Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Elmer Keith 600-yard mule deer

I've heard all my life about bullets just bouncing off of deer, bullets blowing up on a shoulder, etc, etc. I don't believe a word of it. I realize todays bullets are better than yesterday, but I've personally shot old Remington core lokts right through 1/2 mild steel plate at an angle, out of a 308. So, when people tell me about bullets bouncing off deer, I tell them to blow that smoke up somebody else's asz.

Buddy of mine shot a mule deer buck at a distance of about 150 yards, he was shooting a 270 weatherby with 130 grain sierras. Bullet penetration was 2” at most. Large surface wound though. The shot was low in the front shoulder. 3 witnesses besides the shooter.

But we aren't talking about bullets as new as Corelokts .In 1948 John Nosler invented the Partition for the cure of the very problem of bullets that wouldn't hold up . Just because you weren't alive and hunting,shooting big game back then doesn't mean it didn't happen. I started shooting center fire rifles when I was 14 with my own hand loads pre-interlock Hornady 139 gr SP's. They came apart pretty easy. The improved Intetrlock was much less fragile.When I went to work up the loads for my 1st deer hunt I never gave it a 2nd thought and stepped up to 140 gr NPT's and that was just a7x57 .Going to the 7 mag proved the same all over .That was50 years ago and since then I've used a lot of cup and core bullets on a lot of game and I still never ever hold for a near shoulder shot ,I all ways try for a far houlder shot simply cause I want the vitals before I'll risk the bullet making thru heavy bones. MB

Shooting steel has nothing in common with shooting game. A 22-250 varmint bullet goes through steel but not a bore hog.

There's a similar Elmer story about him wearing down a coyote at long range with a .25/35.

I bought a copy of Hell I Was There in the mid 80s at a local gun show. I bet I've read it 10 times. One of the amazing things about Elmer to me, was that he survived burns in an arson set house fire that would have killed most people. Also, he was a small man by most standards physically. Wore size 5 Cowboys boots. Small in stature, but huge in the life he lead!

Ron

mirage243,

The other guys already made some excellent comments about bullets "blowing up" and not penetrating big game, but I'll provide another example. 30-some years ago I shot an eating size mule deer buck at around 200 yards with a .30-06 and a 150-grain Winchester Silvertip factory load. The buck was quartering toward me and the bullet hit the shoulder joint--a I found out later. At the shot the buck quickly hobbled over a low ridge right behind him. I started following the thin blood trail, and half a mile later found him standing broadside in the sagebrush, again at about 200 yards. Put another bullet behind the shoulder, and the buck went down. The first Silvertip had come apart on the buck's shoulder joint, and aside from a few fragments of lead, all that I found was the empty jack resting against the ribcage, where it hadn't even broken a rib.

Have also seen a 300-grain bonded 9.3mm bullet flatten out so much on the shoulder joint of a bull water buffalo that, again, the remains of the bullet (consisting of just about half the original weight) stopped on the outside of the ribcage. My hunting partner was doing the shooting, and a couple more of the 300s did basically the same thing, when shot into other parts of the bull's anatomy. There had to be some fault in the bonding process, as that particular brand of bullet is normally very reliable.

There have been several more instances over the decades, but the main point is that just because YOU have never seen it happen does not mean it cannot happen.

I killed my first deer in 1971, so I obviously haven't been around as long as Elmer Keith and Jack OConnor, etc, etc. but, I have carried a rifle in the front seat of my truck every single day of my life, it's a way of life for me, a necessity in what I do, and I love shooting. Rarely a day goes by that I don't at least ding a crow or something, coyotes, ground hogs, something. I said all that to say that most folks don't truly understand the devestation any high powered rifle posseses. The last time I went and found a deer for a guy who claimed his bullet musta "blew up" when it hit the deer, I actually found the deer dead about a 1/2 mile from where it was shot, the dumbasz forgot about the 6 inch spruce tree it went through before it hit the deer. I took him back and showed it to him, he couldn't believe it. Most claims of the bullet not doing it's job can be traced back to the trigger finger.

I have also heard people say they shot a deer right in the heart, but the lousy cartridge they used (and never will again) wasn't enough.

But I am not talking about "guessing" that bullets came apart and failed to penetrate an animal. As noted, I have seen a number instances where that was PROVED to be what happened. Again, just because YOU haven't seen it doesn't mean it can't happen.

Mr Keith was a kind and decent man. I met him several times, after the first meeting he always remembered me and we talked a lot.
The times he grew up in and worked as a young man were tough beyond belief. His cast bullets of 16:1 were from pulled 45/70 government issued ammo. He hunted with military 30/06 ammo probably because that was all he could get or afford. Take a trip to Durkee Oregon or Winston Montana and tell us how easy life is there now let alone in the pre war years. Or wander north of Avon Montana and see how far he walked in a snowstorm before he saw a light in a cabin.
Elmer Keith taught me a lot about ballistics, my father taught me to shoot. I owe them both

Yep, he grew up in a different time.

However, life around Winston, Montana is easier now than then. I live 13 miles from Winston, and little closer than that to the the former Keith ranch. For one thing, we have four-wheel-drive pickups!

In the paper back “Letters” book, he wrote about buying some sharps rifles and picking them up by wagon.

Yep, evidently the Keith family traveled to Helena (about 20 miles from Winston, and the nearest "big" town by horse or wagon most of the time.

JB any truth to the old Montana rumor that EK got you on the good guy list over at Capitol Sports and Western wear? MB

HA!

IIRC, he later went back with a surveyor friend and the measured the distance with a chain. (?) I've heard of that term before but have no clue what or how it's done.
Paul B.

JB. That quote appears to be vebatim from Keith's firise biograpy "Keith, An Autobiograpy" which is is said he hated. (Pages 258, 259 and 261.) I have that on, Hell I Was There and Sixguns plus a few of his earlier works.
Paul B.

A Gunters or surveyors chain is a 66 foot distance measuring device used along a compass line or along a series of survey markers, stakes or ribbons. Originally made up of 100 links of equal length, now a steel tape is used, if and when they use an actual chain and not an EDM device. A quarter chain (25 links) is a rod (16.5 feet), 10 chains is a furlong and 80 chains is a mile.

PJ , a surveyor's chain is a flat steel tape. Normal one commonly used was 100yds (300') but longer and shorter ones were used also. 1 st foot is marked in inches and fractions the rest by the foot. They are very accurate used correctly. MB Mart has done a much better job describing it than I have.

My dad had an original linked chain when we had the farm. He used it occasionally. In later years I used a steel tape surveyor's chain to survey trails for the forest service.

Folks don't use the old units of measurement much anymore. Can't recall the that time I heard some one use rods, and one rarely hears the term furlong outside of horse racing. My granddad used to to refer to rods as a unit of measurement but I never heard it much from other than him.