Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Barnes 30-06 bullet penetrates only 8 inches on deer

My grandson killed a fork horn blacktail on the last day of late rifle season, a 30 yard shot with a 30-06. He was using blue tipped factory Barnes bullets and I'm not sure of the weight. His Dad told me that the bullet hit the buck's shoulder and only penetrated 8 inches or less. What??!!

With a grin in his voice, my son added, “The bullet went through a tree before hitting the deer.”

Saw something like that once on a big bushbuck my wife shot in South Africa with a 150-grain Nosler E-Tip from a .308 Winchester. The bushbuck (about the body size of a young whitetail buck) was in a thicket, and even through the scope Eileen couldn't totally separate bushbuck from surrounding vegetation. When she shot the bushbuck dropped right there and never moved--but the entrance wound was about an inch wide. The bullet had clipped a the a leaf of a big prickly pear cactus, so was "pre-expanded" when it hit the bushbuck. The entrance hole was an inch wide, and the bullet was recovered a foot or so into the chest.

Barnes Bad Boy Bullets

Didn't someone say they way over penetrate. LOL

I was gonna ask what number his deer was in line.

Figured someone would be along with an over penetrate joke.

My buddy always ribs me and calls them "armor piercers"

Saw the "only 8 inches" and figured there was more to the story.


how many inches of tree did it pass through, and what kind of tree was it?

Years ago I bet Big Brother a 160g Grand Slam from my 7mm RM would pass through the trunk of a 1 foot wide pine. He bet it wouldn't. He lost. Don't think I would have made that bet if the tree was an oak.

Damn no good under powered 30-06 😊

My moose from three years ago was locked up with another bull at extremely short range. Willows were so tall I had to try to sneak a bullet through the brush a bit.

At the shot the bull stood straight up on his hind legs and came over backward. Another through the ribs was given.

The bullet made three entrance and exit woods through the shoulder, above the spine. 168gr TTSX, 30-06.

Big difference between green wood and standing dry... on a wet oak I would bet on a pass-through.

Damned trees! good reason to live north of the Arctic circle- then you still have to watch out for the bastids in places!

On the other hand, try not to punch a caribou at 40 yards with a .30-06 150 gr. Superperformance at about 3100fps.

Twice. She just stood there at the first one...

It ain't my fault! Much...

https://imgur.com/HK2Rcfy

Pardon me for not answering your query, but in my senility I didn't notice it till now, the day after deer season.

The tree was a live fir, looked 7 or 8 inches diameter in the pics they showed me, and the bullet caught an inch and a half in from the edge so went through about six inches of sap wood. What impressed me was that the bullet kept going straight and hit the buck where intended. It made a huge blaze on the tree with all of the wood from bark to bullet path blown away with a straight line streak of bullet path showing all the way. It made a large oval entry wound on the buck.

I did about the same on a 10 inch fir years ago with a 165 grain Sierra soft point boat tail on a bull elk, but that bullet was not up to the task. The elk flinched either from splinters or as the spent bullet thumped him, but he was not injured enough to leave cut hair nor a speck of blood.

Art, good shooting!

Rather be lucky...

I shot a mature whitetail buck last year with a 35 Whelen and a 200 grain Accubond ,it broke the onside shoulder went out through the opposite ribs and then went completely through a 3" green beach tree!

My second deer I shot with a 30/06 150 gr Remington Core- LoKt. It was about a 30 or 40 yard shot from a tree I climbed. The bullet tumbled and left a wide wound just clipping the spine. Of course I was aiming for the shoulder and couldn't figure out what happened for the bullet to hit that high and hit sideways.

I walked back to the tree I was in and noticed there was a sapling, 10 yds from the tree that was freshly snapped in two and hanging by bark. The bullet went through the sapling and hit that old buck. That bullet was in God's hands after hitting that sapling, that's for sure.

Dan

Several years we were hunting and one of our guys shot a doe. It pretty much dropped on the spot and when we got to it, it had 2 entrance wounds. Looking around I saw a sapling bent over with what looked like a bullet hole in it. We figured that the vertical crosshair covered the sapling so he never saw it. The bullet was a Nosler Ballistic Tip from a 30-06.

Projectiles do strange things when they hit stuff early. Killed two called Turkey's at once years ago when an unnoticed sapling sent a lone pellet about 30 degrees left and 30 yards into an untargetted gobbler forehead. The intended bird flopped for a long time. The casual victim just died!

I have had deer and small saplings drop simultaneously. Shot from a hide at a baboon and missed wtf? Shot twice more and hit him on the run at about 200. My PH said look at the blind, it was smoking. I just told him the first two shots were to open up a shooting port.