Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Most bullets flung at a game animal?

I think… 4? 5? It was my (1) antelope and I had a Butler Creek objective cap go south on me sometime while tromping around in the hot barren desert for days… lol… which I didn’t realize till the moment of truth, and then it was an absurd rodeo where I ended up trying to hold the [bleep] open with my left hand while shooting.

It was an inauspicious start for the rifle I’d just built for the task, a clone of the wonderful GAP Extreme Hunter in 6.5 SAUM.

Got him, though.

When I lived in North Dakota, I would snipe jackrabbits at long ranges with my .25-06 loaded with 75 grain V-Maxes at 3,550 fps muzzle velocity. I'd occasionally hit them out as far as 450-500 yards.

One old Jack about 600 yards away from me allowed me to take eight shots at him before I finally ended his day. I'd miss three inches behind him, he'd run about thirty yards, then stop and go back to munching sugar beet tops. Miss by a couple inches over his head, with the bullet landing five feet behind him, same deal. The beets were just sprouting above the ground, and I guess were tasting too good for him to run away. Most of the rabbits I'd shoot at would take off for good after a near miss, but not him.

He was too greedy, and it finally caught up to him on the ninth shot. Not much left of a jackrabbit after a solid hit with those bullets. Chunks of meat and pelt go flying.

Then I'd come back in the evening and try to get a coyote or two scavenging jackrabbit chunks.

I find it hard to believe that Stick would ever admit to having to nail a critter 8 times... but I've reached an age where nothing really surprises me any more!

I have 3 multi-shot critters in my hunting history, although on 2 of them I was just backing up a partner. They were 6, 8, and 8 shots.

First one, back in the late 1970's, my buddy Norm and I were hunting moose. We spotted a decent bull feeding along the edge of a swamp, and we stalked to about 100 yards. The bull had his head down in a clump of willows when Norm put his first shot in. He was shooting a sporterized .303 Brit, with the ubiquitous Imperial 178 gr softpoint bullet. We heard the whack of the bullet hit, and the moose seemed to shudder, but then kept right on feeding with his head down in those willows. So Norm poked him again, and then again, and then again, and then again. Five shots. His magazine was empty, and as he dug in his pocket for more shells he suggested I give him a poke. So I did, aiming for the neck with my own .303 (same ammo). Moose just stood there. I had a better scope than norm, so I twisted it up to 9X and I could see what appeared to be a lot of blood on the side of the bull's chest, so we didnt' shoot any more. Eventually we decided to walk up to him and see what's what.. and found the bull dead on his feet, probably from the first shot. He was standing over a big log, and the log plus the tangle of willows around his horns were holding him up. Norm's first shot had nailed the spine, so he was likely dead for the 5 followup shots.

Second one was a nilgai cow I shot with Stxhunter down near the King Ranch. I hit her a tad far back with my .270 WSM (140 gr AB), but as it turned out the bullet took both lungs and the bottom of her heart. She took off running up the hill and then let out a long series of bellows like Chewbacca yelling at Han Solo, weirdest damn sound I ever heard. So I went up the hill and found her down in some low scrub. Her head was up but she couldn't get to her feet. I had 3 more rounds in my magazine, so I hit her in the chest because her neck was in a tangle of branches. She was still alive so I pulled my only remaining bullet out of my pocket (I left all my spare ammo in my pack with Roger) and hit her in the neck but missed her spine. So, out of ammo and 5 shots in, I moved around her and gave her a bullet from my .45 in the back of the neck. Didn't break her spine, although I hit bone. Gave her one more, same result. Finally I walked right up to her and put one in her brain to end it. 8 bullets, but only 5 from a rifle. Tough critter.

Third one was an aoudad that my friend Bob shot out here in west Texas 3 years ago. Bob had recently completed his Grand Slam of North American sheep, and he really wanted an aoudad. Bob's a damn good shot, and had killed 3 of his 4 big rams with a .300 Win Mag, and the last with a custom .308; I don't know what bullet he was using. The ram was across a canyon from us when he shot it at about 250 yards. The winds in those canyons can get real squirrelly, but at Bob's shot the Ram dropped off the rock he was standing on, but we couldn't see him where he fell due to dense brush. Bob decided to hike up to the head of the canyon and come down that side, while I stayed on the near side in case it was wounded and got up. When Bob was about 25 yards from it, the ram jumped up and started running down the canyon. Turned out that his first shot was in the guts and liver. He shot a couple times and managed to hit it in the haunches both times. I had one quick shot with my 270 WSM and 140 gr AB, and it went into his back above his spine. The canyon curved off to my left, so I ran to try to cut the corner as Bob pursued behind the aoudad and got several more shots in, including a "Texas heart shot". None of these shots stopped him. Finally the ram came around the corner and I was able to get a good bead on him at 280 yds and I shot him through the chest. He slowed to a walk at that point, and finally stopped. I gave him one more Accubond through the chest (my two shots were only about 2" apart) and that was all she wrote. We counted 8 bullet holes in him when we caped him out.

4 on a bull elk in Colorado with a 30-06. The first one would eventually kill him, but the angle and speed with which he was leaving, he might have died on the fence of the Florence super max prison. I got off 3 more while he was running with the 4 shot catching the neck and stopping the flight.

3 200 gr eldx from 300wsm, 300 yards 5x6 bull. They were all breadbasket hits, just behind shoulder, in a 3 inch circle. Elk ran into timber. Waited a few minutes, and went down to timber line.

Elk jumped. Backed out. Could hear him thrashing.

A few hours later, he was dead. His lungs were jelly. When I started breaking him down, he had a relatively fresh arrow shaft just under his spine that was broken off. He was a tough SOB.

I did a double double once (double one day... and a double the next day). .300WM Sendero

Nigai don't die easy. I had one bang flop and one that took 6 rounds. Tough animals.

I am man enough to admit that my first Mule deer kill was an absolute goat rodeo. Caused by a dumb kid pumped up on adrenaline.

Not necessarily a game animal.......

P/dogs.....sometimes you'll get one at 500 ya just can't hit

Wind....moving target....etc

Ya ask your buddy.....

Is that SOB wearing a Kevlar vest ?

24 of us were blocking and driving pheasants in Kansas. On one drive we were all closed in and the last rooster that jumped had 24 people shooting him. I bet 2 boxes were shot at him. He went straight up and soaked up a lot of shot before he fell.

Four from a 7mm Rem. Magnum at a WT buck. I hit him four times but that buck did not want to stay down until the fourth shot. All of the shots were in the shoulder or heart/lung area.

I shot a black wildebeest in RSA with a 7mm Mag and it took 4 rounds for him to go down. All were in the chest within about 2 inches group. For some reason he just decided he wasn't going down. He locked up with the first round and didn't move, just soaked up 3 more 160 gr Noslers before he bled out. My PH said he had seen that happen 2 or 3 other times, always with black wildebeest.

Back around 1970 my brothers and several cousins were hunting whitetail deer on the eastern edge of the Black Hills. All the hunters except two had filled their tags by lunchtime. While standing around the vehicles eating our lunches a nice whitetail buck breaks out of the timber, running across the meadow.

The two remaining hunters with unfilled tags proceed to blaze away with their Model 94 Winchester 30-30s. Both emptied their rifles and on the last shot the buck tips over end over end. I walked up to the deer, cut his throat and proceeded to field dress the deer. I thought it was kind of strange though that I didn't see any bullet wound in the deer.

We hanged the deer in the barn and skinned it from hocks to it's nose, not a bullet hole in the carcass anywhere. 12 rounds fired and not a hole in the critter. I can only assume the deer tripped and knocked itself out and I cut it's throat before it woke up!

Oh he did. Was totally the 300 wby fault though. Damn thing cant kill anything if you havent heard

Some seem bullet proof. Stuck a 250 grain cup and core bullet from a 338 win mag through the lungs of a doe and she ran further than any deer ive ever shot. Lungs were gone. Total devastation, but she didnt seem to care for a min or so

8’s got me beat. 😁
3 on a raghorn elk several years ago.

Crap, we talking birds? I've seen a bunch of crappy shotgunning party hunting. It's all in good fun.

That’s what make’s watching a good dog do its thing so much fun.

Watching a dog bound through the grass with a high head to about where it marked the bird hit the ground and then transition to nose to the ground like a beagle while running it down.

Back in Jr High, Dad and I were hunting with a friend of his and the friend's son, my age. Us boys were sitting on the fenders of their old Jeep as we putted our way up an old logging road. We jumped a doe next to the road - either sex was legal. I hopped off and drilled it in the lungs with my Win 32 Spcl. at the phenomenal range of 30 yds. The other kid was carrying a military M1 Carbine with a 16 shot mag. He cut loose on the deer. We counted the holes later - 17, my 1 in the lungs and he hit it with all 16, holes in every quarter. It was a mess. Dad gave me a head shake and congratulated the kid on his great deer. I got the point. There wasn't an edible hamburger left on it.

All the stories here about 308 and 30-06 bullets splattering on shoulder impact and not ever penetrating are complete and utter bullsheit.