The Anatomy of a bang flop

[sgt_zim]

I had brought this up on a thread, seems like a couple years ago, but another nurse (ICU/CICU) way more involved in cardio than I ever was provided some fine detail.

I had originally posited that I believe destruction of the heart's pacemaker (sino-atrial node or SA node), and surrounding tissue, was the cause of bang flops. And it almost certainly is. But there is a great deal of redundancy built into all heart tissue. If the primary pacemaker fails, there is an atrio-ventricular node that can take over. And even the nerve fibers covering the surface of the heart can act as a pacemaker, albeit at what we would consider Bradycardic rates. The heart's cells themselves can even generate electrical charge, though at Bradycardic rates like the Bundle of His (the nerve cells/literal wiring for the heart).

For small ungulates, a heart shot has a higher probability of destroying either the SA node or the AV node. For larger ungulates like cape buffalo, eland, giraffe, moose, and elk, the probability of a heart shot destroying one of the pacemakers and enough surrounding tissue to induce a bang-flop is just a lot lower. Yeah, a caliber .458, 500 gr bullet through a cape buffalo's heart is going to lead to hypovolemia, hypotension, physical collapse, and death, but as many of us have seen, that may take some time. This is why a solid heart shot can, but won't necessarily, produce a bang flop. They're dead on their feet, it'll just require the passage of some amount of time until they've bled enough to be too weak to pose a threat.

It's not like I have a great deal of experience hunting buffalo, but for those who've never hunted something large, it's easy to stand there and admire your shot the way most of us do for white tail. Whether you've sufficiently destroyed a large ungulate's electrical conductance system or not, reload and be ready to shoot again and again when necessary. As the saying goes, "cape buffalo take a lot of killin'."

 

[skydiver386]

My experience leads me to the same conclusion.

An added factor is the state of the animal prior to the shot. An animal that is calm, has it's head down while feeding often has a different reaction than one looking straight at you, stomping it's hooves in a manner that says "I see you and I don't like you".

My money says this is due to adrenaline and it's effects on everything you mentioned above, plus muscular tension.

 

[Betterinthebush]

My experience leads me to the same conclusion.

An added factor is the state of the animal prior to the shot. An animal that is calm, has it's head down while feeding often has a different reaction than one looking straight at you, stomping it's hooves in a manner that says "I see you and I don't like you".

My money says this is due to adrenaline and it's effects on everything you mentioned above, plus muscular tension.

An alerted animal is already in flight mode as it’s looking, stomping, trying to identify the threat. Vaso-dilation to critical organ areas is turned up to 10X and vaso-constriction to non life essential areas are turned down to -10X.

High dollar, hot blood horses sold at auction are shown in a ring with green colored floors and walls. The color green has a soothing affect on prey animals, whereas even though the animal is alerted the adrenaline release is a drip, rather than a bucket dump. This is the primary reason I bathe animals in the kill chute with green light therapy bulbs and the kill floor is grass green. Very big rank bulls have laid down in my kill chute after just a five minute period waiting.

I believe a buffalo that always is hunted and always alert must be genetically predisposed for an adrenal dump full time at all times. Very tough animals. I am amazed by their design.

 

[uplander01]

I think the only sure bang flop on a buffalo is a slug through the brain,....any other shot I would count on a follow up or at least a short walk to where it tipped over. Maybe if you put one right through the neck shoulder spinal junction, but thats a tough shot

 

[deewayne2003]

@sgt_zim

I agree with you about the size of the animal in regards to whitetail vs buffalo coming into play.

As for the smaller animals I also think it has to do with the heart being in expansion or contracting when the bullet makes contact.

My theory is that if the heart is expanding when the bullet makes contact it causes the blood pressure to massively spike and shock the central nervous system.

 

[sgt_zim]

I think the only sure bang flop on a buffalo is a slug through the brain,....any other shot I would count on a follow up or at least a short walk to where it tipped over. Maybe if you put one right through the neck shoulder spinal junction, but thats a tough shot

I would tend to think a bang flop on old M'bogo is just a stroke of luck.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

Hi @sgt_zim
Let me break it down for you.

It’s actually impossible to always get a guaranteed instant cessation of life on a Cape buffalo (or indeed; any big game animal) with a heart shot (and I have been taking many of them over the years by employing this shot).

You see, the heart is constantly filling & emptying. If you hit the heart while it’s full, you’re far more likely to drop the game instantly than if your bullet penetrates the heart while it’s empty. And it’s completely impossible for the hunter to tell what stage of the the cycle the heart is in, when you’re taking your shot. Anatomists call this the “Milk Bottle Theory”. Hit a full milk bottle with a bullet and it will explode. Hit it while the bottle is empty, and you often just get a hole punched through.

Larger calibers with bigger bullet diameters contribute greatly to quicker fatalities on heart shots since they punch larger wound cavities through the vitals… which in turn, accelerates blood loss and causes the game animal to hemorrhage relatively faster. For this reason, I strongly discourage any solid bullets under .416 caliber (weighing 400Gr bare minimum) for taking body (heart/lung) shots on Cape buffalo. A .375 bore 300Gr solid in my humble experience… is not a good choice for heart shots on Cape buffalo. The bullet diameter (and the corresponding wound channel through the heart which it produces) is quite marginal for cleanly dispatching Cape buffalo with heart shots (and don’t even get me started on lung shots). I have had Cape buffalo survive (and remain fully mobile) for up to 18 minutes even after receiving a .375 bore 300Gr solid bullet clean through the heart. Round nosed solids are the worst for this application. A flat nosed solid (with the best bullet profile being that which is shaped like an upturned bucket) considerably improves things but not by much.

So to compensate for the smallish bullet diameter, .375 bore (or smaller) caliber weapons should be loaded with premium grade expanding bullets which render them to be excellent for heart shots on Cape buffalo (due to expansion enlarging bullet diameter and the corresponding wound cavities which they produce). Actually, even on larger calibers… a premium grade expanding bullet will always trump a solid bullet for heart shots on Cape buffalo.

Aside from creating bigger wound cavities, larger & heavier caliber bullets (provided that they are being propelled at reasonable velocities) also deliver a greater amount of shock to a Cape buffalo’s central nervous system.

But still, the only guaranteed method of always dropping a Cape buffalo spot dead… is to make either a brain shot or a spinal shot.

 

[sgt_zim]

@sgt_zim

I agree with you about the size of the animal in regards to whitetail vs buffalo coming into play.

As for the smaller animals I also think it has to do with the heart being in expansion or contracting when the bullet makes contact.

My theory is that if the heart is expanding when the bullet makes contact it causes the blood pressure to massively spike and shock the central nervous system.

The pressure spike occurs during systole, the contraction of the heart. The top number of your BP is the pressure when your heart is in a contracted state, the bottom number is in diastole, when your heart is relaxed.

 

[Stubbleduck]

Arrow penetrated a rib on the way in then was broken at the rib leaving the broadhead and arrow fragment as seen in photo. Buffalo ran about 130 yards before going down.

 

[JD Noblin]

Great thoughts and analysis by both Sgt_Zim and Hunter Habib. Over the years I have noticed a general trend that heart shots do not result in an instant "bang-flop" when (1) the overall size of the animal is large (1000lb+) and (2) the heart is not filled with blood when struck by the projectile. My first cape buffalo in Tanzania took 2 shots to the heart from a 458 Lott (one 500gr TSX and one 500gr A-Square Solid) and STILL ran in excess of 200 yards. Here is a pic of that buffalo's heart:

 

[Hunting Hitman]

At this point I have hunted over 20 Buffs and never had a bang flop. Most were shot correctly with a High heart double lung angle. I have been charged 2 times and only a brain shot and a spinal junction box shot created the immediate stoppage of the animal.

HH

 

[NIGHTHAWK]

I’ve made a lot of heart shots on many different size animals. Some (Red Hartebeest and 1 Gemsbok) both ran 75 plus yards. Hearts were shot one split in 1/2. Had Red Stag Heart shot and within seconds turn over. Had a fallow Buck heart blow out and he took off, ran 50 feet one way and 60 feet back.

The only floops I had were on Buff (Neck), Giraffe (Neck) Hippo (Brain), Eland (Neck). All went straight down. Buff and Eland were not intentional. Buff was (obviously) high shoulder quartering to - got lucky and Eland shot hit a branch on a broadside shoulder shot. All got anchoring heart shots except the Eland.

All the animals heart shot, we’re not pressured or aware they were being hunted. Some still ran significant distances… I also had a Zebra that made a significant run after being heart shot.

 

[Doug Hamilton]

I think the only sure bang flop on a buffalo is a slug through the brain,....any other shot I would count on a follow up or at least a short walk to where it tipped over. Maybe if you put one right through the neck shoulder spinal junction, but thats a tough shot

A shot to the spine will drop any animal in its tracks. A broken neck will kill any buffalo DRT. I broke the neck of my first bull when he got up and went after the PH. DRT. low through the heart didn't do it. The next bull took the bullet through the shoulder and completely smashed the top end of the heart including the valves and veins. He dove behind the brush with no follow up shot possible. He only made it about 25 yards and piled up dead. Still not a bang/flop, but very effective. Both were taken with a .458 WM.

 

[sgt_zim]

A matter of anatomy and physiology - even at the very end of systole, no animal's heart is empty of blood. Cardiac efficiency is measured by what is called Ejection Fraction. For humans, any EF between about 50 and 70 is considered healthy - that is to say with each contraction, a heart is expected to push between 50% and 70% of a resting heart's volume of blood out through the aorta and pulmonary artery. I don't imagine it to be much different for animals, though I'd guess healthy ones are probably all around 70 or maybe 75%.

IOW, a heart is always "full" of blood, but the amount that constitutes "full" changes from moment to moment based on where in the beat cycle a heart is. It'll have the least volume of blood possible at the very end of systole/contraction, and the greatest volume of blood at the very end of diastole/rest, the moment before the heart goes into systole again.

I'd imagine that at peak systole, a fluid compression caused by a projectile would spike the pressure high enough to cause brain injury, but that's just pure speculation.

Anyway, my point in posting this originally was so that no hunter should expect bang flops as a matter of course. If you get one, that's fantastic. Shoot, reload, shoot, reload, rinse, repeat until the animal has expired or is clearly expiring. That goes double for animals with platter sized hooves or are bristling with fang and claw.