In your experience what causes more damage in tissue, JSB Hades or slugs?

[delooper]

Damaging vital tissue sufficiently is what kills. Not energy dump. Sure, shoot a small animal with an energetic soft point and a lot of vital tissue is destroyed. If you are shooting something larger than a rat, then you need to hit specific organs. Before you can damage vital tissue, you need to reach it via sufficiently deep penetration.

Penetration and energy don't correlate in a linear fashion; depending on the mass and speed of your projectile. It also depends on if you are shooting flesh, sand, bone or wood. This little video uses an arrow to make that point:

Roughly speaking, "everything matters".

Other than the nature of your target and where you intend to hit it, you may need to take into account: 1) the mass of your projectile, 2) how fast it travels, 3) the shape of your projectile and its consistency, including all the material properties.

But an "often good enough" measure is the energy (combination of 1 and 2) of your projectile and its cross-sectional density -- this is part of the information in (3).

An exaggerated example: if you throw a bowling ball you'll give it much more energy than any .25 cal out of an airgun. But you likely won't kill anything because (2) its moving too slow and (3) the cross-sectional density is too low.

 

[subscriber]

OK; if we get back to the OP's question, the answer is slugs produce more tissue damage. This is because you can drive slugs much faster than pellets, without losing long range stability. You also need to drive them faster than pellets, but none of those factors were mentioned in the two-choice question.

You might also ask which slugs are we talking about? The ones with better expansion, at their design velocities. That could be slugs by NSA, Patriot Javelins, ZAN or H&N.

 

[HogKiller]

Roughly speaking, "everything matters".

Other than the nature of your target and where you intend to hit it, you may need to take into account: 1) the mass of your projectile, 2) how fast it travels, 3) the shape of your projectile and its consistency, including all the material properties.

But an "often good enough" measure is the energy (combination of 1 and 2) of your projectile and its cross-sectional density -- this is part of the information in (3).

An exaggerated example: if you throw a bowling ball you'll give it much more energy than any .25 cal out of an airgun. But you likely won't kill anything because (2) its moving too slow and (3) the cross-sectional density is too low.

I don't know about that, there is something to be said for blunt force trauma. A long time ago I use to know the speed of a 16# ball I've got 15mph in my mind but it could be lower. I've got a couple of 300 games under my belt and the rings to go with them.

 

[bigHUN]

I have walnut trees in my backyard, that attracts a lot of squerrels - and lately the raccoon's.
I started with 15gn in .22 (JSB or HN) domed pellets @ 900, the hit placement was correct but a wait time to touch ground I didn't like.
I switch to 15gn Piranha's @ 800 that eliminated the wait time, coming down like leafs.
Couple nights ago a family of 5 raccoon's started attacking my trees. Oh boy, those young are tough. Aiming for vitals is wrong unless you have a whole night to collect them.
I am sure POI in a head, but from front the scull bone may be just deflecting too much, or the @800 is not enough. I can see the disoriented, but need a followup shot. Hard to see after midnight 3 in a morning up in branches between leafs even with a torch light.
I am shopping now for a red dot, maybe the glass can help better.

 

[dens228]

I have walnut trees in my backyard, that attracts a lot of squerrels - and lately the raccoon's.
I started with 15gn in .22 (JSB or HN) domed pellets @ 900, the hit placement was correct but a wait time to touch ground I didn't like.
I switch to 15gn Piranha's @ 800 that eliminated the wait time, coming down like leafs.
Couple nights ago a family of 5 raccoon's started attacking my trees. Oh boy, those young are tough. Aiming for vitals is wrong unless you have a whole night to collect them.
I am sure POI in a head, but from front the scull bone may be just deflecting too much, or the @800 is not enough. I can see the disoriented, but need a followup shot. Hard to see after midnight 3 in a morning up in branches between leafs even with a torch light.
I am shopping now for a red dot, maybe the glass can help better.

Head on right between the eyes, side shot right behind the eye. I've only got 10 or so to my credit but they were all within a foot or two of where I shot them, a few dropped with barely a twitch. All with domed JSB's. Squirrels on the other hand seem to have a temporary afterlife. LOL. I've had squirrels missing the entire backside of their head after I hit them hop around for what seems like an eternity.

 

[darylm]

For longer ranges slugs are hard to beat. I shoot ground squirrels with .249 cal, 29 grain NSAs at 950 fps and the impact and pop is amazing.

For backyard pesting, I’ve started taking assorted slugs and hollow point pellets, cutting x’s in the top with a razor blade (idea by Vendoc), and filling the hollows with RTV silicone (idea by Heath Halfhill). The impacts of this combo are devastating. Being that I’m surrounded by neighbors, I can’t have the squirrels and magpies running/flying off……..and they DON’T!……..my backyard pesting all happens inside of 30 yards, so the effects this combo has on BC and accuracy are negligible.

 

[dens228]

This morning I locked in the accuracy with RMR .25 cal slugs and went across the street to my neighbors for a few squirrels.
The first one was hit in the shoulder on purpose, dropped, one flop, and done. Opposite shoulder was bulging out, blood was coming out it's mouth, nose, and ears. No exit. Very dead.
The second was from behind, centered between and just below the ears. Blood coming out of it's ears, mouth and nose. Both eyes were bulging like ET, no exit. Not even a twitch, just dead.

 

[lbc_PSI]

I have confirmed and reconfirmed the effectiveness of JSB Hades, but I have no experience with slugs.

I know slugs at long range keep more energy and are more accurate, bit I do not know how much damage they cause in tissue for hunting purposes.

P,ease share experience.

How do we know that a certain pellet or slug is transferring more energy to a target?

Noise. Sound is energy. When you hear the “pock” of a .177 or .22 versus the “THWOOCK” of a .30 hitting a squirrel, it is very obvious.

The same can be said for different types of projectiles of the same caliber. Whichever is louder on impact is transferring more energy and disturbing more tissue.

 

[subscriber]

The volume of tissue destroyed is generally proportional to the energy expended by the projectile in the target. Wider damage kills faster, providing it is deep enough. That may be academic when a .25 slugs carrying 80 FPE stops in a chipmunk; or more precisely stays with the body parts removed.

The depth of penetration is generally proportional to the momentum of the projectile and its sectional density. With an expanding projectile, sectional density changes rapidly to limit penetration, and so, more radial damage is done. A "harder" slug (or slower impact velocity) still crushes the same volume of tissue as a "softer" slug at a given energy level; but it does that by creating a narrower but deeper wound channel. There is not much point if a slug passes through and animal, still carrying 80% of its impact energy. So, using a slug that does more radial damage is not likely to cause under penetration on a small animal. Projectiles that do a lot of radial damage and nearly stop inside small animals tend to be very loud on impact, compared to slugs that sail through, and shed only a fraction of their energy.

 

[delooper]

I don't know about that, there is something to be said for blunt force trauma. A long time ago I use to know the speed of a 16# ball I've got 15mph in my mind but it could be lower. I've got a couple of 300 games under my belt and the rings to go with them.

If you can post a video of you killing a healthy, mobile squirrel (not tied down) by hand-throwing a ten-pin bowling ball I'll buy you another bowling ball.

Offer limited to one week, as I imagine at some point some hulk will read this and be the first to kill a squirrel by bowling ball.

My greater point is projectile mass and energy, on their own, are not things you want to blindly maximize.

 

[dens228]

Last night I was able to take down a racoon with the slugs. 35 yards, head down as it ate the squirrel from earlier I used to bring it in.
Right between the a little above right between the eyes. Dropped, twitched around a bit for about 10-15 seconds and then it was over.
Obviously no exit wound but there wouldn't be with my domed pellets either. I can't say the slugs performed better or worse than pellets on the head shot of a racoon.
My initial thoughts are head shots won't matter pellet vs slug, body shots probably will. One added benefit with slugs so far in my very limited experience is the lack of an exit. I believe the RMR's are a softer lead with a fairly large hollow point witch I'm sure aids expansion. I'll stick with the slugs for a bit to gain more first hand experience with them.
The beauty is on my M3 I just had to turn the macro wheel down from 14 to 10 and move my scope a few clicks left and down to be zero'd in from the JSB 35's.
FYI the JSB's were averaging 936, the RMR's which are lighter and obviously have no skirt are averaging 971 and the lower setting.

 

[HogKiller]

If you can post a video of you killing a healthy, mobile squirrel (not tied down) by hand-throwing a ten-pin bowling ball I'll buy you another bowling ball.

Offer limited to one week, as I imagine at some point some hulk will read this and be the first to kill a squirrel by bowling ball.

My greater point is projectile mass and energy, on their own, are not things you want to blindly maximize.

My bowling days are long over, or even tossing a bowling ball, missing part of my R middle finger. I believe I was referencing to a comment up above about the force of a bowling ball. Now.....where did I leave my BB cannon...it's around here somewhere....

 

[Mr12PM]

from my mk2 crown compact, the fx hybrids do wonders for critters @ 890fps
and so does the 18.1 jsb @ 925.
i use both without any question of which does better. the 18.1 is most accurate out to
35yrds which is my sight in range, but the hybrid reaches out a little further.
as far as the "JTS" pellet......i sold and gave away all i had !!

When you say “compact”, which barrel are you referring to?

 

[Sawney Bean]

I personally like for a projectile to pass through. Exit wounds are another location for an animal to bleed out from. Just because a projectile passes through an animal doesn’t necessarily mean it ice picked them. Also, if your projectile doesn’t often pass through are you confident that it would penetrate deeply enough for a reliable kill shot from angles that do require deep penetration to hit the vitals?

 

[TheWhiteBreath]

I read an academic paper of sorts on terminal ballistics a while back. It was put together by a number of law enforcement agencies with a view towards figuring out how to put the bad guys down more quickly. The gist of it was penetration is key. They established a minimum penetration in ballistics gel for pistol rounds and then looked for the best combo of that penetration with permanent wound cavity and if I remember correctly the projectile they decided had the most potential was those solid copper screwdriver looking jobs. Now that probably doesn't translate to airguns as them 9mm rounds were supersonic and they operated off of hydrostatic shock. And I have yet to see any solid copper airgun slugs, but I thought it was interesting that they came to the conclusion that reliable penetrarion was more important than expansion or even permanent wound cavity. I guess what I took away from that reading was that getting a round deep enough in the vitals was the main thing and anything on top of that is just frosting on the cake.

 

[JungleShooter]

I read an academic paper of sorts on terminal ballistics a while back. It was put together by a number of law enforcement agencies with a view towards figuring out how to put the bad guys down more quickly. The gist of it was penetration is key. They established a minimum penetration in ballistics gel for pistol rounds and then looked for the best combo of that penetration with permanent wound cavity and if I remember correctly the projectile they decided had the most potential was those solid copper screwdriver looking jobs. Now that probably doesn't translate to airguns as them 9mm rounds were supersonic and they operated off of hydrostatic shock. And I have yet to see any solid copper airgun slugs, but I thought it was interesting that they came to the conclusion that reliable penetrarion was more important than expansion or even permanent wound cavity. I guess what I took away from that reading was that getting a round deep enough in the vitals was the main thing and anything on top of that is just frosting on the cake.

James,

those terminal ballistic articles are good reading. Cool that you made the effort.


Of course, the challenge with all the fire arms literature is to contextualize the results and conclusions to our particular airgun shooting scenarios.

So, I think it would be reasonable to concentrate on airgun typical prey:
squirrels, rabbits, rats, pigeons, starlings, HOSPS, etc. (and leave aside the hunting of large game, deer & co).


TYPICAL is enough for penetration
A fairly typical caliber for hunting would be a .22cal — and typical PCPs have around 30FPE power at the muzzle — with a typical domed pellet (JSB or H&N 15.89gr or 18.13).
Shooting at typical ranges of 20, 40, or 60 yards — results in impact power of 24FPE, 20FPE, and 17FPE respectively.
That is plenty of energy for penetration to get to the vitals of our small quarry.

(Of course, if we go down to .177, and or lower the .22cal power to 12FPE, those 60y shoots will be quite low on power at imact.)



For firearm pistols and for all airguns — THE HOLE kills (there is, sadly, no hydrostatic shock)
The ballistic articles you mentioned in your post — they also investigated at what impact velocities that "hydrostatic shock" might occur.
Well, it's somewhere in the 3000 fps velocity at impact.
So, not anything to concern ourselves with.

Therefore:
➠ Let's make sure the HOLE is where we aimed at (gun precision!) and the hole is in some vital organ: heart, lung, brain.

➠ Let's make sure the hole is as big as feasible:
▪ Bigger caliber
▪ Higher power at impact
▪ Expanding HP pellets

➠ Two holes are better than one — since the blood can drain quicker from the body — for a quicker kill.


Matthias

 

[Airgun561]

good day,

I had made several videos about different pellets vs slugs but I’ll summarize it here for you. The hades pellets do better than slugs. Due to the soft lead and the structure it creates an amazing wound channel. The only concern is if you’re hunting to consume then I would suggest using a HP. The particle degradation and shrapnel from the lead will spread through the subject. This will make it hard to remove all the lead from any meat. Anything less than 80 yards depending on caliber and fps I would use hades for sure. Anything north of that id use slugs

That’s some good info right there!

 

[JungleShooter]

good day,

I had made several videos about different pellets vs slugs.

Canyon,

Cool that you've done that. I am in the process of a similar study, between hollow points and domes.
Would you have a link to where you have those videos?


Another question: What are the maximum velocities with which you shoot the Hades — and at what ranges does it still give you sufficient precion for pesting?

Matthias

 

[TheWhiteBreath]

James,

those terminal ballistic articles are good reading. Cool that you made the effort.


Of course, the challenge with all the fire arms literature is to contextualize the results and conclusions to our particular airgun shooting scenarios.

So, I think it would be reasonable to concentrate on airgun typical prey:
squirrels, rabbits, rats, pigeons, starlings, HOSPS, etc. (and leave aside the hunting of large game, deer & co).


TYPICAL is enough for penetration
A fairly typical caliber for hunting would be a .22cal — and typical PCPs have around 30FPE power at the muzzle — with a typical domed pellet (JSB or H&N 15.89gr or 18.13).
Shooting at typical ranges of 20, 40, or 60 yards — results in impact power of 24FPE, 20FPE, and 17FPE respectively.
That is plenty of energy for penetration to get to the vitals of our small quarry.

(Of course, if we go down to .177, and or lower the .22cal power to 12FPE, those 60y shoots will be quite low on power at imact.)



For firearm pistols and for all airguns — THE HOLE kills (there is, sadly, no hydrostatic shock)
The ballistic articles you mentioned in your post — they also investigated at what impact velocities that "hydrostatic shock" might occur.
Well, it's somewhere in the 3000 fps velocity at impact.
So, not anything to concern ourselves with.

Therefore:
➠ Let's make sure the HOLE is where we aimed at (gun precision!) and the hole is in some vital organ: heart, lung, brain.

➠ Let's make sure the hole is as big as feasible:
▪ Bigger caliber
▪ Higher power at impact
▪ Expanding HP pellets

➠ Two holes are better than one — since the blood can drain quicker from the body — for a quicker kill.


Matthias

Matthias,
That's kinda the point I was meandering toward, the typical airgun won't have any problem getting sufficient penetration at typical ranges. The only way you are likely to run into a .380 hollowpoint type situation (underpenetration) is if you're hunting with something like a stock Crosman 13xx and taking longer shots than you should which is something anyone who has read even a couple posts in a thread like this is not likely to do. So basically all these deep dives on terminal ballistics that we all love so much and we will probably all love until the day we die, are just splitting hairs. That said, a little expansion doesn't hurt on them marginal shots sort of like hitting the x ring with a .45 where a 9mm would have missed.

 

[air-hunter_canyon]

Canyon,

Cool that you've done that. I am in the process of a similar study, between hollow points and domes.
Would you have a link to where you have those videos?


Another question: What are the maximum velocities with which you shoot the Hades — and at what ranges does it still give you sufficient precion for pesting?

Matthias

With Hades pellets, I try to stay below 900 fps. I have found anything higher tends to cause instability with the pellet. In my opinion, the max range I would shoot Hades pellets would be 50 yards to be hole on hole. It also depends on the caliber as well. With .22 hades i shoot them around 900 fps and I can stack them well. Anything further doesn’t group well because of wind. Now the .30 cal hades pellets I shoot around 900 still and can get out to 130 yards no issue