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Reference: Rifle Wound Size on Game Animals

Two harvested deer lying on grass showing large wounds in the shoulder and chest area, used as a hunting reference photograph

What This Image Shows​

A hunting photograph showing two harvested deer lying on grass, with large wounds visible in the shoulder and chest area. It is not an image from the case, and it carries no text, markings, or provenance.

It circulates in this thread as a reference exhibit. The argument it is used to make is about scale: a .30-06 round carries roughly 3,950 joules at the muzzle, and researchers arguing against the official account point to what that energy does to a body of comparable mass, contrasted with the injury described in the medical summaries of this case.

The comparison has real limits, and they cut both ways. Bullet construction matters enormously — a soft-point hunting round is designed to expand and dump energy, while other loadings behave very differently — as do range, angle, and what the projectile strikes on the way through. Analysts who accept the official account argue that fragmentation is exactly what a soft-point round should be expected to do. Both positions are set out at .30-06 Energy Mismatch, Alternative Calibers and Weapons, and ATF Fragment Inconclusive.

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