Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting What's the caliber that showed the most..

220 Swift.

Most dramatic elk kill I've seen was with my 340 Wby shooting 250 grain Partitiions a few years ago in Idaho. I shot a spike elk high in the shoulders at a pretty steep downhill angle at about 75 yards. That's the only time I've ever shot and seen elk feet in my scope, when he flipped over before landing on his back.
Most dramatic deer kill was last year when I had to try out my new 35 Whelen on Whitetails---to make sure it worked before elk season and serious stuff. I shot a little buck through the shoulders at about 30 yards and he flipped over, landed on his back and hit so hard he buried his little 6" spikes into the ground about 3".
I've read several times that a bullet is not going to "knock an animal down", just because of fiziks, but that sure looked like what happened. Maybe they were both just starting to jump into the air and do a 180 twist, but I doubt it.

Most dramatic and instant kill I ever made on a deer was with a 140 gr. Ballistic Tip. Used a 7mm Rem Mag with 26 inch barrel. The buck was about 45 yards away standing belly deep in snow. Dropped in his tracks and disappeared into the deep snow. Wish I had video of that. It was cool.

The most dramatic kill I ever saw was with a .54 Hawken on a doe at 60 yards. It took the animal, rotated it 270 degrees with the legs flailing, already lifeleass, and dropped it in its tracks.

My son managed to hit a buck once inside 50 yards with his M1 Garand. The first shot was through the heart, but the animal acted like nothing happened. I told him to take a second shot. This one hit a little too far back and the round exploded the abdominal cavity, emptying out through a foot long split on the centerline of the abdomen. The buck took off. We followed a trail of organs 60 yards. There was nothing left to gut except a ragged piece of esophagus and a shred of lung.

7 STW-140g Combined Technology3650 fps, brother, I, and friend have never had a deer move after the shot (100+ deer shot between us). We shoot Pac Nor three Groove, 10 twists, and Stainless Remington Sendero barrels with the chambers set back with minimum spec match reamers with zero freebore and .2845 throats producing match accuracy.

257 Weatherby 100g what ever bullet at 3800-3850 same chamber as the STW's. With a muzzle break, you actually see the bullet hit the deer and the water vapor fly off the deer, bullet and meat flying out the off side. First time I ever saw deer collapsing like an accordian was with this rifle.

Most sudden was a white doe tail at 75 - 80 yds. with 7mmRM and 150 gr corelok front right shoulder with exit left side just at rib line. Just dropped str. down, I have neve seen so much blood around and animal b4 or since. Chest cavity was just poured out.PS the best venison I have eaten. Also was my first kill with
the then brand new model 700 when they 1st came out. Cheers NC

270 winchester

By oozing, I am talking guts hanging out..thought it was more proper to say oozing..... I am trying to find the picture as we speak.

8MM Mauser with a 220 grain sierra.

I actually went back to the 7x57 becuase in my minds' recollection over thousands of kills, there are very few cartridges that stand out. The 7x57 was one such cartridge that had the highest percentage of bang flops on deer sized game.

Since then, my 7x57 has been used on much larger game and they still largely fall over or travel a very "controlled" meaning "limited" distance before dropping.

Grossly underrated, no matter how much praise gets heaped upon it.

JW

My most dramatic one was a little WT buck I smacked at about 15 yds. with an (original)1861 .58 Springfield. The minie ball went in in front of the LH shoulder and came out behind the RH shoulder. I have never, in 40 years of deer hunting, seen so much blood and viscera sprayed out of an exit wound. Needless to say he died on the spot. It gave new insight to the Civil War casualty lists one reads about.

I have seen a lot of "dramatic kills" on about every animal out there on this planet..I am not all that impressed with instant kills, they are nice but they just don't always happen..When they do you usually get a lot of bloodshot meat, s--t scattered everywhere and so fourth, its a mess...

I just want a bullet that hold together give me a quarter size exit hole, lets out a lot of blood and the animal drop on the spot or run 50 yards I don't care as long as I have a blood trail and not a lot of good meat ruined..

300 Win Mag with 180 grain Nosler ballistic tip max load at about 75 yards. Couldn't use the deer for anything and went back to shooting an 06'. I used max loads because that's what shot the most accurate.

75 gr Hornady Amax (on top of 39 gr. varget)out of 22x47 (6.5x47 Lapua necked down to .22). My gunsmith's gun. Medium size doe at 550 yards. Double lungs. The animal ran probably 20 yards from the point it was shot. Another was 60 gr. Nosler partition on a max load of RL22, 22-250AI heavy varmint on Stevens 200 action (my gun). Another doe just under 300 yards. This one just dropped dead. I've killed larger deer from a treestand, 6.5mm and 8mm mausers. But hitting them at a long distance with tiny bullets amazes me.

I once shot a med size bull moose behind the ear with a 35 Whelen at about 25yds loaded with a 250gr Speer. It's not every day you see a moose do a cartwheel. He went flying.


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7mm08 with 140gr Nosler BT & 139gr Hornady SST.

Marling Guide Gun- (45/70) 405gr hardcast from beartooth bullets at about 1600fps. 100lb doe at about 40yds Quartering towards me. Never seen a deer respond that way. Sold me on big bore leverguns for close/brush style hunting.

3006 on an eight point 1st exposed rib aft from shoulder 150 grn bt, he stood straight up on rear legs like a bear pivoted 180 like a figure skater and then did a complete back flip landing on his rear legs again then fell dead. It was wild.

Most consistent bang flops have come from my 458 socom.

I've had dramatic kills with .243, .30-06, .308, and .357 Max. The universal trait off all of these shots was a shot that took out or severely damaged the CNS. I've soup-bowled deer from behind with the .30-06 and .308, dropped deer in mid-leap with the .243 and .357 Max with high chest shots, and collapsed deer with high through-shoulder-shots in all four. If you hit them with enough energy and a bullet that holds together in or near the CNS, you will get "dramatic" kills. I think the best was probably a big mule deer buck shot at a dead run at 20 yds, the bullet hit him high in the chest right as he leapt to jump a fence, he bounced 15 feet back off the well-strung high-tension fence (low cattle ranch fence).

The 300 saum has consistently given me the most spectacular bang-flops. Can't recall ever having one do the death sprint with that rifle (probably 30 does over seven doe culling hunts), no matter what load i was shooting.

Looking forward to seeing the 80gr ttsx out of a 257 roy at 3800 fps do some work this fall