Optimum velocity for quickest kills with flat nose cast bullets is the velocity that produces a displacement velocity between 100 and 135. Go higher and kill speed slows down. Lower requires precision shot placement through vital organs to get a real quick kill. By quick I mean they drop at the hit, or stagger maybe take a few steps and go down, or at the worst, travel 30 yards.
Calculate displacement velocity by measuring the meplat diameter in thousandths of an inch, multiply that by velocity and divide by 4. A fast way to find desired optimum velocity with any given bullet is divide meplat diameter by four and punch the result into your calculator memory, then go through a string of velocities till you find optimum DV or kill speed. For example, hit memory return, multiply by 1400 fps, if that's a velocity capability, and D.V. will appear.
Yes indeed. Shoot through the shoulders has been the song to sing for many years, but it puts the bullet way up at the front of the vital organs if the shot is perfect broadside, and I believe most of us try to wait for that when we can. The heart lies low in the check cavity between the shoulders, but its a small target for most hand gunners who aren't certain where it is anyhow, and hitting back from it a few inches severs all the arteries, if DV is in the optimum range. Hitting higher, about center of the ribcage vertically and lengthwise from back of shoulder to end of ribs, puts the bullet near center of both lungs, with a perfect broadside, and rips up large arteries. Almost no meat is damaged as there is little on the ribs.
We hear a lot of song about breaking the shoulder also. If you are skilled enough about the animals anatomy so you can properly judge the right point to aim for, the shoulder joint will be hard on the bullet and if it makes it through the joint there will be no vital, or blood letting organs behind, with a perfect broadside. The shot will have to quarter in from a frontal angle to get into the chest cavity, and then it will be very low. I don't like it at all. I have hit two shoulder joints in 50 years of hunting. One on the offside with a powerful bullet which took the joint out through the skin. There was no advantage. One on bullet entrance which turned the light caliber bullet and required a lot of tracking and a finisher. Both these on deer. With real heavy game, breaking the shoulder will dump them, normally, but not bears nor deer in my experience.
I realize that not many hunter cut up their own meat so they don't realize how much meat is ruined by shoulder shooting, and wealthy hunters who are interested in sport and not the meat could care less, as they won't be eating or cutting up the meat. I have cut up the meat of every animal my family and I have taken in those 50 years, and normally it is the trophy. The largest target is the center of the ribcage, and meat loss is minimal. Least meat loss is the head but miss the brain and you can lose animal real easy. Neck is good with vertically centered hits pretty much full length of the neck if the bullet is a powerful expanding rifle bullet, but the spine must be hit with nonexpanding or what we would call low shock bullets, with makes the neck an iffy target. A neck shot in the 1/3 of its length closest to the head wastes almost no meat even with heavy magnum rifle hits and explosive bullets. I consider neck and head shots good only for such armament, at ranges where precision shot placement is certain.
Straight away shots are deadly as any with non expanding handgun cast bullets, but they normally stir a lot of the animals last meal or two which must be cleaned out quickly and washed or the entire animal will be tainted and worthless as food. A gut shot deer which lays 20 minutes before gutting, is coyote bait.
