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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.