HIGH VELOCITY MYSTERY
After Magnum’s 2024 Hunting & Shooting Guide went on sale, I received a phone call from a reader querying a statement I had made in my article “Ammo Savvy” regarding bullet disintegration in flesh at high impact velocities. He said an ordinary Remington 100gr Core-Lokt soft-point bullet from his father’s .25-06 (muzzle velocity 3 200fps) punched a clean hole through plate steel at close range, so he didn’t see how such a bullet could disintegrate in flesh. I could well understand his scepticism as I had experienced similar bafflement as a youngster. And he was by no means the first person I’ve known to raise this point.
When I was just eight or nine years old, I accompanied a school pal and his father to view a .425 Westley Richards rifle that an Estcourt farmer was selling. We spent most of the day there, and the two men chatted about rifles and calibres in general. At one point the farmer said, “I’ve got a .22 that will shoot through a railway line.” My friend’s
