Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Barnes bullet... are you completely sold?

I have seen almost no blood out of deer I have shot with a lot of calibers. With lead core and mono bullets even with large broad heads. I shot one with a .223 with a 53 grain TSX at 3300, zero blood and zero hair at the place the deer stood. All I could find the next day in good light was a single drop a couple feet from where the deer fell. it made it a little better than 100 feet and when I gutted the deer the heart was loose in the chest. One shot with a 50 cal muzzle loader destroyed the top half of the heart completely and the remnant was loose in the chest. Blood for three jumps and then nothing for fifty yards to where the deer fell. Shot one with a .243 heart loose in the chest deer ran 50-80 feet and fell. Got up ran back to where it was hit and dropped dead. No blood except where it died. Shot one deer with a broad head with over 2 inches of cut by 4 blades. Deer went 50 yards without bleeding a drop. then after one drop it made it another 20 feet feet and died in an area that everything withing ten feet was red.

I have seen the same thing out of cup and core bullets for a long time as well.

I have seen caliber size holes in and out with both cup and core and monos. I have never seen a mono make just one hole, but I have seen that with cup and cores often enough and those deer are more often poor blood trails. Good entrance and exit holes do not guarantee good blood trails nor massive internal damage. Caliber in and caliber out holes do not prevent good blood trails. Excellent blood trails do not guarantee short runs and easy recovery. The last one I shot this year bled like someone walked along with a bucket full of blood with a dime size hole in the bottom. Made it 300 yards +. Shot one last year, double lung, bled so much that could I still run I could have followed it at a dead run. Made it just over a mile. What happens after the trigger breaks is out of my control and Bambi does what Bambi does. One out of about three deer I shoot drops where it stands when I use a rifle. With the bows it tends to be more like one out of six-eight.

I process all my deer myself and have done so for every single deer I have ever shot. So, I know what those wounds look like. I have yet to be able to discern anything about the wounds from deer that bled/didn't bleed well, deer that ran a long ways or dropped where they stood that were not CNS shots, or the raw quality of the allowing them to run far or not other than CNS shots. I have seen deer die from what I considered minor wounds and deer mange long runs with hellacious wounds. IMO it's best to prepare for a worst case situation when I start out to recover them. What may be different for me than for others is that I have only seen two deer I shot get up again after going down after the shot. No guess as to why. Both were bow kills, both were hit well. Both bled well.

What I make the hole in Bambi with does not seem to make a damn but of difference.

I just don't see the erratic part really. Even ones shot to far back. Buddy hit two this year for some reason in the liver area, both fell at the shot. TTSX.

High shoulder. Not the best for error, go middle of vitals to get the most room for error every time IMHO.

But lots love that high shoulder shot.

I've seen 3 this year walking with that shot a bit to high but healing. And at least 1 last year. Usually see 1-2 a year with that shot a bit to high.

Probably the problem is that some folks that try that shot don't know exactly where its supposed to go actually.

I just don't see the erratic part really. Even ones shot to far back. Buddy hit two this year for some reason in the liver area, both fell at the shot. TTSX.

High shoulder. Not the best for error, go middle of vitals to get the most room for error every time IMHO.

But lots love that high shoulder shot.

I've seen 3 this year walking with that shot a bit to high but healing. And at least 1 last year. Usually see 1-2 a year with that shot a bit to high.

Probably the problem is that some folks that try that shot don't know exactly where its supposed to go actually.

You expect and like deer to run by your own admission..
Deer have to be one of the easiest critters to kill. When when runs an appreciable distance with a cup and core bullet out of a high velocity rifle it's an oddity IMO. With monos more often than not they run.

Not in my experience, at least not with a MV of 2700 plus and a shoulder shot. DRT. Complete pass through..

Not in my experience, at least not with a MV of 2700 plus and a shoulder shot. DRT. Complete pass through..

Most every animal I have shot with a Nosler BT has a blood trail Ray Charles could follow..

Bullets are a trade off you can have massive damage and the resulting quick kills or you can have penetration
and a longer time to die..

I never used the Fail Safes, although I have read reports that they tended to kill pretty slow, which isnt supprising.

I used BTs in .270 Roy and .300 Roy and rarely got exits on bigger wild hogs, and not much blood to follow.



that doesnt explain the DRTs I had with the old FailSafes even at ranges out to +/- 400yds.

less frontal area compared to other expanding designs and not the disintegrating explosive effect of NP/BT.

...but down they went.

They ones that were not DRT, typically left a sufficient blood trail to follow.

One of those Echols customers, former forum member Allen Day said basicly what I typed above about the Failsafe
IIRC as has Barsness.