Went out last night to fill a few tags. My wife shot a buck a bit before dark and a few young deer stayed in the field. I double lunged one at about 200 yards with my 6mm-06 and a 95 LRX. Deer runs a ways (maybe 125-250), gets the wobbles, and falls over. Two other deer run towards it. I am getting setup to shoot another and see a deer sprint across the field right by where the one dropped. I shoot another at 310 slightly quartering, bullets goes through the second to last rib and exits behind the offside shoulder. No spine, no shoulder, just ribs and one lung. Deer drops immediately and does the “dead chicken”.
We start going to each deer and find the buck and the dead chicken. We walk to where deer #2 fell but it is not in the field. This field is wide open and the stubble is too short to hide a deer. I remembered the deer that sprinted near the kill site and follow its line of travel into the brush. A quick search turns up doe #2. She had made it another 125 or so.
The necropsy shows a perfect double lung with large holes drilled through both.
I am not weirded out by the total distance travelled, although impressive. I have just never had one double lunged that got the wobbles and fell over without staying down. Pretty odd.
Thought I might finally have a “Barnes just penciling through” story of my own but didn’t.
Shoot enough you will see some amazing death runs. I shoot a doe with a 12 gauge partition slug big heavy bullet. Hit her once clipping tops of the lungs barely missing the spine. She almost went down. Was tipping as she ran. Since she was still up I plugged her again, now quartering away. She went down and plowed dirt and flipped forward. No way she is getting up.
Only watched her for maybe 30 seconds. Was shooting across a steep sided valley about 90 yards wide. I was on the south rim deer was on north. Drive atv around instead of through the valley. Total of about five minutes. Deer is gone. Blood trail Stevie Wonder could follow. She ended up going about 1/4 mile as the crow flies but closer to a half with all the rambling she did. She needed a 357 to the head as she tried getting up once I found her. First shot found top of lungs. Second shot hit her in offside hind quarter from the inside. Honestly about two fist sized chunks were gone. Could see bright white clean bone.
Never in my life would I have thought any animal could go that far and survive for nearly three hours after that and need a finishing shoot.
If they can get at least three of their feet under them nothing will surprise me any more.
I'm really old, and over the years have seen several different species endure punishment that should have dropped them on the spot. For sure, deer and elk can do a couple hundred yards with the top third of their heart missing. Other lesser critters can string out entrails and still make it to a hide.
It is unnerving to see and hear evidence of a solid hit and have the animal exhibit no evidence of such. Been reading a lot of books from Africa's cap and ball days. Some of those guys put 18-20 four-bore balls into elephants, only to have them escape.
Jud, that’s pretty amazing!! Seen some amazing death runs, for some reason the most with a 7 “mag” more than any other. Dunno why
Had a deer with one arrow through the chest and another through her throat patch run over 300 yards bleeding like a paint sprayer. Only to swim out into a lake and sink! No idea how she could have made it that far but she did.
They do crazy things when hit. I had a deer run about 100 yards one time with half of his heart laying on the ground where I shot it.
My sister shot a buck once that took 9 shots between she and I and then a knife to the throat. This took place over the course of about 10 minutes before it stopped flopping. We waited about five minutes after that crap show to catch our breath and process the hell that had happened when all of a sudden this thing lifted its head and did a death grunt for about 3 seconds. Scared the crap out of us.
Felt like the scene in Me, Myself and Irene
Like shooting a coiled spring.
Clyde
I’ve seen them go over fences, with shot up legs.
You never know what they are going to do, but you do know you and if the shot was true and that is all that matters.
I hit one last year with a 50 cal, through both shoulders, blood everywhere. He left my property, crossed a black top road and into that property before dying. At least 250 yards. Blood everywhere. It looked like a murder scene on the black top road.
I don't know how they do it.
My sister shot a buck once that took 9 shots between she and I and then a knife to the throat. This took place over the course of about 10 minutes before it stopped flopping. We waited about five minutes after that crap show to catch our breath and process the hell that had happened when all of a sudden this thing lifted its head and did a death grunt for about 3 seconds. Scared the crap out of us.
Felt like the scene in Me, Myself and Irene
At the risk of suggesting more range.time is needed before knowing the whole story please tell us how in the hell you came to swiss cheese a deer?