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.

Since you asked .... 243 .... Sierra 85 gr HPBT ... without a doubt. Ben

I've killed well over 100 with a bow alone... almost every one shot with a gun that are not head shots, I"ve had to look for a bit...

Lots of it depends on where you shoot, IE I won't shoot bones and waste meat, and how destructive a bullet you shoot... that's been obvious to me over the years.

Its always been about the indian and not the arrow.

Recoil wise, I have never seen a lead sled. I've shot deer with lots of weapons. But due to the competition back ground, recoil is not a factor for my wife or I. We understadn the mental part of the game and manage it.

That said, for most folks less recoil is a good thing.

And I"ve often thought to myself, while I"d be happy hunting deer with a 22 rimfire, if legal, that in reality, a 243 is more than enough gun for almost any deer I've ever seen shot.

And I know a family that has a few book deer, and the last of them are all shot with a 223....

I tend to grab my 308 as a default round.... when not grabbing the 300/221 suppressed these days. As noted it just doesn't take much.

I tend to agree with that.

Do you get exits with these? Lung shots or where? Thanks.

Sometimes ... like any other bullet, it depends on how and where the deer is hit whether you get a pass through shot or not. However the bullets that stay in the deer cause so much internal damage (if you hit them in the vitals or close to it), that they usually either drop on the spot or never go very far. Several of my friends and I have used the 85 HPBT's with exceptional success for many years and all of us believe that the HPBT's kill deer much faster and cleaner then the 100 grain bullets do. I'm not going to brag about how may deer we've killed using this bullet, but I will say it's been quite a few ... and it's kind of nice to be able to use one bullet for both varmints and deer hunting. Also remember this is a Gameking bullet and is jacketed much heavier then a standard varmint bullet. If you don't believe me, ask Sierra. Ben

My go to rifle used to be a 7mm rem mag using 140 ballistic tips at 3200 fps. My experience mirrors yours, hundreds of lung shots that resulted in instant drops. I hardly ever recovered a bullet because they grenaded, but they hardly ever moved out of their tracks and there was massive internal damage. A couple of blow ups had me switch to tougher bullets.

Getting a DRT from a lung shot is different than the high shoulder shot. They drop from trauma to the spine with the high shoulder shot. A tough bullet won't give you a DRT from a lung shot, they'll go a long ways hit by a tough bullet through the lungs.

Having shot 257 wtby for some years, after wanting to try the velocity theory, at first I was about to bite. Then we had some deer run, some up to 100 yards or so. All identical hits, lungs only, nothing near the spine.

Last falls largest buck I've ever taken, I decided to shoot with the 257 instead of the 300/221 since he was at about max range for my suppressed loads. Even that buck managed about 40 yards.

I've shot quite a few with 300 wtby and exactly one dropped on the spot.

If I had to really think it through, I"d lean likely to a frangible bullet( those days are way past for me though basically) and as fast as I could drive it. Still having enough gun for an exit wound.

But I don't care if they run. No big deal. Gives Tiger some fun trailing and keeps him sharp for the real trailing jobs. LIke last fall, non vital hits on a buck, Buck was shot 3 hours earlier and it poured rain for those 3 hours... Took tiger a bit of time to work it all out in his nose and then we found the buck.

I digress.

The family I spoke of earlier with B/C bucks, used to all shoot 7 mags. They found the 223 killed those same bucks just as dead as quickly. In fact the last one that was around 177 was DRT from lung only and a 223 and 69 bthp.

Let me toss out one thing as I leave this post...( well obviously shot placement trumps everything regardless of caliber, AND know your limitations)
Family here for some reason, had a fellow that shot 220 swift all his life that I knew him. Shot all the deer in the flank. Family and he claimed never a one did anything but DRT. Did the gutless cleaning then on them... Not my choice and likely never will be, but YMMV. Poor shot location choice IMHO. But it worked. And I've heard of more than a few that had the same results 270/06/7 mag, 308/243 a few times

If you desire an exit, there is an 80 ttsx from Barnes that will give it every time. And it kills quite well from a round thats a bit slower than 243 even... in 243 it would be my go to. I really need to order some more of them and zero my 243 for it one day but the 243 hasn't shot a deer other than an experimental slow load around 1400 fps and an 80 BT varmint bullet about 50 years ago for low recoil for some kids, which worked like a champ BTW.

My dad was a 243 fanatic, and this was the only bullet he would use after much "trail" (pun intended) and error he told me. He was very successful with it.
I still use it in his rifles.

I finally got curious enough to look at my hunting notes, which go back to the mid-1970's, to see which bullet/cartridge combinations dropped whitetails at impact with "pure" chest shots, meaning no bone was struck other than ribs. The list is an interesting one, partly because not one whitetail dropped at impact from a pure chest shot from a .243. But none of the bullets used in the .243 was an 85-grain Sierra HPBT GameKing.

However, at least half my hunting, and a good portion of my wife's, takes place here in Montana, where there's often a chance of running into an elk. So we tend to use slightly larger and stouter bullets than 85-grain 6mm's. The smallest cartridge/bullet combination that dropped many whitetails right there was the .270 Winchester with 130-grain Nosler Partitions, and the largest the .338 Winchester Magnum with 200-grain bullets, either Speer Hot-Cores or Nosler Ballistic Tips or AccuBonds. Some 7mm and .30 caliber loads did the job too, mostly using Ballistic Tips, AccuBonds or other bullets designed to lose some weight.

The ONLY animal shot with any sort of super weight-retaining bullet that I can recall dropping on impact as the result of a pure chest shot was a pronghorn doe killed at around 300 yards with a .257 Roberts Ackley Improved and a 100-grain XLC, the blue-coated version of the X-Bullet Barnes made for a while before the TSX solved the fouling/accuracy problems. The bullet started at around 3350 fps, and landed high in the lungs.

Have also seen some animals other that whitetails dropped right there with the standard .257 Roberts, the most common bullet the 115-grain Nosler Partition. In fact a 115 Partition has done the trick at ranges from about 100 yards (a feral boar in Texas weighing around 175 pounds) to 275 yards on a Wyoming pronghorn buck.

But if I were going to pick one bullet for dropping whitetails quickly with pure chest shots it would probably be a Berger--and for the same reason the .243 apparently does the job with 85 Sierras--massive internal damage. Have seen a higher percentage of animals dropped right there with Bergers than any other bullet, ranging in size from around 75 pounds to 400+ on the hoof.

While relatively few were whitetails (for the reason mentioned above--most but not all of our whitetail hunting is done in Montana), some were other deer, or feral goats of about the same size--and goats are far tougher than any of the several species of deer Eillen and I have hunted.

Unlike most expanding bullets, the Bergers also have the virtue of penetrating a couple of inches before starting to open, which not only ruins far less meat around the entrance hole, but on deer-sized game insures that the bullet penetrates sufficently into the chest. They penetrate the same way on the shoulder bones of deer-sized game, or at least they have on the several dozen animals I've seen taken with them.

Here I must also mention something nobody else has discussed: Whitetails vary considerably over their range in North America. Here in Montana a mature doe will be about the same size as mature bucks in southern Texas, and I've shot mature does on culls in Texas that were the size of Montana fawns. A mature Montana buck will weigh around 200 pounds, or if from farm country even field-dress more than 200. Bucks from the Midwest and southern Canada tend to be even larger. On a hunt in Manitoba a friend killed a forkhorn whitetail field-dressing over 200. Body size does matter, and what will instantly drop a whitetail weighing 100 pounds on the hoof probably won't do the same to bucks weighing 200-300 pounds.

The one constant I've seen, however, is bullets retaining all or most of their weight rarely drop them right there with pure chest shots. Instead they've dropped most consistently to bullets losing some or most of their weight, and with bullets like Nosler Partitions a muzzle velocity of at least around 3000 fps definitely makes a difference.

I am a bit confused here. Are we talking double lung shots only? As in no shoulder or brisket was hit?

The .270 Win with 130gr frangible bullets, such as the Sierra Gameking, or the Nosler BT is 5 of 5 for bang flops, without actually breaking the shoulder. I tend to run them pretty fast out of a 26" barrel Ruger #1, pushing 3200 fps. But even with a 22" M700, it dropped a big spike DRT.

I did shoot a spike with a .223 and a 65gr Gameking a couple years ago. It separated jacket & core, which I found in the offside hide, and lost 50% of its weight. The buck only went about 30 yards. I've seen deer with bigger holes in them go further. Then again, I shot a deer last year with a .351 Winchester, with its 180gr Hawk bullet going a leisurely 1700 fps. That buck also only went about 40 yards. All were heart lung shots, not shoulder breakers.

Consistent drops at impact result from CNS damage (butt hits first then head). Baring direct CNS hits, the more tissue that is destroyed= the faster things die. With the right bullets you can and do get wound channels big enough due to fragmentation and temporary stretch cavities that will damage the spinal cord from pure rib shots.

When talking about terminal ballistics given two bullets- one with a long and narrow wound path (TSX, GMX, etc) and one with very wide yet relatively shallower wound path (AMAX, Berger, old NBT's, etc) as long as sufficient penetration is achieved to reach vitals with both.... The one that creates a wider wound channel will kill faster. Make that wound channel wide enough (temporary stretch cavity) and it will easily damage the spine consistently from broadside rib shots with no bone involved.


5, 10, or even 15 instances does not mean much. 40-50 instances start to show a trend. Between hunting and depredation I have shot several hundred deer- from 80lb does in Alabama to very large bodied mule deer and whitetails in Montana and the Midwest.

Using only those bullet/cartridge combinations that I have more than 50 kills with no bone being involved-


300WM-

1) 178gr AMAX. Despite well over 100 kills with pure chest shots this combo is still in the single digits of animals that have so much as twitched after impact. All but two were well over 400 yards of those that have moved. 95% + of animals have dropped at impact from this combo. The reason is simple- an extremely wide wound channel with a bullet that will fragment.

2) 190 and 220gr SMK's. Almost all run a bit despite extremely large exit holes. The reason being that SMK's tend to tumble after penetrating 5-8 inches and fragment rather than expanding traditionally.

3) 150gr and 180gr Corelokts. Most all ran.





308win-

1) 168gr and 175gr SMK's, most all run. Same reason as the SMK's in the 300WM.

2). 168gr AMAX's. Around 40% drop at impact. Here we see a frangible bullet that causes a wide wound channel, but due to velocity and less fragments does not create a wound channel wide enough to consistently disrupt the CNS. In contrast the 155gr AMAX starts to approach the velocity/frag necessary.




243win-

1) 95 NBT. Around 80-85% flop from chest hits. It's a little monster of a bullet.



223/5.56-

1) 77gr SMK's. Very few drop at impact from chest hits.





I've killed a bunch of deer with a bunch of different cartridges and bullets, some combos approaching 40-50 kills, yet the above are the ones that I have the most experience with.

2muchgun,

Here's the quote from the original post: "Under 200 yard shot trough the lungs, what cal. and bullet grain has been the shortest recovery?"

No mention of hitting bone, sternum, etc. Most of the responders (including me) have taken that to mean a double lung shot--particularly since it mentions "lungs," as in two.

I don't have white tail deer anywhere near me, but have shot/seen shot black tail deer, mule deer, antelope, and even a bighorn I can provide experience for some like sized animals.

The fastest kills I have seen with a double lung are:
130gr Berger target VLD. Cartridge 6.5 Creedmoor
105 Berger Hybrid from a 243WSSM

My muzzle loader with a 270 gr powerbelt platinum trumps all my regular center fire double lung down. Dropped like Clyde in Any Which Way but Loose, when Clint pointed his finger at him and said "bang".

.30-06 and 150's.

There are lungs behind the brisket?

Neck shots, regardless of caliber.

Is that the 130 target AR or Hunting version?

The reason for this post is i'am looking for a rifle for
thick woods to put a deer down quick.

I have heard alot about the 6.5 creed and was wondering if
this would fit my application?

I have been thinking about the 6.5 creed.

jr1968

"thru lungs", I've been following this thread and IF anyone has mentioned the Emotional State of the deer, I didn't see it.

For many yrs my preferred shot placement was broadside thru the lungs. I've shot deer with cartridges ranging from 243/6mm - 8mm RM and many in between.

Using the same rifle bullet combination, I've had deer collapse and others to run off some distance. When the deer are calm/relaxed they are more likely to DRT.

When they're JACKED up on adrenalin they're NOT likely to DRT in my observations of many in both emotional states.

I've seen more deer DRT with the 270 because........I've shot more with one.

My shortest "recovery" was 15'. I shot a buck straight down from 15' in a tree and it collapsed -- not a lung shot.

Where I've been hunting since 2012 it has been important to prevent deer from crossing to other property. I don't have permission to hunt there. Therefore most of the deer I've shot since 2012 have been pole axed by CNS hits. A few neck shots, 1 head shot, and multiple HI shoulder hits.

If you learn to hit HI shoulder you'll have minimum meat loss. If you can hit about where the shoulder blade attaches to the back or spine the meat is very thin and you'll disrupt the spine.

A direct shoulder shot I avoid like the plague. There are bone fragments dispersed in the meat and lots of blood shot and bruised meat that is almost impossible to salvage.

I also observed as others have stated - hi velocity and bullets that shed weight seem to work best or better.

Jerry

I know a few guys in PENN who have had plenty of instant kills with a 35 REM at short range.

I just ask IF they were "thru lung" shots ?

Jerry

Thats been my observation.

I used Sierras back in my hunting days.

I use quite a few calibers over the course of a season . I also hunt two different states , using everything from 223 , 22-250 up to 300 RUM and a few 44 mags and a 45-70 thrown in . I'm going to say 30-06 165 Gr Ballistic Tip , Like anything else shot placement is key but that load in the boiler room is either DRT or a blood trail Ray Charles could follow.