Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Deer kills and bullet holes...............

I am not surprised at the damage on JG's deer. That's what happens when a thin jacketed bullet impacts at high velocity. How can we really expect anything different?

I have even had a quarter completely blood shot from a 140 Nosler partition started at almost 3300 fps. No doubt it happens less frequently with a Partition but high velocity and frangible jackets will do that.

No surprises here I think.

I used to have a 358 win that I could chew right up to the hole with - it hit hard but not a lot of meat damage outside of that.

Now I have a 9.3x62, and can light load it for deer and should get pretty close to the same result.

I stuck a 5 point at about 60 paces with a 150 swift Sirroco a few years back running at max from a 26" tube.
the insides poured out.

Blacktail doe shot with a 12 gauge Hornady sst. I didn't save entrance and exit pics. 300 gr. sabot.

I guess all you guys care about is knocking down a 60# aniimal with a bazooka??? Don't give a $hit about the meat ?????? What a waste

Of course people care about meat. But who shoots 60# deer?

You have to destroy some meat to kill animals, but this stuff is not hard; just shoot tougher bullets if you're going to use high velocity cartridges .

Problem is a lot of people have not resolved the inherent contradictions of thinking highly frangible bullets are the only answer to killing animals quickly.

They outfit themselves with thin skinned bombs for 800 yard shots then wonder why the animal looks like it went through a blender when you shoot him at under 300 yards. Funny to read this stuff.

If they think they have to shoot a deer at 800 yds then they arent hunters anyway!! Funny but extremely STUPID!!!!!!!!!

Is shot 2 whitetails with a 180 grain VLD from a 7WSM.

MV was over 3000 fps. Both had smallish exit holes and nothing like that kind of mess. Wow.

Wish I had snapped a pic when I walked up to this deer yesterday, but my little point-and-shoot camera crapped out on me. So it was cell-phone pics after the drag out. The exit is the bright spot between the two dark blood clot spots. Heck of a blood trail, sprayed on tree trunks and the ground, no real "tracking" required on a 40yd death run through the briars. Exit hole in the rib cage was about nickel-sized when you moved the hide to really see it.



What impressed me was the fact that this was a reduced load we were trying in my daughter's 20" barreled 7mm-08 and it utilized the 120 TTSX at roughly 2,550-2,600fps with 31gr of H4198 (Guesstimate on speed, as another member here quoted 2,530fps from 30gr IMR4198 in a 20" gun). We have a lot of hogs here, so I wanted a bullet that would penetrate. Impact speed at 125 yards should have been only 2,300fps or so, but it thoroughly wrecked the lungs, with soup pouring out when we rolled the deer over. No shoulders hit on the broadside shot. The load is 3/4MOA and seems to work well enough even on ribcage shots on 100lb does, so we'll stick with it for now. And my 11yr old enjoys practicing with it in her 7.75lb scoped M700. A sight-in of 2" high at 100yds is only 1" low at 200yds. Have to love the flexibility of handloading sometimes.....

The 7-08 /120 TSX is a great combo for deer.....

I was rather pleased to see good internal damage at such a moderate impact speed, as I've always tried to push a mono-construction bullet as fast as possible. I know we've had good results with full-power loads with the 110TTSX in the 7mm-08 at 3,150+ and the 130TTSX in the .308Win at 3,000 or so. That impact speed at 125yds with the light load was roughly equivalent to a 300yd impact with a full-power 120gr load. Good to know expansion characteristics are still pretty decent on a light-framed animal like that.

I have a bunch of the tipped 120s here, but have yet to try them. Not sure how much more they will expand.....

That 120TTSX youth load worked well again yesterday at 90yds. Lung entrance, shoulder exit on the offside, 30yd run with good blood. Didn't spray as much as a rib exit would, but bled a lot considering where the exit was located.

2MG -

Our archery season recently started and ML season begins this Sat and temp of @ 85* so I don't deer hunt in hot WX.

We have long modern gun seasons and I PLAN to participate. I have several pics of internal damage but none of entrance/exit hole that you could tell anything about.

Hope to enter pics later.

Jerry

I took this small buck at 385yds with my 6.5 Grendel, 123gr SST @ 2550 FPS. I didn't get any pics of the outsides, but entrance was barely noticeable while the exit was about the size of a golf ball. Buck ran about 20yds and fell over dead.

Entrance on the left and exit on the right. Got both lungs.


Seems like people have mixed emotions about the SST bullets. They have always performed well for me. Like others stated, take a good shot if at all possible.

Well it's been a month since my last post BUT yesterday I kilt thisun.


As you can tell I shot him in the withers. He collapsed. This was the first pic and I had not moved him at all.

This 2nd pic I had turned him over. You can't see an exit and I thot the bullet stayed inside. That surprised me but when I skinned him the bullet had angled down and EXITED hi in the ribs. When I turned him over the hide slipped (or the body rolled inside it) and I couldn't see or feel an exit hole.



When I dressed him I didn't think about this thread so I didn't take any pics of the exit. I do the 'gutless' method so I didn't empty the chest cavity. I could've taken a pic of the exit in the ribs but I didn't think about it. The exit hole in the ribs was about 1" in dia.
---I'll do better next time, sorry.

I have 5 weeks of season and I expect to 'harvest' (kill) a few more so I'll remember.

Jerry

Jwall, nice buck.. What caliber is that slide action Remington??? I always swore if I continued to hunt the east coast I would have one of those,but that is not going to happen.. Cool rifle.. Caliber and load? NICE buck congrats!!!!

WCH -

Thnx man I really like them too. This 1 is a 30-06 and I have 1 in 270w and 1 in 6mm Rem. I had another in 270 but my youngest Son claimed it with my permission. (you know how that goes <grin>)

I'm shooting Horn 165 BTSP over H 205 @ 2925 fps. It's my last can of 205, so I'll be going to H 4350. I've used that combo in the past but this is the first time I've hunted any 06 in a long time. Kind of a nostalgia trip.

There are more pics in 2016 Pump Rifle Kills thread

Thnx Again
Jerry

I posted in another thread about my neighbor killing a deer with the lower jaw broke, Sat. evening. I had killed a deer that morning and did not go hunting in the afternoon, and He called me to come help Him find his deer. In the past I tried to keep a tracking dog, but currently had none. I did take the house dog with me to pick up my deer that morning, so I grabbed Her, and the neighbors Lab was there, and followed along. We went down to where the deer was, when He shot it, and He showed me a piece of meat, but there was no blood. I started looking at a good deer trail close by, entering a thicket, and the little house dog was smelling around and went down the trail sniffing along. Any place that she seemed interested in, I looked hard, but found no blood. In a minute or two, the lab came by me, in a hurry, and on down the trail, followed by the little dog, and out of sight. I kept looking down the trail, still finding no blood. My neighbor came to where I was, and we were talking about not finding any blood, when the dogs started raising hell, the opposite direction from the one that we were going. We went back to the ATV's and rode over to another patch of woods and started in to the dogs, when they came to meet me. I petted them and started back the way they came, and they went right back to the dead deer. He had hit in the top part of the near shoulder, and the bullet exited behind the far shoulder. When dressing it, the bullet had hit the top part of the lung, clipped the spine doing little damage, just a mark there. Blood stayed in the deer for a long ways. We never found any except where the deer was laying, but looking inside it was hard to imagine that deer going more than a few feet, and it was nearly a quarter of a mile as the crow flies. Not knowing the route, but I figure it went well over a quarter by trails. 240 Weatherby and Barnes bullet, complete pass through, broke shoulder on near side, broke ribs on the far side. I doubt that we would have found it without those dogs. Strange things happen while deer hunting. miles

Very nice Jerry. Chalk one up for the old pump gun.

Our rifle season starts tomorrow morning. I will be using the traditional 450 Bushmaster with 250 grain FTX. Can't wait. 😄😎