I was wondering how difficult it is to deflect a bullet fired from a modern high-powered rifle.
I shot a big bodied mulie buck at a range of about 50 yards. The buck was standing broadside and almost dead level with me facing my right. I spooked him in a meadow where he was bedded down. I had the rifle low ready, stepped around a tree, brought the rifle up, and touched off. The deer went straight down. The crosshair was about 3 or 4 inches above the elbow when the trigger broke. However, upon getting to the deer I discovered that the point of impact was much farther back and up than where the crosshair was when the trigger broke. The bullet entered the right side a couple inches in front of the diaphram and about 2/3 of the way up the chest. It then penetrated upwards (and remember, the deer is level with me), shatters the spine, and exits. The back portion of the lungs were severely damaged, though I figure this is more likely due to bone fragments from the splintering vertebrae.
I don't claim to be a skilled rifleman. I don't practice nearly as much as I would like--only about 100 rounds a year with this rifle. I know I can usually put 3 quick rounds into a hanging 8x12 inch steel plate at 100 yards. I felt confident in my ability to cleanly harvest this animal. The shot was well within even my skill level and I fully expected to see the enterence hole very close to where the crosshairs were when the trigger broke.
The only thing that I can think of that would cause such a variation in point of impact was a deflection or destabalization of the bullet. The deer was standing behind 3 or 4 feet of woody brush. From memory, the stems were between 1/4 and 1/2 an inch and the brush was fairly dense but not enough to completely obscure the vitals of the deer. Not knowing how easy it was to deflect a high velocity projectile, I felt the shot was safe. But since then I have been thinking a fair amount, and would like the opinions of some who have hunted and shot through brush as to how easy it would be to deflect the bullet to the this degree in these circumstances.
The load in question consisted of a 160 gr Nosler Accubond over a case full of RL22 in a Remington M700 BDL chambered in 7mm Remington Magnum. Most sources seem to indicate about 3000 fps from such a load, but I haven't chronoed them in my rifle. The barrel is from factory 24" with, IIRC, a 1 in 9 1/4 inch twist.
