180 gr 2f, that dropped in their tracks with solid chest hits. None of those balls exited. They all were flattened the size of a quarter, against the hide on the offside. In January, I shot a nice doe with a .69 cal rb with 90 gr. 2f, through the center of the heart, and broke the offside leg. The exit hole was about the same size as the entry hole. That deer ran at least 75 yards before going down.

I'm sure the super hot .62 load created some really effective shock, and the flattened soft lead ball did massive tissue damage, causing the deer to "give it up" right there. The slower .69 ball wasn't moving fast enough to do more than punch a big hole through the deer. Even though lots of damage was done to the heart and lungs, there wasn't enough shock to stop it.

 

[Diggerfly]

okawbow,

That is an interesting difference to see in RB performance. Don't see too many RB getting smashed up like that!! I would have to agree that the mashed ball did a lot more damage causing rapid blood loss.

 

[Kapow]

I'm going to run with blood loss and direct tissue & organ damage.