I’ve never seen a deer “run” with both shoulders broken more than a few feet… and that just hindquarters-driven plowing ahead. Are you losing deer or just having to find them? If, up to recently, they’ve been dropping in their tracks and now they’re not it says to me you’ve been breaking shoulders or spine and now you’re not. Have you been examining the bullet path after gutting and skinning them? As someone mentioned above, often well-hit deer don’t leave much blood trail, there are a lot of factors involved in whether or not you get a good blood trail.
The boys have always had deer run after being shot with 243 very few dropped in their tracks.
We have both been losing deer and having trouble finding deer. Last year my youngest shot a big mule headed doe at about 140 yards. I was watching through my 10x Swaros and seen the bullet her. The doe ran 100-120 yards and we never found a drop of blood. The bullet hit just behind the shoulder slightly below center of her chest.
How far behind the shoulder? Get much over 3" and you're getting into liver only territory. Straight up the leg bottom 1/3 centers the lungs much better.
When I shoot for heart/lung I try for that. If they are behaving and under 100 give me a high forward shoulder/neck shot for instant kills.
Literally almost touching the shoulder (1/2 to one inch) behind the shoulder.
If they were blowing legs off, gut shooting or shooting them in the azz it’s not the bullets fault.
I can’t figure it out why the poor performance unless it’s simply bad luck. Nosler nots going to put thousands of partition seconds out that are no good. Can you imagine hundreds of unhappy people posting on the net.
I would expect better blood trails from a 22 WMR than what we have been getting.
That sounds like a lung hit and no big bones or spine broken. I would expect that deer to run 100 yards or so. That high I wouldn’t expect much blood trail with anything.
Yup. OTOH, I shot a doe through the heart with a 100gr Sierra Pro Hunter that simply shredded it and the other stuff, didn’t exit, and left little bullet bits scattered in the chest. She went maybe 100 feet, leaking blood the whole way. That won’t, can’t happen really, with a hit higher up, exit or no, except maybe for some spray on the offside, unless the exit hole is pretty large IME. That PH really crushed that doe, but I’m glad she was broadside. The last one I shot with a .270, in 2011, was with a 130gr Interlok, and it was half-way up, knocked hair off the far side of the chest but didn’t exit, and that buck left not a single drop of blood on the ground. Until I found the hair, I was convinced I’d missed.
