What ag is at least .40 cal and 400 FPE ?

[Bullfrog]

Of course if both penetrate completely through the animal, then the wound channel is the same volume, although I would suggest the animal would still react differently to a 400 FPE impact than a 100 FPE impact.... I know shooting a Grouse is more effective in anchoring it with an 18 gr. pellet than a 14 gr. at the same velocity and caliber, even though both give complete pass-throughs.... Also, a .25 cal pellet will anchor a Marmot far better than a .22 cal of the same FPE....

I've found that my .25 Marauder shooting non-expanding Barracudas at 60fpe anchors coons better than a .22LR shooting CCI hollow points at 140fpe on lung shots and the 60fpe .25 is just a little less than equal to the killing power a .22WMR at over 300fpe with the same shot placement. At 80fpe and with a very soft bodied, expanding projectile, the .25 AG kills with equal effectiveness at the .22 mag. I've killed enough coons over my lifetime with all three rounds that its clear that FPE isn't telling the story as to what's giving clean lung shot kills.

That's really my point. Larger diameter projectiles seem to take down animals cleaner than smaller diameter projectiles irregardless as to FPE (and sometimes even expansion), until you start climbing into very high FPEs, and non-expanding pellets kill a lot better thru the lungs than what their non-expanding natures would suggest. It starts to make sense when you realize that the skirt is cutting all the way thru as it passes. Its the skirt, not the head of the pellet, that's making the final wound channel.

Shoot some bullets, then some pellets of the same caliber, thru some stiff-papered targets then thru some pine blocks at the same FPE. Notice how the pellet holes are usually perfectly round and cleaned out while the bullet holes leave paper or wood to cave back in on themselves and possibly block the entire hole (note that if you're shooting hollow point bullets, the hollow point will itself cut out a hole).

[KnifeMaker]

Having owned an Archery Shop, and hunting with handgun, bows, and ag's for over 50 years, I can say that I cannot agree with the pellet being more lethal than a broadhead on a bow. Not even close.

No one has ever taken a Legal Elephant with a pellet gun. Nor a cape Buffalo/lion. It would be pure suicide to even try it, and highly illegal where such hunting is allowed. 

However, over the centuries, literally thousands of such game has been taken. Both by the locals, ans well as foreign hunters.

In many countries in Africa, there is a formula to determine if an arm is strong enough to hunt with. this is an old formula used fro the past 200 years.   It is a penetration and lethality index for the typical, non expanding projectile used for dangerous game.

Unless someone wants this formula, I won't waste you time with it. I will say that an arrow, with a 1.5" broadhead at a mundane 240 fps, scores over half again as potent as a 240 gr, .429 " .44 magnum traveling at 1500 fps.

For some inexplicable reason, the Great White Hunter here in the USA still thinks of the bow as a toy. Much as the AirGun is thought of.

I actually had on multiple occasions, have a hunter come in to my Store and point a fully drawn bow, arrow, with a very light triggered release directly at my, or another employee's eye, and ask if everything looked aligned properly.

They were shown the Door. Pure idiots. Not understanding the lethality of an arrow at all, yet were going to the outdoors to hunt, Deer, Moose, Elk, Bear, Wild Hog.

Typical pellets, have literally no fpe energy transfer, or tissue damage what so ever. A properly designed Broadhead, cuts a swath of unbelievable destruction.

as a Surgeon which he had rather try to save a patient with. I can tell you, the Arrow shot patient, shot with a modern broadhead, won't make it to the table. Even a 9mm at 1200-1400 pfs, is many times now lethal. and a pitiful stopper. And has more energy than most of the AG we can get our hands on. - 

the reason that the 400 fpe level has been looked at so strongly, is that for over 100 years the 400 fpe, .45 had been tried, and failed in hunting of large game. Sure the animals die. But man times miles from the would. It was the bullet design that failed. Same with the 9mm in combat. A pitiful performer.   

What gun shot a .45 cal at apx 400 fps you may ask? The venerable 1911 .45. Known as the best man stopper out there. Trouble is, animals are a LOT tougher than humans. And If I had th4e choice, I would rather be hit with a .45 than a large broadhead.

Having field dress countless heads of game, there is NO comparison between what a hardball pistol round can do, in comparison to what a full sized Broadhead can do. The difference is apparent, and shocking. 

And a Pellet is less lethal than either.

Knife

[KnifeMaker]

Frog, the lack of penetration, and killing power for the .22 is you lack of selecting a proper bullet for the job. Not cal. but bullet. the bullet you selected  is designed for immediate opening and dumping in the first inch fo the target. Hence, simply blowing up before in many cases, reaching vitasl.

Sorry Sir, but it may very well be a Bullfrog fail rather than a cal. fail. LOL!!! 

Knife
 

[Bullfrog]

I have a hard time believing that a mini-mag isn't penetrating the vitals of a coon. Its a hard-jacketed round. You're speaking as if exploding in the meat like shooting a deer in the shoulder with a Amax .17HMR. I don't think that's the case. A coon hardly has anything there to shoot thru.

We're not talking about elephant hunting. We're talking about whitetail deer hunting. Nor are we talking about small caliber pellets. I'm talking about large caliber, non expanding, pellets.

There's definitely a high level of lethality that large caliber pellets for whitetail-sized game that so far are relatively undescribed or ignored within the airgun hunting community.

Seeing will be believing when it comes time to start posting deer hunting videos from the upcoming season.

[Traum]

I am just curious here but what about the smaller calibers like .30 and up and just go for a head shot instead of having to worry about making a big enough wound channel and collapsing lungs and blood loss and maybe hitting the heart. II don't have any big bore experience hunting or otherwise. I have seen deer taken with .22 and .25 and .30 caliber powder burners without any problems with heart lung shots. So theoretically a .25 or .30 air rifle should drop a deer within 40yds with a headshot no problem right?  I just don't have the deer hunting experience. (friends shot the deer I mentioned with the small caliber powder burners.) I am just trying to learn more about larger game as I work my way through the ranks of air gun hunting.

[HunterWhite]

Good discussion ( I think  ). If I can deduce anything from this conversation it is thus: we just don't know.  Perhaps we should do the obvious,  proceed with caution.  If the first guess is inadequate then we should bump the requirements.

[rsterne]

Headshot, no.... BRAINSHOT, yes.... but you better know the anatomy of a deer's skull and the way to hit their very small and quite well armoured brain from any angle.... Take a page from Manny's book on hog hunting for a perfect example of what you need to know, and a guy who knows what shots NOT to take....

Bob

[Traum]

I meant to make that point but I assumed you guys knew and I was right. rabbits heads are much smaller then they appear with all the fur and skin and where the brain is, doesn't seem like the place most people would think. I had been told about how hogs heads are and how they can ricochet bullets off them if you aren't in the right position.
mybunderstanding know is it kinda comes down to these things unless they are close enough and you have a perfect shot of the brain area. you are better off with the heart lungs a little more room for error with the proper caliber and fpe.?×

[Bullfrog]

I am just curious here but what about the smaller calibers like .30 and up and just go for a head shot instead of having to worry about making a big enough wound channel and collapsing lungs and blood loss and maybe hitting the heart. II don't have any big bore experience hunting or otherwise. I have seen deer taken with .22 and .25 and .30 caliber powder burners without any problems with heart lung shots. So theoretically a .25 or .30 air rifle should drop a deer within 40yds with a headshot no problem right?  I just don't have the deer hunting experience. (friends shot the deer I mentioned with the small caliber powder burners.) I am just trying to learn more about larger game as I work my way through the ranks of air gun hunting.

Using rimfires to brain shoot deer is a pretty common practice in the Southeast for both legal and illegal night hunting. That's very much why I've had to get out of the habit of shooting eyes over the years. I've been night hunting with firearms since childhood. With a powderburner that's fragging out shrapnel thru the skull, its not as necessary to be precise on a head shot. All you need is to be able to see the eyes head-on and put the bullet in between them and let the impact do the rest. Not so with an air rifle. Brain shooting hogs with airguns is very well documented. Anything that can be done to a mature hog's skull in terms of penetration can be done to a deer. HOWEVER, a hog's head is more stationary than a deer's. A deer is aways jerking its head here and there. I wouldn't advise brain shooting a deer with any weapon unless it was a necessary harvest.

Concerning lung shots with smaller calibers, the issue is that the smaller the hole the easier it is to clot. Its not that a .25 Barracuda at 80fpe couldn't shoot thru a deer's lungs and make them collapse. It can probably shoot thru them better at close range than many other projectiles. I have a hard time catching Barracudas in half a dozen jugs of water back to back, which would offer far more stopping density than a deer's chest. But the hole its making is very tiny. I wouldn't trust that small of a hole to not clot both for death and blood trailing purposes. I once saw a hog shot with a .204 powered burner during a coyote hunt. It knocked the hog down (massive FPE dump), and then the hog got up, ran 75-100 yards up hill, and collapsed. When we approached it it was still alive but couldn't run. All it could do was rock back and too on the ground. We brain shot it to put it out of its misery then examined the wound. The bitty little .20 round went deep into the hog's shoulder shield (it was a boar hog). But the small hole had clotted. I was able to punch the clot open with a twig and some blood then poured out. It was clear that had we not been able to watch the hog to down in the open, it would not have been possible to blood trail it. It is also not clear to me how long the hog would have lived had we not brain shot it to finish it off. The FPE was there. Massive FPE. But the wound channel hole, at least the first inch or two of it, just wasn't big enough.

We probably all agree that the bigger the hole, the better, and that you need enough energy to punch that hole thru the vitals. What we disagree on is the significance of FPE above and beyond penetration, what exactly is happening inside an animal's chest at the point of a fatal hit to that area, and what the minimums are reliably secure that fatal hit. We probably also disagree over the lethality of a big-bore airgun pellet relative to a big-bore airgun bullet fired at the same power level at a close target.

[Ribbonstone]

In a way, we've kind of brought this upon ourselves.   Big bore airguns with big bore power  were not common not too long ago, so were pretty well ignored....evidently the increased popularity has caught the attention of the game departments.

So they seem to have decided to rule for the same general requirments of muzzle loaders (welll....at least the low end of muzzle loaders).

[HunterWhite]

Please accept my apology if I seem agitated.  I got into some eastern poison ivy a few days ago with the weed whacker, I am going through the intense itch phase now. It seems to be making me fidgety.

[HunterWhite]

Okay,  to try to get back on track, we have:
AirForce Texan .45.
Quackenbush 458 OutLaw
The Badger .40 cal could be modded to hit the 400 FPE mark.
Bushbuck .45.
Extreme Big Bore .45.
Umarex hammer 50.
Does anyone have another candidate?

[YEMX]

I would give Dennis Quackenbush a call, as I was on his website last night, and nowhere did I see that his "booking" was full.  Now may be the time- his rifles are under $800...  His .458 is advertised as pushing 500 fpe out of the box.  Just an idea.

[rsterne]

Looks like nothing has changed at Quackenbush, other than he has some .58 cal pistols available.... He doesn't have any other draws going on at the moment, but the Status Page reads the way it always has....  http://www.quackenbushairguns.com/status__page.htm

He announces a draw on the website for a given model (no prior warning), you send your name in, and you get on the list or not....

Bob

[Bullfrog]

Another point I’d like to make about thinking about airguns like bows/crossbows and presenting them as such: the effect would be that people would be encourage to limit their shots, as opposed to taking less than perfect shots they can take with a firearm. For example, any centerfire rifle above a certain size is going to blow thru a boar hog’s shoulder shield like its nothing, urban legends to the contrary not withstanding. An arrow, on the other hand, can easily fail to penetrate the shield and not make it to the vitals. I once shot a near hogzilla sized hog in the shoulder shield and the arrow didn’t make it six inches. My arrow worked out of him and the hog survived for weeks before disappearing from my property. Would have have been an easy kill with a firearm.

Should I be presented with that shot again with an airgun in my hand, short of using a big Texan or similar rifle, I’d lbe better off thinking of my pellet like an arrow that’s likely to not make it thru the shield. I could shoot him in the armpit when he steps forward and pushes the shield forward and out of the way. But in terms of teaching someone, it will be more effective for them to remember their airgun is a bow and pass on questionable shots accordingly.

Even if the analogy isn’t perfect, we’re going to have to explain things to the average joe in a way that its going to stick in their minds in terms of weapons they already relate to. Right now people are thinking of airguns like light versions of firearms. Better to get them thinking about them like bows. They’ll take more ethical shots. We won’t score any points by talking over their heads.

Like it or not, PCP airguns are about to go mainstream in the nation-wide hunting community. Either we control the narrative now for teaching purposes or we’ll lose our ability to shape or influence how airgun hunting culture evolves.

[YEMX]

I called and confirmed he's not taking orders for .458 Outlaws...

Usually his Status Page says "Not taking new orders..."