Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters How To Autopsy Your Game In Order To Evaluate Bullet Performance

Pics for 1,000 Alex!

The lungs at the bottom were torn up pretty bad as was the heart. 210 grain 338 TSX Barnes.

Two holes in and two holes out were all about the same size. Chest was full of blood.

Bull did not go over 30 yards.

That looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Kaiser Norton

John Carpenter's "The Thing".

No chit - I was thinking gator, then went with octopus. Still can't tell what the heck it is...

It's a big ole nasty gut pile that's for sure, Moose I guess?



Mike

It is an elk. I hope to get a gut pile picture of a moose some day.

I am always interested in such things..Its just when in the field on a critter that has to be packed out an autopsy kinda takes a back seat..

I shot a bull a few weeks ago with a 30cal 230gr berger, and it was the 3rd time i've seen a berger detonate on the entrance, not the "pin hole" most claim (have seen both)..

I wanted to dive into the body cavity,but Then i fugured the bull went all of 30ft after the shot, so who gives a damn! i have to pack this big bugger out so wernt too worried about the autopsy.

No better training for future doctors than to let your kids delve into the entrails of small game.

One thing noticed a few times over the years is that girls often seem more interested in gutpiles than boys. The first time it happened was when Eileen killed a Shiras moose not far from a road here in in Montana in 1988. We were at our pickup with part of the moose when a Suburban with a family in it stopped. The dad had a moose tag for the area too, and hadn't hunted it, so I gave him some ideas on where to try. (Obviously our spot was "shot out.")

His wife and two kids were along, and the girl was fascinated with the gut-pile, so Eileen gave her a "tour"." The boy didn't seem to have any curiosity about it, and we've seen the same thing a number of times since.

I do have some great photos of Eileen with her arms up to the elbows in the guts of my last moose. She was wearing arm-length rubber gloves, and performed most of the details of the field-dressing (I did the heavy stuff) because part of the reason for the hunt was "experimental" meat for her cookbook SLICE OF THE WILD, detailing everything from field care to recipes. So she wanted not to just oversee the job but do the important cutting herself.

I wonder why that is John?

45 years or so ago, my little sister (4-5 years old) would always come out to the garage sink when I came home with a mess of fish to clean. She enjoyed looking through the stomachs to see what they had eaten. Planted trout with salmon eggs were cool, but she really enjoyed it when they or a largemouth had shad in their "gullets".

Is a "social study" in order. Perhaps a good university could find grant money?

Geno

PS, i thought of her when I cleaned a quail the other day and saw the little tiny lungs. The crop was stuffed too, bet she would have had a blast in there.

This is what you want to avoid. You can see the entry damage to the right of the picture where the bullet entered behind the diaphragm. The diaphragm is visible on the left. There was no exit wound, and the gut content way sprayed allover the inside of the abdominal cavity.


You can see all the chewed leaves, some corn, and other gut contents all over the guts.




This gut-shot buck ran about 30 yards, bedded down in thick cover, and required a second shot to kill. It was shot with a 7/08 using a Hornady spire point bullet by an 11 year old boy. It left almost no blood trail.

I usually have already evaluated bullet performance before I put a knife to the critter.

I dunno, MD... I've seen as many boys interested in gutpiles as girls (we're talking kids here, right?). Of my 3 kids, my younger daughter was definitely more interested--to the point of fascination--with gutpiles, butchering, etc, etc, etc than either her brother or her sister. My sister's 3 kids, however... both nephews went seriously studious over guts, while my niece hurled.

Among experienced hunters, who are mostly men, my guesstimate is that fewer than 20% are seriously interested in the autopsy. Most are strictly business, i.e., get the guts out and get the meat cooled.

It was kinda cool for me to talk about terminal effects on critters with my PH on my recent trip to Zim... John was/is as interested in pullet path, performance, and anatomic/physiologic results as anybody I've met, on a par with my own level of fascination.

notropis, I appreciate you putting up your pics, please keep on keepin' on in that respect... but you gotta give a bit more of a description of what you're showing us a photo of. Having an item in the photo to give some scale is always useful, as is telling the viewer what organ(s) we're looking at, and from what angle.

Just a suggestion, by way of example:



This is a pic of a Cape buffalo heart shot with a .375 cal 300 gr Swift A-frame, the bullet passing from bottom to top of the photo. The knife, the hand, and the toe of the skinner's boot give some idea of scale. If you can identify the anatomic structures for the viewer, so much the better: in this case the right atrium and the top of the right ventricle are near/under the knife's hilt, and you can see how the left atrium was blown out by the bullet along the upper portion of the blade.

DR, I will certainly keep that in mind. I need to find some of my pictures that are a little more obvious.

Pulling out the organs and looking them over helps.

Here the lungs of a very large cow elk with a hole all the way through via a Barnes 6.5mm 127 gr LRX at 450 yds.



Here the lung of a yearling cow with a 300 gr Berger Elite Hunter from a 338 Edge hit at 820 yds. The end of the lungs lobe was perforated.



Here the external side of a 3x4 mule deer, just behind the front shoulder. This is the exit hole of, again, the 127 LRX, hit at 500 yds.



Here the inside rib cage of a mule deer, hit with the 115 gr BT from a 257 Rob @ 100 yds. Broke the ribs going in.



Cut through the spine and exited out the other rib cage. That's 3 different sets of bone and the bullet kept going. Deer dropped in it's tracks.

Excellent post thanks for sharing.
I would say those bullets are the real deal too.

Mike