Throwing metric sockets at them probably won't knock them down.

I dont care who you are, that's funny!

""Knockdown power" is just a phrase some magazine writer came up with years ago to make an article interesting. It's essentially meaningless."

all I know is that I shot a huge old buck Saturday with my 300 win mag and 180 grain Winchester XP3 load and that dude dropped like a rock. Not sure if that is called knockdown power but whatever it is called it worked - I don't like tracking deer through brush you cannot walk through or calling in dogs especially on a trophy STex deer -

hydro static shock is another myth, for one its would be a dynamic event not static, and a shock wave could never happen, the sound speed of tissues is around 5100fps so you would have to have an impact velocity of at least that to achieve a shock wave.
but there is something that does exist it would be a hydrodynamic event or hydraulic pressure. ive busted animals in the neck only to find huge pools of blood in the chest cavity.

not trying to argue but rather learn - so if I shoot a deer with a smaller caliber, lower grain load and super fast bullet versus a 180 grain, larger caliber rifle - and assuming all other things are equal (distance, shot placement, etc.) -- some of you are saying the results will be the same? Seems to me that defies physics -

I see

http://texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1343601/1

No knockdown power if you myth.

Had to say it. Had to. Forgive me.

the sole lethality of a forign object such as knife spear arrow or bullet soley depends on the wound channel and tissue, arteries or nervous system destroyed.
bigger bullets tend to leave bigger wound channels than smaller bullets and also tend to penetrate better. a small doe you prolly wont see much difference, but the bigger the animal you will see a difference

If you shoot any animal through or near the central nervous system you will immediately knock it down. Again, it has to do with the temporary and permanent wound channel caused by the trajectory of the bullet through the tissues and bone.

My brother once shot a little buck in the neck with a .243 Win. It went straight down like a bag of hammers. We grabbed the deer and threw it in the bed of the truck. Less than a mile down the road I see movement in my rearview mirror. Dang deer is standing up in the bed of the truck. We stopped and finished him off with a .22 LR pistol.

Upon cleaning we saw that the bullet passed within a fraction of an inch of the bucks spine. The shock knocked the buck down but it would not have been immediately fatal. Yes, there's some hydraulic pressure wave that can temporarily, maybe even permanently damage or destroy vital tissues. However, it's the permanent damage to organs and blood loss that kills.

There is another shot that drops a deer in its tracks but is more about timing than anything else. Shoot on in the chest that has exhaled the air out of the longs and they are a lot more solid than when full of air, so a bullet and the temporary wound canal is more effective at destroying soft tissue of the lungs. Like getting punched in the stomach, before recovering from the "punch" blood loss has taken its toll and the critter has ceased to live.