Brush Busting Cartridges

cdb1 said:

Uhhhhhhhhh - grass, twigs, small limbs, leaves, vines, cooties, bugaboos, etc.

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Grass, leaves and vines are not a concern to me as that is concealment;

Twigs and small limbs are as that is cover.

If you are asking about shooting about at a animal that is obscured by heavy brush that may have twigs and small limbs then I would not take a shot.

Brush hunting..no way for me ...that's why deer have legs to walk in the open...clean humane kill IMHO

Myth. More years ago than I care to think about, I read an article about this very subject, with a pretty inclusive test of calibers. The writer set up a bullet box with 1" dowels standing in for brush, paper targets on the back side for aiming points, and shot three rounds into each target. Best results came from 180gr soft points from a 30-06, and those results were still pretty weak. All three rounds hit inside what he deemed to be a "vital zone" circle, but just barely. I tried duplicating the test with round balls and Maxi-Balls from a .54 caliber muzzleloader, and was disappointed. Wait for the game to step clear, or pass on the shot.

Some rounds are absolutely better than others for effectively shooting through brush.

The really effective ones generally need wheels, tracks or hulls to carry them.

The humble 7.62x51 is said to do pretty well when fired out of a minigun.

The two main rifles I've hunted in brush with are a .243 shooting 85gr bullets and a .450 Marlin with 430gr bullets.

I have no doubt the .450 deflection is less than the 243. I never took anything past basic high school physics so I want speculate as to why, but yeah one is definitely a better caliber for shots that stand a greater chance of encountering "brush."

I once cleaned a deer I had shot with the 243 and there was a very minor entrance wound right in front of the hips, while the main wound (in the neighborhood of the shoulder) seemed to be 4-5" high and 6-7" towards the front of the deer. I had shot him (once) under 50 yards in a kudzu thicket, all I can figure is the bullet hit "brush" and a small piece of the bullet broke off hitting him in the rear. Was a strange thing.

Ks5shooter said:

Brush hunting..no way for me ...that's why deer have legs to walk in the open...clean humane kill IMHO

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Big deer are old, old deer are smart, smart deer don't walk into the open.

redbullitt said:

If the brush to be busted is not close to the target then you are going to have trouble every time. I make it a point to avoid shooting through brush and have a clear shooting line. Otherwise, the shot is no good in my book. I suppose there can be emergency circumstances of course.

When I think brush buster, I think rifle type. Something maneuverable so I can, you guessed it, bust through the brush without hanging up a 30 inch barrel on everything lol.

I think some cartridges and bullets do tend to be less affected by hitting an obstacle en route to the target. I would bet the heavy slow hard cast bullet will "bust brush" better. By brush I would say non woody tree and light plants.

My .02... Get a clear shot, and a brush buster is a more a rifle type, not a cartridge type!

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For what it is worth the 35 Remington cartridge in a lever action rifle has a reputation of being a "Brush Buster" for deer hunting in woods East of the Mississippi River.

I cannot personally attest to this. What I can personally say is the 200 gr. round nose jacketed bullet is, as T.R., put it "Big Medicine" on wild hogs.

I view cartridges and the firearm together as a platform not individually which means to me that the 30-30 and 35 Remington belong in lever action rifles and carbines, not in bolt action or single shot rifles.

Did some testing years ago comparing a range of the same bullets in 30-30 and .308 Win. Without fail, the bullets deflected less at .308 speeds than 30-30 speeds when hitting 1/2" wooden dowels in an array to simulate brush. Bullets with a flatter frontal profile deflected less than bullets with a pointy frontal profile. All bullets were still on an 8.5x11" sheet of paper 5 yards behind where they struck a 1/2" wooden dowel, but the best performers (least deflected bullets in .308) were in a 4-6" group for 10 shots.

Conclusion: if the target is deer-sized and within 5 yards of relatively thin brush, a flat-tipped bullet at .308 Win velocities gives a pretty good chance of a clean kill.

cdb1 wrote:
Brush Busting Cartridges
Fact or Myth?

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Newton's First Law of Motion says it's a Myth.

Newton's Second and Third Laws of Motion operate together to let us conclude that the heavier the bullet is and faster it is traveling, the less effect the brush will have on it, but the brush will always have an effect.

An increase in mass of the projectile tends to negate the effects of the third law. Launch a ping pong ball at 200 fps into the wisk of a broom. Then toss a one pound lead sinker into the same broom at 100 feet per second. According to the third law, the broom offers the same resistance, but the increased mass of the heavier projectile mitigates much of the resistance to retained velocity and flight path deflection. So yes any brush impact will effect the path of any bullet, but the end affect on the flight path deviation can be reduced via a heavier projectile in some cases.

If a lighter faster bullet is severely deflected 8 times out of ten and a heavier slower bullet is only severely deflected 6 times out of ten, it is not a myth. It might not be overwhelmingly better than a lighter faster bullet, but even a 1% improvement , as slight as that is, proves it is not a myth.

You guys picked the wrong YouTube video

cdb1 said:

I've read enough studies to where I don't need to see any more. It's exactly like drunkenpoacher said. Bullets bust brush but they deflect. Speaking of drunkenpoacher I have a question for you. Do you get drunk because you poach or do you poach because you're drunk? Inquiring minds want to know.

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Used to do both, sometimes consecutively sometimes concurrently. Interestingly, never felt bad about either.
Nowadays I'm no fun at all.
Anyway Nature Boy and Arny just proved it's a myth with that video. If you watch in slo-mo you can tell that mini gun is a 45-70.

Float Pilot said:

An increase in mass of the projectile tends to negate the effects of the third law. Launch a ping pong ball at 200 fps into the wisk of a broom. Then toss a one pound lead sinker into the same broom at 100 feet per second. According to the third law, the broom offers the same resistance, but the increased mass of the heavier projectile mitigates much of the resistance to retained velocity and flight path deflection. So yes any brush impact will effect the path of any bullet, but the end affect on the flight path deviation can be reduced via a heavier projectile in some cases.

If a lighter faster bullet is severely deflected 8 times out of ten and a heavier slower bullet is only severely deflected 6 times out of ten, it is not a myth. It might not be overwhelmingly better than a lighter faster bullet, but even a 1% improvement , as slight as that is, proves it is not a myth.

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True. Thus the remarks above about projectiles delivered by firearms often mounted on tracked vehicles or towed behind trucks being very effective brush busters

But for the purposes of ethical kills on hunted animals and avoiding deflections that may violate the "know what you are shooting at and what is beyond" rule, the difference in deflective behavior between a 60 grs .223 bullet and a 450 grs .458 bullet is not so significant that our advice should be "don't shoot through cover with the former but go ahead with the latter".

Shotshell slug, brush busting. I hit a deer with a slug and found about a 1" piece of a twig inside, the slug just took it with it.

Myth.

I live surrounded in deep woods / dense brush. Typical ranges for killing deer are 40 to 60 yards. You have to "thread the needle" and pray you don't clip a limb or sapling. No bean fields here!

Two winters ago, I lined up on an 8-pointer (perfect sight picture), and squeezed off a 6.5 mm 120 grain Nosler Ballastic Tip...and killed a perfectly good tree limb. The bullet severed the limb and went cart-wheeling over the buck's back, and he was so scared, he pushed a big load of pellets outta his rear, spun 180 degrees and disappeared up the ridge. I went up to look at the "pile" he left.

I watched a video debunking Hollywood make believe junk about guns and the myth of "brush busters" (it was a VHS tape...yeah, one of those antiques before there was a Mythbusters show) over 20 years ago in which a barrier made up of assorted limbs (1/2" to 1" thick), was stacked on a bench...stacked, not interwoven, with an aiming target in front of the brush to provide a uniform reference for sighting, and a human silhouette cardboard target set 3 ft behind the brush pile, in line with the aiming point. The narrator fired a 5.56x45 NATO into the brush from 25 yards, and the bullet failed to print paper (deflected). Next up was a 7.62x51 NATO (same range) that keyholed the target high and left (deflected). Finally he fired a Barrett 50 FMJ through this mess, and the bullet still managed to keyhole through the target, but not along the initial trajectory. Made a perfect bullet shape in profile. Brush will deflect projectiles.

So...Myth.

The places I hunt also have large brown bears so that does come into consideration.
The smallest rifle I take out during moose season is my 350 Rem Mag loaded with 280 grain A-Square bullets.
Or my 375 H7H which likes 300 grain round nose solids.
if the place is crawling with Brownies I will take my 416 Taylor with 400 grain round nose slugs.
In real thick brush my 1886 45-70 carbine loaded with 405 grain flat nose slugs is a jewel for carrying and shooting in confined areas. Since long range is not a consideration in thick brush, there is no reason not to use a large caliber.

My very best excuse for missing a nice buck is, "the bullet was deflected by a small twig." It's a believable excuse, too. I've hunted within brushy areas of forests and foothills for several decades and have used this excuse more than once. Typically I hunt with my Winchester 30-30 shooting 170 grain ammo.

TR

T.R. said:

My very best excuse for missing a nice buck is, "the bullet was deflected by a small twig." It's a believable excuse, too.

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Yep. All to often the excuse for not hitting the target, including paper ones, is to blame something other than the shooter's poor marksmanship.