Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Do you regard this as bloodshot meat?

I didn't want to hijack the .264 Mag 130 AB with N570 thread with this question, so I'll start a new thread. exbiologist provided this photo in evidence of what the 130 AB did for him on a deer.

My question is, in light of several threads that I've read on here, who would regard what you can see of the shoulder as "bloodshot"? I wonder at times if "bloodshot and ruined..." is a very subjective topic. From what I can see he'll lose a little rib meat, but most of the blood is on the surface or trapped in the facia tissue and membranes. What say you, is this blood shot or just bloody and need a good scraping with a sharp knife? I'm of the latter opinion.

Agree. Very little meat lost there and nothing a little knife-work can't cure.

Did the bullet exit?

I agree too, but there is more blood than I've seen in most behind the shoulder shots. However, they were shot with cartridges that are far slower than a .264 mag.

It's mostly just surface damage, and yes, the bullet exited.
Here's 3700 fps into the ribs, mostly just surface damage again.




This is bloodshot meat, 3500 fps Nosler Partition, whitetail doe:

Regardless of the bullet used, when you hit major bone, the little fragments cause all sorts of internal bruising and bleeding, which is what I consider bloodshot. The blood jelly in the fascia between the skin and meat doesn't really concern me, but it is unsightly before you scrape it off.

I've learned to cover and soak my venison in a solution of brine and ice for several days before cutting it up for packaging. One of the benefits is that it cleans most of that "blood-shot" meat to appear about as clean as the rest.

I discovered this exact same thing with a speed goat this season. Both shoulders appeard to be quite blood shot. I put them in the cooler with everyhing else. After almost a week of constantly draining off melted ice, it was amazing to see how little of the meat was actually lost. I thought the shoulders were largely wasted. That was NOT the case.

Looks like scrape it off and its good to go!

exbiologist, I hope you didn't mind that I borrowed your picture, but it was picture-perfect for my question. Thanks for the additional photos and the discussion!

no biggie, I'm not ashamed.

Unlike some on here, I don't worry too much about bloodshot meat. I like fast, fairly light bullets that do a lot of damage and put them down quickly. We have a pretty liberal bag limit so I just shoot more does if I want more meat, I don't worry about a wasted shoulder or two. Where I hunt we have lots of very thick cutovers and you do not want a wounded deer to make it into one of those cutovers. Some of the most miserable experiences of my hunting career have been on my hands and knees trailing wounded deer through these ungodly thickets. Most we recovered but some we didn't. It's where I developed my extreme dislike for the barnes X bullets because invariably these trailing jobs were caused by an X bullet behind the shoulder. If they didn't hit bone then the old style bullets would often whiz right through with minimal or no expansion, deer would head straight for the nastiest stuff they could find, and I'd soon get a call from the guy who did the wounding to join in the search. After a few hours on my hands and knees tangled in briars looking for a drop of blood every 10' I'd be dog cussing both the shooter and those bullets under my breath.

That picture looks like ideal bullet performance to me, I'd have no problem with that.

At first go, your post rubbed me wrong. But with a little thought, losing a shoulder and getting the deer sure as hell trumps wounding and losing entire deer...