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A clarification question for Nathan on your articles

14 Sep 2014
@ 02:52 pm (GMT)

john feyereisn

I am from Minnesota, in the north central US, We have Whitetail deer and black bear, along with Moose in the far northern part of the state. Most of my knowledge on the game you guys have in NZ comes from reading your articles, so I am not familiar with all the different, larger variety game you guys have. Our whitetail deer are 120-180 lbs with a trophy buck possibly exeding 200 lbs. Just to be sure I am on the same page as you, our whitetail deer you would refer to as "lighter medium game" in your cartrige research articles? and our larger elk (in the western US) and moose would be heavy bodied medium game.

Am I understanding you correctly out of context?

Lastly, I was reading one article where you explained one of the solid copper bullets is for use in liberal hunting areas, not for actually hunting liberals. I laughed hard enough, unexpectedly that I almost spit my Mountain Dew out my nose. Keep up the good work I find you research very interesting. I will have to send some pictures if I take a deer this season to add to the database

Replies

14 Sep 2014
@ 09:29 pm (GMT)

Quote this

Nathan Foster

Re: A clarification question for Nathan on your articles

Hi John, I am glad you are finding the site useful.

My definitions are approximately:

Light weight- Under 200lb but more specifically game weighing 50- 150lb such as Black tail, Cous and light antelope. Covers our goat, Fallow deer and Chamois.

Mid weight- 200lb to 330lb such as Mule, Caribou, our Red deer. Our Sika deer tend to be right between what I call light and mid weight, females can be light, males much heavier. There is also a degree of cross over here- up to 400lb. To add further confusion, we can add Black bear and wild boar to this category even if the animals are lighter than 200lb, the layout of the animal is such that most "tough" bullets will meet enough energy for good energy transfer.

Larger medium game- Generally covers the same 200lb minimum because the bullets in question meet enough resistance to dump a good deal of energy. But in this instance, the bullets will handle larger body weights up to Elk and Sambar weighing around 700lb. But again there can be a degree of crossover with certain cartridge combinations quite capable of handling Moose and non dangerous larger African Antelope up to 1000lb or so if the bullet is of a sound design. Large Bear and boar can be included in this category.

Heavy non dangerous- specifically Eland and Moose- though Moose can on rare occasions be dangerous in close.

Heavy dangerous- African game, plus whatever you may consider dangerous. For us, this includes some wild cattle.

I have broken this down further in my second book and created a specific guide which is based on the cartridge performance I have seen over the years. The game weights are broken down and ranked against premium versus frangible type bullets. Bullet design makes a big difference so I have been sure to be careful how I approach things.

Game species can add confusion where within one species, the subspecies can vary a great deal in body weights. European Moose versus Alaskan Moose would be good examples. Animal age makes a huge difference too. A meat yearling versus a mature male animal. I also try to take somewhat poor shot placement / snap shots into account. A crack shot could kill about anything on the planet with a .30-06. Expectations are another thing. One of my older readers spent his years shooting Moose with a .303 Savage. This was slow killing with some shots but he watched and waited and then tracked the Moose. To him, this was "normal" and being normal, he found the cartridge perfectly adequate. To another hunter, it may seem inhumane, to yet another hunter, it may simply mean an unnecessary haul back to open ground etc.

Readers do need to exercise a degree of common sense when approaching this information. For example, animal layout and weight distribution can be a key factor in how well a bullet will perform. A simple comparison would be a 700lb Elk versus a 700lb wild boar. A boar of this size with the European gene will have a good 1.5" or more of cartilage plating, then dense muscle, then mature bone before the bullet can reach vitals. Even the soft areas of a boar of this size are tough and cartridges like the .243 with conventional soft point bullets can fail to penetrate with neck shots on boar as light as 240lb. So again, readers need to exercise common sense and gain an understanding of local game.

I hope that helps explain things.