Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting What bullets from which cartridges have you stopped in a deer?

A couple of years ago, I had a fat SC doe quartering towards me at about 85 yards stop a 6.5 mm 130 gr. Accubond out of my Tikka 6.5x55 and this year a small buck a touch over 200 yards stopped a 7 mm Sierra 140 gr. Pro-Hunter (flat base) out of my Sako Bavarian 7mm - 08.

Thinking back, the first bullet that I had stop in a deer was a 150 gr. Silvertip out of my dad's 30-30 WCF back in 1975, it stopped after busting up the near side shoulder and traveling back into the guts past the diaphragm, we found it in the gut pile.

Over the years that followed, I learned that 130 gr. Sierras out of a 270 WCF at less than 100 yards into a shoulder made a mess and lots of bullet fragments, same results with early NBT's out of a 270 WCF, 7mm Rem. Mag, 308 and 30-06. A Blacktail buck stopped a 200 gr. Speer Spitzer pushed hard out of my 338 Win. Mag. and the result was a lot of venison that was wasted.

For 40 plus hunting seasons I try to get the bullet behind the shoulder and usually get exits on deer, not every bullet goes exactly where you want it to go and they don't always perform as advertised .


YMMV


StarchedCover

One Remington Corelokt, one Federal Fusion.

Core-lokt was a 150gr shot into a big 227# dressed weight MN buck at 20 feet. He ran 80-100 yds. Shot 1/4'ing towards me in front of the passenger side shoulder. Never found the bullet.

Federal Fusions was a 140gr from a .280 Rem shot into 160# buck at 30 yds. He dropped on the spot. Shot 1/4'ing away behind the drivers side shoulder. Bullet traveled the spine and I found it up the neck when skinning.

It's happened a few times over the years. The most recent was a 55gr Hornady from a 223. It smacked into the offside shoulder, cracked it without breaking it, and blew into bitty pieces. The range was about 50'.

I shot four whitetail does in the shoulders per request of the landowner due to tall grass in the brush with a 165gr Hornady SP from a 300WSM mv 3030fps.All where around a 100-150yds.Shoulders where severely bloodshot,no bullets exited.

This has been a real eye opener so far. I'd heard that 150 soft points out of a .308 or .30-06 stopped a lot of times in a deer and my own reason for going for the 165's and round nose 180's in those, but frankly I'm pretty surprised at the Accubond examples and the .35 Whelen, .338 and .375HH examples that I've read about so far. Not so much where I hunt now, but in lots of places in the Midwest, guys will give up on a deer trail where there isn't a good blood trail from an exit wound and with so many other guys in the woods, your deer will turn into their deer if you don't find it right away.

Only 1. It was a .530 round ball pushed by 90 grains of FFg.

Shot was at a doe, 90-100 yards, slightly angling on. Hit front right shoulder, ball found under the hide on left rear quarter.

7-08 140 gr. Win power point at 80yds went thru one doe and found under skin off side of second doe I didn't see behind it. Blood trail leading away from fist doe has us confused until we found the second one 50yds away from the first one. Second doe was very small.

Only once. Broadside shot, behind the shoulder, 7mm-08 150gr Sierra. Bullet shed core on impact and turned almost 90 degrees and hit the inside of the opposite ham but did not penetrate. Long track. Haven't shot anything with a Sierra except paper since then. Never had a Nosler or Hornady stay in a deer.

I have had a few with a Muzzleloader, shotgun and rifle.
I two that would really surprise you.
First one, I shot a decent buck with a 12 gauge Brenneke slug behind the shoulder which knocked him down. He decided that he would try to get up I hit him with another in the back of his skull. When I got down out the tree and walked around 20 yards from the tree to the deer I thought I was going to see something horrific. I was very surprised when neither had exited the deer. The one behind the shoulder wasn’t even lodged in the hide on the off side. The shot to the back of the head didn’t exit either. The deer literally bit the bullet. He caught the bullet with his molars. I wouldn’t of believed it if I would not of seen it.
The other was on a small yearling doe. It was quartering away so I was aiming for it’s leg on the opposite side which put the shot about the 4th rib back and the bullet rested right behind the shoulder where I was hoping it would go. Remember I said this was a small yearling doe. I was using a .54 caliber Hawken with 120 grains of Goex FFFg charge of powder and a 425 grain Great Plains bullet. Would of expected an exit and no exit.

I have never experienced an exit.

2 that I remember. 150 gr Nos. Part. in off shoulder with broadside base of neck shot at about 40 yds, 280 rem. and a 180 gr Hornady interlock straight on neck shot at about 50 yds with an 30-06. Both dropped at the shot.

150 gr NBT , 165 gr SGK from 30/06 are what I can remember.

Just this past November my buddies 6.5 Creedmore got its first deer about 80-100 yds. away uphill from him. bullet broke a front leg off at the shoulder joint and left it hanging by skin. Then went through the sternum bone and apparently bounced around the interior of the deer and never exited but did massive damage. He was worried he may not have room in his freezer for it so offered me half the meat if I gutted it for him. So I gutted it in a foot and a half of snow and also searched for the bullet ( 140 gr, factory load, forgot what brand), but never found it or any exit holes. Probably got left in the gut pile somewhere.

80 grain Speer in 243 @ 20 yards. Perfect mushroom
117 Pro Hunter in 25-06 @ 8 yards.
(3) 120 grain BT in 7mm-08 @ 110/ 227/329 (range confirmed)

Dead deer all within 10 yards of being hit. Thinking about switching away from the 120 but seems more folks are trapping bullets than I thought.

300 Weatherby 180 SBT Gameking quartering to shot in the shoulder bullet in the offside ham under the skin. Deer took 3 steps and laid down.
35 Whelen 225 Sierra SBT Gameking. Shot in the Chest base of the neck. Bullet in one of the hams. Buck ran 70 yards went through 2 fences and crossed a creek.
30-06 165 Gn Corelokt this year. Straight through the shoulders. Under skin in off shoulder. Deer dropped then started getting up. When I was just about to shoot again it jumped 15 feet and hit an oak tree with its head and dropped.
243 100 gn Federal power shok,Core Lokt, and Win.Power Points. Probably 1/2 the bullets that I put in the 30 to 35 deer I killed with it stayed in the deer.

3 for me.

.308, 130 gn Hdy SP on a shallow quartering away angle at ~165 yds on a 163 lb buck. Second shot. First one passed through the vitals and, as it turned out, had done the job, but the buck stumbled, turned away and started walking toward a thicket, so I kept shooting and he fell over on the second shot. Perfect magazine ad mushroom against the hide on the opposite side shoulder.

.243, 85 gn Sierra HPBT on a frontal shot at ~40 yds on a 154 lb buck. Recovered the empty back half of the jacket in the ribs. Buck somersaulted backward, rolled up and went 10 yds in a circle.

.280 AI, 120 gn Nos BT on a high shoulder broadside shot at ~130 yds on a 120 lb buck. Bullet hit the spine, took out a section a few inches long and went to bits. Found multiple tiny pieces of jacket and core in with the bone fragments. Buck dropped so fast in some high broom sage, for a moment I couldn't figure out what had happened.

Shot 4 deer with a 22-250 when I was a kid. Only varmint type bullets used. None exited and one got away so obviously can't say on that one.

180g power point from a 30-06 into the back of the head of a whitetail buck as it ran away from me at ~15 feet. The bullet was found sticking out of his eye socket.

Berger 140g VLD from a .264 WM at 250 yards. Broadside.

Whitetail buck with a 120g Nosler BT from a .284 Win at 35 yards. Found under the skin on the off side.

All I can remember.

I've been charting these and near as I can tell so far the Nosler Ballistic Tip is leading the list with 8. Of the more common ones listed the list goes like this:
NBT 8
Power Point 7
Inter-Lokt 7
Pro-Hunter 7
Accubond 6
Core-Lokt 5
Speer 5
Nosler Partition 3
SST 2
TTSX 2
TSX 1

The whole reason for the topic is to help find one that does exit, leaves a good blood trail and kills a deer quickly. The surprise thus far is that guys have stopped that many Accubond bullets and that Partitions have stopped at all and more than an SST. Bald hunter really skewed that Inter-Lokt number with 4 all by himself with a .300 WSM.

Not counting head-on or hard quartering shots, the only bullets I can remember catching on broadside shots have been the 110gr .257 Nosler Accubond at 3,100, the 95gr 6mm Ballistic Tip at 3,000, old-school 150gr .30cal Ballistic Tips at 3,350 (too fast), and the 145gr 7mm Speer BT at 2,700. Everything else has given some kind of exit on deer. The latter two bullets mentioned above killed really well even when they didn't exit. Usually DRT. Not the case with the .257 and 6mm stuff.

Only one that I can think of........... .277 Hornady 140 gr Sp. The deer was about 290-300 yards when I shot him. found the bullet in the front of the ham as he was facing me. Picturebook mushroom.