Brush Gun Fact or Fiction?

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As per above, I have always understood a "brush gun" to mean a short barreled rifle chambered in a non-long range caliber. While I have heard the mistaken view that heavy bullets will "avoid" deflection, my understanding was that this misunderstanding arose from the fact that in heavy cover, shots are close range and that meant that deflections often had limited effect on terminal impact, ie a small deflection 5 yards from point of impact would have negligible effect on terminal ballistics. In New England, where shots on deer can frequently be no more than 50 yards, 18" and 20" lever guns in 357 Mag, 41 Mag, and 45 LC have been popular for this reason and the 30-30 and 35 Rem remain very popular.
 
I grew up interpreting *Brush Gun* to be a generalization including; a light, handy, shorter long-gun combined with a projectile capable of producing 1 round kills in overgrowth on white tail up to 80+ yards.

Too long a firearm, dedicated optics, twitchy rounds all exclude a combo for me.


Todd.
 
The brush guns i remember we're mainly short lever actions in 30-30 win, 35 rem or a shotgun.
If you had a .270 or .30-06 the heavier round nose bullets were the brush buster choice.
 
If "conventional wisdom" is that a bullet with a blunt front end that's as heavy as possible will make the best brush round, then I've seen firsthand that it's complete BS. Years ago I had a doe broadside to me at 25 yards. I was carrying my 12 ga 870 with a 20" smoothbore barrel loaded with 1 oz Remington sluggers. I was sitting on the ground with the barrel rested on my knees and leaning back against a big cedar tree. It should have been an easy kill, but the doe when down after I pulled the trigger and then stood up on her front legs and tried to drag herself away. After watching her struggle for a few minutes and realizing she was in pain and not dying, I walked up and shot her in the head from a near point blank range. My first shot had gone about 10" high and hit her right in the spine, paralyzing her rear. After she was field dressed I walked back to where I had taken the shot from, and found a fresh 1/8" diameter twig freshly broken and dangling 10 yards from where my muzzle had been, directly in between my line of sight between me where the doe was standing. In the low morning light I hadn't seen it, but it was clear as day in the, ahem, daytime.

So a blunt 1oz piece of lead was moved roughly 10" in 15 yards. It was pure luck she was paralyzed instead of being seriously injured with a gut shot or a leg blown off, left to suffer and possibly slowly die. Moral of the story, don't count on any bullets busting it's way through brush.
 
After I bought a scoped .308 I found that my 30-30 with peeps is relegated to curio status.

I haven’t had a situation where a rifle without a scope is superior to one with a scope, even if it is 6” shorter.
 
<*(((>< said:
Anyone and everyone that has been around guns and hunting have heard the term "brush gun." Now out west here it isn't as much of a known and passed along term as I'm sure it is out east. But that's not to say I didn't hear it growing up, as I did. There are many areas to hunt out here that have clearings, open draws, exposed hill sides, open meadows and the like, so I would say most hunters out here don't seek out shooting through the brush to get their game.

Knowing what bullets are doing through the air it was always my thought that everything will deflect to varying degrees regardless of caliber and bullet weight. There was no doubt that there would be better cartridge, bullet type, and weight scenarios that would perform better and worse. But I've never seen it studied out in a down to earth and practical study.

IraqVeteren8888 did a good job demonstrating the differences that heavy bullets make in efforts to bust through the brush and stay on target. There are some issues with his demonstration, but overall with what he had I though there was some information to be gleaned. His video is on a budget, short and well done and one can see a definite trend towards heavier and heavier bullets with blunter profiles tracking better through the brush. Nothing ground breaking here but I enjoyed watching his demonstration.



So what is your favorite brush gun, caliber and bullet weight?
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My favorite brush guns are the same guns i use for everything else. I'm comfortable with them, and NOT hitting a bush or branch is more important than what you hit them with.
I also want something that will deliver considerable shock at short range so I don't have to go any farther thru the "brush"

My .375 would probably be my answer, just because it usually is .......
 
I can testify that slugs aren't great in the alders. Once, I fired 5 shots at a buck running from right to left at about 30 yards and about 10 yards into the alders. I saw each slug hit branches and deflect wide, high or low of the deer, some hitting several limbs before or after passing the deer. None hit it, yet each first-hit alder hit was in the kill zone of the buck. I determined that if I used a shotgun, I'd use a slug as the first shot, followed up by 00 Buck.

I really don't hunt deer with shotguns much, but prefer to use my .270 Win bolt-action. I hardly ever shoot at running deer in the forest, but like a rifle when sitting or walking on woods roads. I've never jumped a deer in the woods and shot it with my bolt-action rifle, but shot them from a stationary position within the woods, including running deer, but killed one deer with a rifle that was running past me through woods. It was about 10 yards away and flat-out, moving very fast.

I also shot at a deer with a 12 gauge slug that was standing under an 8" diameter fir tree about 40 yards away, broadside. The deer jumped away and I never saw it again. I couldn't understand how I missed it until I retraced my steps to the fir and found the hole my slug made in the side of the trunk of the tree and it had only penetrated about 1 1/2" and stopped. If I'd had my 30-06, I'd surely have gotten that deer, since the tracks were only a couple of feet beyond the tree trunk and the bullet would have easily found the kill zone and had plenty of power left to kill.
 
<*(((>< said:
I don't think anyone is saying that. We are talking about differences between styles/weights/etc of cartridges. Not a cartridge that can "mow down a lot of brush and not veer off target." That comment sensationalized the topic at hand and doesn't add to the discussion on possible differences between styles/weights/etc of cartridges.

Not trying to be harsh, just don't want this thread to amount to people thinking in sensational ways about the topic.
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That's the context I've heard it used in numerous times.
That's why I brought it up.
I've heard wayyyyyy too many uneducated people on firearms that thought their pet cartridge would do just that.

And yes, heavier bullets with blunter profiles do it better. But you still shouldn't try and shoot live game through brush. I'm sure you agree with that part.
 
adcoch1 said:
Due to the amount of variables there is no scientific way to assure that picking a certain projectile over another design will increase your hit percentage. I get your intended point, that in a static environment, will a flat meplat work better than a spire point. The answer is not ascertainable, so I say brush cartridges are fiction.
To add, a flat meplat will penetrate straighter through TISSUE in an animal, but not through multiple hits on brush components.

That said, there is a case for flat shooting cartridges to lessen the probability of accidentally knicking a branch while shooting through a HOLE in the brush.
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My thinking is along the same lines as you. I think there is a difference between say a 55gr .223 and a 300gr 45/70 in how much it will deflect when hitting a twig mid flight, just not sure if it’s enough difference to make a difference.

Simple analysis of physics has to prove this point. But simple physics cannot prove if there is enough difference to make bold claims.
 
Arkansas Paul said:
That's the context I've heard it used in numerous times.
That's why I brought it up.
I've heard wayyyyyy too many uneducated people on firearms that thought their pet cartridge would do just that.

And yes, heavier bullets with blunter profiles do it better. But you still shouldn't try and shoot live game through brush. I'm sure you agree with that part.
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Agree with everything you wrote. I too, have heard this all to often, but I know that as I said above simple physics will substantiate a claim of deflection differences between light and heavy bullets (as well as profiles) exist. All one has to do to prove it with physics is to take it to the extremes on bullet weights and size of twig. To what extent is the question.

It seems like that is yet to be determined, but it sure seems like it doesn’t take much for any type of bullet to go from a kill shot to a miss if the brush impact is far enough away from the target.
 
I probably chose the wrong title for this thread, it should have read “Brush Busters” Fact or Fiction?

it draws too much attention to the definition of a short lightweight rifle in a heavy hitting caliber. That is not what I was trying to discuss.
 
jmorris said:
This isn’t the one I had in mind but a similar approach and results as best I recall.

https://www.theboxotruth.com/the-box-o-truth-40-deflected-bullets-and-the-box-o-truth/

FWIW if he moved the dowels 10 yards from the muzzle vs 10 yards from the target, that would make a huge difference.
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Exactly. A 30° deflection is a minor issue if the branch is a foot in front of the deer. 50 feet away and you miss by several feet.

I saw something similar a few years ago and their conclusion was that the faster the cartridge the less it deflected. This is something that would be hard to conclusively prove experimentally.
 
It is possible to have all the correct data and still reach the wrong conclusion. That is what happens in this video. There is nothing new here, shooters have been trying various forms of this test forever. The best conclusion that anyone can reach is that anytime a bullet hits anything between the muzzle and the target is that it will deflect. It just comes down to how much.

ALL bullets will deflect. The ones that deflect the least are those with round noses because that places most of the bullets weight forward. Pointed bullets have most of the weight toward the rear of the bullet and when they strike something are more likely to Begin to tumble. If most of the bullet weight is forward the bullets to a better job of maintaining a straight path. Bullet diameter and speed are not factors. A 150 gr RN bullet fired from a 270 at 3000 fps will do just as well as a 150 gr RN fired from a 30-30 at 2000 fps. And they all still deflect and there are no guarantees that anything will work. The best plan is to avoid shooting through brush and find holes in the brush to shoot through.


The way to avoid hitting brush is with an extremely accurate rifle with optics that allows you to see openings in the brush especially in low light and with a laser flat trajectory. My brush rifle is an 18" barreled bolt gun with a low powered scope on it. It is lighter, even with the scope,than an iron sighted 30-30, and the 308 bullets will never be below, or above line of sight between the muzzle and 150 yards by more than 1". The ability to shoot 1/2" 100 yard groups makes it possible to shoot through softball size openings.
 
i'd prob avoid shooting through brush. but i do kinda want to go watch _predator_ now (mostly to hear the former gov of MN's commentary)

i did have a lever gun in 480ruger that shot 400g flat point speer gold dots. i figure they'd do as well as anything in brush.
 
I recall a Guns and Ammo test many years ago using standard deer calibers at the time. It seemed the 338 WM fared quite a bit better than all the smaller cartridges. Nothing surprising but I did consider getting one.
 
jmorris said:
This isn’t the one I had in mind but a similar approach and results as best I recall.

https://www.theboxotruth.com/the-box-o-truth-40-deflected-bullets-and-the-box-o-truth/

FWIW if he moved the dowels 10 yards from the muzzle vs 10 yards from the target, that would make a huge difference.
Click to expand...
The dowels are way smaller than any of the alder branches I hit with my shotgun slugs. The branches were alders that were at least two inches in diameter and spaced as much as 10-15 yards ahead of the deer. The 12 gauge slugs were diverted by feet and had multiple hits before passing the deer.
 
Picher said:
I also shot at a deer with a 12 gauge slug that was standing under an 8" diameter fir tree about 40 yards away, broadside. The deer jumped away and I never saw it again. I couldn't understand how I missed it until I retraced my steps to the fir and found the hole my slug made in the side of the trunk of the tree and it had only penetrated about 1 1/2" and stopped. If I'd had my 30-06, I'd surely have gotten that deer, since the tracks were only a couple of feet beyond the tree trunk and the bullet would have easily found the kill zone and had plenty of power left to kill.
Click to expand...

There are probably a bunch of hunters who bagged a tree instead of the animal they thought was in line with their sights. There ought to be a picture thread with hunters standing next to the trees they have harvested.

Look Ma!, got a 12 point evergreen! :)
 
I grew up drive hunting, largely in mixed forest, grass and brush cutover pineland, one of the native habitats of the brush gun. The "brush gun" was standard fare, so much so that my bolt action .308 received no small amount of ridicule...until it killed deer, even when follow up shots were needed. The standard rifle in camp was a .30-30 mostly, winchesters and Marlins, there was one .35 Marlin, a Savage 99 .300 and a couple of 30-06 autos, one Browning, one Remington. All had short barrels, all ate heavy for caliber RN or flat point bullets based on the brush busting theory.

My observation was, every shot that hit brush, hit (mostly) brush. We'd sometimes find fragments of jacket, core, brush, occasionally an interesting wound channel from a keyholing 170gr Flat point or 180 RN when we skinned and butchered. The guy with the .35 was a lousy shot, so not much sample size on the big 200s he was slinging. The shots that killed deer were almost invariably in the open or simply appeared to miss brush by luck (no evidence of unusual yaw). Two benefits of the heavy for caliber bullets in this type of hunting were deep penetration on tough angles and better blood trails with pass throughs. Then I came along and blew it all out of the water with a bolt action .308 and pointy 150 grain bullets. When I hit brush, I hit brush, when I hit deer, I hit deer. They also tended to expire more rapidly than the .30-30 and .35 Rem hit deer, even the ones hit with the Rem 180 RNSP from a 30-06 which was a nice bonus when we weren't quite sure which side of whose property line they were on.
 
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Slamfire said:
There are probably a bunch of hunters who bagged a tree instead of the animal they thought was in line with their sights. There ought to be a picture thread with hunters standing next to the trees they have harvested.

Look Ma!, got a 12 point evergreen! :)
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If I'd had a saw with me that day, I'd have probably taken a piece out of that tree and had it mounted! ;)

Some day, a person will cut that tree down and someone may have a slug in the middle of a plank.
 
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