Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting What 'cartridge' have you had the MOST --DRTs?

Oh, that's an easy one.

Blue jeans & a plaid shirt, hunter orange vest/jacket & hunter orange ball cap/toque.

To the OP:

.243 & 95gr federal fusion.

Close second - 7mm-08 & 120gr TTSX.

300 Savage, Remington 180 grain corelokts.

375 win

30-06 slinging 180's

270 with 150 gr. bullets. Going to try 140's someday.

308 WIN

A.30-06

Jwall I will answer by not answering again

I can't tell you what cartridges have given the most DRT's...but I can tell you what bullets have, for me.

12 ga 2 3/4" lightfield sabot slugs

Your Honor, would you instruct the witness to answer the question ?

Reckon I could guess ?

Toss-up between the 25-06 (in my youth) and the 260 Remington (mature years).

Kaiser Norton

My .264 Win. mag. Hands Down. My 7x57 is not far behind it.

300 WSM and 150gr Interbonds. Killed 15 in two yrs with that rifle and load and they never took a step.

250 Savage

35 Whelan and 7-08

I would have to say the 6.5 swede. Then maybe a toss up between the 243 and 250 savage. The last 2 used lighter bullets,70 and 87 grainers.

I have killed thousands of animals with every caliber from .22 to .45. My experience is that the condition of the animal has more to do with DRT's that the mechanics of any load.

An undisturbed completely unaware animal that is hit in the shoulder/lung area is more likely to drop on the spot than and aware animal shot with anything whatsoever, in the same spot.

DRT's are as easy as your ability to head shoot if anyone cares to be clinical about it, but the majority of hunters will place bullets in the shoulder/lung area, hopefully taking out the heart or major arteries as well.

Some of the very best cartridges are mild with just a touch more caliber beyond adequacy. eg; A .243 is a good deer cartridge but a 6.5x55 Swede or 7x57 with a lightish medium weight cup and core style bullet will record higher percentages of DRT's.

Alternatively, the fast cartridges also demonstrate a jump in percentile such as the 3300fps+ range of cartridges also using cup and core bullets. An eg here would be .257 Weatherby loaded with 87gn Hornady's at 3800fps. Quite Spectacular.

As a cull cartridge, .308 or .30/06 with 150 grainers. .270 with 110's, .300's with 165's etc.

So...what did I really say?

Don't confuse a DRT question with best bullets for bad angles. No worst case scenarios, as is a usual consideration. The question was simpler than that, "What cartridge have you had the most DRT's?"

Hope this helps explain it.

Yep, John it does. I'm glad you checked in too.

Actually I wasn't addressing, head-c n s shots. I thot most everybody knew that a decent hit to the cns meant instant drop.

Also I've experienced the diff between a calm, relaxed animal's reaction compared to 1/more that were JACKED up for whatever cause. A scared or nervous animal has what I'd call adrenaline flowing. They can be TANKS to stop if the cns is not hit.

I was posing a simple question not directed at any particular place of impact.

Some animals simply COLLAPSE w/o being hit in the cns, just don't expect it every time.

I'm not ready to draw a conclusion but you can see the answers cover the gamut.

Thnx.

Happy Birthday, Jwall.

The cartridge that has given me the most bang-flops has been the 7mm/08. Specifically, I used to load the 140 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip over 42 grains of BL-C2, and it was like 2700 fps of cyanide.