Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Bullet Failures

Tell me about any bullet failures you've experienced, including bullet, distance, etc.

Thanks!!

Only 2 for me--both factory loads. In 1992, I shot a fair bull elk at around 70 yards with a 7mm Rem Mag using Hornady ammo with 175 grain Interlocks. The bullet came apart on the shoulder and did not penetrate to the body cavity. The bull was shot two days later by another hunter in our camp. That is the last elk that I have shot in the shoulder.

A few years ago, when the .270 WSM was brand new, my brother shot a pronghorn buck in the shoulder at 140 yards with a 150 grain PowerPoint. The animal went down and then stood back up. He put another one just behind the shoulder and the animal went back down, but was still alive with his head up when we got to him. I shot it in the neck with a .40 S&W that I was carrying to put it down for good. The shoulder shot did not penetrate the body cavity and the lung shot bullet did not exit. Both bullets shed their jackets, and the shoulder shot bullet was pretty fragmented.

I will say that this performance is not typical of either bullet in general and these are the only failures with either bullet that I have heard of. The PowerPoints may not have been up to .270 WSM impact velocities, and the Interlock may have just been a flawed bullet that slipped through Hornady's quality control...

Both were Hornady's SSTs

First was a 150gr from a 308 at 2450fps MV. A light load for sure but was very accurate. First deer I hit was 25 yards away and I hit him behind the shoulder (not on it). Deer ran off with very little blood trail. After several hours, me and a buddy just ended up doing circles for him and found him. It was a nice GA 10pt that field dressed at 184lbs. I would've hated to lose him. Here's a pic


Second was a 139gr from a 7mm-08 at 2450fps MV. VERY similar situation but a younger Alabama buck and at 40yards. I found him the next morning. Again, very little blood trail with only a 2 or 3 drops in the first 100yds then nothing.

In both cases, the bullet hit one rib and completely came apart wounding only one lung and leaving the other one intact. Yes, I found both deer but still a failure IMO. I like two holes since I hunt from tree stands most of the time and the entrance hole tends to be high.

RH

I have had some Sierras come apart, but I always found them in dead animals and have only had one long tracking job. That was from a poorly placed shot and not bullet failure.Al that I can remember dropped within a 100 yds However,I don't do shoulder shots nor Texas heart shotso n purpose.

Now that's a nice buck! Sorry for the interruption.

I haven't had a bullet failure, but I helped my father track a wounded 10 point whitetail that he shot in the shoulder with a 210gr XTP from a .41mag. He shot the deer at day break standing 20 yards away from his tree stand. I was on the opposite ridge when I heard the shot. I walked over to help and dad pointed out a handfull of hair and a football sized clump of blood. We waited an hour and we attempted to track the deer for the reaminder of the day. We were unable to locate any blood other than the point of impact.

The following day, a member of our hunting cabin found a deer bed with a small amount of blood about 2 miles away from dad's tree stand. Two weeks later, another member of our cabin, Jason shot the deer during late blackpowder season. Jason said the the front shoulder of the buck had a chunk of bullet jacket and small lead fragments in the shoulder bone.

I saw a 180gr Remington Core-Lokt bounce off a black bear at 20 feet. I even picked up the bullet and loaded it for plinking.

I have a difficult time with this idea, personally. Aside from the rare exceptions such as those communicated here by mudhen it seems difficult to call most incidents "bullet failure".

What I mean by that is this: if I recover the animal the bullet, then by definition, it didn't fail. Perhaps it didn't live up to my expectations, but it didn't fail. If I don't recover an animal it could just as likely... honestly in my case, is MORE likely to have been me than the bullet.

Again, there are those rare exceptions like the elk and pronghorn stories relayed above. Stories by RH sound weird too, though the animals were found.

Just my $.02 worth...

...and no, I've never had a bullet failure, though I've had a failure to place a shot well enough to make projectiles of choice kill effectively...

I shot a coyote in the chest with a 165 grain Sierra Game King from an 06 as he sat up and looked at me. I have no idea what happened to the bullet nor the coyote, but from a kneeling position in the middle of a logging road with the coyote sitting on top of a cut bank within 30 feet, there is no way it was anything but bullet failure. An up angle of 15 degrees may have contributed. Later that morning I had another bullet failure with the same outfit on a coyote at 75 yards, slightly downhill.

So I drove to a gravel pit and shot at a candy wrapper at a paced 100 yards. Leaning over the hood of a pickup, I hit within an inch of aim. My partner looked at the candy wrapper with me and opined that it was too bad that the last coyote didn't have a candy wrapper in his mouth.

I've hAd two failures. One was a 30-06 150 grain core-lokt at 310 yards. It blew up on the shoulder.I saw the blood on the shoulder and she went down. I waited about ten minutes before I walked up to her. Never did find her. It took off as I was approaching it at about 200 yards. I took a shot at her while she was running, but did not hit her. Tracked her for about 4 hours and put the farmers dog on the trail, still couldn't find her. That still bothers me. Since then I've switched to 165 grain core-lokt and hornady interlocks and have not had a problem on the dozen or so I've shot with the 165's. The second was with some factory Federal 100 grain boat tails from a 243 at about 95 yards. It hit a rib and blew up. Saw it in the scope and the bullet was right in the ribs but just blew up. She went about 40 yards and stopped, I was able to put another one in the neck to put her down.

Another reason to put steelhead/bigstick on ignore.

I was gonna ask about condom failures, but your existence is proof enough.

I'd like to reply, but you are on ignore Bigstick.

I'd like you to reply dickhead.

fragmentation

When I was in Vermont about 7 yr ago, Iwas at a checking station having coffee with my hunting partners, when this petite young lady brings in a deer with a huge shoulder wound. It was mid- shaft on the femur bone with the surface of the bone exposed with a periferal wound about 6" in diameter and about 1" deep. The bone was not broken. Turns out she shot him at about 30 yds. with an 06 and a 180gr. core-lokt. She said she knocked him right off his feet, and he got up, and she shot him again killing him. Although technically not a shoulder wound, it is an example of cup and core bullet failure on hitting bone at close range. That was the day I became a Nosler partition fan. I know, a bazillion deer and giant beasties have been killed by cup and core bullets..between 10ft and 1000yds...off-hand..so don't drag me by the heels over stones!

Back some years before I learned to use the best bullets I had a failure. I shot at a deer at 27.6874 yards there was no blood no hair and I never found the deer. The bullet failed to hit the deer I call that an all out failure!

Now I use deer seeking bullets.

good day

I was kind of thinking the same thing in regard to this post. Most of my failures involve failures to hit. I recall one especially memorable day. I got up so early I was still shaky, just to get out before the deers were moving. So I'm sitting there on my stand at the juncture or two or more trails when all of a sudden -I don't remember a sound- this deer shows up. It was just poking along. When it was right below me, probably less than ten yards away, I shot - and the Nosler Partition missed. I watched that deer walk away expecting it to fall. It never did - and no blood or hair, just a neat divot in the ground. The same day, in the afternoon, I was again sitting on a stand when I heard a deer bouncing near. At around 30 yards, I busted that deer in the liver and saw the blood spread around the hole at the shot. It trotted on and, not wanting to lose that one, I cranked another into it from the other side so it had two 150 Partitions run through its chest. It took off at a run then and laid down shortly. Following the firehose trail it made, I approached the deer as it lay dying. I figured it was finished. It didn't figure the same. It bolted, running another 75 yards, making a DNA trail a carrot could follow. I swore off Partitions for awhile after that deal. One missed (it couldn't have been me!), one failed to exit a whitetail at that distance with a 308 shooting 150s, and the deer didn't tip over and die.

Well, I've learned a few things in the past two decades. Perhaps the most important thing I've learned is to choose proper bullets for a task, and more importantly, not to fail my bullets when I send them out to do a job.

Okanagan,

Isn't that 165 gr gameking built for deer-sized game rather than a flimsy little coyote? Wouldn't surprise me if your yoddle dog had a nice .308 cal hole straight through him.

Now if you'd have been shooting a 125 gr Speer TNT, that'd be a different story.

Bullets that typically do what they're designed to do are worth taking afield, but that means you gotta use the appropriate tool for the job at hand. Fling a bullet designed for deer at a varmint and have it blow up like a varmint bullet and that would seem to me like bullet failure.

Here is my best one: I had just bought my first "high powered centerfire rifle" in '06 and was out hunting for the first time in nearly 10 years. A nice little buck walked about 15 paces off the tree I was in, and I poked a 150 gr Winchester Power Point right behind his shoulder, putting a hole in his lungs and heart. That darned bullet musta done something wrong, cuz I had to shoot that deer 2 more times in the guts as it ran away before it piled up stone dead 40 yards away.

The damndest thing .

Mauser96
Please do not post the same thread in multiple forums. It confuses posters, dilutes information and fragments discussion. If I catch them prior to a post I will delete one of them.

Not that there is a thing wrong with the topic, but rather, there are two discussions running on the same topic and some assume they already read one or the other.
art