Do You Need a Magnum?
As a custom rifle builder, I get dozens of calls a month with individuals wanting me to build them the latest wonder-magnum featured on the cover of some gun rag. Typically it’s some gun scribe who is extolling the virtues of the new cartridge and how it kills more effectively than present-day choices. Bull elk, distant mule deer, and far-away exotics don’t stand a chance when shot with this wicked new development. Blistering muzzle velocities, zero hold-over to the next zip code coupled with BC approaching .999.
Who wouldn’t rejoice at the chance to own one of these hot-rods? Well, it’s time for a cold shower to clear your head. A keyboard is a great tool when it comes to seducing the public to purchase cars, guns, motorcycles, lingerie, and more. Just grab the phone as operators are standing by to take your call!
Writers often quote cartridges of a given diameter, foot-pounds of energy, sectional density, muzzle velocity, ballistic coefficient, hydrostatic-shock factors, and weight retention in a complex formula that supposedly equates to lethality. Killing big game animals is not as difficult as some would have you believe.
Just crunch the numbers and fork over the Franklins. Amazing to say the least.
The animals we hunt, eat, and hang on the wall are all mammals. They all have a brain, spinal column, heart, lungs, and liver that function to keep them alive.
Setting aside all the hype, we only need to destroy one of the organs listed above to claim our dinner or trophy. Yes, it’s that EASY…. Keep in mind these organs are fragile and not coated in layers of Kevlar or protected by bullet-proof ceramic panels as some would suggest.
So, it all boils down to shot placement and organ destruction. Yep, that’s it! Let’s examine the function of these organs. The heart pumps the blood, the lungs process the oxygen, the spinal column and brain enable voluntary muscular and skeletal function, the liver (think of it as the oil filter in your car/truck) processes the blood pumped by the heart. Unscrew the oil filter from your vehicle and see how far you go.
This warthog was shot with a 375 H&H MAGNUM by another client 2- weeks prior to my arrival. The shot, as you can see, was above the lungs and below the spine. The wound was caked in mud which stopped the bleeding. He was alive and well, motoring around the savannah until a single bullet from my 6.5 Creedmoor stopped him in his tracks. So much for the cliche: Hit 'em anywhere with a MAGNUM and he's dead...Remove any one of these organs from the equation and death occurs in short order. Our Alumni African Hunts have proved this out over 800 times on big game animals more tenacious than their North American counterparts. A quick humane death is the result of organ destruction, not muscle-tissue damage. Yes, they may ultimately die, but can suffer for days or weeks before doing so.
Off-the-charts ballistic performance comes at a price that few want to accept/recognize. RECOIL! Yes, that 6-letter word that no real man will ever bow down to. Yet when we head to the range and watch people shoot, RECOIL does indeed affect their performance. If we fail to destroy any of the organs mentioned above, the results can be a long chase or, in the worst-case scenario, a LOST animal.
In the grand scheme of things, it does not require a lot of horsepower to get the job done. The 22 rim-fire and 30-30 have probably harvested more deer than all the magnums combined. When we compare all the parameters (muzzle velocity, foot-lbs. of energy, BC, sectional density, and hydrostatic shock), the 22 L.R. and 30-30 are not particularly impressive. Yet, if we take a 40-grain pill and hit the brain or perforate the heart, it’s game over. For those of you who have been to my classroom, there is a Euro mount of 400 lb. gemsbuck that I dispatched with a single 22 L.R. round at 65 yards in the Kalahari years ago. A 150 gr. flat-nosed 30-30 bullet at 2100 fps in the lungs will stop anything shy of T-Rex. On the other hand, a 200 gr. wonder-bullet at 3400 fps that misses its mark will leave you hungry and cold at the end of the day.
In the post-mortem interview, not one game animal has guessed the muzzle velocity within 200 fps, or the ballistic coefficient of the bullet. Don’t get hung up on stats, it’s a waste of time and dollars. Dead is DEAD!
Bottom line.
Choose a cartridge that you can shoot well. Understand anatomy. Target any of the aforementioned organs for destruction and say good-bye to TAG SOUP!
“Impressive stats and keyboard strokes never put a steak on my table, only my ability behind the rifle is what made the difference.”
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