Expanding projectiles for big game hunting - deformation history and tissue simulants

Summary

Can we trust the information regarding retention weights supplied by the manufactures of hunting bullets? Retention weights for bullets collected from moose carcasses were all below the values given by the producers. The extensive use of tissue simulants might also be questioned as our data indicates that retention weights for bullets retrieved from simulants are rather low compared to bullets retrieved from moose carcasses. This suggests that there is a need to standardize results obtained by using tissue simulants. We suggest that correction factors can be constructed based on comparisons between bullets retrieved from simulants and living tissue. In this article we report from the results based on the bullet sampling effort that was a part of our questionnaire regarding the use and effect of different cartridge and bullet types used in the harvesting of Fennoscandian moose.