Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Most interesting recovered bullets

Let’s hear what you’ve found. Yours or bullets in animals that you have killed fired by someone else.

175 Bitterroot - Cow elk - 175 yards





175 Nosler ABLR - Bull elk - 605 yards

I don't have a pic of it on my phone, but a 240XTP from a Ruger 96/44 about 25 years ago.

Shot was about 110 yards... the jacket was caught in the far side hide completely intact with absolutely 0 lead core left inside it.

7 RM 150 Swift - Bull elk - 475 yards





30-06 212 ELD - Bull Elk - 390 yards

.54 round ball, white tail doe. Shot entered around last rib and was found just ahead of shoulder on opposite side.

Several bullets recovered from coyotes, shot with a couple 22-250s.

Sierra and Nosler bullets recovered from severel deer and 1 hog.

I do have a bullet recovered from a squirrel. Load would have been a CCI Mini Mag HP. Hit in head and bullet traveled the length of the squirrel and was found in a rear quarter.

300 Win 200 AB - Bull elk - 675 yards





300 RUM 200 AB - Bull elk - 570 yards

300 Wby 200 AB - Bull elk - 250 yards





300 Win 180 PT - Bull elk - 310 yards

Scrap metal from last hunting season. Rio7

30-06 165 AB - Bull elk - 200 yards





35 Whelen 225 TSX - Black Bear -125 yards

Cape buffalo with the 350 gr TSX from my 416 Rem. Left is the one that put him down at 130 yards, right the "finisher" at 10 yards.

Just another expanded LRX. What's interesting to me is how the heck does Barnes get the X at the bottom of the cavity?

The rear section of a 160 gr 7mm Nosler Partition. Partitions are well known for keeping intact, driving deep, and breaking bones. We all know that.

In an elk camp several decades ago, we had a very vocal coyote. My friend and I, having filled our tags, set up to call him in. He did just that, and was in a head on position at 20 yards. Shot him with my Ruger 7mm Rem Mag with the Partition, expecting incredible damage. To our amazement, there was no sign of a hit at all. No blood, no nothing. We thought we scared him to death.

Upon skinning him out, the mystery was revealed. The bullet entered the corner of his mouth, and didn't really hit anything until it exploded on his rear molars, which were apparently much harder than just bone. His neck was peppered with small fragments internally, nothing breaking the skin.

Finally found this piece of the rear jacket, lead completely blown out. Maybe 6" to 8" of penetration. Obvious because of the beveled edge at the base.

Here a couple of interesting ones I’ve collected. The lead core was found under the skin at the hock of a blacktail buck I killed. I don’t know how long he had been packing it around and I didn’t find any obvious point of entry. It looks to be from a .270 or .280. The flattened jacket is a 180 Sierra game king that went through a bull I killed in hells canyon. The bull was broadside with the front of his shoulder exposed from the tree he was standing behind with a rock bluff right behind him. At the shot he hit the ground then got up and lunged sideways and piled up. After I got across the canyon to him it could see the blood splattered on the snow and what looked like sand mixed in so I scratched the snow back and found the jacket. The bullet was apparently upset when exiting and hit the bluff sideways squirting the core out. I thought it was a cool to find a bullet after it left the animal.

Shot a muley buck, had an 11" drop tine, which we thought was the cause of a swolen up ozing puss pocket on the back of its neck which we thought was caused by the drop tine, if you turned the bucks head far enough the drop tine would stick right into the wound. probably why it never healed. Anyway we skinned the deer for a shoulder mount and found a shreaded .22 cal varmit bullet jacket and a few bits of lead in the puss pocket where someone had shot it.

On another occasion I shot an antelope that had a broken off broadhead stuck in its femur bone. Rear quarter had atrophied, he was walking on 3 legs, had lost a lot of weight and was on his last legs miles away from any other antelope. Pretty much a mercy kill.

Have found two small caliber bullets apparently shot a season or two prior, appeared to be .24 caliber cup and core, in elk. I also found a bout 6” of arrow-shaft with broadhead against the shoulder blade of my first moose. The arrow/broadhead were fully incased in what I would describe as a large mass of gristle.

Found a bullet that I shot into an elk broadside behind the shoulder only hitting a rib, found up against the hide on the opposite side, under the hide. Last time to use those bullets for hunting. If I recover a bullet from broadside shot on anything smaller than a very large Bison…..I’m on the hunt for a different bullet! memtb

WOW, just friggen wow! Is everyone using varmint bullets were you hunt? memtb

Guy shot a large bull moose up here in AK. Cutting up the neck meat, he hit a puss sack in the neck. Out popped a 270 partition bullet.

Memtb, how many 243 bullets you found in that elk?

We don't hear much about these stupid fkn gopher bullets when they fail.

I actually prefer the bullets to stay in the animal. I have never seen the need for or demanded an exit. I've got a mason jar full of recovered bullets on my desk at work.
Bears have held onto bullets pretty consistently for me, but I also have several that I dug out of mule deer and elk. Some are expanded into decent mushrooms of various weight retentions and I also have several handfuls of bullet fragments. Failsafes, TSX, bergers, corelokts, accubonds, grand slams and some others. Four pieces (lead cores and their copper cups) from two Bergers from a cow elk in 2007. Both of those kept maybe 30-40% of their initial weight, but both cores slide right into their copper cup. Kinda neat.
I believe this is the only one I currently have a pic of. A 62 TSX out of a Wyoming mule deer. Unimpressive, but the second shot dropped the buck instantly and I still have no clue what the deal is with the first shot (bullet in pic). The TSXs just never did seem consistent or reliable to me.



Aside from my own shots, I have found several bullets that were scarred over from other hunters who had previously wounded a critter, as well as one broadhead with 6 or so inches of arrow. These have been mainly in elk but I do recall finding a random 7mm or 30 cal something mushroomed in a mule deer's hind quarter. I've found birdshot in both whitetail deer and black bears, I presume from grouse hunters peppering critters they shouldn't have been shooting at.

I had a 260 partition from my .375 H&H stay in a wolf at about 100 yards. The shot wasn't broadside, but wasn't straight on through the length of the body either. While that is a fairly light bullet for a .375 cal round, it still surprised me. Partitions are another bullet overall that I seem to have different experience with concerning performance than what many others do.

Like me with Core-Lokts. The only thing consistent about them is their inconsistencies.

Exactly - should simply be part of a feedback loop.

BC/ELR/VLD/blah/blah/blah...

Exit wounds, big ones.

Even if it's a lowly cup-n-core.




GR

I’ve seen enough 180 PTs from 300 magnums come apart that I don’t love that bullet like others do. Granted they were dug out of animals but if I’m using a bullet like that I’d like it stay together a bit better.

Two different elk, one was a .243 (I think, didn’t measure), the other appeared to have been a .270, again no actual measurement! memtb

This isn't a recovered bullet, but interesting just the same.

I forgot about my bad experiences with .Sierra 300 gr. SBT’s from my old H&H.

* A Mule Deer broadside, sprinting shot (just jumped it from it’s bed) @ about 20 yards, though technically not a bullet recovery. I hit the knee joint continuing on to pretty much disembowel the deer….hitting just behind the diaphragm. No part of the bullet exited, I found no part of the bullet…..though in honesty, I didn’t spend a great deal of time looking.

* A medium sized black bear shot @ about 90 yards….broadside, hitting behind the shoulder, entering between the ribs. The bullet failed to exit, I did find the empty jacket inside the rib cage on the off side.

I quickly went to a different bullet, a 270 grain Hornady Interlock SP. It worked great at .375 H&H velocities…..not so much at my .375 AI velocities.

I tested the Sierra’s side by side against the Hornady’s into a dry, loose dirt backstop. The Hornady’s gave a “picture perfect”, classic mushroom. The Sierra’s appeared to have evaporated, I found nothing …..not even jacket shards! memtb

Quote: I actually prefer the bullets to stay in the animal


T_Innman, I could probably live with that provided that I was always guaranteed a broadside shot, and I could place the bullet behind the shoulder bone.

However, I can’t seem to get that guarantee….plus, using one cartridge/one bullet for all of my big game hunting. So…….that would be quite the “magic bullet” that would give the same results on a small Texas Whitetail doe and a large Bison.

I guess that I’m stuck with pass-throughs on most game! 😉 memtb

Bones are tough on bullets.If you hit a large bone on the entry side,it can really affect the wound channel the bullet makes.Here is a 180gr Accubond I recovered from a red stag I shot with a 308 Norma Magnum at 185yds,mv was 3050fps.The bullet hit the big humerus bone right below where it connects with the scapula.That is the largest,thickest bone in the shoulder.The bullet blew the bone to pieces,went through a rib,through the heart,hit another rib behind the offside shoulder and tried to exit,but the thick hide held it back.The recovered weight was 89.4gr(49.6%).

That right there is why it’s tough to hate ABs.

Certainly a stellar report!

223 powered 75 Hornady SPs taken out of pigs

69RMR Matchking clone caught under the hide of a big pig.

130 ETip launched from a 270Wby and found after 3’ of penetration on a quartered bull elk.

Here is what I could find of a 150g Hornady Interlock.
Was fired out of a .308 into a big tom leopard. Muzzle velocity was 2,787.

Bullet entered between shoulder blades and exited out the front right armpit. This was laying at the base of the bait tree.

Some may call this bullet failure. Idk. All I know is that I had one very dead leopard that never took a step.

Brown bear at 13 yards, 2011 Upper Togiak Lake. 375 H&H Remington Premier Safari Grade 300g A-Frame. Bullet still weighs 299.5 grains, entered right behind the righ shoulder, bullet recovered in the hide from the left rear thigh.

I used to geek out about exits and would be disappointed to catch a bullet. Then after shooting a few hundred more animals and keeping notes I realized that often the bullet that doesn’t exit kills faster than the one that does. That exit for a blood trail demanded by some often isn’t necessary with a little softer bullet because you don’t have to follow a blood trail when you can see them fall.

Not every bullet has to be hard as woodpecker lips and the ones that aren’t super hard aren’t necessarily tinfoil jacketed bombs. The middle of the spectrum often works really well.

The only animal I can definitely say I lost because of a bullet not performing was a really big pig I shot on the point of the shoulder with a 180 WW Silvertip factory load from a 30/06. My cousin caught him with his dogs a few weeks later and found the flattened bullet against his scapula. I’m not too proud to admit that the handful of other animals I’ve lost were likely due to poor shooting.

I killed a big old whitetain doe once that had two different sizes of bird shot and three .22 LR bullets in her hind quarters. Killed another that had a shotgun slug healed in against the bone in it's neck. The slug was flat as a pancake and about as big around as a half dollar. Only thing I could figure is it went through a small tree before it hit the deer. Seemed to me like it would have knocked it down long enough to put another slug in it but who knows. Somewhere I have a plastic bag with a bunch of spent shotgun slugs and rifle bullets of various calibers recoved from dead deer over the years. To me the best bullets are the ones that left a good wound channel all the way through and out the other side.

55 Hornady out of 222Mag. Broke two ribs and pulped the lungs of a cow elk. The one I shot her sister with about 1 minute later exited.

200 Accubond out of a .340 WBY. Cow elk. They work, sometimes a bit too good but this is why I generally prefer to avoid shoulder bone. That gritty bone marrow was a mess to clean up and wasn't just on the surface of the meat.



Broadside shoulder shots also often ruin the absolute best part, but that can be with most bullets.

Be careful.....plenty of people here at 24 Hour will tell you that is flat out impossible and your cousin lied to you.

Found a pic of the two 140 VLDs from the cow elk I mentioned earlier. All 4 pieces found lodged against skin on the far side, with no bone except possibly a rib coming into contact. I want to say this was at 425 yards or thereabouts. These two worked as they're supposed to, but others out of the same box didn't, or at least didn't impress me when shoulder bone was hit.



It was one of these. I do not recall which.

I honestly just thought I’d made a bad shot. Might not have believed it myself if I’d just read it on the internet. 🤷🏼‍♂️

T-Inman the 168 vlds that I got back coming out of a 7 rum look about identical to yours. The distance was 400 to 450 yds on cows shot on a damage tag at the farm I lived on. I can’t complain about the results as all shot were dead whether they hit the ground or stood right where they were hit until tipping over.
As an aside to the broad heads in elk I killed a cow with a muzzle loader that had a broad head under her right shoulder and the shaft broke off at the ribs under her left shoulder. The broad head was completely covered in gristle and the top of her lungs were grown to the carbon shaft, damn they are tough.

It's really tough for me to hate accubonds as well. These were the only 160 AB's recovered that trip, out of 12 animals killed. I intentionally shot through shoulder to attempt heart shots. These 7mm 160's were running 3050 at the muzzle, impacts from 90-150 yards.

Old timey wood grain box Norma 150 out of a 7/08 through a 7x6 bull elk’s chest.

You are a fùcking idiot

I will have to take some pictures when I get home.

I only have two bullets that I recovered. One is a 180gr Failsafe from a 30-06. It went through both of the bull elk’s shoulders and was under the hide on the far side. The shot distance was about 60 yards. The bull rolled down hill but not too far. He never got up.

The other is a 139gr Interbond from a 7mm-08. I had a whitetail trying to sneak away from me at 50yards. I only had a hard quartering away shot. I put it in the right spot. It went in at the back of the rib cage and it lodged at the front of its brisket. It dropped on the spot.

I have never been able to find a Barnes but did find petals one time. All 4 were in the heart. Federal Fusions and Hornady 200gr SPs in my 338Fed have always exited. I am hunting with 130gr Remington Corelocks from a 270 this year for deer so I may get some soon.

Here’s a handful of random bullets pulled from mainly mule deer I think. The three on the right are from moose.



I pulled these two from jack rabbits I shot with my old 22 Savage High Power. I don’t recall what they are but they were tumbling as did most anything from that rifle before I lined it with a true .224” bbl. They make a hell of a ‘SMACK’ sound when they hit a critter sideways!



I’ve got several dozen more scattered around. I wish I labeled them better so I know what they were and what they killed.

.45 Winchester Magnum

From a big ol' fox squirrel

A 225 gr TSX via 35 Whelen from a bull moose at 230 yards.

Old smooth sided Barnes X 180s out of a 30/06. One on the left was out of a 200lb pig one on the right a 125lb buck deer. Both hard quartered angles.

250gr Wyoming bonded from my 20” Whelen through the neck and shoulder of a grizzly bear.

150 Norma SPBT from my 17” barrel 300Savage. Large black bear bullet drove through his neck from behind as he climbed a cut bank, broke his neck and lodged against the hide under his throat.

Here are a few pictures from a few hunts I've been on. Some from me, some from my friends/family.

200gr Nosler Accubond 300 win mag, 2840 fps. 200 yard shot on a large black bear, broad side. Double shoulder and found on the offside.





220gr Hornady ELD-x 300 win mag 2800 fps. approx 200 yard shot on a moose, broadside, went through the shoulder and found on the off side.



180gr Barnes TSX 8x57 2780 fps. Approx 180 yards, frontal chest shot on a large mule deer buck (buck was looking straight on). Found in the chest cavity.



250gr Hornady GMX 375 Ruger factroy ammo. 200 yard shot. Broadside on a moose. Found on the offside.







225gr Hornady Interbond 338 win mag. 2750 fps. 125 yard shot on a mule buck. This one was wonky. Took a full 90 deg turn and found in the chest cavity.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/Jlqppxe.jpg?1[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/yjDvZXn.jpg?1[/img]

200gr Speer Hot cor 8x57. 2540 fps. 25 yard frontal chest shot on a whitetail buck (looking at me). Found on the last rib lodged in bone.





200gr Nosler accubond. 8mm-06 at 2800fps. 200 yard shot. Hard quartering shot. Traveled almost the length of the mule buck. Lodged in the right front shoulder. Not much expansion. Retained weight on that one was upper 180 grain. This one was definitely odd.

i must be unluckiest guy ever. i do not have a game expanded bullet. i use jacketed and cast bullets. everyone of them goes thru the game animal. even the revolvers.

People care more about what a bullet looks like over how it performs. Pay more attention to the trauma caused, instead of pretty bullets.

If a bullet comes unglued on a easy broadside shot, it is unlikely to make it where it needs to on a tougher shot.

Amazing how many ABs were posted.


I've seen 2 too many inconsistencies with them.

One was a WT buck neck shot. Broadside shot. 165gr AB broadside from a 308win at 20 yards. What's that...6-8" of flesh and bone? Failed to exit. Huh. Weird.

Same gun...same load. Coyote quartering to me 30yds away. Put the cross hairs on his front left shoulder. Pow. Falls and rolls around. Quickly gains his feet. Can't get a follow up due to being sky lined. Surely he's going to fall over. I watched him run for 250-300 yards in disbelief. Saw where he entered the woods and there was a sparse trail that quickly dried up. Fast forward a week and a half later....I shot the buck from the first story so I didn't have a rifle. I was pushing for some buddies. A coyote is sneaking down a trail right to me. It's acting weird. It was limping like one of its front legs was stiff. It gets within 25yds of me and I see a baseball sized hole on the front left shoulder. 99% sure it was the coyote I shot. Only possible explanation is the bullet exploded or failed to penetrate. Several inches in all directions put the bullet in the body cavity and would have been fatal. Makes absolutely no sense.

Shot another buck with that load and it did great.


I've pretty much wrote them off now. Actually trending towards all coppers. Really like what I'm seeing from TTSX and have some Hammers to test.

Not from an animal, but from the roof of the house I grew up in. My mother complained about a leak in the ceiling in her living room, right at the corner where the wall met it. I climbed up and found a hole with the base of a bullet showing. It had come in at a high angle, went through two layers of shingles, and cracked the old-style board sheathing underneath. Appeared to be a round-nosed .30 cal. I still have it here someplace. She still had some shingles left from the roofing job a few years before, so I was able to fix it quickly.

That bullet came from the direction of Washington D.C., which could be seen if you climbed up to the top before the trees grew up and blocked the view. Gotta be a story there….



Never weighed it, but the location of the cannelure and the scalloped jacket at the nose say 170gr Core-Lokt to me.

I shoot those, blems from SPS, interchangeably with BTs of the same weight. Same load, same POI. If I load 50, 10 or 20 are the ABs. Only one deer killed with one so far, a head-on shot at 50 yards. He went down about as fast as any deer I’ve shot. That AB ended up in the nasty bag, only poking a small hole I found by the small leak. Was very thankful for the lack of further penetration in that case. The chest goodies were mush.

I have some 129gr 6.5 ABLRs for my Grendel, but haven’t loaded any for either of my Howas, just the CZ that preceded them. Looking at monos now for the future so they may end up in a berm…..

A buddy shot a big buck in the neck with a 140 grain X bullet in the late 90s, 7mm STW. The bullet was laying in amongst a broken vertebrae. They do weird things at times.

I think there are also some reports of early Accubonds on the assembly line being short cutted by a Nosler employee trying to save time.

Those particular lots had quite the failure rate, but I do not recall the specifics.

Noslers of any ilk have never been very accurate for me, but they have killed very well.

I think I might have gotten some of those early Accubonds that performed differently. These were 110gr .257 bullets that hung together well enough, but really opened up rather widely and did not penetrate quite like I expected, I caught several in a row (in dead deer), but couldn't manage to catch .257 or 6mm Partitions, even though the Partition sample size was larger.

Only found 1. Barnes T-EZ 250 gr. Those edges are sharp.

.35 Remington 200gn. Both shoulders of deer into ground

.357 Magnum 180gn hard cast HP from neck of deer

.44 Magnum 240gn JHC broke shoulder & lodged under hide near rear quarter of deer

.45 auto, hit screw head in rubber backstop cover

300gn 45-70 through neck of coyote, hit bottom edge of tree branch, deflected off trunk into the ground, lost the jacket somewhere in there


.58 cal round ball, through deer scapula, bottom edge of spine & lodged under hide behind far shoulder

I once took a shot at a WV scrag buck running away from me downhill and below. Must’ve hit just as his hindquarters were at their peak because the entrance wound was just behind the brisket. I found a collar button-size lead disk just under the hide behind his right ear when I scalped him; quite a trip for that Sierra Something-or-Other 150gr .308, fired from a Kimber Longmaster.

I recovered part of a 12 ga Fiocchi slug from a deer back in 1995 or 96. The slug was similar to a Brenneke with the lead projectile and attached plastic wad column. I hit the shoulder and the slug sheared in two. I didn't find the one half but the other was found in the chest cavity stretched in a banana shape the length of a my little finger. The plastic part was gone, the hunk of lead was smooth with no "rifling" vanes visible, and it weighed noticeably less than the starting ounce. I still have the lead hidden in 54 caliber round balls.

Never knew that. Makes sense. I reallllllllly liked what I saw....sometimes. I captured a 358 225gr from a whelen...maybe 2...and was surprised. The 280 I shot them in I bought later and the bullets were much newer and it was fantastic. Maybe that's the issue...I had early bullets. Grenading on a coyote shoulder was unbelievable. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it with my own eyes. Almost complete certainty that I saw the same coyote.

Mauzer, I can understand that. I’d have a bad taste as well if it happened to me.

I will say all that I’ve used and others, have worked like PTs just with a touch more accuracy.

I watched a friend hit an elk in the vitals with a 180 accubong from a 300 wsm. The ciw dropped and rolled down hill about 59 feet then got up and headed up hill away from us. I kept telling him to shoot it again but he didn't like the angle so he didn't shoot. He tracked it for a few miles and lost the tracks.

The night before I dropped a huge cow elk with my 30-06 and 180 accubonds at about 430 yards. I put three rounds in her before she dropped
Same friend gave me a hard time fir shooting my elk full of holes. After loosing his the next day he said know I know why you always keep shooting until they are down. You never know what a bullet has really done.

Bb

Currently I only have three recovered bullets. They are left to right:

Hornady 100gr. SP from a .243. Doe at approx. 30 yards. Impact left flank and recovered behind right shoulder.

Sierra 150gr. FN Pro Hunter from a .30-30. Doe at approx. 60 yards. This one also from left flank to right shoulder

Barnes 225gr. TSX from 35 Whelen. Newfie black bear. Approx. 40 yards. Straight on throat to left ham. Found under the hide.

Great thread!
Here is 180 gr sierra game king. Hand load out of 06. 2800+ fps ..Shot a cow on a run under 50 yards. High shot in the upper back, Broke her spine. Normally I hunt with ttsx and never recovered one. But I Recovered this one.

These two .308 150-grain Fusions were recovered from hogs.

That is the shiniest used bullet I have ever seen.

162 gr ELDX from a cow elk at 375 yards.



Center punched the left humerus just below the shoulder knuckle. Rib, double lung, rib, hide.






She died right now.





P