Thread: Shooting through stuff.

There is discussion in another thread about bullet behaviour after hitting obstacles.

My understanding and experience has been that bullet shape doesn't make much difference. If its going to deflect it will.

Here's an 80grn Targex .223 from a Fallow that was screened by light scrub that I shot through on purpose. about 120 yards. The scrub was at max smaller than finger sized.

You will see that the bullet was destabilised and key holed but still killed the animal. Penetration was pretty good. Bullet performance was pretty good really.

yip my track record through tussock is terrible unless up close and using shotgun LOL.
basically from all Ive read and seen over the years,its got to be a light screen of vegetation,twigs n leaves and animal needs to be CLOSE to it,the further from animal to twig etc the worse the result will be...and the mighty .243 USED to be sworn at if twig was struck on way to animal... doesnt take much to really upset a fragile pill going fast. a heavy slug going slower is slightly less likely to misbehave as its bigger/heavier and has more of it to arrive and more mass to move off intended path .
the only time Ive nearly been injured from firearm other than 177 air rifle pellet coming back and hitting me,was a .12ga solid of all things that went through a rams head then bounced around walls of woolshed before stopping balanced on grating by my foot!!!! went back to emery spanner to "quiet them down' before slitting throat after that......back in days before rules had changed..a big dogtucker ram was hard work for a teenager to handle.

I once shot a goat with a 6.5x55 156gr Norma round nose. Goat was about 20-30m through the bush, one shot and it fell over dead. When we went up to it I realised I had shot clean a small tree about 5-7cm diameter. The tree was a couple of metres in front of the goat. No idea how I didn’t see it. I can see why the Swedes use it to shoot moose

I used to use CAC 180 grain hollow points in my Finnwolf, shot a red spikey one really wet day, could hardly make him out in the scope, things were they wet.
Centred the crosshairs on where I judged his chest was ( range about 30 yards) and let rip.

Spikey obligingly fell over dead and at the same time I was (again!) drenched by a very localized down pour.

Bullet had gone through the centre of a beech tree as thick as a (proper sized!) beer bottle and shook the rain off its branches.

On dealing with the deer I found the bullet had keyholed through two ribs then carried on through the chest cavity and shattered the upper leg bone and stopped just under the skin.

Oh, tree was about 5 yards on front of the deer.

Impressed by the performance?
Hell yes!

I shot this "twig" a few years back.
The fallow further down the hill still died. Sierra 125gr FNHP from a 30-30

https://swiftsilentdeadly.com/shooti...-with-pistols/

Originally Posted by 308

https://swiftsilentdeadly.com/shooti...-with-pistols/

Interesting, I wounder if the geometry of the bullets makes a difference. Short pistol bullets, slugs and pellets vs longer rifle bullets. I have definitely seen/herd ricochets of rifle bullets off small branches which must mean a bullet off-target.

Shot a hare the other night at 50m with a .22 sub, all I could see was its ears above the clumpy cocksfoot grass.

A hunting acquaintance if mine had a tree strike with the 3006 down Stewart Isla d on a whitetail.
The guy that was meant to sort our tucker for the trip had done a naff job assuming we were going to slay heaps of deer.yeah...nah.
Anyway he knew there was a tree in the way but the only super clear shot would've wrecked the back half so no good.
Aimed as close to the tree as he old and let rip.
Just managed to hit the tree but got the deer.
Bullet was in 2 pieces and luckily didn't wreck buggered all meat.
My take on that is with a bigger bullet that goes through stuff, the bits that are left are still bigger so might still work. As MD suggested they can't be to far behind the sticks.
Anything too small turns into shrapnel
Obviously a bit of a generic theory as there are shit tons of variables

When I was doing quite a bit of culling I was using a 308 and tracer rounds because they were cheap. It was eye opening to see where projectiles went after hitting something and the angles they would fly off at. The moral I learned from that was not to take anything for granted. Id say that any time you shoot through stuff and kill the animal on other side, then you had an element of luck on your side. From memory reading the same or similar articles over the years, pointed projectiles came out on top and I guess a heavier spire point will perform better than a lighter spire point.
One thing Ive learnt over the years is, and it is not just relevant to this subject, That if you are unsure you will kill something, dont shoot. If you dont shoot its still there to be shot later. If you do shoot and wound it, you have probably lost it and you wont get another chance while the shot has recked your chance at another animal nearby as well.

From the link in the other thread, the barnes projectiles came out best for holding the line, bonded second best and the heavy for cal slow round nose were worst for flying straight after hitting scrub

The longer the bullet, the less likely to sod off at weird angles is my take from doing this over the years. It's something that just happens in thick bush, can't really avoid it.

If you look at the calibers people have said go well through stuff, .243 100gr and Swede 6.5mm - they are the higher weights and longer for the caliber than lighter bullets. That seems to be the deciding factor, if you think a .22LR which are horrendous for richochet they are barely as long as wide. I missed four shots on one bunny accidentally clipping a fence wire (no8 type) between me and the target as it was only a wee bit in front of the muzzle and not visible through the scope. Didn't work out what was happening until the fourth one where me offsider saw the wire wiggle. Had that one other time with a centerfire (exactly the same deal) and it pinged the wire in two and still went where it was aimed. Much to my mates disgust, as he had to fix the fence...

@whanahuia I had a good shot on a goat with the 357 rossi years ago.
Was up the bank looking for it and it had circled ba k around behind me on the lower ground, walking between 2 dredge ponds.
Maybe 50m away. Had the 2 lads with me, maybe 12 and 8yrs old and already mucked up a shot on o e so no pressure lol.
Absolutely perfect shot.
I was giving it the smallest amount of lead so I would get it in the shoulder but hit it in the neck.
Slightly down hill shot. Saw the splash from the projectile hit the water maybe 10 metres behind it but up and to the right by about 2m each direction

Quote from other thread.

Did you read the article ? It makes a very strong case for using a good bonded projectile. The 270 is on of those rounds that really tests projectiles because the initial muzzle velocity is higher that ideal for cup and core type bullets. If I pay $140 per projectile instead of $.70 it is only a difference of $.70 per shot extra and I can absolutely be sure that out of say seventy shots at game from a box of one hundred bullets I will have more humane kills with the bonded bullets and recover more meat as well. With meat at near $20 for beef mince, one extra deer per box of projectiles and less meat wasted with bullets that pass through makes the bonded projectiles effectively 'Free'.
I used to love the Winny Powerpoints, and they are good, but damage meat and are not good enough for stags

In a perfect world you are right. But there are other factors, and cost at purchase is relevant if you are on a budget. Which many are. Also relevant is other performance factors such as accuracy in your rifle etc, which will bring you more comfort and assurance of success.
One thing that I think does come into play, is that with the availability of better reloading equipment, powders and chronographs etc now than say 20+years ago. Plus the addition of apps and rangefinders and higher spec scopes. We are all possibly achieving higher velocities and using our rifles in a much wider range of situations than what the older projectiles were expected to function at.

I look back at my early reloading and know now that I had no clue what speed I was driving projectiles at and in general, in later years when I did test them, they were mildly disappointing.

“I look back at my early reloading and know now that I had no clue what speed I was driving projectiles at and in general, in later years when I did test them, they were mildly disappointing.”

Hence the saying ‘chronographs have ruined many a good load’.