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Last spring Roy Lupton shot a roebuck - it ran -to be found 40 yards away in long grass.
It was a reasonably long shot.
Roy felt it might have been a little low, but following discussions after the event
we hypothesised - it's important to hypothesise - that maybe the shot had struck an ear of
corn - throwing the .243 ballistic tip bullet off course and fragmenting it before it got
to the vital organs.
Right - let's get technical.
As this barrel-cam footage shows from our trip to Africa earlier this year - focusing
your scope on an animal 100-plus yards away might mean you don't see the twigs, grass,
or leaves sitting in front of your nose and in the path of the bullet.
You can clearly see the twig drop - unfortunately the oryx in the cross hairs does not.
It was enough to stop the soft nose bullet doing its job.
To try and get a better understanding of what might have happened we are setting up a hi-tech
experiment . We have chosen three natural barriers that could stand between us and our
animal.
Roy has picked hay, nettles and green hazel twigs.
Things sometimes come in the line of fire so your bullet can end up striking something
you hadn't wanted it to before it hits the target.
That could be straw, it could be stubble, it could be nettles, it could be a branch.
And it has always fascinated me as to what sort of results you get, so what exactly happens
to that bullet.
So we have set up a very simple experiment today just to see if we can extrapolate any
results.
We are going to start off with the 22-250, we are then going to move on to the .243 and
then up to a 30-06 all shooting with ballistic tips and then we will see what sort of results
we get from it.
We put up a barrier of hay and, five yards behind it, place a target and a milk bottle
full of water.
Roy is shooting his .22-250 from about 70 yards away.
And this is what happens.
Well I don't know quite what we can extrapolate from that experiment.
We have had catastrophic failure of the milk bottle there, but bearing in mind we are only
shooting from 5 metres through a bit of grass into the target.
In that area, ok it would have still killed a fox if you were shooting at a fox, so we
were just slightly high.
You can see rather than a nice neat hole it has started to rip so I would guess the bullet
has started to tumble.
Some effect had been made to the bullet, but it was still parting most of its energy when
it got to the target.
So there is no point in trying the .243 or the .30-06 at this range all through that,
because we are going to get pretty much similar results.
That's enough hay fever.
Nettles are next.
Maybe it's global warming and a longer growing season but we shooters seem to spend more
and more of the year being stung by nettles.
We move them a little further back to give the bullet more time to be influenced by the
obstruction.
The bullet would have had to go through a few stalks and I would have thought that would
be enough to de-stabalise it, at least start it twisting, maybe diverting it a little bit
and start it fragmenting.
But absolutely nothing.
So I think all we can do now is move onto the sticks and then just as a follow up to
it what we will do is move the obstacle right in front of the rifle.
So we will move it 10 yards in front of the rifle and then shoot.
So then bullet has got 50,60,100 yards to decide to do something before it gets to the
target if we are going to get any results at all.
Bearing in mind we are using ballistic tips and a very, very fast round I am absolutely
shocked that we didn't get a result from that one.
We shall see what we find out.
Now this (you will be glad to hear) is where it starts to get interesting - the green hazel
twigs.
I bet you didn't realise that Roy gave up a lucrative career in floristry before finding
Fieldsports.
We place the beautifully-arranged greenery first at 10 yards in front of the target and
then 10 yards in front of Roy.
You can see there that the bullet is off course so it should have been smack in the middle.
It has tumbled off to the right hand side and is low.
So at that range if you are shooting at a fox or something like that, or a deer then
it is going to start taking you away from being a kill shot and take you into the realms
of wounding an animal.
So it really does go to show that a relatively small obstacle in the way is going to affect
your bullet.
I mean we can step it up and try a larger round and just see what that does, but obviously
we didn't get a result from the nettles, we didn't get a result from the hay, but we are
talking about massive variables here, even though we didn't get the results on those
I still wouldn't recommend shooting through anything.
But it is really just to try and show what does happen and some of the pitfalls you do
face if your shot hasn't got a clear path to the target.
The one thing from that experiment I find quite shocking, I was expecting that the round
would be tumbling downwards.
So I would have thought gravitational effect would have been pulling the round down, whereas
in fact it has just tumbled off in an abstract way and is tumbling up and away from the target.
So yes, it really does go to show how careful you have to be not to shoot through.
For our final test Roy chooses to go for more power... and punch.
He has decided to see how a soft nose .243 performs against the same green hazel twigs
10 yards in front of the intended target.
He is of course expecting the bullet to fly true - shrugging off the twigs and finding
its mark...
So ok we have hit another twig there so we should have quite a good result I hope at
the target, bearing in mind that was a soft nosed round so we will see what sort of results
we get at the target.
Well I am really shocked, bearing in mind we were using 100 grain soft nosed round out
of a .243, I was expecting it to hold together and probably not deviate as far away from
the centre of the target, but what we have actually got here on the bottle and on the
paper, is we have got looks like the bullet fragmented into 2 major pieces and then we
have got lots of little fragmentation of the round as well.
Bearing in mind as well that that is only 10 yards in front of the target, we have got
a massive effect on the bullet before it gets to the target.
So again if you were shooting at an animal and you hit a bit of rape stubble or something
comparable to the twigs we were using there, then at worst you would wound the animal and
at best you would miss it.
I think all I can take from today is it really doesn't matter what I have chambered in my
rifle it doesn't pay to shoot through any foliage or any obstacle.
Ethically I think it is very questionable.
I thought you might be able to get away with it a little bit
more with a soft nosed round as opposed to a ballistic tip, but we have to take into
consideration that this is only a very small sample of rounds and a very small sample of
shots.
So my caveat in that is that other people may get different results, but from what I
have seen, I won't be attempting to take any shots in the future unless I have a clear
view of my target.
Judging by this back-of-fag-packet experiment and footage from the field - it is best to
keep fresh air, and only fresh air between you and your intended target.
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