The longest penetration I have gotten was with a 168 grain barnes X bullet fired from a 308. It entered near the front right shoulder. The shot was taken at about 160 yards. Somehow, the bullet appeared to have deflected inside the deer. It took a hard left-hand turn, went through the body cavity and ended up breaking the left rear leg and stop just under the skin. That dear managed to run over 200 yards before it finally piled up. I have no explanation for how the bullet veered off course once it entered the deer. It was definitely not a bang flop shot.
I've been ambivalent about using X bullets on deer size games since then. I spoke with a technician at Barnes today about using the new triple X bullets on deer sized game. He told me that their newest bullets have been engineered to expand sooner, oftentimes with in the first inch of penetration. He said that he had recently been shooting jack rabbits with them and reported that they were expanding well on them.
I just started tinkering with a box of 100 gr grain triple X bullets in my 25-06. They look like they're going to shoot accurately from my rifle but even after carefully following the instructions to go one or two grains above the maximum listed load for plain Barne's bullets, I'm still about 150 fps slower than the velocities that Barnes lists. I believe I will try them out on a few ground hogs and crows first before I decide whether or not to point them at a long-range deer this year.
Back to the penetration thing. The most impressive shot, I've taken involved a 180 grain trophy bonded bear claw bullet from a 30- 06. I made a two for one shot at about 150 yards on two mature Whitetail does. The first one dropped at the shot, while the ones standing behind her made it about 30 yards before piling up. I found the perfectly expanded bullet just inside the far side of her chest cavity.
John
