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I'm bored. I have to sit at home this week (sick) and since I find sitting around interminably boring I decided to toy around with a little bit of math to invent a hunting-appropriate calculator. Just for the hell of it. And it may not be worth squat, but oddly enough it seems to be more or less intuitively close to reality (so far), so thought I'd share with the crowd and get the inevitable Hurricane Andrew blowback. Here's how it works:
1. First, I choose a cartridge and multiply three factors as follows: Grains * 10; Sectional Density * 10000; Caliber (inches) * 10000
2. Second, I get pounds of energy and velocity feet per second for the given cartridge at the distance hunted (for example, 300 yards)
3. Third, I multiply Energy by .3043; multiply grains result by .2174; multiply sectional density result by .2174; multiply caliber result by .1739; and multiply velocity by .0870; add it all up for a sum
4. Fourth, I assign a score to different game animals. My initial scores are: Brown Bear = 3; Moose = 2.5; Elk = 2, Black Bear = 1.5; Deer = 1.3; Mountain Lion = 1; Coyote = .5
5. I then divide the sum from step three by each animal score, resulting in a number for each animal
6. For each animal's number resulting from step five, I divide by 1000
That final number from step six tells me if a specific animal is appropriate to hunt at a given range with the given cartridge. If that final number is 1 or greater, but less than 3, then it is appropriate to hunt. If less than 1 or greater than three, then inappropriate to hunt. For example, if I'm using a 6.5 PRC 143-grain Hornady ELD-X bullet at 300 yards, the calculator says elk is appropriate to hunt (scores 1.16), but not moose (score of .93) and not coyote (score of 4.65). By the same token, if I'm hunting with a 300 Winchester Magnum 190-grain Hornady Interlock BTSP at 300 yards, I'm on the very edge of appropriately hunting Moose (score of exactly 1.00). A third example: 223 Remington 60-grain Hornady V-Max, which scores minimally appropriate for hunting deer at 100 yards (1.13, but don't think I would do that) and does well with coyote (a score of 2.82). However, 223 Remington falls below the 1 threshold at 300 yards for deer, but still works for coyote (2.48).
Well, at least it gave me something to do...
1. First, I choose a cartridge and multiply three factors as follows: Grains * 10; Sectional Density * 10000; Caliber (inches) * 10000
2. Second, I get pounds of energy and velocity feet per second for the given cartridge at the distance hunted (for example, 300 yards)
3. Third, I multiply Energy by .3043; multiply grains result by .2174; multiply sectional density result by .2174; multiply caliber result by .1739; and multiply velocity by .0870; add it all up for a sum
4. Fourth, I assign a score to different game animals. My initial scores are: Brown Bear = 3; Moose = 2.5; Elk = 2, Black Bear = 1.5; Deer = 1.3; Mountain Lion = 1; Coyote = .5
5. I then divide the sum from step three by each animal score, resulting in a number for each animal
6. For each animal's number resulting from step five, I divide by 1000
That final number from step six tells me if a specific animal is appropriate to hunt at a given range with the given cartridge. If that final number is 1 or greater, but less than 3, then it is appropriate to hunt. If less than 1 or greater than three, then inappropriate to hunt. For example, if I'm using a 6.5 PRC 143-grain Hornady ELD-X bullet at 300 yards, the calculator says elk is appropriate to hunt (scores 1.16), but not moose (score of .93) and not coyote (score of 4.65). By the same token, if I'm hunting with a 300 Winchester Magnum 190-grain Hornady Interlock BTSP at 300 yards, I'm on the very edge of appropriately hunting Moose (score of exactly 1.00). A third example: 223 Remington 60-grain Hornady V-Max, which scores minimally appropriate for hunting deer at 100 yards (1.13, but don't think I would do that) and does well with coyote (a score of 2.82). However, 223 Remington falls below the 1 threshold at 300 yards for deer, but still works for coyote (2.48).
Well, at least it gave me something to do...
