Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Which calibers have wounded in your camps?

I have also seen the results of bullets that ziped through without expanding. Very small entrance and exit holes with no blood trail. I saw it most often with 270 Win and 7mm Mag cartridges loaded with hard jacketed bullets.

The last time I saw this the hunter had shot a small-ish spike three times with a 7 Rem Mag. The first shot was through the neck and knocked the deer down. The next two shots were through the lungs as the deer was running off.

I watched the guy process that deer and from what I saw you would have sworn he had been shooting full jacketed bullets.

It always comes down to being able to put the right bullet in the correct part of the deer.

The bold part was what I was getting at earlier. The 139 grain Hornady and 140 grain Sierra launched from 7mm Weatherbys have a perfect positive track record with my family.

I don't believe deer wear reactive armor.

Two years in a row the wounding caliber on Blacktail was the 300 Weatherby.

22LR, 221 ,222,223,243,270, 30-06, etc.... Any rifle can wound if you do not put the bullet in the right place. I don't think there is a any rifle caliber that will fail to kill with the right bullet in the right place. I've seen a PD crawling off from a miss placed 50 grain 22-250 slug... not enough gun? Should have used a TSX? Maybe a 300 mag?

I don't often hunt with a club. I hunt mostly in heavy timber or swamps. The rifles that work best for me are lever guns in .30-30 and .44 Mag. I load for them both.
This coming year, I will be trying out my Bushmaster .223 though. I am working up a hunting load. It should do just fine.

Growing up in hunting camp it was ol' Vince the egg man and his 300 Weatherby. Insisted on taking running shots that usually missed, but occasionally would blow the bejesus out of the ass end of the deer.

Purty rifle, but jeez.....

Doubt there is a cartridge in existence that hasn't wounded an animal. The worst tracking job I ever got into was a huge whitetail with a 243. Found it the next morning, but then gut shots tend to cause trouble with most anything.

I lost one buck with a .30-06 Remington Core-lock 150 grain, and this deer was hit in both lungs.
The deer went to the next property over, a good half mile, leaving a trail of blood and lung tissue, that stopped after 200 yards. This one was a big surprise, as he was maybe 75 yards away and it was a solid hit. The guy that saw it on the next property was about to shoot it, when he saw it stumble along the trail by his stand, but it fell dead before he could shoot it.
I started using the Hornady 150 Grain SST, and never lost another one after that, as it tends to leave a better exit wound.
The Hornady SST & Interbond bullets tend to do a better job on deer, or at least that's what I've seen.

The Texas Parks & Wildlife Dept. did a study, which a friend of mine wrote an article about. Their data showed more deer wounded in-state with .243's - more than with centerfire .22's which are popular here, and they concluded this was because so many beginning hunters chose this round. Again, probably shot placement more than cartridge capability. The next worst offenders were the magnums, and the reason seemed to be many users did not shoot enough to be comfortable - or accurate - with the heavier recoil. Again, being able to put the bullet in the right place seems more important than the bullet itself. Some uniformed magnum users feel that a hit anywhere on an animal should bring it down, due to the sheer power of the weapon. This could also be an excuse voiced after the shooter realizes he is afraid of the rifle, and cannot execute proper shot placement.

I have a friend who shot a medium Texas deer with his .300 Win Mag season before last. The deer ran 100 yards before expiring. He has a brake on this rifle to reduce recoil. I would suspect poor shot placement combined with a heavy bullet designed for a larger animal. My poor little .300 Savage killed virtually instantly with a high shoulder shot and a 150 gr Corelokt.

It is important for people to use what they are comfortable hunting with, and to shoot that rifle to the point that you are very comfortable and confident in the rifle.
I think that lighter weight bullets with controlled expansion are the way to go, and placement is most important.
I like to pick one bullet weight and style and stick with it, as long as it holds a tight group.

I suppose I have seen more .30s wound deer than anything, but that is just because more .30s are used. I've shot deer with everything from .22lr through 300 WM and never lost one with any gun. I have lost a couple hit by others that I was chasing down. Always comes down to shot placement. But... even a well hit deer is capable of not bleeding much and hiding well. I have recently seen a deer with it's heart blown apart and no recognizable lung tissue in the chest leave only about three drops of blood outside it's body, with a hole in and a hole out. I have also seen deer shot in roughly equivalent manner make it a lot further than I would believe possible. So, for me, my experience of never losing one is more or less just luck.

My step-dad shot a rag horn a few years ago with a 140g Fail Safe in 7mm mag. I wasn't there to witness any of it, but apparently it was a well placed shot through the rib-cage. The bull kicked out like it was hit and went down only to get up and run off leaving no blood trail. (shot was around a 100 yards)

They looked for a few hours and never recovered the bull.


Few years earlier I shot my first bull with the same load at 14 yards. Took the shot quartering away from me, slipped the bullet in right behind the rib cage on the right side. It exited dead center in front of his brisket. He only went about 20 yards before piling up, but the exit wasn't much larger than the enterance. I don't recall what the insides looked like?


Quite a few years ago I took a whitetail at around 250 yards pretty much running straight away from me. Using some Remington extended range bullets. I think they were around a 160g in my 7mm mag.

First shot he dropped, only to get up and take off again. I hurried over there and caught up with him and put him down with another well placed shot. Skinning him out I found the first bullet had hit around the tail bone with only 2-3" of penetration. Wasn't impressed with that bullet performance by any means. I would have thought at that range it still should have made it into the vitals.

I've heard of more than one fail-safe that "failed" to open


Wrong bullet for the application.

My buddy and his 7mag has cripled more deer and elk than I have killed in the last 8 yrs! I would almost guarantee it.

Another good one by Mathman! I have thought about this issue and even been lucky to recover a bullet or two here and there that tends to show that SOME high vel bullets,at close range APPEAR not to have expanded,and "zipped through"...But IMO I believe what happens in many instances is that gilding metal jackets and alloy cores,(being more brittle than pure copper and lead),actually "shear off" under the stress of high impact velocity,leaving a small frontal area,and "zip" on through...instead of developing that broad "mushroom" and maintaining it during passage through the animal.


This changes a bit when you use a "gummy" pure lead/copper bullet,and I have shot black bear,mule deer,and whitetails at rock throwing distances with 130 and 140 gr bullets of this type started at 3100-3300 fps. Believe me I saw no evidence of "zipping through " as ,for the most part these animals were crushed on the spot.

In the 2006(?)Gun Digest there are two excellent articles on bullet performance by Tom Turpin and Terry Weiland;Weiland discusses the then recent problems with the TBBC bullets when Federal took over and started making them from alloy cores and guilding metal jackets, as opposed to the pure lead and copper used by Jack Carter;the newer bullet was not as "good". Bill Steigers of Bitterroot would not cut a deal with a major bullet manufacturer to mass produce the Bitterroot;he knew mass manufacturing techniques (then)would require a move to alloy and guilding metal,compromising his bullet's performance. There's a reason why outfits like Swift, and (I think) Northfork, use pure copper and lead.

I killed a very large buck mule deer at about 50-60 yards after a long stalk with a 7 RM, and 140 Nolser Partition at 3300,catching nothing but ribs and lungs;entrance and exit were small,but the off-side ribs were a bloodshot mess. Clearly, the bullet blew the front section,and it DID zip through,but damage was enormous.

Another hit at about the same distance with a 140 Bitterroot at 3300, was taken on the near shoulder,quartering on,and I recovered the bullet,fully expanded and retaining about 95% of its weight,just forward of the off side hip.The impact blew a mist of blood out of his nose,onto his face and antlers.He collapsed as the rifle recoiled....

So I think this notion of "zipping through" without expanding is mostly lousy,or unsuited bullets,and know for certain that cartridges giving 3100-3300 fps absolutely flatten stuff at close range,if you use good bullets....no doubt a lot of bullets "behave" better at low impact velocities, the reason things like Speer 250 gr 35 caliber bullets were always popular with users of the 35 Whelan.

I was shown a 130 gr Hornady Interlockt fired from a 270 Weatherby factory load, that sheared off at the cannelure when fired into a mule deer at under 100 yards; it was just like you sawed it in two...just another example...


But at the end of the day,with most rifles and bullets available today,if you have a friend who tells you this cartridge or that one is a "wounder", better tell him to look in the mirror for the reason...there are no cartridges that make up for lack of skill and judgement in bullet placement.

Wounded deer have more to do with the shooter than it does the cartridge!

Yup!

every single one of them....is this really a serious topic?

You mean I sold my .270 and bought my 7 mag and the hole time it was me, the nut behind the trigger who was at fault???
NO! I tell you it was that gun. I couldn't shoot sheet with it.
It was also the bullets fault. I now have about a grand of reloading equipment and have fixed that problem. Course now that I can afford to put 500 rounds down range each year, well that hasn't hurt.......


I think this horse is beat. Some good stuff though.

A Sask. Or Alberta Whitetail buck can go over 400 lbs live weight.
So that could be why the bigger cal. idea.