Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Shortest Recovery?

I know each White tail is different.

Under 200 yard shot trough the lungs, what cal. and bullet
grain has been the shortest recovery?

Just wondering.

Thanks,
jr1968.

375 H&H

No one can answer that conclusively.

Not much of a whitetail hunter, but I have killed many dozens of caribou, most of which tend to be similar in size. I've used many different rifles, from 223 up through 375 or 340. The bullet characteristics matter more than anything, but the cartridges in the middle 270/7mm-08 thru 30-06/300 Mag seem to be best suited. The 6mm has done a lot of killing for me, but the immediate "tip-over" factor seems to be better with similar bullet types with 0.020" more bullet diameter. The heavier rifles, contrary to what some people think, tend to be somewhat less disruptive due to their bullet construction with typical bullets. Obviously, using a deer weight (and construction) bullet in the 375 will change that tendency.

I've shot 3 that stand out for dropping so fast they seemed to disappear.

One with a .300 WinMag at 40 yards, one with a .30-30 at 70 yards, and the last with a .243/TTSX at 35 yards. The common theme seemed to be a high-shoulder shot.

I've shot numerous deer through the lungs with various rifles from .243s to heavily-loaded .45-70s, and there is no real apparent difference to me in how far they run, which is typically 40 to 60 yards, but the bigger diameters do leave a more pronounced blood trail.

The furthest I have had one run is 110 yards. Shot with the same .30-30 that had recently dropped a deer so fast it disappeared......go figure...

One of the nice things about whitetails is that they are not hard to kill. As a result, you can throw just about anything at them, and they'll die. It also means that folks have a tendency to witness their first DRT/Bang Flop/Laser Beam/Pole Ax event and announce they've found the ultimate deer chambering. For the one-day-a-year average schmo, it's like getting religion.

You will undoubtedly find folks responding to this with suggestions of everything from a 223 Rem up to 45-70. All of it is going to be true.

If I were a believer, I would have to say that 30-06 with a 165 grain Hornady have knocked over the most whitetails at our camp. The most lost deer have come from 30-30 WIN. The most 50-yard and over runners have come from 35 Whelen with 200 grainers.

Not being a believer in DRT hooey, I will also tell you that all but a very few of the many deer we have taken at our camp either fell where they were shot, or you could at least stand in their tracks and see the carcass. All, and I repeat, all of they exceptions to this were due to poor shot placement.

How can this be? There's got to be a best deer round. The answer lies in the fact that since whitetail deer are so easy to kill, the best parts of the round's performance is expended in the dirt on the far side of the animal. It's easy to punch through a whitetail. I've done it end-to-end going both directions. A simple broadside shot is not a problem for any reasonable modern deer round.

Let me also mention distance as a factor. The whitetail's anatomy is the major reason it is easy to kill. There just is not enough deer there to stand up to a bullet before it plows into vitals. However, the deer have a lifestyle that tends to favor close-in shooting. The average hunter taking the average deer does so inside 80 yards. At that distance, you are not going to see a whole lot of difference. At those ranges, a 300 Savage, a 30-06 and a 300 Win are not going to produce a different result.

shaman thats a good post! Well said!

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I've killed whitetails, close to a 100 of them, with 20 guage slugs, 223, 243, 6.5X55, 270, 7mm Mauser, 308, 303 British, 35 Remington, 50 caliber muzzleloader, and I'm sure a few more than I can't remember. The biggest percentage of my kills were with the 270 Winchester, and I don't remember having to track any of them.

I was sitting on the porch at a mate's place one afternoon, when a young buck wandered into the yard. I sneaked inside to grab a rifle, stepped out and shot him, and the few steps he took fetched him up dead outside the coolroom. I've often dropped them on the spot, but that sure was the shortest recovery I've ever had

Thanks. Truth is I have had a lot of practice. This is one of the top 5 questions I got asked as a pro-staffer. One of the other ones was "What cartridge produces the best blood trail?" My answer was to point them to the latest DRT thread and ask why not just drop them in their tracks and be done with it.

The other answer to this question is as follows:

Take any main battle rifle of the first half of the 20th Century. You're looking at a device that was meant to kill a man at 300 yards. This was before folks got to thinking about body armor and pack weight and other extraneous things. What you end up with is a rifle chambered for something between 6mm and 8mm. Whitetail deer are of the same rough dimensions in the body as a man. If you find something that is good for killing a man at a given distance, it is probably good for killing a deer at the same distance. Add in the fact that you can use expanding bullets on deer and you have a nice bonus. Go find a military chambering (like 30-06, 308 WIN, 8X57,etc.) or something close to it (270 WIN, 7mm-08, etc.) and stop worrying.

Using a 30-06, I have had one or two deer drop in their tracks with behind the shoulder lung shots using 150 grain Hornady SSTs and have had a couple only flinch, take about 5 steps, and keel over with extremely poor shots that were too far back and hit the liver using 180 grain round nose core lokts. Usually in those situations they run a random distance....sometimes a lot. If you are in decently open terrain its not usually a factor.

In the last few years I have been hunting on leased timber property in South Carolina that has pretty much zero visibility once you get off the roads. I've done more tracking than I ever imagined, for both myself and others because even if the deer only runs 50 yards you have to trail him because you sure don't get to see him fall. I've become a big fan of the shoulder shot.

As mentioned, everyone's results will differ.

I will give you my personal experience based on around 200 whitetails killed and a few hundred more witnessed. The 7mm Remington Magnum with a 150 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip at a MV of 3100fps has anchored the most whitetail when the CNS was not impacted. It is more common for that combo to put whitetail down at impact on rib hits than any other IME. Call it luck I guess as there's nothing magical about that combo. I use so many diff cartridges and bullets these days, but none have anchored deer with the consistency of that mentioned combo. If I had to guess, it's mostly because I run premium bullets these days and they don't seem to provide the internal damage of the NBT at higher MV. Internal damage plays a big role is quick kills when we are speaking non-CNS impacts.

On of our longer recoveries was 200ish yards shot double lung, with a 50 bmg....

What shaman said so well.

But I also would like to add that after starting to do a lot of cull hunts, mostly to test cartridges and bullets, I also started adding to my hunting notes not just the path of the bullet in the animal and remarks about the wound channel, but how far animals hit with a more-or-less broadside, heart-lung shot traveled before they fell. This did not include only deer but several other species of big game.

A trend did eventually appear: Bullets that lost more weight during expansion tended to drop animals quicker, on average. The difference wasn't enough to cause many hunters to change bullets, but so far has ranged from an average of around 20 yards for bullets that typically lose most of their weight to around 50 yards for bullets that typically retain all their weight.

This is not a value judgment about The Best Bullet (I tend to leave such decisions to Campfire members who believe strongly in their choice) but a report. It should also probably be mentioned that differences in caliber and bullet weight tend to have more effect in bullets that lose less weight, and not as much in bullets that lose a lot of weight--as long as, of course, the bullet penetrates both lungs.

Only have two data points, but each buck traveled 40-50 yds. One with a Partition, one with a TTSX. Seems to me they travel for 5-8 seconds as that is how much oxygen they have on tap. Hit them in the nerves/running gear shortens things. Even removed the heart of a buck with a 30 cal 180 Partition and he lasted ~7 seconds.

Mule Deer: You made my day.

Let me just touch on another aspect. I don't come off as an expert deer hunter, but I do think of myself as an expert beginning deer hunter. I've been at it for over 35 years.

Is a 150 grain 30-06 bullet better than a 180 or 150? The answer is completely overshadowed by shot placement.

Is BC as important as MV or F? Put down the magazines.

Should I use bullet X or Y bullet? The deer will not know the difference.

So shaman, what is important? Recoil.

If you're new enough at this game to be reading this thread for anything but chuckles, then the answer is probably recoil. What you feel at the shoulder directly influences your accuracy. It influences how much you practice. It influences your cheek weld.

But shaman, I don't feel recoil when I'm hunting. I'm concentrating on the deer.

Take it from a reformed recoil junky. Anyone who feels the need to use a Lead Sled for sighting in a deer rifle ain't doing it right. Anyone that's losing sleep waiting for the Managed Recoil loads to get restocked is missing the point. One of the best things that happened to my DRT average was getting shoulder trouble back in 2007. I developed chronic bursitis, and had to give up bow hunting. It made me concentrate more on my rifle hunting. I'm a big guy, and I can shoot anything I want. I'm not prone to flinching. However, I've found 35 Whelen is about my highwater mark as far as recoil is concerned. The older I get the more I appreciate good stock fit and moderate loads. It keeps me shooting more, and most importantly it keeps me out shooting away from the bench more. How this changes my DRT rate is that I mount my rifle more consistently, even in clutch situations. My brain is functioning better, because it isn't waiting for my bell to be rung.

The hidden point here, is that DRT success is more about the indian than the arrow.

8x57 150 Gr Hornady SP. DRT

Yeah...I couldn't believe it either...

I've killed a lot of deer with pretty much every "common" caliber between 22 and 50. Shotguns, 12,16, 20, 410.

Double lung shots (which usually include the heart) sometimes drop them in their tracks and sometimes they go a ways. Not as far as an arrows double lunger normally, more typically fifty yards give or take a little.

I do not see enough difference in how far they go after a shot takes out the heart and lungs that I expect and difference based on what bullet or what kind of bullet. If I want them dead in their tracks I shoot CNS, either brain stem or high shoulder.

I've had the most bang flops using Winchester 120gr PEP ammo in the 25-06. Maybe just a coincidence or like Mule Deer said that bullet shed weight and left massive damage but it was an impressive string.

Here's one that made it maybe 15-20 yards...I watched him flop in a Kansas draw after a 50 yard off hand soft tissue hit,sort of frontal shot angling back.

Note the exit and yes there was a blood trail, but who needs it right?

270 Winchester and 130 Nosler Partition. Just so much of the same stuff it's predictable and pretty boring because I see this sort of thing frequently...soft tissue or shoulder hits.





If I had to bet any serious money on dumping a grown up mule or whitetail buck before it got out of sight in cover (or the open for that matter), it would be one of these in a 270, 280 or 7 Rem Mag.

I think velocity has a lot to do with it.