Weatherby Nation

I've allways heard that knock down power was a myth, the whole equal but opposite reaction thing, if you hit a 175lb animal with enough energy to knock it down at 150ys then the energy at the butt of the rifle would break your shoulder...
who knows, if he goes down, I'll bet he doesnt care if he was knocked down or if he just fell...

If a round literally picked the animal up off it's feet and tossed it, you'd certainly be in for a ride yourself. But in this instance, they're defining "Knockdown power" as a bullet's potential to instantly dispatch the animal. Not so much "fling" it, but put it down without needing to chase it or use a follow up shot.

After reading the latest posting by Marshal, I checked the hide from the deer I mentioned and found a triangle-shaped spot, sides each about 2.5" long, around the exit wound. To me, this spot indicates there wasn't much blood loss around / out of the exit hole .Is that lack of blood an indication of low blood pressure? If the heart is full of blood and not beating, then there won't be a pressure increase forcing blood out.

Also, after shooting the buck and loading him into the back of my pickup, we didn't find an exit wound. That's nothing to get excited about since it has happened before.  I assumed, wrongly, that the bullet broke apart in the animal and never exited. It wasn't until we had the hide off that we found the exit wound---which is almost the exact size of the entry wound.

I know the shot from my 300 Wby broke the L shoulder joint, so the buck couldn't support his own weight AND it had two holes in its chest with no lung functioning. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.

I don't agree with the blood pressure theory.    I do agree with Jim shot placement with enough gun  to get the job done.   

Zonie: I definitely agree with you and Jim. That combination will do the trick every time. But reading the article Mike linked got me pondering how it does it. If nothing else it was interesting to ponder for a little while.