Thread: Quiet effective sub caliber for hunting, is there such a thing?

In some ways, killing power ultimately comes down to speed as a fundamental rather than a factor. When a projectile is going relatively slowly such as subsonic, it can create a situation where animal organ tissue is supple enough to yeild to the projectile. Essentially avoiding hydrostatic shock.

Think of it this way...
Would you rather be hit by a bus doing 4km/h or a cyclist doing 45km/h

Both have similar kinetic energy but you would bounce off the bus and the actual impact of the bus agains't your person would not cause much if any injury (here we ignore hitting the ground or getting squashed as we would with a bullet). If you get hit by the cyclist, it will result in significant impact injury from the same amount of kinetic energy.

Another way to look at it, is to take the slower heavier projectile to an extreme that helps us picture difference in slow and heavy vs fast and light.
A rugby ball fired at a goat or deer at ~200fps will have similar kinetic muzzle energy as a subsonic .44 240gn bullet, or ~220fps to have the same MV as a .22 hornet.
No guarantee that it wouldn't kill a deer, but it would be much more survivable (at least in the immediate) than a .22 hornet with any given matching shot placement.


In saying all of the above, I have shot a number of goats with subsonic .22 and correct shot placement (head/upper spine) at correct angle still results in a bang flop.

Personally I think if you are going to use subsonics on the bigger animals, shot placement is crucial and projectile choice is also important.


If you are adamant about not reloading, then 300blk is probably your best bet, with a reasonable variety of factory subsonics and although limited in power compared to the larger calibres, a still useful selection of high velocity options too.