Great Article on Pellet Ballistics

[Mebits]

This was a rather good article on pellet ballistics. Real world testing of various pellets. The long and the short of the article is that over-penetration is more of a problem than many suspect.

http://www.airgun.co.uk/Understanding_Terminal_Ballistics_Part_1.html

I'm going to agree. I hit a bit of fence at ~30 yrds and you'd think that even the BC shooting Crow Mags would slow down a mite at that range. It punched right through the fence panel. The hole was clean and round, too.

[tunaboat]

Wow, long read.  Thanks for sharing  Mark.

 Splattology

Shooting at different materials with airgun pellets is commonly referred to, in the USA, anyway, as Splattology. A very good term; as most use materials that are way to hard; giving real meaning to the word SPLAT, in Splattology. A long time ago, I used a concrete block as a back stop, and boy did those pellets splatter.....

And I always thought Splattology had something to do with roadkill!    Love that word.  I'm going to watch my bird feeders now and practice some Splattology.  Needless to say, the spell checker didn't pick it up. :emoticon:

[only1harry]

I read that article a couple of years ago and it makes sense for the most part to transfer as much energy into the critter as possible.  
This probably explains why 13 Groundhogs went down easily with 1 shot to the head last summer from my Diana 36 .177 using 7.9 & 8.3gr pellets (head shots) producing only 13.4 - 14.2fpe at the muzzle using Superdomes and CPHP's.  
One Spring 2yrs ago I shot Starlings & Grackles when my 850 was only shooting in the low-mid 400's and they all went down and expired fast (10-15yds).   Same reason I like shooting raccoons and possums with frontal shots with the powerful Condors and 350 .22.  So that the pellet won't go through them like with broadside shots.  It will travel deep in their head towards the back/neck and transfer ALL the energy into them, but a broadside headshot usually works very well too if it goes through the brain area.  

When hunting squirrels with the more powerful PCP's I usually try to look for an angle that will make the pellet travel several inches through their upper body and/or head because I know it will exit fast, so why not have the pellet travel through the body more before exiting, thus producing more damage?  I took several front shots on them too with the Condor .22.  With their head down the pellet travels way back through the neck and into the chest cavity.  The dropped llike rocks.  A couple I shot from the back/side ended up with the Kodiak sticking out of the top of their head or the pellet bulging out right under the skin on top of the skull, after it traveled through chest and neck.  In other words I try to get the most out of the pellet's energy and have it expanded inside the animal.  Shooting them broadside and having the pellet pass through with most of its energy retained, minimizes the chances of a quick kill if it doesn't go directly through the brain, or heart, and we know how small those are in the critters we hunt.

[1377x]

great article
good reading

[crazyhorse]

Head shots on squirrels don't always work because their heart "continues" to beat......but shots thru their shoulder area goes thru the heart/lungs...I've had more squirrels drop limp from shoulder shots than head shots..(no death "break dancing)......and angle of shot does make a difference...as well as type of pellet...

[Mebits]

You and I are on the same page, Harry.

[Mebits]

I have always preferred head/neck shots on squirrels, but I have only shot them with 5mm Blue Streak and Weatherby Mark V .22. In fact, I found that the best dead squirrel shot was just behind the head in the neck. They drop and don't even dance a little.

I'm shooting hotter and smaller now, so I might have a different opinion.

[airiscool]

Great artical, and from my own experiance, I would agree.

I've had my share of Gray Squirrel runners that were body hit with 22rf hollow points, before I learned to only head shoot them. Plus, every make of hollow point I've ever tried I found are useless on small, thin skinned animals.

And, I got tired of also seeing Woodchucks that were body hit with hollow points from my 22 mag, get up run back to their holes. Through the scope I'd often see the shock wave radiate out along the chucks body, but the mags just blew right through having enough energy to kick up dirt trails well beyound the Chucks.

I switched to using a .223 with V-Max ballistic tips and the Chucks get slamed to the ground never to move again. The ballistic tips transfer most, if not all their energy inside the Chucks. A head, or neck shot creats so much hydrostaic pressure that even with large exit wounds most times their eyes are pushed out of the skull. Even poorly placed head, or body shots drops them DTR.

To go at this from the oposite direction. Knowing about the problem of fast, small rounds causing "blow through" is nothing new, and was considered a plus in one instance I know of.  In basic training we were taught that  the Army's original reason for starting the switch from the M-14 to the M-16 was because the little 5.56 round would wound more enemy than the 7.62.

The reasoning was that if you kill one enemy, you only take that one out of action. But if you wound one, you take that one and others out of action who will be taking care of the wounded one. The smaller round was suposed to put more strain on the enemie's men and resouces. However, the debate about just how combat affective the 5.56 round actually was raged on for years.

Paul.

[only1harry]

Great minds think alike

The Brits hunt foxes and big rabbits with 11-12fpe airguns and I 'm not talking @ 10yds but 30 or more.  That oughtta tell us something... "Bigge" is not better, but it's always good to have that extra power.  Better more than not enough I always say  As long as we use that extra power carefully and to our advantage we are good to go.  Yeah we Americans like everything big but that's because we like having lots of choices     Gives us the illusion that we live in a democratic free country..  hehehe.

[1shotwander]

Whats with people not being able to down woodchucks with 22 rimmies? I'm not asking, nor pointing at anyone particular, but i'vebeen hearing this more lately...thats really the only gun that i've used to kill ground hogs with.. and i've had very very few get away.. last year i had 1 get way, and the son also had 1 get away.. we got 14, but shoulda had 16... I used to use hollow points for head shots that were 200fps or so below supersonic line, but switched to solid lead for the better penetration,, as anything over 25 yards with the HP's just expanded TO fast and didn't make humane kills,, The very first 1 that i shot was at 65 yards with the hollowpoints (quite a while ago),,, i put a head shot on,, heard the impact.. and seen the groundhog drunkidly wobble back to his hole,, luckily he stoped again, and i put one behind the shoulder, and then quickly ran down there incase... it ended up that the hollowpoint never actually went into the brain cavitity, stopped when it hit the skull, broke the skull into many pieces, but the slug itself never went in... Last year the son shot a groundhog at 70-75 yards with the solid leads.. went right though the head,, in oneside, out the other,, ofcourse there was no expansion, but the hog never moved.. and the solid leads are only going around 1300fps Maybe it's just me, but i'd rather have more "overkill" then not enough oomph in the slug,,which might explain why i never use anything less than a 30-06 for deer

[1shotwander]

HEHE!! I thought that this was funny in that artical

"All of the pellets made very large entrance holes, and the holes kept getting smaller until the pellet, finally stopped inside the putty."

Musta never tested PBA!! Anyone thats tested PBA's with plummers putty or anyother thing like that knows what i mean..

[only1harry]

Cody, it's very simple.  People do not aim at the head.  They simply aim at the chest or body and we all know you don't kill a Groundhog that way.  

I did that at first too when I got my first rimfire .22LR.  I was 18.  Noone told me anything different and my friend had no clue either that usually hunted with me.  I aimed for mid-mass or upper chest behind shoulder and had maybe a 50% success rate, until the 2nd or 3d one ran off, and then the light bulb went on in my head and I started going for head & neck shots only.  Then I had a 90%+ success rate.  Then I started shooting G-hogs again in my backyard in 2001-2002 with .22 rimfire after 15+yrs and forgot all about the head!  I shot the first one in the chest and it ran but dropped before it reached the den so I figured successful hunt.  The 2nd one - same thing but this time it made it to the den and I never recovered it.  Only smelled the stench in my backyard for a month  Then it clicked again - what they hek am I doing?  In the 15yrs I had not shot a G-hog, I forgot about the head shots!  And the rest was history.. One after the other went down with head shots and I don't think I lost another (out of 25-30 animals), until a neighbor called the cops in the summer of '07 for shooting a powder burner, so I went back to airguns and here I am 70 G-hogs later  but boy was I pleasantly surprised at the airgun technology advances since 1983 when I bought the last airgun!    The neighbor has no clue what a big favor he did for me steering me back to airguns, hehe.