• Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

Muzzle energy

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Aug 6, 2005
Messages
7,073
Reaction score
5,367
Dear All - as I have been a reloader of them pesky cartridgey things for very many years, as well as shooting proper weapons, I thought that I would share a very useful site with you. With an increasing interest in quite what happens AFTER the boom and cloud of smoke, many of you are now quite rightly expressing some concern as to whether or not your ball or bullet has the necessary oooomph to do the biz on the target in a humane manner. This little site will help you to decide if you are shooting the right gun with the right charge...

http://sst.benchrest.com/energy.html

Just enter the weight of the shot and the velocity, and click - and the muzzle energy is right there for you to see.

I posted a similar site a couple of weeks ago, about the ballistics of a round ball, and the silence was deafening, many, I could tell, were agog with indifference. Maybe this will open your eyes a bit, and if it doesn't, well, it's not my fault.

Best wishes

tac :grey:
 
I remember that... I am ALWAYS interested in mathematical calculations regarding projectiles from muzzleloaders.

I have a couple of spreadsheets with formulas built in, that was really hard for me to figure out the syntax to get them to work properly, but I managed somehow.

I gotta go eat lunch, but I'll be back to reply further later.

Shoot Safely!
WV_Hillbilly
 
Muzzle energy is good for comparing bullet sizes and vellosity, but that is about all! Round balls a wierd creatures, just because the move faster, doesn't make them a better killer, even if the Energy Table says so. :hmm:
WHY?.......will a 50 cal ball at 2100fps out penatrate the same ball moving 1800? Some times, not always....you will get more expansion, and less penitration[sometimes] the ball moveing at 1800 will not expand as much and will penatrate farther.[sometimes]

Would the 2100fps load penatrate better at close or long range? Some folks might be surprized!

Myself, I like Big Balls, 62 cal and up.

OH,,,,,,,,,,,,,and energy calulator doesn't care if the ball is soft or hard, I like a little hardness to my Balls, more peatration and less expansion! :D
 
My head hurts...I left all that stuff behind on the shelves above my reloading presses.

The limit of my muzzleloading engineering is a box of Hornady's, a can of Goex, and getting within 100yds of a deer
::
 
Dear Mr Robin - you are a professional muzzle-loader? So tell me, how do you get a job like that in the UK?

tac :grey:
 
My head hurts...I left all that stuff behind on the shelves above my reloading presses.

Wish I could, I do this stuff for a living :thumbsup:

Are you referring to the mathematics? or what...?

Hey Squire! how'd you prevent yourself from gettin' killed or emasculated (at the very least), when you made the following remarks about "Why Men Are Happier" ?

My wife is rarely happy because her being happy depends on too many things. If a light bulb flickers and dies she ain't happy until it's replaced. If the dog has dirty feet she ain't happy 'till they're clean. If she forgets something when she's shopping she won't sleep easy until it's bought etc. etc. etc.

My happiness depends on her not thinking it's my fault she ain't happy


You must also have a wife like mine--who is a very understanding and patient woman... I'd never have married had I not found such a virtuous woman, so said this happy man.

Regards,
WV_Hillbilly

PS Congratulations on your happy marriage as well.
 
Are you referring to the mathematics? or what...?

Hey Squire! how'd you prevent yourself from gettin' killed or emasculated (at the very least), when you made the following remarks about "Why Men Are Happier" ?


I am a professional chrongraph maker :thumbsup:

Only we call them chronoscopes over here. A chronograph does a precise measure of time, a chronoscope measures projectile velocity.

My wife never goes on the Internet ::

best regards

Squire Robin
 
Never heard of a foot-pound (or Newton-metre for that matter) ever killing a critter. Always thought it was the bullet... :hmm:

Sorry, pard! I'm just funnin' with ya'! :: That's a nice site...thanks for posting it.

But seriously, energy figures are great for comparing apples to apples, but by themselves, they are nearly useless. According to "the numbers", you'd be better armed with a 22-250 than a 45-70 when facing a charging buffalo. (No...those are not muzzleloading calibers, but they are cartridges most of us are familiar with and make a convenient reference.) Something to ponder...

:thumbsup:
 
No one can argue with the laws of Physics however, many may argue about real "killing power" of a projectile.

Over the years a number of formulas have been created to try to predict killing power and many who have used muzzleloaders for hunting will argue that the caliber has almost as much effect on it as does pure bullet energy.

Bullet energy uses the square of the velocity as a factor, which some feel gives too much weight to velocity in a real life situation.

One of the formulas I've found that does seem to represent actual killing power is simply Velocity (FPS) times Weight (Grains) of the projectile times Caliber (Inches) divided by 100.
I've seen another formula which divided the grains by 7000 (to get the value in pounds) and then dividing the answer by 32. This seems to be based on getting the gravitational acceleration into the formula but to what end I could never figure out.

Anyway, the answers to the formula I gave above are unitless and are good only for comparing different bullet combinations.
It is interesting though to compare a .450 caliber ball (136.7 grains) at 2100 FPS with a .540 caliber ball (236.2 grains) at 1600 FPS.
The energy of the .45 caliber ball is 1345.7 LbFt
The energy of the .54 caliber ball is 1349.8 LbFt

This says they are basically equal.
The VWC/100= formula says the .45 caliber =1291.815 while the .54 caliber = 2040.768

Most folks I know would agree with these answers which says that the .54 has almost twice the knock down (killing power) of the .45 at these two velocities. :)
 
Some guns just seem to hit harder than what you would expect from reading the paper ballistics only.

Lemme think a little more about this'n overnight, OK?

Regards,
WV_Hillbilly
 
I've seen another formula which divided the grains by 7000 (to get the value in pounds) and then dividing the answer by 32. This seems to be based on getting the gravitational acceleration into the formula but to what end I could never figure out.

Okay, here's the explanation, those sufferring from maths horror should look away now :crackup:

The problem is the units. Kinetic energy is measured in force times distance, if you measure the force in Newtons and the distance in meters then you get a result in Joules. Using imperial units you should measure the distance in feet and the force in poundals to get a result in foot poundals, but we don't, we measure feet and pounds force, lbf.

1 lbf is determined by how hard a 1 lb weight will push down on a set of scales in London, that's why gravity comes in to it, it's an arbitrary unit of force.

One poundal is the force required to accelerate a mass of one pound at one foot per second per second.

One pound force will accelerate a mass of one slug at the same rate. One slug = 32.16 lbs, which of course is the gravitational acceleration in London.

Congratulations anyone who actually read this far.
 
I'm with you so far...

I am familiar with 1/2MV^2 (One Half MV Squared) to calculate the Kinetic Energy of a moving object, and I understand where the values come from.

Please do continue....
 
Robin: You are of course correct however in using the comparison formula i mentioned above, which includes the caliber in the equation, the presence of a constant of (weight in grams/7000) divided by the accepted acceleration of gravity (32.16 Ft/secE2) (which in inself becomes a unchanging constant) adds nothing to the final answer.

A .223 caliber 50 grain bullet traveling at 3850 FPS (1654.3 Ft/Lbs) will never be the equal of a .540 dia roundball at 1768 FPS (1648.2 Ft/Lbs)when it comes to knock down or killing power. ::

Just for nurds: The .223 caliber 50 grain bullet mentioned above when put thru the Caliber X Weight X Velocity divided by 100 formula equals 429.275 The .54 caliber roundball equals 2255. ::
I bet that's why the .54 can knock a Moose down but the .223 would only wound it. ::
 
Just for nurds: The .223 caliber 50 grain bullet mentioned above when put thru the Caliber X Weight X Velocity divided by 100 formula equals 429.275 The .54 caliber roundball equals 2255. ::
I bet that's why the .54 can knock a Moose down but the .223 would only wound it. ::

Nonsense. If there was enough energy imparted to either projectile to knock a thousand pound moose off its feet, the recoil generated by firing it would flatten a 180 pound human. :crackup:

Remember Newton's law about equal and opposite reactions, or if you're a Heinlein fan, "TANSTAAFL!"
 
Bear Rider: I think I said "I bet that's why the .54 can knock a Moose down...", not " knock a thousand pound moose off its feet".
The difference is when a animal is hit with a bullet or ball the shock of impact often will cause the critters nervous system to quit working and often it looks just like they were knocked down.

As I said, IMO, the impact of the .54 caliber ball, and it's effect on the game is significantly greater than the 40-50 grain .223 bullet could ever hope to do.
I suspect that is why the G&F departments frown on people hunting deer sized and larger game with the little .223 caliber gun even though it's muzzle energy is about the same as the .54 roundball.

As for the gun hitting the shooter as hard as it hits the game, this does not happen because the mass of the rifle absorbs much of the energy. If it didn't, I think a lot of us would give up shooting. :: ::
 
As for the gun hitting the shooter as hard as it hits the game, this does not happen because the mass of the rifle absorbs much of the energy.

Correct...and in addition, much of the 'energy' measured in foot lbs at the target, is actually generated at & immediately after impact with the target, not the muzzle, as projectile expansion and energy transfer builds into the impact event, and is far greater there than at the rifle/shooter location. Newton's law only applies to the recoil aspect of launching the weight of the projectile, not in a projectile's mathamatical ME which is only a calulation of what energy would be following muzzle exit.

Setting aside something like a brain shot, any large game animal put down with a .54cal/230grn ball using typical large game shot placement will be done so with much more authority and penetration than a .223/50grn bullet can do under those same circumstances.

:imo: :front:
 
I think the time has come to define velocity in a far more useful unit of measurement - furlongs per fortnight. Mart
 
Back
Top