But elk can be tenacious critters and can do amazing things after being lung shot. Dad shot a cow broadside, about 1967, which I took an active part in trailing. Yeah, I was just turned ten years old.
He was using his Rem 760 in 30-06 and he always carried 180 gr Silvertips when elk hunting.
Dad and I started down the trail after that cow. She was initially easy to follow. She had left a puddle of pink foam nearly a foot across about every ten yds. But then the puddles started getting smaller, and further apart.
The weather was hot and the terrain was very dry. The trails were covered with track, and it was nearly impossible to discern today's tracks from those of two days ago.
Anyhow, within a couple miles we lost all sign of blood, and never did recover that cow. My only guess, even nearly fifty years later is that the bullet hole, or holes managed to seal over with fat, and or skin.
That old girl should have collapsed both lungs and fell over from suffocation. But she didn't. Some folks might have ascribed that to a mysterious dead zone.
And that is why I prefer to get a bullet into the plumbing as well as the ventilation system.
People who choose to brew up their own storms bitch loudest about the rain.
not elk -but i watched my buddy shoot a moose that proceeded to trot past me looking quite alive, so i shot it. when we skinned it each shoulder blade had a half moon taken out by the bullet. i am sure it would have lived as there was no bleeding, no bone or nerves hit and certainly no lungs hit.
Yes, when an elk is standing, there is an area above the lungs that isn't always filled with organs, lungs, or otherwise lethal blood letting vessels. Twice I've hunted with partners who over estimated the distance to an elk, held high, and hit above the lungs but below the spine and the result was VERY long tracking jobs with no elk as a result. The resulting small amount of blood from the pass through showed well enough in the snow to track, but not enough to incapacitate the elk. Hitting an elk in the lungs/heart area is important and I like to also take out a front shoulder whenever possible to help immobilize an elk for a second shot if necessary.
Bob
Yup. Good post.
Double yep. Happened to me. Hit a young bull high that went down like lightning struck him. Watched and waited ~ 15 min. and as I was getting up, so was he. As he turned to run away, he jumped over some deadfall and I was lucky enough to unzip his guts. Upon skinning, found the bullet had passed through under the spine and above any criticals.
Bullschidt. Just like Rock Chuck explained, there is NOTHING between the top of the lungs and the spine. If the bullet traversed the animals torso from side to side UNDER the spine, it HAD to take out both lungs. The animals lungs were already partially collapsed when you "got up". The animal saw you most likely and attempted its escape. Had you sat tight it would have expired.
As Rockchuck and others tried to explain, when you put a bullet in the top of the lungs, they seldom pop like a balloon. The entrance or more likely the exit wound will "suck" air. When the animals diaphragm travels downward, and air enters its windpipe (just like a fireplace bellows), some air will enter through the bullet hole. Typically the skin will only allow air to enter and not exit. This works just like a bicycle pump to deflate that lung. The only thing that keeps the deer/elk's lungs, and yours, inflated is a couple of spoonfuls of a very viscous fluid the covers the lungs and "adheres" the lungs to the chest wall via surface tension.
This is a lot like putting a few drops of water between two pieces of glass like microscope slides. They will easily slide on one another but they are quite difficult to pull apart, until a bullet happens by.
Humans have what is called a mediastinum, IE, a "divider" of sorts between the lungs, prevent the collapse of both simultaneously. Ruminants, like deer and elk, don't have this. This is one reason why a double lung shot is a reliable killer on deer. If attendant blood vessels are severed, then the resulting fall in blood pressure will cause the animal to expire very quickly, if not, and the "bicycle pump" continues to do its job, at some point the air inside the chest, and outside of the lungs, will apply a clamping pressure on the heart and its great vessels, the inferior vena cava in particular, and death comes quickly at that point as the blood pressure will drop precipitously as no blood can return to the heart.
The vena cava is typically half embedded for most of its length in the chest to the dorsal (toward the spine) portion of the chest wall, directly under the spine. This is one reason why a Berger, put in the right place, will kill like a lightning bolt. You put several holes in that huge vessel and a precipitous drop in blood pressure comes in seconds.
The next time Rockchuck weighs in on this topic, pay attention, because he knows of what he speaks.
