Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting what do you think happened?

not all hits are instantly or near instantly fatal and since you don,t really know where the bullet impacted the best you can do is try to follow up in the morning, use of a good hunting dog a buddy might own ,might be useful to follow the blood trail if it exists.
the reaction sounds like a high spine creasing shot that might only have cut shoulder muscle, if so the deer should recover, but without facts you can,t be sure.
one of my friends fathers hunts elk with a 257 Roberts, and in his hands its a deadly rifle, but I know he would have placed the bullet a bit differently or passed on a quartering too you angle even though hes a very good shoot and has used 100 grain speer bullets for decades on elk.
shots that you can reliably pull off on deer with something like a 200 grain speer in a 30/06 , or a 250 grain in a 35 whelen,are not easily accomplished with a 24-25 caliber projectile that might weight 1/2 or 2/5ths as much.
it helps if you visualize a soft ball size target located between the shoulders, but located just lower than mid chest.



look at the two thin red and green lines pictured above , neithers ideal, both enter about where a typical broad side shot should

the thicker blue and purple impact points would be more effective shots