HIGH VELOCITY VS. HEAVY BULLETS
KILLING POWER
BY ROY E. WEATHERBY
“In Africa we learned that if we used smaller-caliber, high-velocity bullets, the animal had to be close enough so that the bullet would not lose enough velocity to keep it from disintegrating inside the animal’s body … but if you can get that small caliber to disintegrate inside the animal, it will kill anything on the face of the Earth.”
The question of lightweight, high-velocityL bullets versus large-bore, heavy-weight, slower-moving bullets has been the subject of conversation and controversy for many years. And where experts disagree, it is very difficult for the layman to shed much light on this subject.
It has been instilled in the mind of man that the heavy bullet does the killing. When a man walks into a sporting goods store and asks for a box of .30-06 cartridges, he asks for 220-grain bullets if he is going to hunt moose or grizzlies; if it is .270 caliber, he asks for the 150-grain bullet and the same applies to the .257—he will ask for the 117-grain bullet, if he’s going after something large. So, the trend of thought still is: Use a heavy bullet if you want to get the heavy animals.
Most hunters and writers are prone to generalize a great deal, taking a lot for granted when writing about killing power. For example, if they shot their grizzly with a .25–35, using a 117-grain Remington Belted bullet,
