Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Lets talk Whitetail Bullets............

what about the Texas heart shot ? sometimes things are not perfect in the real world .

it's called restraint, do you also ruffie chicks when you've hit a dry spell?

Is that a serious question? How about not taking a shot?

Best buck I ever saw only gave me that shot, and I passed. It was pre-LRF, he was far, and I was hunting with a 243win. Had he been closer though, I would have put that little Partition right under his butthole.........

Whitetails in the woods (which is the only place I've shot them, mostly) have bitten the dust by my hand with a bewildering variety of bullets, to include round balls from .40 to .69 caliber, .58 Miniè balls, cast lead bullets from 6.5 to .45 caliber, and more different jacketed bullets from .22 to .35 than I can begin to remember. Net score: whitetails, 0, me, all the enchiladas. The only jacketed bullet I never used was a FMJ because they're illegal everywhere I hunt, but I doubt that a well placed FMJ from a Garand or Springfield would fail to kill one PDQ. Like I said earlier, don't overthink this. Close your eyes and pick one, and spend more time honing your marksmanship and woodscraft skills.

This matches my practice and experience.

[quote=rickt300]If I buy factory ammo it is with the long run intention of using the brass so I buy Winchester ammo loaded with their Power Point bullets. Used many of them on deer and hogs with never a problem and it usually shoots just fine.

In my early years I was this way with Remington Corlokts. After I started working with magnums more often, I switched to Winchester. The only thing Remington I stuck to was for the 35 Whelen. It fireformed well in the 35 Ackley. I felt that Corlokts/PPs were about the same too.

"Texas heart shot" >last fall 2018 i had only one shot at a huge whitetail buck running away at 30 feet, in a tamarack swamp,i took the Texas heart shot and dang glad i did . using my Ruger #1 in a 257 Weatherby Mag with a Swift A-Frame 100 grain bullet very little damage to the hind quarters meat or any other place ,that old buck went right down. would i do it again ? only if i had too ,sometimes you just don`t get that perfect shot hunting in these thick-wet tamarack swamps.

The AC/DB point is pretty much what I aim for. I hit somewhere on the AC line depending on the actual range.

I sight in so I'm 2 inches high at 100 yards. That way I'm good to 230+ yards with my 30-06. Most of my shots are inside 155 yards. Most of the time, both lungs are destroyed and the top of the heart has been taken off.

Hornady Interlocks (American Whitetail factory rounds) have done the job for five consecutive whitetails now. I've dropped one doe on the spot, and the other doe and three bucks all went 10-30 yards with clean exits and nice bloodtrails. Ranges varied between 20 and 125 yards. I highly recommend them.

I'm trying Nosler Partitions this year since I'm hoping to tag a fat alpine blacktail with this gun in August, and wanted to try out the PTs. I can't imagine they'll kill a whitetail any better than the Hornady Interlocks though.

Cartridge?

Sorry, 25-06. Shooting 117gr Interlocks.

My G F has 5 Teddys. I like variety.


Jerry

TeddyFive06, You can't imagine that Partitions will kill a deer any better than an Interlock. Having shot dozens of deer with Nosler Partitions I can tell you that they won't or even as well if you like having a good blood trail. Oh I've never lost one, but too many times I was looking for traces of blood at last light or reading scuffed up leaves to tell me where my deer just ran off to. What happens or happened with my .300 WM, 7mm RM, 7mm-08 or .308 NP deer is that the front soft half of the Partition blows the insides into pulp and what goes out the back side is the back half of a folded tight to the shank remaining Partition. I never got what I wanted to see for a bigger diameter exit wound with a Partition. I should have learned from my first buck, a nice 200 pounder that took a double lung Partition. No snow and all I had to go by was how that cross hair looked perfect when that big .300 recoiled. No blood and kind of dejected I walked where I thought the buck had gone. Then what looked like a piece of brush about 80 yards up ahead turned out to be his right side antler. Contrast that to another 210 pounder that took an Interlock to the chest from my .308 and I had blood spatter on the trees and an immediate blood trail for 50 yards and a $.50 cent piece size exit. That is what I want. Reconsider the Partition if you want a good blood trail.

I don't! Maybe I wasn't clear on that. If all I ever shoot with this 25-06 Tikka is whitetail, I'd happily keep feeding it Hornady American Whitetail cartridges with the Interlock. The only reason I'm trying the Nosler PTs this year is because I'm taking this rifle to Prince of Wales. Last year's Sitka buck had a nice layer of August fat and was shot at twice the range of my normal Texas whitetails (with a 7mm-08), so I want to see how the Partition handles a thicker target at longer range.

I've had your same experience with Interlocks...quarter size or bigger exit wounds, excellent (and short) blood trails. I'll be shooting Nosler PTs this season but if I get poor performance on whitetails I'll switch back.

GOOD POINT!
many guys don,t grasp the concept that the projectile design, jacket thickness and just diameter and mass,
has a very pronounced effect on the results, you'll see.
lots of the guys I hunted with used the premium bullets, they would quote chapter and verse on the need for deep penetration,
but over time I realized the guys demanding the deeper penetration were generally using
rifles providing over about 2800 fps, and less than 30 caliber rifles and less than 150 grain projectiles,
the, the guys using the 308 win, and 30/06 and larger caliber rifles with the 165-200 grain bullets rarely had issues with lack of penetration,
or complained about game running off and longer tracking jobs ??
and no one I ever talked to using a 200-400 grain 338-45 caliber rifle seemed at all concerned.
while it was true the guys with the guys using the 308 win, and 30/06 and larger caliber rifles with the 165-200 grain bullets,
and those 338, 358, 375 and 45 caliber rifles, might not have the flattest trajectory on those ballistic charts,
but over time it dawned on many guys they tended to shoot game at under 250 yards where that more curved trajectory was not a major concern.






notice that either choice if youll seldom get any shot even close to 250 yards has zero issues with flat trajectory
heres my flat shooting 340 wby I used for decades


heres my late hunting partners 358 win