Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles What is bullet failure?????

I hear the term thrown around slot, what exactly is bullet failure, and why? Thanks

Anytime you shoot a game animal and it doesn't drop over dead instantly (regardless of bullet placement), while simultaneously utterly destroying vitals w/o damaging a scrap of edible meat AND achieve two holes with a blood trail that looks like a red spray paint can was shot you have bullet failure.

It's never happened to me, but I've read about it on the internet.

David

When a “Hunter” goofs up a shot and wounds an animal and doesn’t want others to think he’s a bad shot.
It’s an excuse.

David, this whole internet thing is confusing... grin

This is why I’m asking... he tastes amazing... 1 and done


According to a couple members, this is a “failure “ that’s why I ask.... what constitutes a “failure”????

Ok. Not bullet failure. Just using a crap bullet on something other than varmints

Ken, what’s wrong with the bullet?

The only time I've experienced what I believe might could've been considered "bullet failure" was a factory Federal 30/30, 150 grain Silvertip that just 'penciled' through a deer.
The deer showed none of the usual characteristics of getting hit and just ran more like spooked by the sound of the gunshot.

It made it a good ways before falling dead, head downhill, in a soybean field. Bullet struck high on the left shoulder, passed through side of heart, through one lung, the liver, and exited just past the off side rib cage. No sign of expansion or fragmentation. Entrance and exit holes both looked as if it could've been shot with a practice target point arrow.

I've experienced what I think could legitimately be called bullet failure, though not often.

A case in point was two 35 gn V-max bullets, driven at about 3000 fps from a .22 Hornet. One blew up on the near-shoulder of a fox, without penetrating. Another blew up on the wing feathers of a crow, again without penetrating through the wing to the bird's chest. They were fairly close range shots, and the placement should have seen clean kills, but neither animal was killed by these bullets (both were dropped with another rifle). I think that it is fair to expect better than that. I've killed numerous foxes and crows (and other stuff, even pigs) with the Hornet with other bullets without the same issue.

On the other hand, I was equally disappointed with a lot of Woodleigh PPs on pigs - they drilled through without seeming to expand at all. I don't know whether you'd call that "failure", but they didn't do the job I expected of them. They did fine on buffalo though.

Federal doesn't make the silvertip, Winchester does.

well depends....Are you talking about objective or subjective aspects of bullet failure????????????... grin:

I consider it bullet failure when the bullet fails to perform in the manner expected given the design of the bullet, speed, range, and tissue/bone hit. I've had three times I'd consider the results bullet failure because the bullet didn't perform in accordance to it's design (or my intended implementation of it's design). All 3 times ended up with dead animals though. Just my simple definition of it and it's very subjective......I ain't webster's....

Call Sierra and ask them.....

According a friend I had a bullet failure Sunday. I shot a doe with a 300gr Barnes Original from my muzzleloader and had to track her. The bullet broke 3 ribs going in and center punched the off side shoulder on exit. She ran around 75-80yds with a massive blood trail, I've actually never seen anything like it. The exit hole in the hide was caliber size so "you didn't get no expansion" and since she ran "it didn't dump any energy".


I knew the bullet had performed excellent and when I skinned her out the lungs were destroyed and the off shoulder had a hole through it you could drop a golf ball through.


I got the "uhhh, errr, uhhh, I wonder why she ran so far?"


Some people don't know what a bullet is supposed to do and a lot of people don't process their own deer so they really don't have a clue what they're talking about.

I do not think there is a set definition per se. I do believe it's a very subjective matter in which the definition of same varies from person to person.

I think JCMCUBIC pretty much nailed it. I have had 6 times that I can remember where the bullet failed to accomplish what the design was intended - 3 times with a partition on the same deer. POA/POI was the point of the shoulder and the bullet penciled through but broke the deer's back. Caliber sized entrance and exit. Shot # 2 was through the neck at 75 yards - caliber-sized entrance and exit. Shot # 3 was through the ribs, breaking one on entrance and on exit with caliber-sized entrance and exit wounds. Ended up having to cut the deer's throat. All with a 25-06. Initial shot was 150 yards.
The other three were with Barnes bullets.
The original bullet out of the same 25-06. Through the shoulder on entrance and exit with caliber-size entrance and exit on a whitetail at 100 yards. Next two times with a 7mm-08 and the TTSX bullets penciling through the shoulder on a 125 yard and 175 yard shot on two different deer. All three deer were found the next day.

Doesn't condemn either bullet, just for some reason, they didn't do what they were designed to do. I still use the Partitions in a couple of rifles.

I’ll lean the other way as failure, not opening. Shooting a .338 215 Sierra into wet and dry media and having a resulting .338 hole through some wet and over 2’ of dry media. Shot another, same thing. I dug a few feet into the soil and still couldn’t find them. If that won’t get a bullet to open I’m thinking a Whitetail won’t either. Or at least I’m not willing to find out.

I've had 2 that I could say were failures. Strangely enough were 150 grain out of 30 06s. Hornady spire points. Not a hot load at all and both (what I call) splashed on the side of a deer. Both deer were recovered so some would say there wasn't a failure. This was about 10 years apart and different boxes of bullets. I went to other brands after the 2nd one.

A large percentage of bullet failure has more to do with the shooter than the projectile.
Experience, and, of course, reading the innernet, indicates that there is no shortage of shooters:
using inappropriate calibers and projectiles...some too small, some too large,
attempting shots that are low percentage,
using equipment with which that they haven't developed confidence, familiarity, or ability.

Humans have no limit in their of ability to justify poor judgement.

Bullet failure to me is when a bullet hit an animal in what should be a fatal location.blows up at entry,fails to penetrate as it should and the animal would have not been recovered if a second fatal shot had not killed the animal.