My vote is that .30 is deadlier. I have hit alot of stuff with .25 and .30. ....30 cal airguns are VIOLENT! The really mess up my targets.
Nice ballistic gel!
I'd say it depends on what happens to be firing it. Not all airguns (of the same caliber) are equal, some are real power houses able to fling the heaviest ammo at speeds that others can only achieve with lighter ammo. My .22 eagle claw is a pretty good example sing it flings out 35.5gr slugs at 860 fps average for 58+ foot pounds, many people only get that by going to a .25 cal. Similarly if you take a stock Hatsan BT65 Carnivore in .30 your not going to get anywhere near the power of an AEA Challenger Carbine in .30 (about 70-75 foot pounds vs 95-100 with 48gr pellets).
I don't have a dog in this fight, but couldn't it be argued that the .30 dumped all of it's energy AT THE TARGET?
These posts from Baker are turning into clickbait. It's all about shot placement.
I've had no problem taking squirrels out with a .177 17FPE R-1 using Kodiak 10.6gr. pellets, while a broadside shot to a squirrel with a 78FPE AEA .25 challenger with 36.2gr. NSA slug will leave them wounded. Yes, I've experienced both first hand.
Can't wait for future posts from Baker entitled, "point-ability" and "hold sensitivity" of the M3.
Dear Donnie;
First of all I commend you for putting some science behind the analysis. THANKS! I do see, though some "caveats" to your article (sorry I have not seen the video) that I think are worth discussing:
When shooting hogs, I would agree with you, specially boar. Feral hogs? not so much. But basically yes. Problem is that real boar have skulls that are VERY sloped and VERY hard. Feral hogs have more upright foreheads, but still, experience would indicate that you need at least 3-4 layers of good construction grade 4 ply's to reach a good simulation.
The other comment here is that in your physics you forgot to SUBTRACT the energy that goes OUT of the prey when the pellet passes through, and this depends on the size of the target. I have not seen too many hog-heads that are larger than 18" across that I would hunt with an airgun.
In the 0.30" cal case, there is no energy lost to the pass-through. The energy lost to the 0.25" pass-through, is an unknown, but it cannot be small, or you would have found the pellets somewhere down range.
PERSONALLY, I would not hunt any hog heavier than 100# "on hoof" with an airgun (they aren't as tasty as the smaller ones, 😉 ). And deer (at least the local Odocoileus virginianus) are usually slimmer than 18" on a broad side, so more penetration is useless.
In GENERAL, if you want to analyze terminal ballistics/lethality seriously (in airguns), you need to evaluate the permanent wound/damage cavity (and that is the volume of the hole left AFTER the gel was re-contracted to its steady state). As that is the damage you could expect from the projectile flying through soft tissue. Muscle is different. Bones are different.
Permanent wound/cavity evaluation also allows the use of different projectiles to compare, the dome-headed/round headed projectiles are about the less lethal designs ever, and the reason why they were the first to be accepted under the Geneva convention. There are much better designs out there.
Hunters have been debating lethality for as long as there has been guns, and I am sure there are so many variables in the field that very few rules are hard and fast. I do think you are on the right track when putting the 0.25" / 850 fps as minima for large animals, and that opens the research field to cast projectiles that would be much more effective on one or the other caliber.
In airguns, with the absence of the temporary wound cavity (due to the lack of hydrostatic shock), I firmly believe we need to stick to the permanent wound channel measurement, as well as using more realistic media than the completely uniform and homogeneous ballistic gel, as calibrated as it can be, it does NOT reflect the "lead-projectile-shredding" capability of hard, well used and exercised muscles.
JMHO's
Congrats again on the systematic approach!
HM
Equal energy….different calibers…RNL non expanding pellets....a bit too heavy a reliance on penetration for the size/thickness of what most air gunners shoot. Even then, the difference in penetration is not impressive.
If he picked one over the other, doubt it would make any serious difference in results.
If penetration is all someone was concerned about then roundballs would probably be about your best bet, they'll usually out-penetrate almost any other type of ammunition (even pointed many times). Crappy BC and less accurate at distances past 15-25 yards, but great penetrating power.
Great observation!
And it illustrates very well the "wound channel" concept.
When you look at how the "wound" made by a round ball tends to close in on itself is when you realize that lethality is much more than penetration.
THANKS!
HM
Dear Donnie;
First of all I commend you for putting some science behind the analysis. THANKS! I do see, though some "caveats" to your article (sorry I have not seen the video) that I think are worth discussing:
When shooting hogs, I would agree with you, specially boar. Feral hogs? not so much. But basically yes. Problem is that real boar have skulls that are VERY sloped and VERY hard. Feral hogs have more upright foreheads, but still, experience would indicate that you need at least 3-4 layers of good construction grade 4 ply's to reach a good simulation.
The other comment here is that in your physics you forgot to SUBTRACT the energy that goes OUT of the prey when the pellet passes through, and this depends on the size of the target. I have not seen too many hog-heads that are larger than 18" across that I would hunt with an airgun.
In the 0.30" cal case, there is no energy lost to the pass-through. The energy lost to the 0.25" pass-through, is an unknown, but it cannot be small, or you would have found the pellets somewhere down range.
PERSONALLY, I would not hunt any hog heavier than 100# "on hoof" with an airgun (they aren't as tasty as the smaller ones, 😉 ). And deer (at least the local Odocoileus virginianus) are usually slimmer than 18" on a broad side, so more penetration is useless.
In GENERAL, if you want to analyze terminal ballistics/lethality seriously (in airguns), you need to evaluate the permanent wound/damage cavity (and that is the volume of the hole left AFTER the gel was re-contracted to its steady state). As that is the damage you could expect from the projectile flying through soft tissue. Muscle is different. Bones are different.
Permanent wound/cavity evaluation also allows the use of different projectiles to compare, the dome-headed/round headed projectiles are about the less lethal designs ever, and the reason why they were the first to be accepted under the Geneva convention. There are much better designs out there.
Hunters have been debating lethality for as long as there has been guns, and I am sure there are so many variables in the field that very few rules are hard and fast. I do think you are on the right track when putting the 0.25" / 850 fps as minima for large animals, and that opens the research field to cast projectiles that would be much more effective on one or the other caliber.
In airguns, with the absence of the temporary wound cavity (due to the lack of hydrostatic shock), I firmly believe we need to stick to the permanent wound channel measurement, as well as using more realistic media than the completely uniform and homogeneous ballistic gel, as calibrated as it can be, it does NOT reflect the "lead-projectile-shredding" capability of hard, well used and exercised muscles.
JMHO's
Congrats again on the systematic approach!
HM
Hello Hector,
It's nice to hear from you, as always.
There is a Part II to this examination coming this Friday.
I think it will shed light on some concerns about the original presentation.
I couldn't agree more about lethality.
In fact, my agreement is kind of a moot point.
The FBI, The US Military, medical professionals, and ammunition manufacturers are all in agreement about the wounding effects of projectiles.
In order of importance they are...
1) Shot placement
2) Sufficient penetration to reach vital organs
3) Permanent tissue damage
This is why I only use domed pellets in my hunting.
They are simply the most accurate projectiles I can find, and with the comparatively low energy produced by airguns to begin with...I place the highest priority on shot placement.
I hope you'll examine Part II and please let me know what you think.
-Donnie
Picture two hard-core convicts in the prison yard….debating the pros and cons of a 1/4” shiv vs a 1/3” shiv.
Super interesting! Subscribed! ?
Matthias
No popcorn in this place?
? ? ? ? ? ?
Way back, pre-history….two cavemen hanging around the fire.
Ugg: Use big rock. Hit them once, they fall down.
Erk: Use smaller rock. Can throw father, throw again faster.
They fight...one of them loses (and gets eaten by the tribe)...which one?
Why all this talk of penetration? I thought it was the "motion of the ocean" not the size of the ship. So confused. ? ?
She would say that....it's up to you to believe it or not.
(Sorry....PC incorrect...make "she" into "partner")
"I do think you are on the right track when putting the 0.25" / 850 fps as minima for large animals..."
.25 @ 850fps (at the muzzle) is just shy of the .25 auto cartridge, often deemed inadequate for self defense. If I were going for even medium sized game, I would opt for a larger, heavier projectile at that speed, at a minimum, say fifty caliber. That's where most muzzleloading hunters start at.
@baker-airguns-donnie
Dear Donnie;
For sure I will take the time to read the second article. Sorry I cannot see the videos as well. I like them and I know you go to great lengths to make them entertaining and interesting for the friends, but when dealing with numbers and tests, I do not have a good enough memory to retain all the data and then respond coherently. So, I prefer to go to the written word.
Let me tell you an anecdote about "lethality":
Back in the early 1980's I was the 'armorer' for the University of Manchester rifle club. There was an incident of a very young girl that died in an "accident", forensics then concluded she had been shot with a pellet gun.
Since the University was involved, I was called as a witness; they do not use the "expert witness" thing over there, or at least they didn't use to.
When shown the "bullet" I saw a WC pellet barely deformed, with distinct rifling marks. So I suggested some further tests and in conjunction with the Constabulary (PD), we came up with a list of tests to be performed.
There was no doubt about who had pulled the trigger, nor of the intention behind pulling the trigger. The issue here was whether the law offered enough protection to the public (in those days the 12 ft-lb rule was already in place, but some Parliamentarians were calling for an even lower level that they wanted homologated to the German rule (5.5 ft-lbs).
Obviously the "Parliamentarians" were on the VERY liberal side and Manchester had always been a "blue-collar" town, where Pubs hosted "bell" matches and sponsored shoots in their gardens.
The tests we performed in help of the Constabulary were oriented towards determining if a lower than 12 ft-lbs law would have saved the girl.
The answer was NO,
The shot had been fired with very strong "upwards" slant, hit just under the sternum and the pellet was able to go directly into the heart.
It was fired from a CO2 Match Pistol, with barely 5 ft-lbs of ME.
Further tests reported that breaking human skin takes about half of what animal skin takes (about 4 ft-lbs), and that for very young persons, this is even lower, so as little as 1½ ft-lbs of energy in the right projectile will break a very young person's skin, and any excess energy, when lacking hard obstacles in the path, will derive in penetration. In this case, a few inches of penetration was all that was needed to end up in a disaster.
For sure a tragedy but, also a sobering example of how LETHAL our airguns can be with proper shot placement (and "placement" ALWAYS includes the trajectory INSIDE the target to the vitals), AND of the need to EDUCATE the younger persons in the family when guns (of ANY kind) are present in the house.
I am sure we all lock our firearms (if we have them), but in reality, we should lock all guns.
Just to emphasize: Education is more important than locking up!
Anyway, keep well and shoot straight!
HM
Why all this talk of penetration? I thought it was the "motion of the ocean" not the size of the ship. So confused. ? ?
I'm pretty sure you have to factor in the angle of the dangle.
@baker-airguns-donnie
@baker-airguns-donnie
In algebra, the angle of the dangle (x) is necessary to find y (the heat of the meat) provided that the maxis of the axis (graphing in y=mx+b) and the gravity of the cavity (solving inequalities) remain constant.
LOLOL
You guys are alright.
-Donnie
I just posted PART II of this examination as it's own thread if anyone would like to take a look.
-Donnie
have you done a comparison into clay blocks? I woudl imagine that the .30 cal would create a large cavity - but woudl be interesting to compare the two-
@hector-j-medina-g Thank you for steering our attention to what really matters.
In a controlled study group we asked 10 squirrels which caliber they preferred but not one offered an answer…. ?
I appreciate Donnie's experiment.??
I think we need more of that. ??
Sure, the headline is good clickbait — hey, the man needs to make a living like we all do, he's invested tons of hours into this, I'm sure! ??
I think I get the most out of vids and posts like this when I keep the shooting scenario in mind that the vid/post applies to:
And here it was soft tissue penetration (not skull cracking) — and it was deep penetration (not just squirrel deep).
➔ So, if any of my own shooting scenarios is similar, I might consider the choice between .25 and .30.
? For example:
Even if a .30 at a typical* power setting might outperform a .25 at a typical* power setting — I might still consider using a .25. ➔ Maybe because I already have one, and I can tune up the power.
➔ Or maybe because I like the wider(!) and cheaper ammo selection.
➔ Or maybe because I want to save air (out in the field?) so .25 is bettter — or the BC of a .25 heavy-for-caliber projectile is better than the BC of a .30 light-for-caliber projectile?
I think this was a helpful experiment.
Matthias
? PS: I'd like to make a request for a new round of MORBID EXPERIMENTS:
Here's the research question: Which projectiles, power, caliber, and shot placement will produce the fluffiest feather balls when destroying feral pigeons? ?
*Yupp, the power setting for both calibers in the experiment was not "typical" — and that was part of the design, to compare guns at the same power level, not guns at a typical-for-caliber power level.
@ mjfa.- Thanks for your kind words.
@ JS.- I mostly agree with you, just point to the fact that, among other reasons for the article (as declared by Donnie himself in his Part II), it was to explore the failure of his hog-butcher friend's experience with the caliber, and I quote:
"Part of what spurred me into thinking about this subject to begin with was an experience that a customer of ours had. He is a butcher and wanted an airgun to dispatch hogs with from point blank range. He bought a popular .30 caliber airgun that produced about 70ft-lbs of muzzle energy and some JSB 50.15gr pellets. After a few days he comes into the shop and says, “It didn’t work.”
Of course there were ways to MAKE it work. But for someone who has felt "deceived" by airguns, it is hard to go the extra mile. And let me give you another example here:
A friend who was a great hunter decided he wanted to try hunting pigeons in his farm. Too many around the granaries and stables and too many sick cows (for eating pigeon poop in the feed). So he got an airgun, the most powerful airgun he could get: a 0.22" cal RX-2. Quite accurate when new and he thought that he would have it easy.
Well, problem was that he shot the pigeons and they flew off. He was completely dejected. He saw fathers fly from the off-side, so he was sure he was hitting them, but he expected instant kills. In the past, he had been obtaining instant kills using "Stinger RF's" so that is what he expected.
After some conversations, I told him I would come and hunt them with my Crosman 2225 (a Cr2200 converted to 0.25" cal).
The MSP would put out about HALF of the ME of the RX-2, so he was highly dubious of the effectiveness of the system.
Shot after shot, the pigeons fell, some still alive, but somehow unable to fly with the "Spitzkügel" still inside. Ready for quick dispatch. Just holding the pigeon in a slightly tight hold would "put them to sleep".
So, in THIS case for THIS set of circumstances, 16 ft-lbs of 0.25" medicine were enough to beat the performance of 32 ft-lbs in 0.22" cal. The ADDED advantage was that we could hunt indoors without putting holes in the roofs (he had put some already and was lamenting the fact, LOL!). Pigeons are not stupid. After 4 consecutive weekends of serious depletion, they decided that the other farms nearby were safer havens. After that a once-a-month "reminder" produced the desired results for my friend.
And THIS is my point:
LETHALITY is not a quantity. It cannot be stated in numbers, in airguns there is no single factor that overrides all others. It is a complicated relation of prey's anatomy, range, energy, projectile shape & hardness, and shot placement/internal trajectory of the projectile inside the prey.
And it behooves the ethical hunter to consider ALL factors before deciding on the system he is using.
JMHO
HM
Inconclusive test at best,
The parameters to which the test is set at do not reflect real life usage of those calibers.
The test should be re-done to actually reflect reality having the guns shoot in the manner that people that buy those calibers would shoot them.
Redo the test this way and lets see what really surfaces.
.25cal 34gr JSB pellet shooting @ 900 fps
.30cal 51gr JSB pellet shooting @ 900 fps
Or ;
.25cal 25gr JSB pellet shooting @ 900 fps
.30cal 44gr JSB pellet shooting @ 900 fps
These would be more rapresentative of reality and would be great to see.
I just don't see a hunter buying a .30 Airgun and then run it @ 70 FPE
....and, yeah some might run their .25 @ 70 FPE but if you do some polling the vast majority will have their .25 Airguns in the 50-60 FPE range
