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

So far I've seen BT's, Accubonds, Partitions, Silvertips, Interlocks, Speer's, some random SP, and Corelokts work well.

The BT was kind of explosive but killed the deer. Everything exited.

I intend to continue my bullet testing on big game at the next available opportunity, but I won't lose any sleep about the Interlock failing from my .358... :-) Hope i don't have to eat those words.

-jeff

"...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."

"Although technically not a shoulder wound"

You may not find this terribly humerus...

But a shoulder shot baring femur is proof of tremendous bullet damage... Did the bullet hit the rear leg first and move the femur forward, or did the shoulder get transposed aft?
art

no stones or heels just my experiences and questions...I shot a small doe at 136 yards with a 30-06 and a Remington 180 grain round nose corelock, the bullet passed thru the center of the chest out the left side spraying blood for 10 feet behind where it hit the deer and only took out one lung. The deer ran off....we found it and killed it but the bullet did not look to have opened as the front hole and the exit hole were no bigger than a quarter, the lung was gone however...was this a bullet failure? I also had one of the early ballistic silvertips blow up on a rib of a big spike with peices going multiple directions, but most of it still managed to exit, this deer ran as well but only 30 yards, when found one large peice had turned right and penetrated into the stomach cavity which pxssed me off..was this a bullet failure? My friend shot an 8 point with a 30-06 with deer quartering away thru back of lungs into right shoulder, what was left of the bullet was under skin of right shoulder deer ran but dies, was this a bullet failure? 180 AB from a 300WSM into an 8 point at 22 yards thru the lungs and heart, deer ran 30 or so yards, again small hole going in 50Cents coming out, was this a bullet failure? I ain't gona get worked up to much about any bullet that kills what I shoot it at. If I lose the animal and am sure that I hit it, this is where I am going to be pxssed. We are getting too technical here, we deal with blood guts, eat half cooked meat and drink mud called coffee, sleep with bugs, sit in trees and walk hundreds of miles over a lifetime doing this stuff and then we get on a keyboard and try to make it more scientific than it can be. Just my opinion.

Or as Yeats said, in his great poem "The Second Coming":

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

-jeff (what is the best caliber for "what rough beast", below?)

------------------------------------------------------------
The Second Coming, W. B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Been gone a few days and haven't checked this thread much.

Yep, the 165 GK isn't eggzackly a varmint bullet, but it killed a good many coyotes when 30-06 it was the only centerfire I owned and coyotes were targets of opportunity when hunting deer. I did some sewing to sell the fur and that bullet normally makes a fair sized exit on a coyote.

I had one of them pencil through a small snowshoe hare, .30 hole clean through ribs broadside and didn't knock the rabbit off its feet. I was about to shoot it again thinking that I'd missed when it keeled over.

On the coyote, I don't think it was a pencil through. The coyote was on crusted snow and any cut hair or pinprick of blood would have shown. Plus a hit in the front of the chest with that bullet as he sat up slightly above me would pass through the rib cage and exit between the withers or slightly behind. That would hit the spine or close enough to it to disrupt things for at least a few seconds. Very far off center and it should have been cutting a longer exit hole on the curve of his body and even farther out should have done shoulder damage. So, I claim that the bullet vaporized due to the twist rate in the 03-A3 and the 56 grains of IMR 4350. Couldn't have been operator failure and a miss. Had to be bullet failure.

Through the years I've had maybe three or four mystifying shots where I have no idea what happened but the animal acted like it was a clean miss. This coyote was one of them. I never feel too bad when I figure out why I missed a shot: flinch, contorted field position with shaking body, barrel against a rock, hit a twig, wind gust on a long one, etc. But when the hold and everything is good with a rifle of consistent tight accuracy, I wonder what happened on a gimme shot.

Emphatically agree about a bullet doing what it should. My bullet failures have been a result of using the wrong bullet for the job: I.e. a bullet too light and frangible for big critters, or one stoutly constructed for big game penciling through small critters. I've seen a few bullets simply not perform as they were supposed to and recovered a few of those from dead critters. The kills were in spite of poor bullet performance, erratic bullets that did not have consistent performance and I quit using them on critters bigger than deer.

I have to say, I've never had a bullet failure. I'm also a believer that if you recovered the critter, the bullet worked just fine.

That being said, I learned the hard way what other posters have already said. Use the right pill and caliber for the job... I had a bad experience with a couple of antelope back in the early 90's and 95 grain Nosler Ballistic tips. Both were hit in the shoulder and upon autopsy (after a 2nd bullet) the shoulder hits were just too much for the old BT's. Early on in my coyote calling career, all I had was an -06. More than once I had 180 grain Partitions fly right on through song-dogs at close yardages. I would have thought it was a miss, except the snow painting told a different story. Then I once shot a coyote with my old 243 (long since been turned into a 260) with a 100 grain partition at powder burn distance. He took it square in the chest looking right at me. There was no exit wound. While skinning him it was obvious that all his innards were turned to jello though (he died like he was electricuted.)

These days I pretty much stick to Partitions on big game. I've never had one let me down.

I have not had a bullet "fail",but I was brought to shooting big game rifles by some experienced,well-traveled big game hunters who, to a man, shot nothing but Nosler Partitions in every caliber.This was back in the 70's when the Partition was really the only thing available in the way of commonly-available premium big game bullets.Along the way I educated myself and read a lot of what Bob Hagel, Warren Page, etc said about big game bullets and pretty much stuck to their script.

Since I have never believed the tale about using softer bullets to kill deer-sized game, I used Nosler Partitions for everything from deer on up,and still do. Along the way, I "discovered" Bitterroots,and used them extensively, laying in a large supply that will last the rest of my hunting career. Seeing their performance on game up to Alaskan Brown Bear led me to the conclusion that I did not need to try any others,because I am not in the bullet-testing business, but rather prefer to hunt without "guessing" what the bullet will do.

Along the way I have seen what I considered to be less than sterling bullet performance from some bullets used by others,and I am not pursuaded that, just because you recovered a bullet from a dead animal, that the bullet worked fine, because each shot circumstance is different and the fact that you got away with using a sub-standard bullet a couple times does not guarantee you will be that lucky again.After all is said and done, it's the bullet that does the killing and you are far better served to spend your hard-earned money on great game bullets than anything else in your line-up of shooting gear.

I would much rather, for example, hunt elk with a 270 and a 130 gr Bitterroot than a 300 RUM and a 180 BT; I KNOW which will do the better job, will have the larger frontal area and which will retain the most weight after punching through a bunch of elk meat.

Just two in 40 + years of big game hunting, one was with a 240 gr bullet out of a 44 mag, I was shooting one of those little Ruger simi autos,back then, that bullet a factory Remington load, slipped the jacket and broke up some what, there was four pieces of bullet recoverd. Strange thing as I recall, never seen it before, the other was a 160 gr Hornaday RN 6.5 out of a 6.5 x 55, I hit the ball joint on a white tail, and well I recovered the bullet. The only 160 gr 6.5 bullet I ever recovered, I still have it, it kept just about 62% of its weight, and looks like a little mushroom. The thing is that if you hunt long enough, and shoot a bit of game along the way, you will see some strange things. You see less of it today, than in the 1950's and 60's, back then the new high Vel cartridges were coming out and it took time for bullets to catch up. Nosler had some problems with the first generation BT's as I recall,or hunters did. They make millions of bullets a year, and there is bound to be in all those bullets a few that turn to crap for no reason other than they did. Over all, bullets today even plain cup and core bullets like Speer or hornaday are so much better than they were thirty years ago. The bottom line is just pick a good hunting bullet that is up to that task that you want it to do.

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate it. All except Bigstick (Steelhead) Steelhead, have you got a big fat wife too??

If you aren't Bigstick, which I suspect you are, he had a very fat wife. F45kin' whale. Seemed to like it that way, too. Trust me, a skinny woman can DEFINATELY keep you as warm as a FAT one...............she just doesn't sweat as much...........so don't use that excuse...............and you probably shouldn't bother replying (but you will, because you are a sucker) because you are on ignore.


I just imagine what an a#$hole would say, and respond to that.

Yep, wisdom abounds with you.

Are you really Big Stick, Steelhead?



I sound like a native....grin

Yeah Steelhead, C'mon, level with us. We won't tell.

Yep, that about proved it......

The best part of you, really did dribble off someone's chin.....................

Andy dickhead that will drag another man's wife into it, esp. when the dude ain't even here, ain't even involved, and has nothing to do with it, is a lowlife POS.

Steelhead is OK in my book. Mauser, don't become a Naval Aviator. That type of humor is the norm. You have to have some thick skin at times but it is entertaining!

RH