Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 250-3000 gets first chink in armor!?

My kids were 6 for 6 with the little 250 with one-shot kills on deer. #7 did not go so well. My 13 year old son and I were hunting from a ground blind Friday pm and we saw a very good buck. he responded to the grunt call and closed in on us. I got the binocular on him at 40 yards and was so impressed that I dropped the binocular and grabbed my shotgun (brought for back-up if needed). my son got ready and the buck came from behind two very large trees at 30 yards. I was looking down the shotgun barrel at the shot and it looked good. the deer jumped and lunged at the shot and it looked like a good hit to me. I could not swing to the right with the shotgun so I could not send any buckshot it's way. I really did not think it was necessary anyway. we gave it some time and then looked for blood or hair at site. could not find any but I was not to surprised considering the little gun. the long and short of the story is that four people looked for the deer and or sign on four different occasions and the deer was never recovered. this was a very swampy creek bottom with lots of cover and limited visibility.

we decided to hunt Saturday am before we looked for the deer and it was cool, about 36 degrees, so we would let the sun come up and continue our search. good fortune shined on us and my son shot a nice 10 pt at 120 yards with the 250 so we did have something to celebrate. we recounted the events of Friday evening over and over during our three hour drive home and can't really figure what went wrong. he may have shot the deer too far back but I really do not know.

Our 250 is now 7 for 8 with only one chink in it's armor and we really do not know what happened with that one, maybe time will tell. saw a total of seven bucks and had a great time so we were very fortunate with the 10 pt.

yee-haw, again.
but it's tough to lose one, of any kind.

Maybe it was a clean miss and he just yanked the trigger a little bit. With no blood or hair it could be safe to assume so. Its hard to lose one anytime. Congrats on the one you did get.

I have long held the .250 in high esteem and, in my 700 Classic, it is my most accurate rifle suitable for deer. However, performance on the last 2 deer I shot with it left something to be desired. I used a handload consisting of the Hornady SP @ 2900 fps and both deer was under 50 yards.
I have decided to use something other for deer from now on but, it's still a fine little round otherwise. -Joe

I really do not know what happened but from my position, it looked like a good hit. he was close, about 30 yards and my son appears to be a pretty good shot. he said it looked good when he pulled the trigger. who knows. the 10 pt he shot at 120 yards went down on the spot. found the little 100 gr rem psp bullet under the hide on the off side. of the seven deer they have shot, five dropped on the spot and two ran a very short distance. however, two were shot between the shoulders, head down so there was spine trama. I remain impressed with the little cartridge and it is very easy to shoot, I know that is a factor in their success. they could move up to the roberts and recoil would be about the same as the rifle weights more but that little 250 is easy for them to handle. I am very tempted to load up some 100 gr partitions but I hate to mess with success, the rem fact stuff has done so well.

I'd skip the Remington bullets and go with Hornady or Sierra 100 grain flatbases. Save the Partitions for the 25/06.

Branch deflection between shooter and deer, perhaps? No blood and no hair means no hit. Period. He missed; don't blame the round unless there was obvious impact and a failure to recover.

"No blood and no hair means no hit. Period."

Well, not necessarily. I shot a 192 lb. buck in north Louisiana this past weekend. He made his last mistake by giving me a nearly broadside, slightly quartering away shot at all of 40 yards. The bullet went in just above his elbow. It hit a rib, tore up lung tissue, took major vessels off the top of the heart, crashed through ribs on the other side before it punched into the offside shoulder. It didn't exit. At the shot the buck spun 180 degrees and took off, but he folded up before making it 25 yards.

I gave the spot where I shot him a good looking over and I didn't see hair or blood. When I walked up on him he was deader than honesty in politics, but he looked unmarked. I had to look for the entry wound. No bleeding, and so little hair was disturbed that I would have been surprised if I had found any on the ground.

The rifle: Rem. 700 LVSF, chambered in 308 Win.

The load: New Lapua brass, CCI 200 primers, Hornady 150 grain Interlock flatbases, 45 gr. IMR-4064

IMHO, he was hit hard and hit well, but other than hoofprints he didn't leave much evidence between where he was hit and where he lay dead.

mathman

mathman, if a bullet goes in, hair comes off, and blood comes out. I've shot enough critters to know that. The trick is looking hard enough to find it, if you have to.

So, taking 257Bob at his word, if there was no blood and no hair, there was no hit.

No offense, but since your deer only went 25 yards, you didn't look too danged hard for blood or hair; I wouldn't have either, but I guarantee it was there.

VA, I want to agree with your statement about there always being cut hair and blood with any hit, but I have to admit that I had one that left no spoor whatsoever. It was a small forkhorn shot in Pennsylvania with a 300 Savage throwing 180 Core-Lokt RN Remington factory loads. The deer was broadside at about 40 yards. At the shot he kicked up his back legs and took off. I marked exactly where he had been standing when I shot, and where I last saw him, and started the search. No hair, no blood. Anywhere. I know that old Savage too well, and I knew I hit that deer. It took me an hour to find him. He made about 50 yards from where I last saw him and fell stone dead in the tire track of a log skidder. It took me that long to find him, because I mad slow sweeps across the area, all most on hands and knees looking for any sign of a hit. None was ever found. The shot took out his liver, and for some reason, never exited. Even with such an injury, there was no blood externally until I gutted him out. I realize this is quite strange, and the old Savage with those big 180's usualy goes through and through, especially at close range. I'm guessing I must have plowed through something in route, but the entrance hole sure appeared about the right size for a standard .30 caliber bullet. So it does occasionally happen. I was so perplexed, I retraced the little buck's footsteps several times to the spot where I shot him and never found a single hair or a single drop of blood. I considered myself very lucky to recover this deer.

You know I love you, but that is BS. No blood and no hair, DOESN'T mean no hit.

No offense taken, but I'm glad that I found him by checking out his direction of travel. Otherwise, I'd have been in for a long morning. I was genuinely amazed at how little disturbance there was to the outside of the deer. I'll gladly defer to your greater experience, but I believe you would have been impressed by the evidence, or lack thereof, given the conditions of the shot.

mathman

Fellas, I'm not tryin' to start a pissing contest here, but if someone can explain to me how a projectile can go into the body of an animal through the body without cutting any hair on the way in, or having blood leak from the entrance wound, I'll retract my earlier statement.

I've never seen it, and can't figure out how it can happen.

Can it be missed or overlooked? Absolutely; I've done it, we all have.

Simply put, if there was NO hair or blood, there was no hit.

Now, if there was and it was overlooked, well, that's another matter entirely.

Personally, I'd rather believe that 257Bob was being exact in his statement, that the shot was a miss, and the deer escaped.

The alternative is a lost deer, and that's just not pleasant.

And yeah, I know what probably really happened, but there's nothing to be done about that now...

I can't explain it, just report what I have seen. I will grant you that most likely some hair was cut, but we might only be talking about a couple of hairs. Try to find 10 little hairs. Hair can go inwards also.

As far as the blood, it all depends on where the bullet went, fat, hair etc etc. I have seen NO blood on the ground, and the only proof that the animal was shot was finding it dead.



I would rather believe in Santa Claus and that bad things don't actually happen, but believing it don't make it so.



Not disputing anything about the story. I am disputing the use of ABSOLUTES.............

Yeah, I know...

I just hate loosing critters, and <knocking on wood> have NEVER lost a deer that I've shot or one that I've helped track... except one that went where we did not have, and could not get, permission to go get it. In hindsight, I should've just gone and gotten it anyway.

30 yard shot + .250 Savage 100 gr. load = dead deer. Unless something deflected the bullet, which is possible.

Still, not a pissing contest, and I agree, we just might not see/find the signs of a hit, even if they are there.

I almost lost a deer with my Bob and the 100gr Hornady. No blood or hair . Due to some diligent tracking by a friend who is much better tan I am, it was found about 150yds away. Hit too far back. Two deer later that afternoon dropped within 20ft of where they were hit. You hate to cripple or lose an animal, but a hard lesson is not soon forgotten.

I looked for the deer again last weekend, no sign of him. I did not say there was no blood, no hair, I just did not find any. I was looking down the barrel of my shotgun at the deer at 30 yards, the hit looked good, what else can I say?

In that case, I'm still hoping for a miss. But, we know what hope gets you.

I hope he missed too...

About 15 years ago I was hunting in PA on the first day of
buck season and had a 6 point run past me at about 25 yards
I threw up the gun and fired. No reaction at all, I was pretty
disappointed and figured I had missed. Kept thinking it over
for the next 30-45 minutes and finally walked over to where
the deer had jumped over a dead fall. No blood, no hair,
walked about 100 yards down the trail and there he was,
dead as can be, shot throught the liver. I was using a 30-06
with 165 grain bullets.