Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Hydrostatic shock/knock down power/kinetic energy issue-how did this happen?!?!?

So I have a question for all the experts here, explain to me how this can happen.

Just got back from my Idaho whitetail hunt and first time harvesting big game with anything smaller than .30 cal.

I shot this buck at 190 yds shooting factory federal premiums with 140 grn accubonds. He was quartering away (more than I realized at the time). Bang flop rolls down the hill doesn’t get up, doesn’t even kick. Some time passes, I keep glassing looking for the other buck I had spotted seeing as I had two tags. I can’t find buck #2 so I go around and down to I meet up with my partner and we go up to get him together. On our way up he picks his head up with fire in his eyes when we’re less than 10yds. He has a look like he’s gonna blow out of his bed. I give him one more through the neck. Done deal. I lift his head up and find the wound pictured. I could almost put my fist in it. At this point I’m puzzled as to how he was still alive at all.



Upon the necropsy I find the bullet entered by just clipping the near side ham, just clipping the first muscle over the sirloin. Hits the abdominal wall and rips it wide open under the hide. As the bullet continues it never ruptured the gut sack or anything below the diaphragm. Continues north and I could not find any damage to the liver heart and lungs not even a bruise. The only bone it broke was a couple ribs as it exited. How is this possible? Could the hydrostatic shock have pushed everything out of the way as it ripped through the abdominal wall? What gives?

-THEN-

I shoot my second buck, full frontal, at 125yds hit him “perfect” just a touch below the wind pipe. He whirls and takes off. I go down to look for him after 15+ min and blow him out of his bed, rifle up, boom, tea kettle him. I opted for the gutless method on this one. The bullet skimmed across the meat of the inner thigh and lodged under the hide of his right ham 2” below and 1” over from his anus.

How the Sam hell did this happen on these two bucks?!?! Why did these deer need more than one round?


Oh and what was the cartridge you may ask... 7mm-08

I'm no expert, but I don't think even an expert could figure this out without being on the scene. Strange things happen. You just had two strange happenings back-to-back. Be happy you got to fill two tags!

A bit hard to follow where the first bullet went.... except you say "quartering more than you realized." How much that means is anyone's guess. Cannot know if the exit wound is on the near side or far... and body position can change awfully fast.

But it has been well-documented for a very long time (Viet Nam era and before) that small fast bullets do indeed create a wave in front of the bullet which moves stuff out of the way and allows for minimal organ damage.

Critters die from blood loss if CNS is not whacked. And even if CNS is damaged they still need the rest of their stuff to run out of oxygen to actually "die."

The description on the second is impossible to follow.

An old timer used to tell me that when it comes to hunting, "Anything can happen, and it will".

The picture on the buck shows the exit wound on the far shoulder. Entered in front of the near side ham, exited at the point of the far shoulder. My though was The shock wave disrupted enough of the CNS paralyze him at least from the hips back. Still can figure out how I didn’t hit a vital organ. At a minimum how the lungs weren’t completely collapsed with a hole like that is beyond me.

Second buck was head on directly facing me. Shot him just below the wind pipe traveled directly (north to south) through the chest and abdominal cavities, between the hams and bullet was located just under the hide 2” below the anus and just off of center. My thoughts on that was it traveled between the lungs, over the heart, through the diaphragm, liver and stomach. Then continued between the hams and stopped under the hide. No idea how I didn’t hit anything more vital.

Velocity at impact would have been about 2500fps with 1950 lb/KE and 2600fps with 2150 lb/KE respectfully. Maybe something besides an accubond that fragmented a little more would have done a better job???

Bullets can do some unexpected things sometimes. Some years ago I shot a buck quartering toward me at about 100 yds. I was using a 270 with a 150gr Silvertip. I put it right on the point of his shoulder. It didn't break the bone. It slid sideways under the hide but outside the ribs to the end of the ribcage before it entered. It didn't rupture the stomach but it hit something vital in there. He ran about 200 yds then folded in mid-stride like he'd been pole axed. It was a good thing I could see him running the whole distance because I'd have never found him otherwise. The ground was hard with dry grass and he left almost no tracks at all.

I don't know what happened. Obviously something.

I would switch to the Nosler 150 BTip in that rifle and forget about the rest.

Whitetails ( and probably most any animal) sometimes refuse to die. Many years ago, my uncle shot a little Whitetail buck, broadside through the lower chest. Followed a blood trail of “foamy” blood with “chunks” of heart and lung, for over 400 yards. Deer ran into a very small pond, where his run ended. Clearly, he shouldn’t have gone that far. memtb

Bucks Bulls Boars,

Expanding lead-cored bullets do most of their damage right around the entrance wound, because they normally expand within their own length after penetrating the skin. This is partly because they lose some core in the first few inches, which flies off in small chunks, and partly because of the "shock wave" caused by cavitation--the formation of gas bubbles in a liquid caused by the expanded bullet.

After those first few inches the wound channel narrows considerably, because velocity drops considerably. Shrapnel quits flying off the bullet, and cavitation ceases. That's what happened by the time the bullet passed through the abdominal cavity, and the probably reason you didn't see much if any damage to the lungs and other chest organs.

It looks like the reason for the big exit wound is the bullet hit the shoulder bone, and the shattered bone made the hole. Unfortunately, bone is not a vital organ.

As for the second deer, it's also pretty common for a bullet not to do much damage to the lungs on facing shots, because unlike broadside shots the bullet doesn't go through both lungs. This is why a lot of hunters like to shoot at the dimple at the base of the neck, not "a touch below the windpipe." This higher placement usually hits the spine, dropping the animal right there.

Mule Deer:

Thank you for your response. That was more or less my hypothesis but I assumed there might have been some tumbling involved in my first buck. The shoulder nearest the exit was actually perfect though. No broken bones bruising or bloodshot.


Here’s a pic of my second buck. (I might win the dinkasaurus award though) I’ve circled the entrance wound, where the bullet was recovered and an approximate bullet path for my lack of written articulation. If you look closely you can see the inconsistancies in the hair pattern of the exact entrance and recovery points. Although obviously not ideal (given my experience) I would have thought it would have still been effective. Maybe I expect too much from the 7mm-08 after stepping down from my ‘06 shooting 180 partitions at 2850fps for the last 20 years????

Quartering targets can cause problems with bullets skimming the edges for lack of better term. If you know the are quartering you can aim a little farther back to penetrate the vitals.
I once killed a buck at 435 lazered yards. I though he was slightly quartering away. I shot for a behind the shoulder shot. At the shot the deer ran head down straight off of a cliff into a ditch. The bullet " 140 partition out of a 7mag" made a very loud smack. I found the deer dead about 20 yds from where I shot it as it fell a long ways into the ditch. There was a circle about 10feet around the deer of blood. Upon gutting the buck I found no internal trauma to organs no holes thru the rib cage. Turns out he was quartering farther than I thought and the bullet had smacked the shoulder and traveled forward along the rib cage and thru the neck cutting the juglar vein and exiting the other side. Luckily his head was down or it might not of hit anything lethal. He was very dead but it was luck that I hit the juglar. Hence my apprehension for long shots on game. Things arent always what they seem at 1/4 mile away and the game can move a litlle in the time it takes for the bullet to get there. I know yours werent long range but I think maybe both of your bullets skimmed the edges of the vitals even thought the penetrated the internals. And like Mule Deer said the bullet did its most damage on entrance. I doubt a bigger caliber would of made much difference. Just a unlucky day. Nice Bucks by the way.

It's not your 7-08....

Cavitation is not the cause, but rather the result of the shock wave created by the bullet. The bubbles are produced when very low pressure is created behind the bullet. Those bubbles do little in the realm of damage as they almost immediately collapse. And actually those bubbles probably have virtually no gas in them, but are rather empty pockets created in the viscous tissues being expanded by the shock front moving away.

Too much velocity and not enough bullet. Get a 45-70 and shoot a 480 grain flatnosed hardcast bullet at 1250 fps and you will live happily ever after. Deer, elk, moose, bison, and most of what is in Africa. Hit them like you hit those two deer, and they are down and done. BTDT.

Bullets do strange things some times. I think you just experienced that twice in a row. The 7mm-08 is a proven deer killer. So it's not that. Just two interesting circumstances in a row. Nice bucks, congrats!

-Jake

I agree with sharps guy..

I think big ang slow is the way 2 go.

If you can.

MD I believe is talking about hydrodynamic 'inertial cavitation'...where a rapid pressure change causes voids to form in a fluid(vaporisation),
and upon those gaseous voids imploding, a shock wave is then created.

Three phenomena are noted upon bullet impact:

1. sonic wave
2. permanent cavitation
3. temporary cavitation.

Two types of pressure wave are produced by a penetrating bullet:

1. Sonic pressure wave, which proceeds the path of the bullet and causes no significant physical damage.
2. Secondary pressure wave, responsible for the temporary wound cavity created behind the bullets path.
(adjacent to the permament wound channel)

Projectiles and the secondary pressure wave both create tissue damage.

I had similar results on a couple of quartering shots with 160 grain accubonds out of a 7mm Remington where the deer dropped and then ran with what seemed like gruesome wounds that should have anchored smallish mule deer. The experience had me switch to Nosler Ballistic Tip and later Barnes TTSX. Even with those I’ve seen strange results on occasion.

I'd be more concerned with shot placement than what the bullet was doing.

Just because you googled it does not mean you understood it...