meketrefe
.450/400 Nitro Ex
I think the biggest issue is to be able to replicate conditions so one can do a test with certain consistency.
That is why I like the Muzzleloader test above because it shows the different results explaining how he setup
everything to replicate conditions consistently.
A 1" diameter willow branch doesn't have the same effect on a bullet with 2 or 3 times the momentum of another one.
This is simple physics. I think the various tests posted above prove this fact too while I have not seen one single evidence
in life or anywhere that a faster moving lighter bullets is more effective in this situation.
Here I found more opinions about "brush busters". This guy quotes o'connor again.
Woods and Brush Rifles
Brush-Bucking Calibers and Bullets
I have read about several "brush-bucking" tests in which the authors tried to determine empirically what sort of bullet is most likely to penetrate brush and reach the target (usually a deer silhouette). The test conditions were all different, ranging from firing bullets at a target placed some distance behind actual heavy brush, to intentionally shooting through limbs, to firing into a box filled with equally spaced wooded dowels of fairly large diameter.
One important variable in such tests is the distance the target is placed behind the "brush." Another is the diameter and hardness of the simulated or real "brush." A leaf is different from a twig, which is different from a branch, which is different from a rigidly held wooden dowel. Real brush has a lot to recommend it and is probably the test medium I would choose, but the biggest problem with using real brush is that all bullets cannot hit the same amount of brush at the same angle, skewing the results. I suspect that you would have to fire an awful lot of bullets into real brush to get statistically valid results.
Unfortunately, the results of the tests I have read about varied widely. I have never constructed such a test myself (although I have been tempted), as I am not sure what the test conditions should be. I suspect that the results of my test would be no more reliable than previous tests. Most authorities have concluded that a large caliber bullet of great sectional density gets through brush the best. Cartridges like the .458 Winchester Magnum are frequent winners. That makes sense to me.
Jack O'Connor, in his Gun Book wrote about the results of such a test that he spent several afternoons conducting with a variety of calibers and bullet weights. O'Connor shot at a 3' by 4' outline of a deer through a heavy screen of natural brush. His results indicated several things. One was that, as logic suggests, the farther behind the brush the target was placed, the safer it was. At 6' the "deer" was liable to be hit; at 20' the "deer" was pretty safe.
O'Connor tested a variety of calibers from the .220 Swift to the .375 H&H Magnum, including the standard one ounce 12 gauge shotgun slug. This latter projectile proved to the best brush-bucker of them all, as it is stabilized by its weight forward design rather than by spin. Even the 300 grain Silvertip bullet fired from the .375 Magnum showed considerable deflection in O'Connor's testing. The .35 Remington's 200 grain RN bullet often found the target, but frequently hit sideways.
The worst caliber for penetrating brush was the .220 Swift loaded with a 50 grain Spire Point bullet. It almost never made it through the brush intact. (No surprise, as this bullet is designed to break-up against light resistance.)
Fairly light (for their caliber) high velocity bullets such as the 87 grain .250-3000, 100 grain .257 Roberts, 130 grain .270 Winchester, and 150 grain .30-06 spitzers also faired poorly in O'Connor's brush tests. The 100 grain .250 bullet was better than the 87 grain bullet, but still not very good at getting through the brush. The 117 grain RN .257, 150 grain RN .270, and 180 grain RN .30-06 bullets all gave O'Connor a much improved chance of hitting the target in their respective calibers.
He rated the .300 Savage with a 180 grain RN bullet and the .35 Remington with a 200 grain RN bullet as "good." The best results with any rifle caliber used in O'Connor's testing were obtained with the .348 Winchester using a 200 grain Flat Point bullet. O'Connor summarized his results this way: "I found that the higher the bullet velocity, the sharper the point, the thinner the jacket, the lighter the weight, the greater the deflection."
That is why I like the Muzzleloader test above because it shows the different results explaining how he setup
everything to replicate conditions consistently.
A 1" diameter willow branch doesn't have the same effect on a bullet with 2 or 3 times the momentum of another one.
This is simple physics. I think the various tests posted above prove this fact too while I have not seen one single evidence
in life or anywhere that a faster moving lighter bullets is more effective in this situation.
Here I found more opinions about "brush busters". This guy quotes o'connor again.
Woods and Brush Rifles
Brush-Bucking Calibers and Bullets
I have read about several "brush-bucking" tests in which the authors tried to determine empirically what sort of bullet is most likely to penetrate brush and reach the target (usually a deer silhouette). The test conditions were all different, ranging from firing bullets at a target placed some distance behind actual heavy brush, to intentionally shooting through limbs, to firing into a box filled with equally spaced wooded dowels of fairly large diameter.
One important variable in such tests is the distance the target is placed behind the "brush." Another is the diameter and hardness of the simulated or real "brush." A leaf is different from a twig, which is different from a branch, which is different from a rigidly held wooden dowel. Real brush has a lot to recommend it and is probably the test medium I would choose, but the biggest problem with using real brush is that all bullets cannot hit the same amount of brush at the same angle, skewing the results. I suspect that you would have to fire an awful lot of bullets into real brush to get statistically valid results.
Unfortunately, the results of the tests I have read about varied widely. I have never constructed such a test myself (although I have been tempted), as I am not sure what the test conditions should be. I suspect that the results of my test would be no more reliable than previous tests. Most authorities have concluded that a large caliber bullet of great sectional density gets through brush the best. Cartridges like the .458 Winchester Magnum are frequent winners. That makes sense to me.
Jack O'Connor, in his Gun Book wrote about the results of such a test that he spent several afternoons conducting with a variety of calibers and bullet weights. O'Connor shot at a 3' by 4' outline of a deer through a heavy screen of natural brush. His results indicated several things. One was that, as logic suggests, the farther behind the brush the target was placed, the safer it was. At 6' the "deer" was liable to be hit; at 20' the "deer" was pretty safe.
O'Connor tested a variety of calibers from the .220 Swift to the .375 H&H Magnum, including the standard one ounce 12 gauge shotgun slug. This latter projectile proved to the best brush-bucker of them all, as it is stabilized by its weight forward design rather than by spin. Even the 300 grain Silvertip bullet fired from the .375 Magnum showed considerable deflection in O'Connor's testing. The .35 Remington's 200 grain RN bullet often found the target, but frequently hit sideways.
The worst caliber for penetrating brush was the .220 Swift loaded with a 50 grain Spire Point bullet. It almost never made it through the brush intact. (No surprise, as this bullet is designed to break-up against light resistance.)
Fairly light (for their caliber) high velocity bullets such as the 87 grain .250-3000, 100 grain .257 Roberts, 130 grain .270 Winchester, and 150 grain .30-06 spitzers also faired poorly in O'Connor's brush tests. The 100 grain .250 bullet was better than the 87 grain bullet, but still not very good at getting through the brush. The 117 grain RN .257, 150 grain RN .270, and 180 grain RN .30-06 bullets all gave O'Connor a much improved chance of hitting the target in their respective calibers.
He rated the .300 Savage with a 180 grain RN bullet and the .35 Remington with a 200 grain RN bullet as "good." The best results with any rifle caliber used in O'Connor's testing were obtained with the .348 Winchester using a 200 grain Flat Point bullet. O'Connor summarized his results this way: "I found that the higher the bullet velocity, the sharper the point, the thinner the jacket, the lighter the weight, the greater the deflection."
