Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 6.5 vs 30 cal blood trails?

Jerry, where I hunt you don’t often get the chance to ponder shot placement, as usually the deer are walking, sometimes at a good clip (I don’t take running shots). Usually they’re pretty close, but still the safest shot is tight on the shoulder no more than 1/3 of the way up. The shots you mention are just not offered with enough time (for me) to pull off with certainty. Even with heart and lungs shattered, deer can go a ways, and in heavy cover I need all the blood trail I can get. With two holes, you’ll get blood and hair at or near where the deer was standing at the shot which helps evaluate the hit, and you also get blood on trees and leaves, spray if you’re lucky. Blood drops on the ground can be hard to see on the forest floor with all the other colors, but red on grass, low branches, and tree trunks is easy.

I’ve told this before, but ten years ago in a pouring rain, I hit a buck with a .270 at about 40 yards, halfway up his chest. He swapped ends and ran off. There wasn’t a drop of blood anywhere. I went back to my spot, hoping for another opportunity, convinced I’d missed. A couple hours later, my son came through on his way out, and we look again at the spot the deer was standing at. Maybe twenty feet back, I found a clump of hair on the ground. Knowing I had made a hit, I took up the trail in the leaves. No blood, just disturbed leaves. After more than 100 yards, I saw him lying in about a foot and a half of water in a pool formed in the gully by all the runoff. When I opened him up, his lungs were mush, but the bullet, a 130gr IL, hadn’t made it through. All the blood had collected in the chest below the entrance wound. Now I try very hard to hit them well below the curve of the chest so the blood starts leaking quickly, and hopefully the heart gets hit too, or sometimes even cut free. I also use bullets that make two holes reliably.