Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles DRT Caliber...DRT Bullet... DRT Speed...DRT Distance

If I were to pay you $1000.00 per every deer size animal that went DRT after being shot in the shoulder or heart lung area... what would it be... Caliber... Bullet weight and design... and Speed... and Distance always plays a role.

Only 22-30 calibers... Please.

Without ...the usual neck- head-CNS shots...NOT even the perfect high shoulder shot...just the normal behind the shoulder or in the shoulder area. Shot placement goes without being said over and over because we all know that is important, but that doesn't always happen.

The BEST COMBO will NOT work every time because there are many factors involved with each kill scenario. BUT... there has to be one combo or even a few that shine the brightest.

A 100 lb Doe will react different than a 180 lb Buck... I know... seen it for myself.

I've watched Kids on Youth Hunts put deer down quick with 243 100 gr SP Factory loads...and they are NOT all precise shots either. One Kid dropped his Doe with a 100 yd shot that hit her mid body... right on the diaphragm line. A few days later I shoot a full grown buck in the proper behind the shoulder area, with the same rifle and load at 80 yds... and it runs 60 yds. No Blood... bullet did not exit, but was under the hide on the other side all mushroomed up.

My Quest is NOT about a better 243 load... but a BETTER all around caliber, bullet, and speed, for more consistent DRT Kills.
The Western Boys probably don't need a DRT kill because of having so much open country... but here in the South East... woods can become jungles with their thickets and clear cut areas.

If I could make a Grand on every DRT kill... then I'd always be taking out my 22-243 AI, because it usually always puts them down with 80 gr Amaxes at 3500 fps. Except for one doe that I shot at 40 yds on ground level that allowed her to run off about 35 yds... but the Blood... Oh My... the Blood was everywhere. I've never seen so much blood sprayed out through the woods on her other side. I had to measure the spray on limbs, and it was 12 ft of spray... two full arm lengths of spray... and the trail was a joke to follow because of so much blood. But when the shots are 70 yds and more..out to 300 yds... they all dump... haven't shot you further...YET. But then again.... I mostly shoot somewhere on the shoulder area with that caliber.
It's really my long range coyote rifle...that kills deer as well... but it's a tad heavy to tote, and not really a carry rifle.

I keep thinking that high speed, lighter for caliber bullets... on larger calibers... may go to the top of the list.

A friend of mine shoots deer in the mid body to save meat and usually always gets DRT with his 7RUM with 140 gr TSX @3200 fps... and those are not 7RUM speeds.

SOOOooooooo.... if you were going to get a Grand for every DRT kill... what combo would it be?????

I shot something like 17 deer with old-stock 150gr Ballistic tips at close to 3,400fps from a 26" 300WinMag and only one made a death run (of 10 yards or so). Those older bullets were pretty soft and it didn't seem to matter if I hit just ribs and lungs, their lights pretty much turned off when I pulled the trigger.

WOW.... JPro... that is a very good track record. Are you still using them or something else?

I moved on from that rifle when good LRF units became more readily available and I no longer needed the super-flat trajectory. It was really a lot of gun for our sub-200lb whitetails and it shot up a lot of meat. Did drop critters though....

Dan,

Here's the formula I use:

Pick the heaviest Nosler Ballistic tip your rifle can shoot at 3k+.
Above 3k, I generally switch to Accubonds.

NBT's at 3k, and Accubonds above are the closest thing I've found to "magic", DRT. Of course the big wound channel makes it easier to catch a piece of the CNS, which is the real key to turning anchoring your game in place.

A 257 Weatherby with a 100 grain Hornady Interlock is a pretty good lights out machine.

150gr Partition, 308 Winchester.

Why the arbitrary 22-30 caliber restriction? I've had more bang-flops with my 35 Whelen and 225gr Partitions than anything else.

I have been happy with the 270 Win.for years then built a 7x57 and it has done the same thing.

One with a 130 grain bullet and the other with a 139-140 grain bullet.

If after larger game than deer i just swap out the bullet for one just a little tougher.

Like the Barnes x or the partition.

If i just wanted to flip them i would use the 35 Whelen with 200 grain bullets.

After all those deer are not bullet proof.YET.

130 gr Partition out of the 270 Win has produced those sort of results a very high percentage of the time. 4 of 5 whitetails on the opening weekend were drt, the other made just a few yards.
I also have had excellent results with the 35 Whelen with Partitions as well as the 200 gr Hornady SP.
A friend from S Africa hunted with us the last 2 seasons using my Whelen loaded with 250 gr Partitions driven by Varget. His take was 2 bucks, 2 does, and a fox, all drt. He had never heard of the caliber before visiting, he kinda likes it.

Good things are always said about the 35 Whelen... but I don't have one...LOL.

Your bore size limit kicks out the two that I’ve seen the most DRT; the 35 Whelen and 350 Rem Mag.

308 with a 150 grain Sierra Pro Hunter, about 2850fps with shots at woods ranges which is about 40 yards and under around here.

This one doesn't fit into your parameters, but my 8x57 with 175 grain Sierra Pro Hunters at 2800fps does about the same.

I can understand the desire for deer to drop on the spot every time. I cannot begin to fathom trying to make that happen though. Making it happen is a matter of applying overkill to the degree that meat loss, substantial meat loss is as certain as can be accomplished. There is zero point in that.

Deer can be killed and dropped where they stand without wrecking a lot of good meat. Deer can be killed and dropped on the spot with minimal meat loss and very, very high consistency. Applying my 300 WM with 130-150 grain BT bullets can do the same thing but it's so close to wanton waste as to be indistinguishable to me

Deer shot properly are highly recoverable even when the is zero blood trail. Well shot deer rarely go more than 100 yards, and it does not take all that long to cover just over two acres of ground to find them. Most of them will be about 50 yards or less which leaves well under an acre to search. If you consider that you generally know the direction a deer went when it departed, that reduces the search area a bunch. I have recovered deer by flashlight in hyper dense aspen cuttings when they made it far enough to disappear and then mad a right angle turn.

If you are out the to shoot a deer to eat you're better advised to learn to find them after the shot. If you're out there to really put the smack down on Bambi to impress yourself or someone else, do us all a favor and find something else to do.

Miles,

Much of what you describe is easier to do in areas where you and I are likely to hunt as opposed to these where the OP hunts.

If my intentions for this thread are being misunderstood... then I'm okay with taking it down... sorry.... My Bad.

Where I hunt deer can die in places you almost have to step on them to find them. An aspen clear cut can be so dense that you can clap your hands to your side and tip over and you wont hit the ground. A willow swamp is 4-5 feet of grass and brush up to ten feet. A deer two feet away can be impossible to see. I have literally found deer by crawling on my hands and knees until I bumped into them. Yeah, sometimes they run under a stand of maples and it's easy. Sometimes they run into a blow down area and you're sorry when you do find them. At deer camp we had a blow down and it was quite possible to walk a couple hundred yards and never touch the ground.

In my experience the deciding factor is the animal itself. I've seen deer DRT and I've seen them run 100 yards from the same shot placement, bullet, and cartridge choices. Some give up easier than others.

I’d have no problem earning a good living running a 100 gr Nosler Partition with a MV of 3250 plus out of one my 25-06’s inside of 300 yds.

This. Better to have an accurate rifle and CNS them if you want them dead where they stand. And, that has limitations that increase with distance.