jacket vs cast in brush?

[nekshot]

Is there any concensus of a heavy slow cast bullet maintaining its path, vs a high velocity jacket bullet? I am not interested in brush busting argument but what about those little twigs your bullet encounters when shooting in woods?

[roverboy]

Pretty much all bullets will be affected by brush. Whether flat out screaming or lugging along. I mostly hunt in the woods and I just look for a clear shot.

[seaboltm]

I prefer hunting with jacketed bullets in rifles, cast bullets in pistol cartridges and 45-70.

[starmac]

I am thinking one is as good as the other for killing brush.

[Hamish]

Trajectory WILL be affected by contact with ANYTHING in its path. (including the atmosphere,,,,,)

[Wolfer]

I agree that anything a boolit or bullet touches will affect its flight. However I also believe that heavy will fare better than light if only a small twig etc is hit.
When hitting something bigger than a pencil I don't think it matters. The target better be close behind the obstacle.

[Yodogsandman]

I like to think of it like bowling. A big bowling ball at slower speed deflects in a wider arc/tangient than a little candlepin ball at faster speed does. That said, any bullet will be deflected and your target better be close to the obstruction to get the best results. Try waiting for an unobstructed shot if you can.

[roverboy]

2 or 3 years ago I shot at a nice 8 point with my muzzleloader and missed. It was a easy 45 yard shot. I didn't know why I had missed and a couple days later I saw. I had shot a 2" diameter cedar completely into. Maxi-Hunters are mean!

[C. Latch]

Long ago the NRA did some tests and basically concluded that long, heavy, FAST bullets deflected least in brush. They completely destroyed the 'slow brush buster' notion.

Personally, if I've shot at a critter obscured by brush in my lifetime, I don't remember it.

[Bullshop Junior]

I seem to remember that when they ran that test, the 30 carbine faired very well.

[cuzinbruce]

I would not count on hitting anything after brush interfered. I missed an 8 point buck last year. There was a branch close enough that I didn't see it in the scope, not in focus. Deer was maybe 35 yards, I took my time and squeezed off a shot. I expected him to drop right there. But nothing happened except a branch moving in front of me. That was with 30/06 and 1675 grain Federals. After the deer was gone, I found the mark on the branch where the bullet struck. Branch was maybe an inch and a half with a mark from the bullet on one side. Complete miss.

[MT Chambers]

I would not count on hitting anything after brush interfered. I missed an 8 point buck last year. There was a branch close enough that I didn't see it in the scope, not in focus. Deer was maybe 35 yards, I took my time and squeezed off a shot. I expected him to drop right there. But nothing happened except a branch moving in front of me. That was with 30/06 and 1675 grain Federals. After the deer was gone, I found the mark on the branch where the bullet struck. Branch was maybe an inch and a half with a mark from the bullet on one side. Complete miss. Usually bullets of that weight penetrate very well........In those old tests I recall that the 6.5X54 worked out well because of the bullet length and the MEDIUM velocity.

[williamwaco]

If your animal is two feet behind the "twig", it will not make any difference.

If your animal is 100 yards behind the "twig", it will not make any difference.

You really need to take great pains to miss the "twig".

A deflection of one degree in the path of the bullet will result in a miss of five feet if the animal is one hundred yards behind the twig.

[44man]

No such thing as a "brush buster" twigs are worse then a small tree. I can shoot through a small tree with a revolver and kill a deer if the tree is close to the deer. Distance from brush to the deer is important. The worst is high velocity when a branch is hit because it can explode the bullet. Had high velocity bullets explode on a blade of grass.
Once shot a deer with a 7-08 and sprayed her with shrapnel. Found several branches over the line of sight cut off.
I always pick an open spot but if anything is within a few inches of the deer I don't worry, the big revolver boolit is better then a fast rifle bullet. A big, slow rifle bullet is better.
Long ago I found a 30-06 tracer round would go through 2' of green oak. Why the M1 is better then the toy used today. get any enemy behind a 1' tree, shoot through the tree. Now it takes thousands or rounds to kill a bad guy. Why the SKS killed so many of our men in Nam. Better round.

[sixshot]

If you really want to know make a box with wooden dowels run down through a plywood top, space the dowels 1" apart & place your target behind the box, you'll find out in a hurry that any bullet will deflect, some much more than others. If the target is more than 10 yds behind the box you probably won't even hit it.

Dick

[IDSS]

The noted effect of bullet construction and speed is probably the most important factor; followed closely by, and tied to, distance beyond the obstacle to the target.

A couple examples with HV j-word bullets-

Some friends and I were calling coyotes in the mesquite brush/sand dune thickets in New Mexico. A coyote showed up and was standing on a dune, surrounded by a mass of little bitty mesquites no more than half the diameter of a pencil. A guy shooting a .204 Ruger was up for the shot and he let fly. The little "fur friendly" bullet must have hit one of the twigs en route, because that coyote looked like he'd been hit with a saw blade going sideways. The hit was low and he was open from brisket to belly.
End result; small twigs, close by, deflected and considerably deformed a frangible bullet. Pure luck that a big enough pice carried through to finish the job.

Another coyote, in another mesquite thicket, bayed by my dog. The coyote was a badly-hit cripple from a previous shot. He had bayed up in a bunch of mesquite and I had to put him down. I was shooting Sierra 52 grain HP in a .223, a much tougher bullet than any polymer-tipped prairie dog bullet. That round tracked through the 18 inches, or so, of intervening twigs and ended the coyotes flight to evade capture.

Each of these is only a sample of one, but the velocity vs. construction vs. distance-beyond-obstruction calculus seems to hold up. Either of those coyotes would likely have been deader, quicker if hit well with a decent cast boolit through the same brush.

[MBTcustom]

I went through this a few years ago when I was dinking around with shotgun slugs. Turnes out, the very best projectile for making it through brush is a wad cutter. The closet you get to a RN, the worse it behaves.

[roverboy]

No such thing as a "brush buster" twigs are worse then a small tree. I can shoot through a small tree with a revolver and kill a deer if the tree is close to the deer. Distance from brush to the deer is important. The worst is high velocity when a branch is hit because it can explode the bullet. Had high velocity bullets explode on a blade of grass.
Once shot a deer with a 7-08 and sprayed her with shrapnel. Found several branches over the line of sight cut off.
I always pick an open spot but if anything is within a few inches of the deer I don't worry, the big revolver boolit is better then a fast rifle bullet. A big, slow rifle bullet is better.
Long ago I found a 30-06 tracer round would go through 2' of green oak. Why the M1 is better then the toy used today. get any enemy behind a 1' tree, shoot through the tree. Now it takes thousands or rounds to kill a bad guy. Why the SKS killed so many of our men in Nam. Better round.

I totally agree. A lot of veterans I've talked to don't like the smaller round.

[GunFun]

Long ago the NRA did some tests and basically concluded that long, heavy, FAST bullets deflected least in brush. They completely destroyed the 'slow brush buster' notion.

Personally, if I've shot at a critter obscured by brush in my lifetime, I don't remember it.

Any chance you could find the issue of the article? I'd enjoy reading that.

[C. Latch]

Any chance you could find the issue of the article? I'd enjoy reading that.


I'm going to guess that this was in an American Hunter magazine, sometime in the 1980's, and I almost certainly read it at my grandfather's house, and that particular copy of the magazine is certainly gone forever.

[Wolfer]

A couple years ago I was setting under a cedar tree with my 45 colt waiting for some unlucky critter to wander by. The first shootable critter to come by was a coyote. At about 15 yds it went behind a thin multi-floral rose bush and I shifted into position. When I eared the hammer back it heard the faint sound of the bolt drop. ( when close I always hold the trigger back, cock the hammer and let the trigger off. I can do this completely silent but I can't do anything about the cylinder stop. )
Now it's looking at me and it's shoot or forever hold my peace. Well I like the smell of powder smoke so I lit the fire.
As it ran off I could tell it was hit so I tracked it up with my dog. I was aiming at the front shoulder and the boolit hit a little forward of midrib. The entrance hole was about 3" long and about as wide as my finger with a pretty good chunk of lung on the outside of the hole. Exit hole was 45 cal and right in front of the opposite hip.
I assume the boolit was tumbling when it hit? I never could find a mark on the rose bush.

[Digital Dan]

No such thing as a "brush buster" twigs are worse then a small tree. I can shoot through a small tree with a revolver and kill a deer if the tree is close to the deer. Distance from brush to the deer is important. The worst is high velocity when a branch is hit because it can explode the bullet. Had high velocity bullets explode on a blade of grass.
Once shot a deer with a 7-08 and sprayed her with shrapnel. Found several branches over the line of sight cut off.
I always pick an open spot but if anything is within a few inches of the deer I don't worry, the big revolver boolit is better then a fast rifle bullet. A big, slow rifle bullet is better.
Long ago I found a 30-06 tracer round would go through 2' of green oak. Why the M1 is better then the toy used today. get any enemy behind a 1' tree, shoot through the tree. Now it takes thousands or rounds to kill a bad guy. Why the SKS killed so many of our men in Nam. Better round.

Really?