Monday, August 4, 2008

Taylor KO Factor


John "Pondoro" Taylor was an adventurer and big game hunter in Africa during the early part of the 20th century. I don't know a great deal about him except that he wrote several books, was considered by some to be a bit of an exaggerator, and that he came up with his own formula for comparing the effectiveness of cartridges. While I don't put a great deal of stock in mathematical
formulas, they are fun to play with if you don't have any thing else to do. I personally like this one because it takes bullet diameter into consideration, as well as weight and velocity. It was designed for large caliber rifles but it works for handgun cartridges too. Like most of this stuff if it favors the cartridges that you already like, you will think it's a good formula and if it doesn't you'll think it's BS. At least that's how I do it. Here it is for a .45 ACP load, .4515(diameter in inches) X 230(weight in grains) X 850(velocity in feet per second) = 88268.25 divided by 7000= 12.60975, the higher the final number is, the more effective the load. Or so John "Pondoro" Taylor would have us believe.

3 comments:

King Selfish said...

There must be something wrong with this formula. My 40 s & w load is showing to be less effective than your 45acp.

Harpo111 said...

No, is right. With the same style bullet, the .45acp will, with similar velocity or even weight...score higher the a .40 due to diameter. It has to do with the size hole the bullet will create on entry. With a difference of only like two or three...there really is no difference. Take my 58 caliber muzzle loader. A 315gr bullet at 1300fps gets a score in the 30s. A 500gr minnie gets a score in the 50s...that is a sizeable difference and really means something on the receiving end. From my experience...a 40s&w with a 180gr at 950fps is doing to be identical performance to a 45acp at 850fps....if bullet type is the same.
k

Harpo111 said...
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