High Tech Hunting Bullet
"hydrostatic” is one of those misnomers that the shooting world will not let go of. Shooter still judge the aerodynamic ability of their bullets by a short sighted metric called “ballistic coefficient” even though an actual scientific, accurate metric called “coefficient of drag” exists. “Hydrostatic” has a somewhat flexible definition, and is usually taken to mean the constant fluid-like behavior of animal tissue. Except that animal tissue varies in many ways. But shooters are pig headed bastards cling tenaciously to tradition, and have amazing faith in terms like “hydrostatic shock”, “knock down value”, “sectional density” and “impact energy” even when no such things actually exist or actually work the way we think they do. The concepts will not go away because they reflect real world observations: certain bullets at certain velocities under certain circumstances are far far more effective than other bullets at different velocities and different circumstances. But no proper terms exist to express what we see in the field, so what can we do? Well, reading that Terminal Ballistics paper I linked to, and owning a copy of Any Shot You Want and reading both until you fully understand them will go a long way. You’ll still use the wrong terms because no better terms exist, but you’ll better understand that it all comes down to bullet design, impact velocity, and shot placement. It always comes down to shot placement primarily, but then the other bits come into play.
Do they make it in .45 ACP?
That was a fascinating science compendium, well impressed at your research.
I just now ordered* the paper-patch book and “Any Shot You Want”. I’m looking forward to reading, reading, reading!
*Amazon makes it so damned easy.
Thanks for the excellent article, Drew!
McGoo - Matthews also wrote a love story called Forty Years With The .45-70 that you might like. You won’t learn a whole lot from it, but it’s a nice read. He’s 87 now I think, and that book recounts his hunting, reloading, and experimenting with the fine old cartridge. I gave it the alternate title Grandpa’s Stories which fits pretty well.
Alphin’s book ought to be required reading for every shooter. You will learn so much, but you will come away jonesing for a fine double rifle in .450-400 or .500NE, or at least a well made custom bolt gun in .358 STA. Both of which Alphin considers “medium” rifles although everyone else thinks of them as naval artillery. Because you need to hunt polar bears at 1100 yards, or at least transmogrify coyotes from their normal 3-D state to a 2-D state. With either of those rounds, you don’t even need the bullets; the muzzle blast will do the job just fine.
Oh, and you will run right out and build yourself a long drop tube for your rifle reloading chores, and use it religiously. Mine is made from a 30” bathroom sink water supply line from HD, held to the wall by running it through the inside handle from a garage door. RCBS powder funnel fits the ball end perfectly. With full loads it settles powder at least 8%, allowing me to used compressed loads with no actual compression. I’m a believer; they really work.
BobF - sorry, no dice there. But if you look into the .460 Rowland drop-in conversion by Clark Custom for your 1911 you may be equally impressed. Starline has the brass, project story and load data can be found at RealGuns. Enjoy!
CM - I wish I could have told the tale in just 3 paragraphs, but there is more backstory there than on 5 episodes of LOST put together. We’re looking at evolution here, and that’s complicated stuff. I didn’t go into the pressure wave theory involved with and created by the slightly dished meplat of the bullet, but you can look all that stuff up with ease. Woodleigh simply calls it the “core” but there is much more involved. It’s food for thought, along with learning about those Haack equation ogives. I don’t think supercavitation will every be applied to subsonic aircraft design but I can easily see how it would be done with a bit of vectored thrust and a bleed through plate in the nose of the plane. I can see it being done for ships, but I haven’t yet figured out whether a ship will float or sink if the hull is enveloped in a curtain of moving air. I seem to recall reading once that navy ships in WWII had bubble generators along the sides to create an acoustic layer that hid them from sonar a bit. Halfway similar. And the concept is applied a bit already with those bulbous sonar noses big ships currently have. Which look a whole lot like the rams that were once on ancient Greek and Roman warships, and that makes me wonder just how advanced some of these ancient civilizations really were. See? You learn about one thing, and it leads to another and another, and eventually you start putting things together in your head. And that’s a lot more enjoyable than turning on the news and seeing how Obama screwed over the nation each day. Plus, there’s math involved.
Hmmmm, .460 Rowland.
May want to look at that for my pdw.
I was weaned in the early 1990’s from “knock down” by a VHS tape from the US Army Wound Center which compared 9mm to 45 ACP. This study was used by my departmwnt to get away from the 38’s we were carrying. The Wound Center tape was very entertaining as it showed many blocks of ballistic jello and pigs getting offed. Sort of like watching the prep work for a PB and J BBQ.
I wish I had made a copy of the tape because I cannot find any reference to the study or the Wound Center since. I believe it was in Maryland. But in any event, this was a fascinating article. Congrats Drew.
Posted by sig94
05/31/2010 at 07:11 AM
