Eps 347: 243 Win and Hydrostatic Shock

Ron Spomer is the absolute master of disagreeing without being a jerk.

When I was just a kid, in the sixties, I had the choice between a deer gun in .243 or a deer gun in .308. I still have that .243.

A master course in how to disagree without being disagreeable! Keep up the great work Ron!

The amount of hydrostatic shock depends a lot on the right match between velocity and bullet construction...... Weatherby had trouble with the bullets of the time disintegrating due to excessive velocity at close ranges. This was partly cured by the like of Barnes "X" and Nosler partition bullets etc.... there are lots of them now. Placement is king... when the cheap milsurp 303 ran out here in NZ, the government deer cullers went to the little .222 which is superbly accurate and dropped deer in their tracks with head and neck shots within 200 yards. Quite a few hunters here, in the less open country, use the .223 to great effect, usually with 65gr bullets from a 20" barrel. A bit light in my old fashioned view, but they seem to work. Bullets these days are so much better than used to be case when many of these rounds were born and I was young and fit...the little .243 Win being a case in point. With the modern advanced bullets in the 100-110gr range they will drop anything that lives in NZ (up to Wapiti....Elk) with well placed shots. Get an expanding bullet over 60gr into the "boiler room" at over 2000fps and no deer will go far....

Ive seen many a deer taken with 243 win in 70 grain nossler ballistic tip, 85 grain speer boat tail, 87 VMAX, 90 soft point, 95 grain SST and 100 grain soft point. On the shoulder and behind. I dont see why people dislike it.

I shoot a 243 with either an 80 or 85 grain Barnes tsx or Hornady GMX. ALWAYS a 1 shot stop on whitetails here in Mississippi. Never had one make it past 50 yds.

243 & 6mm Ron is spot on when it comes to bullet construction. I bet a 90 grain Swift Scirocco II will go thru the front shoulder and exit. In addition an 85 grain Nosler Partition around 3,300 fps a try if shots are not impacted by wind over 250 yards. Not much recoil. Guarantee it will go thru a Whitetail hit in the shoulder. If wind and distance come into play shoot the 100 Grain Partition.

Thank you i've learned so much from your Shorts and your podcast! It reminds me of growing up in the 60s and 70s. We used to be able to shoot at school in the 60s. But today's gap is so far apart. It's hard to imaginebut I remember every time your pod or show comes on! and all the good things in life as a kid as it involves rifles and shooting. It was definitely a gun culture back then. Unlike today, it is still there but not the same. There's an saying "You can go home but you can't go home" right? Have a blessed day❤

I agree with you, Ron and your view on the 308, 7mm-08, 260, etc....

Ron, you are correct. I did some more research and it turns out that what I have is a .458 Win Mag, but the ammo I have is made from .375 H&H brass. Thanks for the clarification.

There must be some reason the .243 Win. has outlived so many similar rounds.

Thanks Ron, long time fan, but this post resonates on so many levels. I can relate to every comment on this post. There's just too much to comment and agree upon. Just thankyou for your knowledge, cheers and regards from New Zealand/ Aotearoa.🙂👍

Not a grain weight problem, but I've seen a 90 gr SST grenade on deer a shoulder. We found the deer the next day and followed it up with a neck shot. After dissecting the shoulder that bullet never entered the thoracic cavity. No hate to Hornady, or cup and core bullets in general, but after seeing that I would highly suggest close range shots with impact velocity over 3k to chose the projectile wisely. Love the channel, Ron!

My brother in law just shot a buck straight in the shoulder this past fall with a 243 within 100 yards. Can’t remark about the bullet weight, but the buck dropped in place, primarily due to the loss of use of that front leg and bled out within less than a minute afterwards. During processing, we discovered that the bullet sent shards of bone deep into the chest cavity which actually seemed to have aided hemorrhaging. Fragments of lead and jacket were found strewn throughout the chest cavity alongside the bone fragments. I was quite surprised about the damage considering that the bullet must have deformed instantly upon impact with the bone.

Thanks Ron for another great discussion. I’ve been hunting for a long time (including commercial culling), and spent many hours guiding other hunters in South Africa. Hydrostatic Shock exists in theory, however, animals are not a single vessel filled with a homogenous fluid. There are gasses present, and the chest cavity is not fluid filled. You can apply the hydrostatic theory to the heart, because depending upon the heart stroke it can be fully filled with fluids. However, you cannot apply a constant compression ratio to the impact in the skin, muscle, bones, tendons, chest cavity and then the vital organs.

Wow! That question of the week bell made me sit up straight! Gotta prepare for that. Thanks for your great program.

We can argue over the strangest things....sometimes it seems like we're trying to determine the smallest projectile necessary to down whitetail. Even though 22LR has and will take down a deer, we all know it's not the most ethical hunting decision AND might put us at odds with state regulations. Something in 30cal with a lot of a$$ behind it will ALWAYS take down a deer, mule deer and elk.

I know I've bragged on my grandma on your channel before but here I go again. On Christmas 1956 my grandpa gave her a shiny new Savage 99 in 243 to replace her ancient beat up M94 30-30. For the next 37 years ...EVERY YEAR my grandma filled her elk tag with that rifle with WIlliams peep sights. It is important to say that she was the sneakiest woman who ever trod a game trail. She had the skills and patience to work in close and the marksmanship to hit exactly where she intended. She never lost an elk in all those years. SOmetimes I think people expect too much of their technology. I used to be a gold instructor. Guys would constantly ask me if I thought they should buy the clubs that the current golf hero was swinging. I would ell them that when you have Tigers SWING then you buy his clubs. Same goes for hunting. If you have practiced and perfected your sneak, caliber is nearly irrelevant. Many of the elk she tyook with both 30-30 and 243 were shot in bow range. Much of that she attributed to making her own lye soap on the ranch. I had zero scent so she washed all of ther hunting clothes and her person with the scent free lye soap before she would hunt and at the end of the day she would put all her clothes in a bag full of dirt, prarie grass, sage and a some bark shavings off a live lodgepole. She also said that elk are used to the smell of smoke so she would stand around the fire for a bit in the evening before she bagged her gear. SHe also said that she was so short that elk probably couldn't see her so all she had to do was defeat their nose and ears. Whatever it was man, she had the gift. Lots of peoplpe practice shooting but I never met a client in camp who practiced HUNTING... end of rant... I now return you to your regularly scheduled program

There is an article from the Aug 1999 Firearms Tactical Institute publication that discusses the effect attributed to the hydrostatic shock comment. It is entitled "Blunt Trauma Concussion of Spinal Cord as Mechanism of Instantaneous Collapse". Basically, the force of the tissue being moved aside from the temporary cavity "can cause the spinal bones to collide forcefully against the spinal cord, disrupting nerve transmissions and causing instantaneous flaccid paralysis". In other words the spine gets rattled and the animal is briefly paralyzed. If enough tissue is damaged, the animal will die before it regains mobility. Otherwise, the animal can recover enough to run. The exact location of the temporary cavity and its size is important. The whole thing is pretty complicated since it involves the speed, mass, and effective frontal area of the bullet and exactly what tissues it goes through. From what I have read, this "Dropped Right There" or "like struck by lightning" effect became much more common with the introduction of the 270 Winchester. 270 loads seemed to have the right combination of bullet diameter and velocity to routinely stun deer, something seldom seen older cartridges like the 30-30.

It is so refreshing to watch Ron Spomer, especially after watching a couple of those macho gun gurus on YouTube who in front of the camera speak two octaves below their normal speech and try to sound like John Wayne or Sam Elliot. Ron has a quality that is not found easily among so-called gun experts on the Internet: humility. He does not need to sound like an expert to impress his audience--he is an expert who bases his statements on solid evidence and on his own massive experience. Thanks, Ron!