Guys, I thought I would trigger a discussion on game killing effectiveness and bullet performance. These observations and opinions are based on nearly 50 years of personal hunting experience coupled with reading about literally thousands of handgun kills in the pages of The Sixgunner and on the forums of handgunhunt.com. Here are several basic premises that I believe to be true.

1- shot placement is the number one factor in killing game quickly. Penetration through both lungs, the heart or the brain / spinal cord are needed for a quick kill.
2- breaking major bones in both front shoulders will secure your animal on the spot. Breaking one will not.
3- bullet design is far more important than velocity or ft/lbs of energy.
4- the greater the frontal diameter of a bullet the wider the wound channel. This can be achieved by bullet expansion (mushrooming) or by a bullet design with a wide flat nose. Going further the frontal area should be at a minimum of 0.35 inch in diameter but larger is better. I prefer closer to 0.50 inch.
5- the kenetic energy of the bullet ( mass and velocity) must be adequate to achieve points one or two or you will eventually only wound without killing. I prefer a pass through shot as the exit wound is typically the main source of a blood trail.

In summary a bullet should be able to pass through the vitals of your quarry with a 0.35 inch or larger frontal area.

If the gun, distance or shot angle will not guarantee this do not take the shot.

I concur with all the above.

I was hoping to get an agree / disagree discussion going. And to get additional inputs and opinions.

Nobody can disagree with facts...well, they shouldn't

What you wrote is pretty reasonable.
If I was describing it, I would break point 1 into two points with placement being most important followed by penetration as point 2.

That's pretty much what I wrote in the Sixgunner for 35+ years.
The order depends on the size of the animal.

Ha Ha Doc - I have read every one of your Sixgunner articles over the 35 years. I guess I was paying attention.

Well said Bill!, and after 50 years, you are speaking from experience!

Karl, I agree that they could be expressed as 2 separate points although you still need a bullet that will get through even with perfect placement. I have seen perfectly placed, lightweight, fast expanding bullets stopped by a rib or a front leg that did not even get into the chest cavity. That was a common problem with early generation 357 and 44 hollow point rounds back in the day. These first generation HP bullets were designed to expand quickly and stay inside 2 legged varmints and were not designed for penetration and controlled expansion on game animals. I think that is the primary reason that the 357 gets a bad rap as a deer round.

A wealth of knowledge & experience on this forum. I love it!!

I think we can all agree that handgun bullets have came a long way since some of us started. There weren't a lot of good options for the revolver shooter back in the 60's or 70's. When we got into the 80's the bullet manufacturers started seeing the light & those that used jacketed handgun bullets started having more success. The cast bullet shooter was always in pretty good shape.
The one exception, & the guy that really made the bullet manufacturers take notice was Lee Jurras & his Super Vel line of bullets. What finally put Lee out of business was his inability to get enough brass to keep up with demand.
I agree with everything that's been said & writers like Elmer Keith, Skeeter, Ross Seyfried, John Taffin & later on Larry Kelley, JD Jones, Larry Roger & Mark Hampton kept the flames hot with stories of hunts far & wide with all manner of bullets.
Looking back, some of those early half & 3/4 jacketed bullets weren't too bad. Also when chronographs became available all of us got our eyes opened a little bit to reality.

Dick

Dick, kinda funny you brought up about chrono's. This is a little off topic but I think it applies. I was the first in my area to get a chrono. Not that I was more affluent just I was I believe more serious and at the time(in my early twenties) still living with my parents and had more disposable income due to the fact I worked a union job. I know it sure opened my eyes when I checked some of my "hot" loads. This was in the time frame you mentioned(early '80s). I bought a Pact unit and it is great. Anyway, we had this loudmouth local that was always extolling the virtues of his 25-06 rifle as being superior to anything else on the planet. My future father-in-law and I shot handguns every spare minute we had(lived on a farm in a rural area). So we cooked up a challenge with this cat(who didn't know I had acquired a chrono) that his loads were much more anemic than he claimed. His contention was that his gun shot 120gr bullets @ 3200fps because he had a "book" load he found somewhere that said that. We dragged him and his magical rifle out to the gravel pit and out came the chrono(should have seen his face). Final analysis was he was barely getting 2800fps out of his 26in barreled gun. We didn't have to listen to too much more chatter out of him for a looong time.