I surely do appreciate an instant, or near-instant kill. Bang. "There's the deer."
My son and I got real used to that happening. Not always, but usually. He had the funniest look on his face a few years back when he chest shot a young whitetail buck at about 30 feet, with his 30-06 and a 165 gr Nosler Partition. The buck showed no indication of a hit and simply ran. He was shocked and thought he'd missed somehow.
Nope - I smiled - said "wait" and then we went and followed a very good blood trail maybe 25 yards in the snow. And had to pull the very dead buck out of an icy creek. Yee haw! That's one of the few that didn't drop instantly, or nearly instantly.
Couple of years back, I made a poor hit on a big muley with my 25-06. He stopped, then lay down, but kept his head up. I couldn't get another shot. Eventually he got to his feet and left! Did some tracking on that one. I'd just hit him too far back. Damn. Hate that. Good buck I'd hunted for three days. Glad to have found him!
I used to think that really fast expanding bullets and higher velocities resulted in more instant kills, but I'm not so sure anymore. Have seen the instant & near-instant death from low-velocity 50 cal soft-lead bullet from my traditional muzzle loader as well as from fast-stepping cartridges like the 6mm Rem & 25-06, anymore... I dunno.
Regards, Guy
