The shot did appear to be well placed and for some reason that did take a lot of time for him to go down. Cool that you can see the bullet fly all the way to impact.
Deer was hit in the liver...not always immediate reactions. Always tough to say...Ive seen stranger things with a number of grands of bullets. It just happens on occasion...
"...the left considers you vermin, and they'll kill you given the chance..." Bristoe
. I've seen many deer shot with the good ol Hornady interlock at 600 + yards, drop to their knees like linda lovelace to know that bullet didn't do its job. . Yes, it did kill the buck eventually, but if it would have happened in heavy timber it may have been a lost deer/elk for the shooter/hunter.. I do also agree with blacktailer. The shot placement was not where I like it either. A little Too high, Probably barely clipped the lung.
Originally Posted by raybass
I try to stick with the basics, they do so well. Nothing fancy mind you, just plain jane will get it done with style.
Originally Posted by Pharmseller
You want to see an animal drop right now? Shoot him in the ear hole.
Skatchewan; Top of the morning to you sir, hopefully this still warm Sunday has been treating you well.
Based upon shooting and/or being beside the shooter when roughly 2 dozen deer were shot with monometal bullets - TSX,TTSX and GMX - I would agree with gerrygoat that the first shot placement was not great and especially so for a monometal.
The copper bullets are - in our experience anyway - at their best when you break a major bone either with the entrance or exit wound. We try to either break the scapula or ulna always.
Overall, if one always has or can limit your shots to a "picture perfect" broadside shot, then I'd say that there are better bullets for you than an all copper hollow point.
If however, you are occasionally going to need to shoot through some bones or perhaps take a less than optimum shot at a wounded animal and plow through 2' of wet grass to hit the vitals - then they shine and brightly too.
I will say too, that the TSX, TTSX, GMX that we've shot do better work from cartridge/barrel combinations that have faster twists or higher initial velocities or better still both. We've seen larger wound cavities with that combination as a result - by large I mean more cubic centimeters of damaged and displaced tissue.
So for instance our eldest daughter's 6.5 Swede with a 1:7½" twist barrel shooting 130gr TSX at 2700fps consistently showed as much or slightly more damage than my .270 with its unusually slow twist 1:11¼" barrrel shooting 130gr TTSX/GMX at 2950fps.
I am cognizant that's counter intuitive to say the least and has been the source of controversy - nonetheless we saw what we saw.
Lastly, some deer just decide they're not going to die and I have no clue as to why that is. The longest runner for me personally was little 2 point mulie that had no idea the Appy and I were there on his section of the mountain. Despite a solid mid lung hit with a 165gr Hornady BT which started out at 3200fps from my .300 Win Mag, the little fellow made more than 200yds after being hit solidly in both lungs.
Even the horse couldn't believe how much blood that buck lost before dying - but there it is and again we saw what we saw.
Anyway sir, that's only one short, bald guy's thoughts on the matter and worth only what it costs to read for sure and maybe not even that.
Thanks for sharing the video and all the best to you this summer.
At what point in the deer's death did the bullet fail? Read my signature line.
I never said it failed. But that performance sucked.
That is very poor performance from a bullet, as far as trauma, time to kill.
To me, the bullet "acted" like a FMJ.
A fairly long shot in a lot of wind on one animal is not significant and it would be unwise to draw any conclusions as to the effectiveness of the shooter, the rifle, the caliber, the bullet, or the game animal. I'm not trying to start anything just pointing out that even a number of stories on the internet doesn't prove anything. As a disclaimer, I've been using Barnes almost exclusively since the X bullets came out about 25 years ago and have never experienced anything that I would call bullet failure. Before that I used Sierras and Speers and can't say I had any failures with those either although I had some misplaced shots in those days which resulted in some rodeos.
I am continually astounded at how quickly people make up their minds on little evidence or none at all. Jack O'Connor
The video stated the shot was 397 yards with a 140 gr TTSX from a 280AI. Putting that into RCBS.load's ballistic calculator and assuming a muzzle velocity of 2970 fps puts it at about 2130 fps when it struck. That's faster than the minimum velocity I've seen for Barnes TTSX to open up, but like BC30 says, it was a high lung shot and missed any heavy bones to help it open.
The only thing the word "premium" guarantees is higher cost.
I don't blame bullet failure for what happened in the video. That wasn't good placement IMO. Too high. I couldn't tell the exact angle from the footage. He obviously missed the spine, and didn't slip the bullet into the 'pocket' either. I can't see that a different bullet would have guaranteed a better result A lethal hit, obviously, but not a debilitating one. I've seen that same shot placement go badly, and the animal lost.
I'd have shot while he was closer, after they bumped him, while he was stopped and broadside. Two times. It looks like they were trying to determine whether he was big enough. Really good genes on what looks to be a not-quite-prime deer, given the near pristine bases and shape of his nose. Another year, or two, and he'd have been a giant.
Interesting I have no clue on impact speed, 225 OLD barnes X, the ones that failed all the time... at 802 yards twice on a caribou, 338 win mag. Start around 2700 iirc.
Anyway expansion on both.
The interesting part is that folks that don't bowhunt, often don't see a lot of things, and don't realize that animals take time to die. And if not hit really well, they can take a lot longer to die than you think.
There is a REASON its suggested you wait before trailing an animal...
I watched a liver shot buck I shot, and hit to far back, bed up behind me and take almost 15 minutes to die... Brush was such, and he was so close to me when he bedded, I could do nothing at all but wait. Which I wisely did.
I shoot a lot of game CNS. Then get down out of stand with backpack, dog etc... and head on over to verify... It takes a few minutes needless to say. Its fairly common that htough the animal has never moved really, the heart is still in its last beats and pumping blood at that time until the blood is gone.
I'm also of the 2 hole theory. 2 holes better than one. Both in good vitals even better. If you don't want to trail or make yourself feel better that if they fall right over and are 'DRT' then shoot CNS.
Lets just say I've likely shot more deer by far with a gun than a bow, and I've taken over 100 head of big game with a bow when I quit counting in the 90s...
BTW I quit watching the video when you passed a pretty much perfect broadside shot while monkeying with the camera. I'm ok with filming, but when you start passing closer better shots due to camera not being ready, I'm outta here.
Most folks that come up with these thoughts, should probably be shooting ballistic tips and take whatever, if any, failures they might provide.
We can keep Larry Root and all his idiotic blabber and user names on here, but we can't get Ralph back..... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over....
Liver shots = "no bueno" IME, regardless of bullet make. On my recent trip to Namibia, armed with a 7mm RM and 160 Accubonds, I attempted a shot off the sticks at a 100lb springbok at 200 yards. Elevation was perfect, windage only 2" off/back, quartering towards me slightly. I watched him run, albeit rather gingerly, 400 yards an out of sight. We found him not far from the last place we saw him, but had there been lots of cover it would have taken a while.
If you hunt enough, you'll witness the exact same bullets do unexpected things on the same animals.
Last edited by JGRaider; 05/24/15.
It is irrelevant what you think. What matters is the TRUTH.
I'm not seeing the liver shot. Looks like a high lung shot, just under the spine to me. Not perfect placement, but seems good to me (higher and further back than I would have preferred, but I wouldn't have expected that buck to last that long).
Shot taken at excessive range, thus velocity too low when bullet finally got to the deer.
The hit was too far back, behind the diaphragm and only clipped the very edge of the far side lung as it ranged slightly forward.
Those guys did a bad thing.
Respect the game. Take sensible shots.
Bullet not to blame......hunter to blame.
The Tea Party Movement is pretty much the same as a bowel movement except that it smells worse and has far less in the way of intelligent content. --DancesWithGuns
I'm not seeing the liver shot. Looks like a high lung shot, just under the spine to me. Not perfect placement, but seems good to me (higher and further back than I would have preferred, but I wouldn't have expected that buck to last that long).
???
David
I had an aoudad hunter a few years ago peg a big ram in roughly the same spot with a 300WBY and 180 partitions at a distance of roughly 200 yards. The ram fell over immediately, appearing to be stone cold dead. We watched him laying there from our shooting position across a small canyon for over 5 minutes. When we got up to fetch our prize, taking no more than 10 steps, the ram got up, ran off, never to be seen again, even though we'd find small drops of blood every 200 yards or so.
It is irrelevant what you think. What matters is the TRUTH.
I had an aoudad hunter a few years ago peg a big ram in roughly the same spot with a 300WBY and 180 partitions at a distance of roughly 200 yards. The ram fell over immediately, appearing to be stone cold dead. We watched him laying there from our shooting position across a small canyon for over 5 minutes. When we got up to fetch our prize, taking no more than 10 steps, the ram got up, ran off, never to be seen again, even though we'd find small drops of blood every 200 yards or so.
That's an amazing amount of detail you have on shot placement for an animal that wasn't recovered. Have any pictures or video of the shot? Was your hunter using Barnes bullets?
The hit was NOT behind the diaphragm, or at most entered right on the edge, but the buck was quartering away enough for the bullet to get the top of both lungs--but NOT the liver, because the liver is on the other side of the body.
But the bullet did land HIGH in the lungs, not far below the spine. I did a bunch of research on lung wounds several years ago, including interviews with forensic ballisticians and veterinarians. The edges of the lungs have far smaller blood vessels than the center, especially in the area above the heart, and also less "air pressure." Consequently it not only takes longer for animals hit around the edges of the lungs to die, but depending on the extent of the wound they can even survive and heal up. It isn't uncommon, for instance, to kill elk that had been previously shot high through the lungs, just under the spine, and find the wound channel healed. An African PH I hunted with says it also happens with gemsbok, but he has never seen it with a kudu.
A monolithic bullet retaining all its petals doesn't make as large a wound channel as a more fragmenting bullet, but plastic-tipped monos usually expand enough to kill quickly when placed reasonably well. This hit was around the fringes.
Based on some experience, I'd guess the deer would have died quicker if hit in the same place with a bullet that at least partly fragmented, but that's just a guess. Have also seen animals hit with a bunch of other bullets, of all types, survive longer than they "should."
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
Chuck Nelson. Wow, there's a blast from the past. Wonder if he's still bitching about the McMillan stock he started an epic rant about. IIRC, Rick went above and beyond before ultimately giving Chuck the hook.
The hit was NOT behind the diaphragm, or at most entered right on the edge, but the buck was quartering away enough for the bullet to get the top of both lungs--but NOT the liver, because the liver is on the other side of the body.
But the bullet did land HIGH in the lungs, not far below the spine. I did a bunch of research on lung wounds several years ago, including interviews with forensic ballisticians and veterinarians. The edges of the lungs have far smaller blood vessels than the center, especially in the area above the heart, and also less "air pressure." Consequently it not only takes longer for animals hit around the edges of the lungs to die, but depending on the extent of the wound they can even survive and heal up. It isn't uncommon, for instance, to kill elk that had been previously shot high through the lungs, just under the spine, and find the wound channel healed. An African PH I hunted with says it also happens with gemsbok, but he has never seen it with a kudu.
A monolithic bullet retaining all its petals doesn't make as large a wound channel as a more fragmenting bullet, but plastic-tipped monos usually expand enough to kill quickly when placed reasonably well. This hit was around the fringes.
Based on some experience, I'd guess the deer would have died quicker if hit in the same place with a bullet that at least partly fragmented, but that's just a guess. Have also seen animals hit with a bunch of other bullets, of all types, survive longer than they "should."
I had an aoudad hunter a few years ago peg a big ram in roughly the same spot with a 300WBY and 180 partitions at a distance of roughly 200 yards. The ram fell over immediately, appearing to be stone cold dead. We watched him laying there from our shooting position across a small canyon for over 5 minutes. When we got up to fetch our prize, taking no more than 10 steps, the ram got up, ran off, never to be seen again, even though we'd find small drops of blood every 200 yards or so.
That's an amazing amount of detail you have on shot placement for an animal that wasn't recovered. Have any pictures or video of the shot? Was your hunter using Barnes bullets?
David
It' relatively easy to see bullet impact, and small amounts of blood coming out of an animal with 10x42 SLC's at 200 yards. I already said it was a partition. Point being, it was shot in a marginal area at best, where funny things can happen. Sorry you missed it. I believe the example MD gave is what happened.
It is irrelevant what you think. What matters is the TRUTH.
The video stated the shot was 397 yards with a 140 gr TTSX from a 280AI. Putting that into RCBS.load's ballistic calculator and assuming a muzzle velocity of 2970 fps puts it at about 2130 fps when it struck. That's faster than the minimum velocity I've seen for Barnes TTSX to open up, but like BC30 says, it was a high lung shot and missed any heavy bones to help it open.
This explains it to me. Most bullets work if used right. Nothing wrong with TTSX's, but it was the wrong bullet for the job in this case. Copper isn't a good long range bullet. Bullet speed was too slow at that range to get any expansion.
Most people don't really want the truth.
They just want constant reassurance that what they believe is the truth.
It' relatively easy to see bullet impact, and small amounts of blood coming out of an animal with 10x42 SLC's at 200 yards. I already said it was a partition. Point being, it was shot in a marginal area at best, where funny things can happen. Sorry you missed it. I believe the example MD gave is what happened.
Sorry JG, I guess I wasn't really paying attention to what you posted. 10x42 SLC's huh? Well that settles it, with those high end binoculars I've no doubt you were able to tell where that bullet went as easily as watching a video on your computer.
Didn't you state earlier that you thought the deer on this video was liver shot?
I've only seen around 400 big game animals killed, so while I certainly don't know anywhere near everything, I've usually got a pretty good idea. You need to start paying better attention and get over yourself.
It is irrelevant what you think. What matters is the TRUTH.
I've only seen around 400 big game animals killed, so while I certainly don't know anywhere near everything, I've usually got a pretty good idea. You need to start paying better attention and get over yourself.
My goodness what a big number!
I am paying attention - and you're not answering the question. Didn't you imply earlier in this thread that you believed the buck in the video to be liver shot?
Shut me up with a shivering comment about how expensive something you have (or more likely, something you've seen) is....
Yes, I made a statement about liver shots, and how it relates to my springbok. I'm not sure where your comment on my expensive stuff comes from. Not sure I've ever made a post on that.
It is irrelevant what you think. What matters is the TRUTH.
Yes, I made a statement about liver shots, and how it relates to my springbok. I'm not sure where your comment on my expensive stuff comes from. Not sure I've ever made a post on that.
No JG you related it to this video, as in agreeing with a previous posters assessment that the deer was liver shot.
My comment on your expensive stuff is based on your name dropping in this thread "watched through my 10x42 SLC's" and similar comments in other posts.
You're dead wrong, again, and I've never commented, ever, attempting to impress anyone with my so called expensive stuff. That's ridiculous. You questioned how I knew where the shot on the aoudad landed, and I answered you. Nothing more to it than that. Sorry to disappoint you.
It is irrelevant what you think. What matters is the TRUTH.
You're dead wrong, again, and I've never commented, ever, attempting to impress anyone with my so called expensive stuff. That's ridiculous. You questioned how I knew where the shot on the aoudad landed, and I answered you. Nothing more to it than that. Sorry to disappoint you.
No JG - I pointed out how you were incapable of making a correct call on a video that you could watch at your leisure, freeze frame, replay, etc.
Given that I'm highly suspicious of your ability to accurately note the POI on an animal shot in the field.
Side note - I find it truly comical that you seem to believe being present for 400+ big game kills makes you some sort of expert.
Here's a deer shot correctly at just under 200 yards.
Note that the hit is slightly forward of the one on the deer in the video and that the deer dropped and did not move.
When velocity is still high enough this hit imparts sufficient shock to the spine that the deer goes down and stays down and bleeds out internally.
Those hunters should focus more on making a good shot and killing game humanely and less on making stupid videos for Youtube. I won't say they're slob hunters--just young and unwise, probably.
It's not about the bullet, it's about hitting in the right place from a reasonable range.
Last edited by DancesWithGuns; 05/24/15.
The Tea Party Movement is pretty much the same as a bowel movement except that it smells worse and has far less in the way of intelligent content. --DancesWithGuns
Am I supposed to care what you think? Feel free to interpret my posts however you want to, but you obviously do not comprehend them very well at all. I did not, nor have I ever claimed to be an expert at anything, other than my opinion.
It is irrelevant what you think. What matters is the TRUTH.
...It' relatively easy to see bullet impact, and small amounts of blood coming out of an animal with 10x42 SLC's at 200 yards...
Originally Posted by JGRaider
I've only seen around 400 big game animals killed, so while I certainly don't know anywhere near everything, I've usually got a pretty good idea. You need to start paying better attention and get over yourself.
I'm not sure how much it matters, because I don't shoot Barnes, but that 130 is named a TSX in the article. I hear that the TTSX do open more readily and with a far lower failure rate. And I wouldn't trust Barnes' BC numbers. That bullet looks like it hit at more like 2K fps. I guess if the drops were right...
It looks like the deer died from bleeding lung(s) and suffocation from the combined effects of the pneumothorax and blood in the lung(s).
I would very much like to have been present when it was gutted. My tests on TTSXs have me believing that the bullet should have expanded in pretty ad copy fashion at 2100 FPS. As high as that hit was, full expansion should have ruptured the descending aorta which would have put the deer down in 50 yards or so. I have deliberately shot deer at roughly the same height to prove that, but at substantially higher velocity, and that is exactly what happens. Rupture or even just a good nick to the descending aorta and they'll bleed out at about the same speed as a heart hit deer.
Maybe a little further back than it looks. Maybe a steeper down angle then it looks. Maybe a little more broadside than it looks. Maybe a little slower than the shooter thinks.
Add some or all of those things together and you can wind up with a poorly expanded bullet clipping the bottom end of the lung(s). That makes the result a lot less surprising.
Bottom line: the shooter needed some insurance. ie more speed, less range, better hit, better angles. Lung hits alone with enough bullet speed to cause good cavitation will bust the lungs completely. The time it takes to run fifty yards is all that leaves them.
I'm not sure what the video tells us about "premium bullets",other than one deer was hit on the edge of the vitals at almost 400 yards,at one velocity level and ran a couple of hundred yards (or whatever) before expiring. It happens.
Before condemning tougher bullets we might want a weighted average on lots of animals shot at various distances. Also, judging bullets based on hits around the fringes of vitals never made much sense to me because I have never seen it make much of a difference,whether premium or C&C if hits are on the edge or out of the vital zone. Bad hits are bad hits regardless of the bullet used.
I have seen smaller animals like doe antelope literally disemboweled, their tiny bodies and thin skins exploding like popped balloons from rapidly expanding bullets.They went as far as a woodchuck hit with a Swift..but that's the exception; hardly a "rule " to live by.
I'm not sure what "premium results" are,since the shot that dumps them in their tracks at close range may take longer to be affective at longer distance,due to less dramatic expansion,less cavitation , smaller would channel.
The advantage of many "premiums" is frequently reliable penetration coupled with adequate expansion across pretty broad velocity ranges but expansion will diminish as distance increases. I bet that same bullet planted a bit further forward, lower,and angled through the center of the lungs into the off side shoulder/upper leg bones would have ended things right there,or at least more quickly.
The problem with faster and more frangible expansion is that it may be too fast, and too frangible on closer shots...we may leave penetration on the table.Hard to get everything "just right".But a good rule is that animals are killed best with surgically placed bullets.
Bullet performance is sometime pretty mysterious! Lumping premiums together under one generic code is dicey business today, too,since even they vary in materials, expansion and penetration characteristics,etc etc.
Some incidences beeak all the rules. That doesn't change the rules.
I once video'd a nanny goat of around 120 pounds take 5 or 6 chest and shoulder shots from a 6.5x55 with my handloaded ammo at under 50 yards and it stood on its feet until the last shot. John
When truth is ignored, it does not change an untruth from remaining a lie.
Next time I shoot at an elk at 555 yards, I'll have to see what is in my magazine. This 130g Barnes Triple Shock, TSX bullet was recovered from a cow elk near the hide in the rear of a hind quarter. This shot was from a 270 WSM, Model 1885 at 555 yards with a muzzle velocity of 3400 FPS. At this range and an altitude of 7,000 feet the impact velocity was somewhere near 2350 FPS. This bullet went from a shoulder in the front end to a hind quarter on the opposite side passing through and crushing the femur in the hind quarter. This was the first shot and although the elk was messed up she didn't appear to be falling over anytime soon so I sent a second shot through both front shoulders and out the other side and she dropped. He is also putting a lot of faith in his ballistics program.
I am continually astounded at how quickly people make up their minds on little evidence or none at all. Jack O'Connor
As Huntnshoot already noted, that was a TSX, not a Tipped TSX, and it did open even thought the animal was shot at much longer range than the mule deer (though with a little faster cartridge). Barnes BC's for TSX's, in particular, are a little high, one reason for the introduction of the Tipped TSX.
The other reason (or at least my guess about another reason) is that some TSX's don't open much, if at all, though that isn't the case with the one in the photo. I've seen over 100 animals taken with the original Barnes X, TSX's and Tipped TSX's, including a bunch my wife and I have shot. The hollow-point version sometimes (rarely) fails to expand, usually in calibers from .24 to .30. One of the guesses as to why is the hollow-point sometimes gets battered partly or completely closed due to recoil while in the magazine. This is why it doesn't happen (or at least I haven't seen or heard of it happening) with .22 caliber or over-.30 caliber TSX's: The recoil too's light in .22 centerfires, and the hollow-point is a lot bigger in bullets over .30 caliber.
But I have yet to see this in Tipped TSX's, probably because the tip increases BC, but more importantly because there's a huge hollow-point where the plastic tip is inserted into the bullet. Have heard of one instance where a TTSX didn't expand, apparently because it hit a bone at an angle, bending the tip over, but so far I haven't seen it happen. Also haven't seen it happen with Nosler E-Tips or Hornady GMX's, which are of similar design, and plenty of all three have been shot into various animals at distances where velocity had fallen to down around 2000 fps.
Maybe the bullet didn't open--but I doubt it. It looks to me like shot placement was the big factor. Hits around the edges of the lungs with bullets that don't send off any fragments just don't kill all that quickly.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
This has been an interesting topic so far, but when we went from what premium bullets guarantee to what constitutes killing power we at the moment got into some pretty controversial territory. Hard evidence is really difficult to come by for most of us because no two cases are ever exactly alike. Additionally, we bring our prejudices to whatever we see causing poor observations and faulty conclusions. All of us who have taken lots of game animals have seen deer and such hit with the same bullet from the same rifle in the same part of the body react in completely different ways. Also, we've seen an animal with a less than perfect hit go right down. Then at other times, we have shot the holly sh*t out of a buck only to have him refuse to stay down. Five years ago I shot a large bull elk with my .280AI at over 300yds. It was a classic broadside shot with the 160gr NPT hitting him a little high but right behind the shoulder, drilling both lungs. He went straight down and never regained his feet. A few weeks later, with the same rifle and load I took a shot at a nice buck antelope at about the same distance and I hit him with the same high lung shot. But, after the shot nothing was the same. That damned antelope ran almost half a mile. Now lets suppose those were the only two BG animals I'd ever shot and I based killing power of the bullet and or cartridge on those two experiences. I'd be in a real dilemma.
Hell, I had a deer take a ballistic tip through both lungs at 40 yards then run off a couple hundred yards. Watched him for 5 minutes, blood trickling out the exit hole, before he finally wobbled and fell over dead.
When I cut him open there was a perfect 35 caliber hole through both lungs and a same size hole on the offside. If that bullet expended you couldn't prove it by me.
The video stated the shot was 397 yards with a 140 gr TTSX from a 280AI. Putting that into RCBS.load's ballistic calculator and assuming a muzzle velocity of 2970 fps puts it at about 2130 fps when it struck. That's faster than the minimum velocity I've seen for Barnes TTSX to open up, but like BC30 says, it was a high lung shot and missed any heavy bones to help it open.
This explains it to me. Most bullets work if used right. Nothing wrong with TTSX's, but it was the wrong bullet for the job in this case. Copper isn't a good long range bullet. Bullet speed was too slow at that range to get any expansion.
The high lung shot placement is what I believe to be the primary reason for the time it took the buck to expire. I probably could have worded my original comment better than I did but I didn't mean to imply that the bullet didn't open since it was traveling significantly faster than 2000 fps which is why I pointed out the velocities to begin with. I meant to imply that maybe it didn't open as fully as it could have if it had gone through some bones. Or perhaps it did open sufficiently, but not before it had penetrated a fair amount of distance before doing so. Did the bullet punch through a rib or slip between them on the way in? We lack some details really. I have no experience shooting Barnes bullets of any stripe to date and would take Mule Deer's word for it that they open nicely at 2000 fps. His description of lung tissue in his earlier comment describing smaller blood vessels and lower air pressure at the fringes of the lungs make a whole lot of sense to me.
I had a somewhat similar shot on a whitetail buck last season. It was similar in that the buck started quartering away to his right just as I pulled the trigger on my .358 Win BLR with a Hornady 200 gr SP over IMR-3031 at about 40 yards range. The buck ran about the same distance of 40 yards before piling up with no blood on the ground until he fell and crawled about 6 feet more into a little depression underneath a log where I found him. I was disappointed that there was no exit wound but I can't say the bullet didn't do its job. The bullet entered towards the rear of the rib cage on the buck's left side like the subject shot of this thread, but it was centered, not high. It shattered the offside scapula and lodged in the ball socket without penetrating it. Retained weight was 149 grains. See pics of the recovered bullet below. I'm thinking a Barnes bullet would have exited in my case.
For a shot that is too high and too far back, with low retained velocity on a comparatively soft animal a Barnes would be close to my last choice. Just about anything would have worked better and most of them are fairly ordinary.
Turn the situation around to a large animal shot through major bone and muscle mass at close range with the associated high velocity and the same Barnes bullet is very good, equal to any and probably better than most.
Everything is a compromise, but soft rapidly expanding bullets at high velocity have gotten me out of more situations than they ever caused, and the harder expanding bullets have caused more blood trails than they saved by being able to shoot through animals lengthwise. That doesn't necessarily mean that they failed to work as designed, it that I am often less than thrilled by what they do when they do work as designed.
Life begins at 40. Recoil begins at "Over 40" Coincidence? I don't think so.
If you look at the picture carefully you'll notice that while the buck's HEAD is turned.....his body is not much turned at all.
That's why the bullet didn't really range forward much at all.
That's why it just clipped the edge of one lung.
Of course he didn't drop dead quickly.
Would have been a miracle if he had.
The Tea Party Movement is pretty much the same as a bowel movement except that it smells worse and has far less in the way of intelligent content. --DancesWithGuns
Lastly, some deer just decide they're not going to die and I have no clue as to why that is. The longest runner for me personally was little 2 point mulie that had no idea the Appy and I were there on his section of the mountain. Despite a solid mid lung hit with a 165gr Hornady BT which started out at 3200fps from my .300 Win Mag, the little fellow made more than 200yds after being hit solidly in both lungs.
The first mule deer I killed was also a fork. It was a very big deer. I got it broadside just above the heart from a range of about 100 yards with a Nosler Partition 7mm 175 started at 3,150 feet per second from an STW before they were called STW. It also traveled like that one did.
The first elk I killed was with a Nosler Partition 7mm 160 started at 3,200 feet per second. It took that long to die, but it just stood there after moving about fifteen feet. Just enough that I couldn't get a second shot off. Finally it fell over. I ranged it at 400 yards.
"Only Christ is the fullness of God's revelation." Everyday Hunter
I'm not impressed with long range shooting. I prefer to hunt. The big advantage to premium bullets is the ability to hang together on high velocity impacts and still expand on low velocity hits. 400 yards and further, to me is a hunter failure.
I prefer classic. Semper Fi I used to run with the hare. Now I'm envious of the tortoise and I do my own stunts but rarely intentionally
I'm not impressed with long range shooting. I prefer to hunt. The big advantage to premium bullets is the ability to hang together on high velocity impacts and still expand on low velocity hits. 400 yards and further, to me is a hunter failure.
In regard to this video, I agree with you. If they blew their stalk or just bumped the buck w/o seeing it, they could have shot it while it was much closer, or at least attempted to put together another approach. Not shooting a closer shot when it is straightforward, and half the distance irks me a bit. Then they made a marginal shot. Don't know what the hell they were doing, but it looked screwy to me.
I don't, however, concur that as a rule shots 400yds and farther are hunter failure. Trying to get closer can take up over a mile and a couple thousand vertical feet, depending on where one hunts. If it is a confident set-up, I see no ethical dilemma with shots past 400 on game. This is more the rule than the exception where I hunt. I don't shoot hard bullets either. To each their own.
We once got a small 4x4 whitey back home that had been shot with a slug gun 9 times before it was all over. He simply didn't want to die that day. He stayed mobile too, even though both front legs were broken.
Skatchewan; Top of the morning to you sir, hopefully this still warm Sunday has been treating you well.
Based upon shooting and/or being beside the shooter when roughly 2 dozen deer were shot with monometal bullets - TSX,TTSX and GMX - I would agree with gerrygoat that the first shot placement was not great and especially so for a monometal.
The copper bullets are - in our experience anyway - at their best when you break a major bone either with the entrance or exit wound. We try to either break the scapula or ulna always.
Overall, if one always has or can limit your shots to a "picture perfect" broadside shot, then I'd say that there are better bullets for you than an all copper hollow point.
If however, you are occasionally going to need to shoot through some bones or perhaps take a less than optimum shot at a wounded animal and plow through 2' of wet grass to hit the vitals - then they shine and brightly too.
I will say too, that the TSX, TTSX, GMX that we've shot do better work from cartridge/barrel combinations that have faster twists or higher initial velocities or better still both. We've seen larger wound cavities with that combination as a result - by large I mean more cubic centimeters of damaged and displaced tissue.
So for instance our eldest daughter's 6.5 Swede with a 1:7½" twist barrel shooting 130gr TSX at 2700fps consistently showed as much or slightly more damage than my .270 with its unusually slow twist 1:11¼" barrrel shooting 130gr TTSX/GMX at 2950fps.
I am cognizant that's counter intuitive to say the least and has been the source of controversy - nonetheless we saw what we saw.
Lastly, some deer just decide they're not going to die and I have no clue as to why that is. The longest runner for me personally was little 2 point mulie that had no idea the Appy and I were there on his section of the mountain. Despite a solid mid lung hit with a 165gr Hornady BT which started out at 3200fps from my .300 Win Mag, the little fellow made more than 200yds after being hit solidly in both lungs.
Even the horse couldn't believe how much blood that buck lost before dying - but there it is and again we saw what we saw.
Anyway sir, that's only one short, bald guy's thoughts on the matter and worth only what it costs to read for sure and maybe not even that.
Thanks for sharing the video and all the best to you this summer.
Dwayne
I have also shot a ton of game with TSX/TTSX, mostly .338-210 and 7x57 140's, from deer size to elk sized game. I shot one head of game twice, but I tend to place it to break bones on the way in. With a Sierra or ballistic tip, I'd place it in the soft tissue. Three or four years ago, I shot a big quartering away buck on the run with the 7x57 in the left ham, exited his forehead. I'd call that a premium result. For some reason, a lot of game bleeds gallons when hit with TSX's, whether they go 20 yards or die on the spot.
I helped (well-watched) a vet patch up a dog with what appears about the same placement. 30-06 at about 50 feet probably. Dog lived, without interior surgery - only at exit wound was some reconstruction required to refasten a torn ligament, and cleaning up the entrance wound.
Bullet passed just under the spine, and apparently just over the lungs, missing any major artery.
Had I not seen it, I would not have believed a dog could live with that shot placement.
Bullets do strange things at times. I once chased a nice mulie down into Devil's Gulch that my brother had shot broadside through both lungs with a 100g NPT from his 6mm Rem. Didn't think that SOB would ever die. I took the only shots I had while traversing the steep terrain. My first shot with a 140NAB at 3200MV was a feeble attempt at a THS through a small hole in the brush, which exploded on his rear ham and failed to even make it to the intestines. After some climbing around the steep canyon, I finally had a small hole through the brush to his neck and ended his misery. It took us 8 hours to pack him out and he'd not even made it near the bottom of the gulch. Had I not put finishers in the buck, It would have been a much longer day.
Point being, do it long enough and weird stuff happens. I could tell many other weird bullet performance stories....
Bullets do strange things at times. ... Point being, do it long enough and weird stuff happens. I could tell many other weird bullet performance stories....
Prezactly! Threads like this one are a focus on the oddities.
It's a percentage thing. Some bullets have higher percentage of doing something erratic, and some have a boringly consistent high percentage of doing what they are designed to do. IME the better designed bullets perform FAR more consistently than old technology cup and core, so I use them.
Cost, image, posing and elitism are irrelevant, as my standard hunting attire of thrift store wool dress pants confirms.
For a shot that is too high and too far back, with low retained velocity on a comparatively soft animal a Barnes would be close to my last choice. Just about anything would have worked better and most of them are fairly ordinary.
Turn the situation around to a large animal shot through major bone and muscle mass at close range with the associated high velocity and the same Barnes bullet is very good, equal to any and probably better than most.
Everything is a compromise, but soft rapidly expanding bullets at high velocity have gotten me out of more situations than they ever caused, and the harder expanding bullets have caused more blood trails than they saved by being able to shoot through animals lengthwise. That doesn't necessarily mean that they failed to work as designed, it that I am often less than thrilled by what they do when they do work as designed.
The shot's high. Compare this photo to the diagram. He barely got it under the spine. Contrary to popular myth, there is no dead air space there. He clipped the very top of the lungs and it took a while to bleed out inside. A shade higher would have spined it and it would have dropped like a sack of rocks.
Last edited by Rock Chuck; 06/19/15.
“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ― George Orwell
It's not over when you lose. It's over when you quit.
Yeah, a lot of people believe in that magic space "above the lungs." I posted this early in this thread, but not many people read entire threads after they're more than a page or two long, and some don't even read the short ones:
The hit was NOT behind the diaphragm, or at most entered right on the edge, but the buck was quartering away enough for the bullet to get the top of both lungs--but NOT the liver, because the liver is on the other side of the body.
But the bullet did land HIGH in the lungs, not far below the spine. I did a bunch of research on lung wounds several years ago, including interviews with forensic ballisticians and veterinarians. The edges of the lungs have far smaller blood vessels than the center, especially in the area above the heart, and also less "air pressure." Consequently it not only takes longer for animals hit around the edges of the lungs to die, but depending on the extent of the wound they can even survive and heal up. It isn't uncommon, for instance, to kill elk that had been previously shot high through the lungs, just under the spine, and find the wound channel healed. An African PH I hunted with says it also happens with gemsbok, but he has never seen it with a kudu.
A monolithic bullet retaining all its petals doesn't make as large a wound channel as a more fragmenting bullet, but plastic-tipped monos usually expand enough to kill quickly when placed reasonably well. This hit was around the fringes.
Based on some experience, I'd guess the deer would have died quicker if hit in the same place with a bullet that at least partly fragmented, but that's just a guess. Have also seen animals hit with a bunch of other bullets, of all types, survive longer than they "should." _________
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
The hit was NOT behind the diaphragm, or at most entered right on the edge, but the buck was quartering away enough for the bullet to get the top of both lungs--but NOT the liver, because the liver is on the other side of the body.
So in this instance, the deer most likely would have bled more/died quicker with a shot farther back that would have raked through the liver (what many might call a "gut shot"). In my experience seeing liver-shot animals, they go into shock almost immediately and start stiffening up while on their feet.
For a less than perfect hit at 400 yards in high wind with a scare the deer bump the adrenalin follow up shot the result seems in the range of normal. I love the TTSX for elk but think a Nosler BT is almost always better on deer.
I've got a deer tag for Colorado this year and would be happy to fill it with a similar animal while I'm chasing elk with a 180 grain Barnes. I can guarantee that I won't be passing up any 200 yard shots to get the right camera angle. With 3 other guys without deer tags helping scout & spot my goal might be reachable. We have seen a few nice bucks the last few years only being able to take photos. I will be prepared to take the shot at 400 - The terrain and property lines sometimes dictate that is as close as you can get in some of our hunting area.
I think if the hunter hadn't fired that 2nd shot the deer might have stopped much closer- not that I would be able to refrain myself.
Very good topic. I shot a waterbuck with a Hornady DGS 300g and the bullet only had about 30 inches of penetration. Thank goodness it was not a buffalo! But when i found the bullet lodged in the animal it was deformed which is abnormal of a solid in a large bore rifle. Thought that was interesting but I guess we all get a few bad rounds. Happy Hunting!
. I've seen many deer shot with the good ol Hornady interlock at 600 + yards, drop to their knees like linda lovelace to know that bullet didn't do its job. 
. Yes, it did kill the buck 
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