I am sure there will be strong opinions hence the nuclear icon.

I am going to deer hunt this fall with a 1911.  On other forums there have been some strong opinions raised concerning it being under powered.  My shots for the last 14 years have all been under 40 yards.  So the gun should cover the range as long as I use good shot placement.  While researching for the best factory bullet to use I came across a discussion saying we should use KO power as opposed to  ft-lb/sec to determine lethality of a cartridge.


cartridge     velocity ft/sec* weight gr* diameter in. / gr. To lb.=KO Value
45acp          800                  230     0.452                7000        11.9
45acp         830                   230     0.452                7000        12.3
357 mag     1235                158     0.357                 7000        10.0
357 mag     1370                125     0.357                 7000        8.7
30 30         2390                 150     0.3                     7000       15.4 


Figuring it this way the 45acp is harder hitting than the 357mag

Care to comment?

-MD

So this tells me my 10mm shooting 200 gr. hardcast @ 1300 fps is putting out a KO factor of 14.9 is there a chart for big game that correlates with the KO factor?

The KO value should be calculated based on the bullet conditions at the point of impact. At 40 yards, a 230 grain .45 cal bullet that had a muzzle velocity of 835 fps, will have a velocity of 803 fps.

gopheer1,

I punched your 10mm into my spreadsheet. I used .394 for the bullet diameter and came up with 14.6. A hefty punch and coming close to the 30-30.

Grandpops,

Do you prefer a solid point or a hollow point for a 45?

-MD

Never talked to a deer that had studied these scientific ballistic tables. The Taylor formulas, BCs, fpr/energy numbers are fun to study. I almost had many memorized at one time. But going by these tables and what so-called experts pontificate on the .30-30 and .44 Mag are only marginally effective deer rounds. I had a boss once that lived by the energy factors and believed whole-heartedly that 1,000 ft/lbs was the minimal for deer. He proclaimed every chance he got that the .30-30 was a horrible deer round past 100 yds, and the .44 Mag was only effective at really close hand-gun combat range. Well, of course we all know better but it shows how even a knowledgeable shooter can be made a fool of when he believes data crunched on paper as opposed to blood on the ground. The .45 ACP is effective at 'handgun ranges' if you do your part to get the slug to the vitals, and as long as you have tested your round on some medium at various ranges to determine how far you can be to get deep enough penetration.

Any of you guys have one of the old Powley Handloader calculators? Made of paper and a slide with charts on both sides. I have that AND a computer program. I think the Powley calculator is just a tad more accurate. The computer is nce but my actual shooting isn't as right with the computer as it is with the Powley Calculator.

I don't hunt with a .45acp, but for what pistol hunting I do, I perfer a soft point solid bullet rather than a hollow point or full metal jacket.

For a .45 ACP slug I think a lead semi-wadcutter would be a good choice. You have some expansion possible so it is legal to use in States (like mine) where FMJ is illegal for hunting, plus the design allows the slug to cut a hole rather than simply push tissue aside. Shoot paper and compare a Semi-wadcutter, a round nose and HPs and you can see that the round nose tends to "star" the paper leaving a smaller hole when you press the torn star petals back together. The HPs are made to expand which could limit penetration to shallower than desired and also divert the slug's trajectory in the deer.

Let me first say that the "KO" values - a simplified version of John Taylor's Momentum-based system from the 1920's, is intended to be a scale for comparing African rifles using full metal jacket round nose bullets. For .375 to .620 diameter bullets at 1600 to 2700 fps striking elephants, they seem to be reasonably valid. However, as you add more variables (Different nose types, for example) or stray from the original design of the model, the credibility of your results gets steadily worse. So, the 45ACP is not "harder hitting" than the 357Mag, it just has more momentum. Do animals drop from pure momentum? It is unlikely, though I don't know of any scientifically valid research to prove it. Momentum that will knock over a 200lb deer will also knock over a 200lb hunter.
I would submit that animals drop from 2 interdependent factors: damage to vital organs and support structures and poorly understood events that used to fall under the title of "hydrostatic shock." The latter seems to only operate at impact velocities over2600 fps, but not consistently. In any case, not a part of the "normal handgun" world.
That leaves us with reliably damaging vital organs (e.g. heart, central nervous system) and critical support structures (bones). This requires precision, an intimate understanding of the quarry's anatomy, a projectile of sufficient stability and structural integrity, and sufficient velocity to penetrate to the target vital organ or bones.
What's that in plain English? Study your prey and shoot straight.
Just remember, as Shiloh pointed out, Deer don't read very well.

Has any one used the Ultramax® Remanufactured .45 ACP 230 Gr. RNL? It has a KO rating of 13.1

-MD

I am reminded of a handicapped gusnmithing student I was in school with. He was confined to a wheel chair and for his project rifle in school he built himself a benchrest rifle in .458 Win Mag. I questioned his design of course and he said he wanted it as accurate as possible and since he was in a chair he wanted a round that would make the deer dead right where he decided to shoot it at. Very 1st time he hit a muley with it, the buk lept, ran about 30-40 yds and collapsed just as though it'd been hit by any common round. He was a little disgusted. Instructor chuckled and said no 2 deer react the same way to being hit by the same round in the same spot.

I would have no probelm using the .45 acp at ranges that are within your ability to place the bullet where it needs to be. At one of the LRRP shooting matches while taking a lunch break a feller was talking about how the .45 was just to slow to really be effective at killing deer. After listening to him go on and on I finally told him if he felt it was to slow then take it a and place it against his chest and pull the trigger and see if it really needed to be any fatser. I am with Shiloh in that animals don't read this stuff and I don't care what it says if a bullet is correctly placed the animal dies period. I do know that here according to the Wardens that the firearm of choice of poachers is the .22LR along with correct bullet placement. I quit reading and paying any attention to items such as this list after enlisting in the Army and seeing what a small caliber firearm did to a human body. I saw and treated some horrible wounds inflicted by small caliber rounds when they were placed correctly or had richoched off bone/s. So bottom line is use it as long as you can put the bullet into the vitals at a reasonable range.

Gee, I guess we should stop using sticks and strings too if a 45acp ain effective?

In one of the more recent popular tissues available at the stands one of the scribes questions this same theory. He goes on to state the ft lbs of energy of a 223 vs the 44 mag but then asks which one you'd rather have if a bear got into your tent.

While the .44 Mag would be the usual choice in that case, if I awake to a nasty ol' griz in my tent a S.A.W. would beat the .44 Mag hands-down.

While searching the web on handgun hunting I came across this article. 

-MD




http://www.customsixguns.com/writin...unting.htm

The "industry" give us foot-pounds of energy figures to ponder over on cold evenings. We could shoot phonograph needles at the speed of light for, say, "20 tons" of energy and never stop anything bigger than a bull pack rat. Or we can shoot heavy .44 and .45 caliber slugs and do things very few would believe. I long ago quit using the foot-pounds formula ( using it only now to figure pressures ) and went to the most perfect formula by the late John "PONDORA" Taylor of African fame. Taylor’s formula that he called "Knock Out" is figured this way:

Caliber in diameter
times
bullet weight in grains
times
velocity
divided by
7000

Don’t ask me how he came up with such a formula or what the "7000" figure comes from. I do not know. But I do know that the resulting figures you get are a very accurate example of what your gun and load will do on game. Taylor claimed that while shooting his big critters that could hit back, that the big guns offered KNOCK OUT over the little guns even though exact shot placement was not accomplished. Example: a charging bull elephant taken head-on in the forehead with .416 and .470 bore rifles. I quote from "African Rifles and Cartridges" page 12 ..author Taylor says, "If you take a frontal head shot at an elephant with a .416 and miss the brain by a small amount, you will probably not knock him out. His hindquarters will give way and he will squat there like a huge hog for few moments, then, if you don’t finish him off at once, he will heave to his feet again, slew around and clear off. But if you had taken the same shot with the .470 and missed the brain by the same amount, that elephant would have been knocked entirely unconscious, and would have remained down for anything up to five minutes - yet the theoretical energies of the rifles are the same."

Now Taylor was hunting Elephant, Rhino, Cape Buffalo and other dangerous game, plus was using rifles of immense power compared to our sixguns. This I will agree on. But by using this formula, that I believe is absolutely as perfect as humanly possible, to measure a projectile’s effect on a critter, one can realize the power and potential the big bore sixgun possesses. This formula will also show how the said sixgun with it’s big-bore and heavy slugs rates with the popular rifle caliber’s used by many hunters today. Here is a quick comparison:

.44 Magnum 240 gr. slug at 1400 fps : .430 X 240 X 1400
divided by 7000 = 20.6 Knock Out (KO)
.270 Winchester 130 gr. slug at 3100 fps : .277 X 130 X
3100 divided by 7000 = 15.9 KO

I had a neighbor in Lemon Grove, CA who said, at one point that he was going to carry a .30 Luger because it was more powerfull than a 45, one of these things that one can come up with while juggling numbers.
I also Massad Ayoob (GUNS Magazine) saying he had taken hits on body armour with a number of different calibers and that a 45 hurt more than a 357. Big rocks do sometimes have an advantage.

An anecdote from the time when I was very young in Michigan---My dad had friend that poached deer for personall use--he used a 32 rimfire. Dad did not mention any lost animals during those trips.

The "7000" is the number of grains in an avoirdupois pound.

Posted By finepoint on 31 Aug 2012 08:44 AM
The "7000" is the number of grains in an avoirdupois pound.

Avoir...av...avroirdup...  My what a big smart-sounding word!  I am indeed impressed.  I already knew that there are 7,000 grs in a pound - because the cannon load measure has it listed.

To shilohs SAW comment, my dad saw a tiger killed by a GI in "nam, had so many holes in it the hide wasn't even worth keeping. On the other hand, a 44 is less likely to get you into trouble, at least in the US.

The avoirdupois pound is the common, everyday pound with 16 ounces of 437.5 grains each, as opposed to the troy pound which is 5760 grains in weight and is composed of 12 troy ounces ( of 480 grains each ). Troy weights are used exclusively for precious metals such as gold. So, yes, a pound of lead weighs more than a pound of gold, but an ounce of lead weighs less than an ounce of gold. There is also an apothecary's pound which is also 7000 grains. The grain is the only constant for weight in the English system.