Is Knock-Down Power Just as Elusive as "Stopping Power"?:

Hands-up all who saw that real-news video of all those good folks experiencing a spectacular & religious 'Eclipse Event'.. right across the USA - How did President Trump organize this Great American Achievement and thus guarantee his second term serving the people?

I guess that the concept of  'Knockdown Power' is related to 'Stopping Power' - in that, like a god - while it can't be proven to exist - there still are many folk who choose to believe that it does.

(The modern definition of concept is: an idea or invention to help sell or publicize a commodity.)

While totally accepting that cartridges vary from low-power to very High-Power .. "Knock-Down Power" claims have to be total bullshit.. what causes a target animal to drop under gravity is an adequately destructive round accurately placed in a critical organ.(Sometimes even an inadequate round does the job).

This is one of those arguments that are best avoided with large angry people who have bought into that concept - as while there is no question that the larger heavier target animals are probably best shot with a larger heavier & more powerful round .. many of the very biggest African elephants, for example, were efficiently killed by professional big game hunters using lesser calibers .. probably the most 'clinical' performer was Karamojo Bell who recorded 1,011 elephants slaughtered with his rifle in 7x57 mm caliber (.275" Rigby) with 173 grain military ammo. - firing one shot only on half of them.

But even such a proven record is strictly speaking irrelevant - as none of those pachyderms was actually knocked down by a bullet .. they fell down when they lost consciousness or lost muscular control. There is no way that a hand-held shouldered rifle can deliver sufficient energy on a six ton target to physically push it over without it causing similarly disastrous injury to the shooter.

Newton's third law is: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Old time ballisticians used to measure delivered energy (momentum) by firing shots at a heavy steel pendulum and recording how much it swung ..

- But this comparative measure is sadly, once again almost irrelevant regarding any degree of "knock-down" because the bullet will not deliver all of it's momentum energy to a soft target in line of fire anyway (- particularly if it exits and continues down range). Those bullets that do transfer all of their high energy into the target and remain inside the body - deliver that "explosive" force in all directions .. not just as a linear 'push' force.

The idea of "Knock-Down Power" is formed from reported observation .. some of which may grow into legendary status over the years. People do mostly recall impressive successes - while dismissing non events and failure.

Precise shot placement is the single most critical factor in both hunting, self-defense and all target shooting .. however if taking hurried & poorly aimed shots - one might be hoping that a hotter round will save the day by inflicting a disabling wound ... thus perhaps the acerbic comment made of high capacity pistols "You must be expecting to miss a lot."

Marty K.

While I may think that I know what I might do - it is not necessarily correct. - I have totally (& abysmally) failed at South Canterbury feral Wallaby hunting while using a high capacity rifle .. but I have taken most everything attempted in outback Australia hunting trips (roos, feral pig & cat) - when using a borrowed single shot 30-30 Contender carbine !

M.K.