The "Push" imparted by a bullet from any common sporting rifle / pistol / ammunition combination that would be used for hunting whitetails is actually very low. Basic engineering theory can easily explain this; however for the layman a "show me" illustration may be the very best way to convince the doubtful.
An old article in the NRA's American Rifleman's Beginners Digest provided a visable account of the amount of "Push" or "Knockdown" that actually occurred when using common ammunition that we are all familiar with. I quote a portion of that article below.
"To make the movement clearly visible, the American Rifleman constructed a wooden dummy of approximately the height and outline of a man. It was mounted on a platform rolling on sealed ball bearings of a very good quality. Lead plates within the figure brought its weight to 175 lbs. and stopped the bullets. The figure moved freely at the push of a fingertip.
Impact of a .22 long rifle standard velocity bullet caused the figure to roll back 1/16", an amount barely visable. The .38 Special factory bullet moved the figure 3/16"; the .45 M1911 Service bullet moved it 1/2"; and the 30-06 commercial 150 gr. bullet moved it 2 1/4". These give a good idea of the comparative movement from impact of different bullets, and of the smallness of the movement throughout."
In short, the ability to kill or make helpless is quite different from the implication that a bullet "knocks down" its victim.
As usual the NRA has the right stuff. Join now, get the magazine, learn interesting things, and vote for political candidates that support our constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
As a really funny postscript to the preceeding, I found a site on the internet, run by a fellow named Saeed, and it has terrific information on reloading ammunition. Now you may ask what does that have to do with the subject "knockdown", Saeed has some hilarious movies there that show various shooters firing a monster rifle that he calls the 577 T-REX. It may take you a few minutes to download the movie but believe me you will see that there really is such a thing as "knockdown", but it takes something a little beyond the typical whitetail rifle to do it..! Through the courtesy of Saeed, please click on his copyrighted MOVIE.
If you enjoyed that, drop in on Saeed's site for many more T-rex movies and absolutely great reloading data: Accurate Reloading
