22 Hi-Power For Deer - 12/06/09
In light of a couple of recent posts concerning the suitability of the 22 Hi-Power for deer, I decided to take my H out this year since I had never hunted deer with it before. Here is my story for what it�s worth.
Stalked up on a 4-point mulie laying in a little draw and when I got to within about 60 yards he heard me and stood up offering a good broadside shot so I put the bead low behind the left front shoulder through the Lyman 1A and plunked him. He humped up, ran about 20 yards and went down. I watched him for a minute and when he didn�t move I started to get up and walk over to him. At which point he saw me, jumped up and ran to the top of a sharp ridge about 120 yards away. He stood there with his head down facing away from me. Since he was about two steps from going out of sight I waited and after about five minutes and he finally turned and offered a broadside shot of his left side, so I held just behind the front shoulder about halfway up and plunked him again.
At the shot he dropped off the opposite side of the ridge he was on into a deep wooded draw. I ran over to where he was standing and saw him trotting away down the draw about a half-mile away. As I watched him he came out of the draw up onto a little bench and lay down.
He had laid down in a place where I could sneak up to within about 20 yards and when I finally got there I put the bead on his neck and whistled. He didn�t move so I walked over to him and he was dead. During the subsequent gutting and skinning operations I saw that both shots had hit exactly where aimed, the first low behind the right front shoulder that should have taken out the heart, and the second a lung shot just behind the opposite shoulder halfway up. The first shot did not hit a rib. The second one did. Both shots penetrated the chest cavity, but did not hit the opposite side. There was no damage to the heart and little if any lung damage that I could see. There was a little blood pooled in the chest cavity, so I guess he finally bled to death. I looked and looked in the lungs and chest cavity to try to recover a bullet but didn�t find one. I was shooting 71-grain factory Norma ammo.
If this deer had been in a heavily wooded area as opposed to the open country where he was, I almost certainly would have lost him. He left absolutely no blood trail that I could find, not even where he had stood for five minutes where I fired the second shot. He traveled over half a mile from where he was first hit.
It is possible that some good hand loads might make some difference, but in deference to the animal my 22 Hi-Power is being retired from deer hunting. In my opinion the factory Norma�s certainly were not adequate for this 225 lb (field dressed) mule deer. Others mileage may vary.
An interesting post script�While looking for blood where this deer had stood for about 5-minutes prior to me firing the second shot I found this old expended 30-30 round. About 4-feet from it lay a thumb scraper the plains Indians used to flesh hides. Apparently this has been a good place to hunt for at least a couple of thousand years.
Stalked up on a 4-point mulie laying in a little draw and when I got to within about 60 yards he heard me and stood up offering a good broadside shot so I put the bead low behind the left front shoulder through the Lyman 1A and plunked him. He humped up, ran about 20 yards and went down. I watched him for a minute and when he didn�t move I started to get up and walk over to him. At which point he saw me, jumped up and ran to the top of a sharp ridge about 120 yards away. He stood there with his head down facing away from me. Since he was about two steps from going out of sight I waited and after about five minutes and he finally turned and offered a broadside shot of his left side, so I held just behind the front shoulder about halfway up and plunked him again.
At the shot he dropped off the opposite side of the ridge he was on into a deep wooded draw. I ran over to where he was standing and saw him trotting away down the draw about a half-mile away. As I watched him he came out of the draw up onto a little bench and lay down.
He had laid down in a place where I could sneak up to within about 20 yards and when I finally got there I put the bead on his neck and whistled. He didn�t move so I walked over to him and he was dead. During the subsequent gutting and skinning operations I saw that both shots had hit exactly where aimed, the first low behind the right front shoulder that should have taken out the heart, and the second a lung shot just behind the opposite shoulder halfway up. The first shot did not hit a rib. The second one did. Both shots penetrated the chest cavity, but did not hit the opposite side. There was no damage to the heart and little if any lung damage that I could see. There was a little blood pooled in the chest cavity, so I guess he finally bled to death. I looked and looked in the lungs and chest cavity to try to recover a bullet but didn�t find one. I was shooting 71-grain factory Norma ammo.
If this deer had been in a heavily wooded area as opposed to the open country where he was, I almost certainly would have lost him. He left absolutely no blood trail that I could find, not even where he had stood for five minutes where I fired the second shot. He traveled over half a mile from where he was first hit.
It is possible that some good hand loads might make some difference, but in deference to the animal my 22 Hi-Power is being retired from deer hunting. In my opinion the factory Norma�s certainly were not adequate for this 225 lb (field dressed) mule deer. Others mileage may vary.
An interesting post script�While looking for blood where this deer had stood for about 5-minutes prior to me firing the second shot I found this old expended 30-30 round. About 4-feet from it lay a thumb scraper the plains Indians used to flesh hides. Apparently this has been a good place to hunt for at least a couple of thousand years.