Saturday's Virginia opener started quietly for me.
By 8:30 I had only seen one doe but had heard multiple shots on neighboring properties.

A little after 9 I notice movement on the opposite edge of the little field I'm sitting.
Ranged at 65 yards.
To the right of the cedar and almost directly behind the small hardwood.
Old pic-[prior rifle season]


I check him in the bino and see that he is fairly wide and heavy[although I have no prior pics of him].
He is refreshing a scrape and keeping his antlers up in the limbs above making it hard to get a real good feel on his antlers, but he looks like a fat donkey in the body.
Sunrise is just coming over the mountain creating a haze across the field as the frost is melting and the air is rising which isn't helping me see with detail.
Once he takes one step forward I could see that he was 'wide enough'.
I switch from bino to TC Thunderhawk and take the shot which creates a smoke/mist screen where I can see nothing beyond 10' for a second or two.

Once everything clears I see nothing but the empty field.
I take my time reloading then head over.
No blood, no deer but I see the direction he ran due to kicked up leaves. After 50-60' of that, nothing-no blood no kicked up leaves, nothing!
I make a few widening loops and find zero sign.
Luckily I left my pack at the last spot in the woods where the leaves were disturbed and when I reach down for it I see one small speck of blood.

I back out, and head to the house to change out from sitting clothes/boots to hiking attire.
Half hour later I drive back and start again with wider loops, still nothing.
I decide to go down to the bottom where it's still cool along the creek.
As I'm walking down the path[that I had driven up a half hour prior] he comes tumbling over the hill straight down at me and dies within 5' of me after a couple of kicks!
15-1/2" inside 8

Hell ya 👍👍👍👍

Congrats!

Very nice!!!

LIKE !!!

That's a nice deer. Where did the bullet impact? That's crazy that he lived that long then died at your feet.

It was a broadside hit[believe I got one lung maybe], could've clipped a shoulder bone on entry.

Where he was shot to where he wound up was less than 100 yds, and he was dead on his feat when he came tumbling down towards me.
I had to have walked within 50' of him while looking.

Been using Knight 265gn hollow point sabots[.45] in this gun for years and this seems to be a recurring theme with the bullet. Little blood and rarely ever DRT.

I down to my last 10 or so Knight bullets and plan to do some trials this winter with some others.
I've tried several different bullets over the years[Powerbelts, etc] and I've never found anything that shoots nearly as well in it like the Knight sabots.

Had a similar thing happen yrs ago on a nice buck with a 240 gr xtp knocked him over stone cold dead or so I thought 30 seconds later he turned into Lazarus never did find him zero blood

Raeford,

Good for you, that is a nice buck. I did not go, and may not go until it cools off some. On the farm I hunt in Giles County we have only seen does and there are plenty of them. If the rut gets going and it cools off I will be out there hoping a good buck shows up, maybe during the general firearms season.

Awesome, great buck!

Nice buck!! Glad you were able to find it.

Thanks

Same here, doubtful that I would have gone out any more after Saturday morning the way the temps are going to be through the week even if I hadn't of shot this one.

Feels like I'm old school hunting this year after a bear shredded 2 of my 3 cams.
I hadn't seen this buck until about 1 minute prior to shooting.

My son has been hunting Southeast Floyd county and says that they are chasing like crazy on the farm he's hunting!

Congrats Raeford.
I have had similar results w Powerbelts in my CVA
Shoot great but there has never been a blood trail.

Nice buck! Congrats.

Congrats, He's a good one. Glad you found him. Or should I say, glad he found you. Lol.

Congrats!

👍🏻

Nice. Congrats.

Nice! Glad ya'll found each other.
I prefer them to run towards the truck if at all possible!

The truck was sitting 50yds away and I only had a 5' downhill drag to the path!

Very nice!

I was caught
In the middle of a railroad track (thunder)
I looked 'round
And I knew there was no turning back (thunder)
My mind raced
And I thought, what could I do? (Thunder)
And I knew
There was no help, no help from you (thunder)
Sound of the drums
Beating in my heart
The thunder of guns
Tore me apart
You've been
Thunderhawk'd

Nice buck! Try the 250 gr Hornady SST’s

Very nice 😁

Those are a sweet old gun. The old man had one for a while, and I about wanted to whoop his azz when he traded it off. I had told him several times I'd buy it off him if he ever decided to get rid of it 🙄 Hard to find an inline that shoots round balls as well as those do.

I bought the first 'blued/walnut' Thunderhawk that made it's way to my burg.
It's been my favorite[most comfortable] gun to shoot since that day.
Wife has the SS/plastic version.

His was wood/blued. I bet he didn't put 10 rounds through it. I took it out and shot it a few times just to work up loads for him, since I had a lot more ML supplies than he did. It shot the Hornady .490 RB with the prelubed patches with Swiss 2F or 777 like a dream.

I got a CVA Wolf several years back just as the cheap/ easy button, since I don't shoot ML much anymore, but I would have preferred that Thunderhawk.

When I was still using my TC Omega a lot I used to use the TC Shockwaves. Almost lost two nice deer due to no blood trail. The think jacket disintegrated inside so no exit wound. Even without hitting major bone (just ribs). Switched to Barnes MZ solid copper and never had another issue. 250gr with the blue ballistic tips. 50 cal. Highly recommend.

Are they not expanding much therefore minimal internal damage?

Thunderhawks are very fine rifles!
Load it up with some 250 grain .45 caliber XTPs. I shoot them in Harvester crush rib sabots and 70 grains of 3f Swiss Holy Black. Chrono'd velocities are 1575 fps from my Firehawk.
This load has canceled the life subscription of 13 deer from 15 to 150 yards.
Those that moved after the hit left blood trails Stevie Wonder could follow. Most are drt. Those that move off are wobbling like a drunk. None has gone more than 60 yards.
The 300 .45 NON MAG XTP, same charge and 1500 fps, also makes a lovely batch of chest soup.

Thanks
I'll see about getting some

I've used 44 cal 240 gr hornady XTP's in my Encore for a long time with no complaints.

Very nice buck. I use to have the same gun. Sold it to my brother in law.

I hunted with a knight 45 caliber MZ for a few seasons. It was very accurate, but no matter what kind of bullet I tried, I got pitiful blood trails. I cussed that gun more times.... Edit, I misread. You are shooting a 50 caliber.