Really ???
I have to say your wrong . Ever hit a PD with a 150 grn Ballistic Tip ???
Well, I don't see what you're implying here. Sure if you hit a PD with a big
bullet its probably going to do that. I was referring to goats, not
prairie dogs / varmint sized animals. When I meant real amount
of mass, I meant something LARGE with four legs, like the original
poster implied it was.
Go shoot a gallon jug , see what happens to it , it weighs 7.5 pounds .
That's an inaccurate representation of a flesh bearing critter, thats
for sure. Most animals and humans are not made of 100% water. There's
also no tough stringy muscle tissue and bone structure holding everything
together. You'd be better off taking a cheap roast to the range and
putting a bullet or three through it. Additionally, most goats are pretty
heavy in comparison to that. The reason varmints fly pretty readily is
because they're tiny in comparison to the amount of energy thats being
dumped into them by the projectile. As you increase the weight of
the animal, the effect of the kinetic energy becomes somewhat
limited.
FWIW, yes, I've done the water jug spiel. I owned a .17 HMR (Ruger 77/17) and
did that frequently.... because thats what the best targets for that thing
was. In a way, using water jugs is almot like "cheating". 100% water is
like a brick wall to a bullet, and forces energy dump. Other objects
react a lot differently. I've shot hard drives with 30.06, .308 win, 7.62 x 39,
etc... and -sometimes- those will fly... and those things weigh less than a
pound. But most of the time, they don't go very far. Remove the
water and things change considerably.
Ever see the videos of guys shooting "real" game animals with large caliber
rifles? They don't go flying, thats for sure, if the animal has any real
amount of mass. (eg anything more than 30 pounds, and even "moving"
20 pounds would require a LOT of energy). Even if you shot
something small like a gazelle with a large caliber rifle, it's not going to
go flying like that. (You might ruin some meat, though).
The only time I've ever seen large animals go flying is in that video which
showed wild animals running into a minefield and getting blown up by
land mines. The amount of energy dispensed by even a small antipersonnel
mine is probably far greater than what could come out of a barrel of a
man-portable firearm, though. (Not including grenade or rocket launchers,
of course... strictly ballistic projecticles).
-Mike