Is the knockdown power from your firearm really a myth?

Click on the link and read the article:

https://www.outdoorlife.com/why-hunters-...campaign=buffer

Knockdown power isn't nearly as important as putting a good bullet in the right spot.

If it were legal, I could kill whitetails with a .22 rimfire. As ST said above, shot placement with a good bullet beats ft. lbs. of energy almost every time. I've culled 100's of deer with a .222 Remington.

I agree with Sapper. I hunt with a 22-250 most of the time and haven't lost a deer yet. None have ran over 35-40 yards. Shot placement is the key.

Without reading that article I'd say that term knockdown power is totally misapplied.
If you could
Somehow get a perfectly sized and weighed deer mannequin with the same body density
You could shoot it all day long with your deer rifle and never knock it down.
If you want true knockdown power use your pickup. That's some where around
A million foot pounds.

Yeah I'm bored. Sitting in the deer stand and seeing nothing.

I think a more interesting way to look at this is would be in the form of a wager. Easy 150 yard broadside shot and the wager is that buck has to drop in his tracks or you lose 5,000 dollars and the buck. Now what caliber and bullet combination are you going to use to insure he gets knocked down in his tracks and where are you going to shoot him? I'll stick with my 300 Weatherby, 150 grain Nosler partitions and the high shoulder shot.

The article almost discounted hydrostatic shock as being much of a factor.

"Sometimes heart-lung hit animals die instantly from so-called hydrostatic shock. Evidence suggests this is most likely from the bullet’s impact causing blood vessels to rupture in the animal’s brain."

Hydrostatic shock is what I hear most folk referring to when they say "knockdown power." They are not meaning that they are going to literally blow the animal off its feet.

Point of the shoulder or dead center of the neck, just foward of where the neck and shoulder meet. If he were facing me, center of the throat patch. Facing away, center back of the neck. Otherwise, in the head. 7mm-08. Aw he77 who am I kidding, it's for 5k. In the noggin every time!

It's a crappy phrase. Means nothing really as applied to hunting.

You only need 1 FPE per pound of body weight at 50 yards as long as the shot placement is correct. Deer are shot and killed in many states with airguns. From what I have learned is most require a .25 or .30 caliber or above to legally shot one.

I have never seen an animal knocked down by a rifle or pistol round. I have seen many animals fall down after being shot, but they were not knocked down.

Knockdown??? I was amazed at the "knockdown" power demonstratred on the 1st WTail I shot at about 125/140 yards with a 9.3x62's soft Speer 270gr SP bullet running about 2500/2600fps witha max load of RL15 under it...bullet impact was in the igh/mid crease area at a down angle and resulted in the 3-4 year old mature spike being moved airborne about 40+ feet back up the trail he had entered the food plot from ....and rolled him side to side, from the imprint left in the brushy uncut planted winter grass. Bullet Impact generated a vertically oblong egg shaped blood spray pattern on a fully leafed small tree behind him about 7'/8' wide in the early morning sunrise that I have never seen before or since on any thing I've ever shot.

Entry wound was so small I had to part the hair to find it, and exit wound was perfectly smooth & round and a little larger that a quarter sized coin. Meat damage in the surrounding tissue was neglible...but everything in between entry & exit was soup.

The 2nd WTail I shot with that round was knocked down and rolled, but had enough life force left to get up and run about 75/80 yards. He was hit with high shoulder POA slightly quartering to me at about 160/175 yrds at a down angle from the elevated blind sitting on the high shoulder overlooking a dry wash with a feeder set up on the far side. My friend Crazyhorse, from earlier THF days, who was "guiding" me, called the shot when the targeted mature spike, cleared a small herd of does he was with as they were leaving the unfenced feeder set up, and commented that the 9.3's (.366 caliber) bullet peformance was similar to the 375H&H 260gr'ers he liked to hunt with for everything.

Do I believe in a calibers "knockdown" power...yes ...as I've seen it demonstrated twice on 150+lb WTails...does it mean the targeted critter is instantly DRT? No...but I've never seen a 243, 25'06, 270, 30'06 or 300WMg that I've used to harvest deer with over the 50+ years I've been hunting deer sized animals, have had that same effect on a WTail or Texas Mule Deer.

Only similar experience was a West Texas Mule deer shot with a heavily overloaded 270 130gr 1st Gen NBT, and broke his back, hip and pelvis when he almost escaped us down in the bottom of the dry wash he was bedded in the shade, and the 1st Gen NBT blew up on the hip and pelvis bones with shrapnel exiting his brisket but did not kill him DRT either at the 60+ yard shot, and required another finisher at the base of his neck from overhead when he still had enough "juice to get up and try and gore me when I approached him face to face, dragging his back legs. He weighed 212lb's live weight on Mr Bill Carters scales, as the 3rd largest Muley of the 13 taken by the Industry people he was hosting for a weekend at the White Horse Ranch outside Van Horn.
Ron

I laughed when my daughter shot a spike that was quartering towards us. We were in a 20ft blind and he was in front of the feeder. When he was hit, he jumped backwards and hit the 6ft high feeder barrel that was about 8ft behind him, he actually moved it. Had the feeder not been there the elevation of the jump would have been the 6 ft+ and the length about 16ft, but the barrel stopped him. This is where a lot of people think they blew an animal off its feet. In our case the bullet was going down toward the deer and if knockdown where possible it would have driven the animal into the ground, not up. The deer simply reacted to the sound and feeling of impact, and jumped.

"knockdown" is a pure myth. We've debated this before in another post a few years ago here that got pretty heated. From a physics stand point, the "felt" impact or knockdown powder is about the same as the recoil you feel in the shoulder from the rifle when firing. The bullet contains the energy and transfers the terminal energy into damage inside the soft tissue. From a physics stand point, it's 2 different energy sources. I don't have the desire to hash out the research I did the last time we talked about this.

Yes, there is some "knockdown" power. Is it like you see in the movies- No! Almost all of the energy is used to do damage inside for terminal performance energy, not the actual "knockdown" power.

Chad is correct. Knockdown power is a myth. The perceived impact on the receiving end is similar/equal to the recoil felt on the sending end. On the other hand, hydraulic and hydrostatic effects can disrupt blood pressure and electronic signals to the brain which can cause an instant collapse or an instinctive leap backward to the noise/pain followed by a loss of consciousness.

Thank you Chad and DNS.
Now if you had a 6" cannon...

Very interesting read.

Shot placement is everything.

I knew an old burro hunter, long since passed, who was involved with the knockdown mythology back in the '60s, when it was still legal to shoot burros.
Was the standard question, can a rifle knock a large animal over? They knew the physics, equal and opposite reaction.
Starting with 300 magnums as a baseline they made custom heavy varmint type bullets so all the energy is delivered to the target with no pass through, similar bullets were made for all cartridges used. Second rifle was a large 458 (450 A&M mag I think) followed by a 50 BMG on a Boys Rifle action. All the burros shot fell randomly towards or away.
For the final test a 20mm Lahti was employed, even though with the expanding custom bullets a cartoon size wound was produced the burros still fell toward the gun as often as away.

The good old days before NFA and Wild vermin being protected.

M

Yes, knockdown power is a pure myth--one time Mike Tyson hit a still 120lb. Defenseless Sparring partner right in the jaw. Then a featherweight boxer hit the same sparring partner right in the jaw. The sparring partner said Tyson's blow felt like a blowing whisper of a summer breeze; while the featherweight's pierced him down to his toes. Yep, that's what they said.

Who has the salt?

If "size" doesn't matter, then I guess you all would be happy carrying pistols that shoot 22 shorts as your everyday carry weapon.

What?

I don’t think 50 shorts would kill someone, let alone 22 of them.

He said you should carry a potato gun instead.

And here we go.

What I was referring to was the ability to actually knock over an animal
Bullet size does matter, it needs to be heavy enough with enough velocity to penetrate to the vital parts. The diameter needs to be large enough to allow bleeding and not seal off.
So too small will cause problems, too big will not.

Only way you are dropping a deer where it stands is to break its spine/brain functions

Nope.

This should be good.

I’ve shot quite a few coyotes and hogs with 12 gauge 300 gr slugs and I’ll tell ya right now the coyotes pretty much get knocked over and they don’t move. Shot multiple large boats with them as well and none have taken a step with shoulder shots. That’s the closest I’ve seen to actual knockdown power.

I'm not gonna go on record as saying that's the ONLY way. But when that way is used, it does in fact turn them off like a switch. I've lost count of the whitetail does I've shot that way, and now add one cow elk.

Well there is also dropping a Piano or tree on it

It’s a myth. Discussing it as if it is real is silly.

Nah, 6" cannon will do it.
Boom-whack-roll

The three deer I shot last year with a 22-250 are a believer in knockdown power. If you've never seen a deer knocked down by a rifle shoot them in the center of the neck or head.

6.8 worked good for me haha

It’s not “knocking them down” boys. It’s killing them by destroying their vital functions.

no chit

How is it not knocking them down? When I can see it knocking them down.

When does deer season open again??

The only true "knockdown" I've seen was when I shot a small spike facing head on with a .308 varmint (i think it was a 155 grain vmax) bullet. 80 yd. shot, Bullet hit exactly where placed - middle of the throat, exploded on impact, huge entry wound, flipped him over backwards and never moved.

So, arguably wrong bullet, but on reflection consider that a knockdown.

I don't consider it normal, but it's not a myth.

It would be interesting if you could actually get a deer that was dead, stand it up in the exact same manner, and shoot it. I think you will discover that when you remove the animals reaction/reflexes (whether voluntary or involuntary), that will not happen.

Of course it wouldn’t. That’s why the whole thing is a myth.

Guess you had to be there.

I do not necessarily go for knockdown shots
BUT WHEN I DO...
I use a 45-70!

I recall seeing a video, as a kid, of Will Clark shooting a buck with a shotgun slug. I was pretty sure, at the time, that he knocked that poor bastard down. Looked like a bowling ball hit him.

A projectile that makes a big wound channel paired with good shot placement will take them every time. There is no actual knockdown power when that muzzy or rage broad head rips through. I'm thinking my 60# draw compound has less knock down power than the 160# draw crossbow and for sure less than any gun in the safe but a 3rd of the animals I've taken have fallen to it. Some of the longest tracking jobs were from rifle shots using ballistic tip bullets where little to no blood trail was found. The old compound bow always made it easy to find game with some nasty blood trails. I'd like for the game to drop where it stands but even with a rifle it doesn't always happen.

I have seen on hogs and armadillos where you shoot it falls and gets right back up so you have to shoot it again

Happens to all the hogs and coyotes I shoot with my 12 gauge and 300 gr slugs. The sound of that slug hitting them makes me smile.

total BS as far as I am concerned
shot placement, bullet selection, distance and impact velocity are what matters.

I use redneck logic.
Would you rather be shot in the chest with a 9mm or a 44 mag?

the potato gun would actually have the surface area and mass to displace enough energy to knock you down.

Or bean bag gun

Same thing for a kid in an electric Escalade. What's your point?

That I just came up with my first YouTube video....

Can you come help me with an electrical engineering project? Might want to wear a cup, I’m a terrible shot

Everyone who believes a 150 pound animal on four legs is going to get literally knocked over by an object weighing less than a half ounce needs to revisit high school physics.

Here's what someone needs to do. Take a life sized deer decoy, strap an AR500 target to it, add enough extra weight to make it realistic, then back off and start blasting away with your favorite deer rifle. Be sure to video the results.

Did you just call him an EE?

Next you'll call him a longhorn.

Yes, you have to play to his ego to get him to commit. Install a false sense of confidence.

If you want you can shoot him with the bean bag when he gets back up. We need to reconfirm results.

Take a 3/4oz bass jig and sling it at a passing jet skier's head and see if it knocks him off. I know it will.

Ego huh? I'm not the THF clown with 42K+ posts now am I?

Speaking of knockdown power...

He is a 6’6 all -conference College olineman, trust me

You want to see knockdown show him a spider and he will flip an M1 tank trying to get away from it. Oh put your ear plugs in, he screams also