Ask the survival geek

[marin]

@robdoar when I start making videos of TLD, I will request that you join me sometimes and keep me alive if that is okay with you.

Question is, can you survive being in a chat with a mad croatian for longer than 10 minutes?

[robdoar]

Are you more belligerent than Estonians? I held my own in Talin. :-)

Would love to join ya.

[TattooedMac]

@RollingCarey Having a sharp edge and keeping it on a blade is a high-end skill in itself. For years when i was a kid, i would watch my old man sharpen the killing knife on a sharpening stone, and i would do my knife after. It took me years and years to master the skill to be able to do this. It isn't easy in any sense of the word, and its for this reason that people are making the self sharpening devices for in the Kitchen.

I have the beautiful Ceramic German made Wusthof Ceramic Knife Sharpener and keeps my knives at the precision sharpness.

For my bush knives, i get them professionally sharpened every 6-12 months depending on use, and just hone the edge to keep them in tip top shape. I also have a Oil Stone if and when needed.

But as @robdoar posted, its best to not try and sharpen them out bush, but if you HAVE to, then the smooth river rock, or brick (if around a building) will give you a little something to work with . . . .

[ark1of712]

Hey folks, I have question I would love some feedback on if you have the time!

Can a wolf survive a torso shot from a .303 British calibre round?

I posted some of my feedback on .166 recently and I'm afraid I may have upset a fellow community member through some of my current understanding of bullet trauma, blood loss, and survivability outcomes. I figured maybe the best thing to do would take the time to educate myself further so that I can not only expand my own knowledge, but stand behind, or abandon, my current beliefs.

Firstly I really did try to answer this questions through my own experience and my own research, but I couldn't really find a good reputable source online.

I have hunted deer with my father a few times, with .303 British, in Nova Scotia, and found that it reliably does a moderate level of damage. While I do not doubt that a round of that calibre does not always stop a deer in its tracks, as several times I did witness them run a bit, maybe 30-40 yards before they were too tired from the blood loss. Often it was simply enough trauma that by the time we reached it it was either dead or unconscious and dying. That's as far as my knowledge goes.

I have never shot a wolf or coyote in my life, as I have never had cause to and it's pretty illegal in Canada as far as I know haha, but is it a fair assumption to assume a torso shot would effectively put down a wolf, assuming it's of .303 British?

The reading I've done and my experience with deer seems to suggest yes, but I don't really want to come across as an ignorant kid who thinks he's an expert because his pa let him shoot his rifle

Any input would be great, thank you so much for reading my essay of a question!

[EternityTide]

Not that I am a weapons expert by any stretch, but I'd say that since many people used to go big game hunting with the .303 in the African savannah, I'd say it would kill a wolf with a torso shot in a pinch.

It would depend though on whether you hit the heart or a major artery, as if it went through the lungs, the death would be long and painful, hitting the heart or an artery would result in death within 5 minutes at most.

[TattooedMac]

Yea, a .303 would kill a wolf. Its a big reason why it was used in the wars, and still a favourite among people, because of the kill shot. Heck even a 5.56mm or .223 can kill, and with the round that we use in the Aust Army, a have taken down a 130kg Boar with it. The round went into the shoulder, and when it hit the bone, the round exploded, and everything within 30cm was jelly.

I was about 200mtrs away and wondered how I dropped it in 1. The .303 leaves a lot bigger mark on its target

[robdoar]

Not that I am a weapons expert by any stretch, but I'd say that since many people used to go big game hunting with the .303 in the African savannah, I'd say it would kill a wolf with a torso shot in a pinch.

It would depend though on whether you hit the heart or a major artery, as if it went through the lungs, the death would be long and painful, hitting the heart or an artery would result in death within 5 minutes at most.

I've taken coyotes with a .22LR Shot placement is key.

A .303 would certainly take down a wolf. .243 and .270 are popular here for wolves.

[ark1of712]

Thank you all for the input, It's helping me get a much better sense of the issue! So I guess the core of my interest came down to whether the 'Hollywood' effect of getting shot...ie OW I'VE BEEN SHOT IT HURTS BUT IF I TRY REAL HARD I CAN KEEP ON GOING is really tangible at all, let alone for a wolf. It sounds like no matter where you hit it there would be so much energy behind the round, vis a vis it's considerable size and velocity (.303 that is) that anything baring large game would be down for the count, hence it's use as an anti-personnel round (like in WW2).

Of course for the sake of respect for the animal and a marksmen's pride shot placement is still going to be an important factor. You don't want it to die in agony preferably and for those who want to actually collect meat you don't want a lot to be obliterated/bone/bullet fragments in it.

So I feel like it's justified to assume a .303 shot to the torso means a wolf won't be chasing you. Or a human being. Or much of anything? Elephant perhaps?

[Burning Bridges]

You did not upset me.

I think the question in the other thread was about shot placement. It was just the "should go down every time" that I disagree with, and I have watched many hunting videos so I can say shot placement is important, or why would hunters spend so much time practicing. In this thread you have limited the question to torso hits, I have no doubts those are almost always lethal. But what happens if you hit something else? The bullet could just scratch the animal or overpenetrate, if it is strong and the blood loss is not fatal, why shouldn't it run and possibly survive? Humans can survive bullet hits so why not a wolf?

[EternityTide]

the hollywood "OW I'VE BEEN SHOT IT HURTS BUT IF I TRY REAL HARD I CAN KEEP ON GOING" depends entirely on shot placement again.

Not that they are a hundred per cent accurate in the films, but I would say that the ability to keep going after being shot would only occur if the trauma was in a non essential body component,

For example, a gut shot that has not hit any arteries, I would presume would not be lethal in the short term, It would hurt like hell, and you would problems holding your body upright, in the long term though, untreated, it could quite likely become terminal, as the introduction of a foreign body, the breaching of the containment of the many bacteria in your gut, etc etc, would lead to catastrophic blood poisoning.

A shoulder shot, again, barring trauma to a major blood vessel, could allow someone to continue despite incredible pain. Calf shots would also sting like hell, but are not lethal in the short term.

[EternityTide]

That being said, the one thing that should be considered is that the "thrown backwards when hit" hollywood myth.

You don't move when hit by a bullet, the bullet goes through you, UNLESS it hits bone, in which case the kinetic energy is transferred to you.

Maths time:

Let's say the average speed of a .303 bullet from a lee enfield is 800 m/s (just over twice the speed of sound at sea level, and yes I know it depends on whether it's Softpoint, Hollow point or full metal jacket, but this simplifying it a little)

and that the average weight of a male deer would be 135Kg (roughly 300lb)

so, Velocity = 800m/s

let us say it's a 10g bullet, so

Mass, m= 0.01Kg

E_k= ½MV² where E_k= Kinetic energy of the bullet

so, plugging in our values, E_k= ½(0.01)x(800)²= 3200 joules of energy

which should be enough to accelerate the deer of 135Kg to a final velocity of 6.9m/s which is pretty fast, BUT there is not a complete transfer of energy, to do that we need to calculate ho much energy is put into the deer.

Now, to take into account the impulse (the force applied to the deer)

we will assume that the collision is inelastic meaning that the bullet doesn't bounce like it would if were an elastic collision, and that air resistance doesn't count. There is no real value for a coefficient of restitution, (an overly fancy word for the ratio of a bounce between two objects) between bone and a bullet, so we'll assume the bullet barely bounces, let's give a value of 0.1 (0 means it stops dead, 1 means they bounce perfectly), we'll call it e.

So, e=0.1

m₁=mass of bullet=0.01kg u₁=800m/s

m₂=mass of deer=135kg u₂=0 (deer is standing still)

we'll use these equations:

m₁u₁+m₂u₂=m₁v₁m₂v₂

and

v₂-v₁=e(u₁-u₂)

so 0.01(800)+135(0)=0.01v₁+135v₂

so 8= 0.01v₁+135v₂

to work out the final velocities, we use out other equation:

v₂-v₁=e(u₁-u₂)

so, v₂-v₁=0.1(800-0)

v₂-v₁=80

v₂=80+v₁

so now we can substitute a value for v₂

giving us 8= 0.01v₁+135(80+v₁) so 135.01v₁= -10792 so -10792/135.01=V₁=-79.9m/( the minus means it is travelling in the opposite direction)

so the bullet has ricocheted of the deer's bone and is now travelling about 10 times slower than it was previously

Meanwhile, the deer is now travelling at v₂

Remember now that v₂=80+v₁

so, using that, v₂=80-79.9= 0.1m/s

which is kind of slow, so there would be a push back, but very little.

Sorry for all the maths, but I get my physicist hat on when I try to prove these things.

In reality, these values would be different, because my mathematics modeled the deer as a point of mass, rather than a full deer. The values would be smaller in real life.

[ark1of712]

Well I'd say that pretty conclusively answers the question, thank you kindly everyone. Now I personally am going to go enjoy the December Update!