Been wanting to post this one for a couple of weeks now, ever since I had a nice 12 to 14 point buck (about 110 to 130 lbs.) resurrect and run off on me.
I punched this fella in the shoulder, a good clean shot from a rested firing position 210 yards out (measured with a range finder) hit him with a Hornady A-max 178-grain bullet from a .308 Winchester cartridge. Watched this guy fold in half and saw all four hoofs go up in the air, up side down.
Got down from the stand and loaded into the truck to go pick him up only to find that he’d up and runn’oft.
I was able to follow the blood trail through the wet grass and scrub about 150 yards up to the wood line and then perhaps another 50 yards through the woods until it was too dark to see anything anymore. Went out the next morning and looked for a couple more hours without any luck.

The neighbor has popped 4 this season and had them run more than 150 yards before expiring. He’s also lost one. He too is using 178-grain Hornady A-max bullets from his 30-06. The last one he hit was at about 50 to 60 yards out and was purposely placed directly on the shoulder bone. When the animal was recovered, some 200 yards away from the point of impact, there was a clean hart lung shot entry wound and an exit hole you could have placed softball into. Upon dressing out, what was left of the animal, the hart and both lungs had been punched through were totally shredded jelly.

We’ve chronographed both the .308 and the 30-06 loads and the results are below…
.308 Winchester at 2300 feet per second.
30-06 Springfield at 2800 feet per second.

I did manage a couple of weeks later to get a nice 14 pointer (about 120 lbs.) with a 265 yard shot to the spine directly between the shoulder blades, so the season wasn’t a bust for me. The bullet was recovered and the weight was 157 grains, the jacket material had almost totally separated from the core and after I finished washing the bullet the lead fell out of the jacket.

I suppose the question is, what are we doing wrong? I mean, we all hear the stories of those guy’s anchoring their deer on the spot, from 90,000 yards with Great Grandpa’s issue Eddystone, and mil-surp. ammo, while at a dead run, up hill, in the snow, during a hurricane...

Suggestions?

You hear a lot of "bull-istics" around gun stores, etc. The only sure way to drop any critter on the spot is a hit to the central nervous system. I'm guessing you hit close enough to the spine to stun the buck and when he recovered he got up and left. The bullet may have passed over the vitals.

AbeNormal wrote:

guy’s anchoring their deer on the spot, from 90,000 yards with Great Grandpa’s issue Eddystone, and mil-surp. ammo, while at a dead run, up hill, in the snow, during a hurricane...

Here for the accurate translation:

"Deer ran half a mile, shot it from 9 yards with my Great Grandpa's Eddystone which has never seen a bore brush down its bore since the Great War, and that old box of Dominion ammo that's been in the family for 40 years cause no one ever shoots the damn thing except while hunting, while the deer was eating some alfalfa, me in the tree stand right above it, with a light frost on the ground and not a cloud in the sky"



Dimitri

Welcome to HuntingNut AbeNormal. Pull up a stump, grab a beer and sit awhile.

You know, I had a similar situation some years back. I nailed a fallow buck in the neck from about 50 metres and he dropped like a stone...didn't move. We walked up to him, grabbed him by the antlers and pulled him back out onto the track.

The mate then cut his throat...took out a piece about 9" long including the windpipe and arteries. Damned if this bugger didn't then jump up and do a runner. Luckily I had the rifle beside me so I whacked a round into the back of his head...down he went again. Checked the throat to make sure it was in fact properly cut. Everytime I touched him with the knife he jumped. Ended up two of us holding him down to redo the throat.

Toughest bugger I have ever encountered. Good eating though.

Cheers, Vince

Vince,

Thank you for the warm welcome.

I too have heard more than a few accounts of hunters having to sort out how to escape from an adrenaline pumped up buck bent on sticking the hunter with an antler. I've taken the advice of a good friend who's a life long hunter and carry a .38 special loaded with mild 158 grain JHP's. One to the back of the skull through the spinal column and fight goes out of them rather quickly.

I suppose, after numerous conversations with gentlemen that have many more hunting seasons under their belt's than do I, that given the somewhat small stature of the southeastern whitetail the heavy weight bullet is inappropriate. I’m considering the merits of a lighter weight slightly faster bullet for next year. Perhaps something a little closer to the ballistics of the .270 Winchester. My thoughts in this are that a 150 grain bullet pushing about 2900 FPS should be quite reasonably flat shooting out to 300+ yards, hard hitting, but still not have the mass to punch through Bambi as the 178 grain bullets have been observed to do every time with a shoulder shot.

Comments?

The classic overkill !!! A 178gr. A-max ????

Welcome to the site AbeNormal, Get that beer and grab that stump !!!!

Seen it over and over, everyone thinks you need 2 ton of energy to bring down a 100lb. animal.
All you get is a lot of wasted energy going out the off side of the animal. No energy transfer inside to give the hydrostatic shock it takes for a instant lights out kill.

Your on the right path with the lighter bullets you’ve already mentioned.
The type of bullet plays a role also.

Over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that all you need for whitetails is a 100-120gr. bullet traveling around 2,900-3,000 fps. Anything inside 300 yards will go down in their tracks.

AbeNormal
This is one of the best places you can come to discuss these issues, there are some great guys here with tons of experience, and they will help you, as they have me.

I think here in the south the lighter grain bullets 100 to say 150 will kill just about anything we have, provided shot placement was good.

Another thing I do, because I have read that it is a good idea is to wait a good half hour before going to your kill. That has worked well for me, nothing was breathing by the time I got there.

I have had great luck thus far this year with Whitetail (6 with at least two more trips planned), one Bobcat, and a feral hog. All where killed with factory ammo, 130 gr Remington Core-Lokt PSP in a 270, pretty cheap ammo as store bought goes.

The only animal that went more than 10 yards was the hog; he went about 150 yards, but was very much dead when I got to him. I was a little worried about the 270 on the hog, but he was less than 200 out and standing broadside to me. He went about 175 field dressed and the heart and lungs were soup, I’m amazed he went as far as he did.

Anyway, welcome to HuntingNut.

Abe, try the Hornady SST, its designed as a "deer bullet".

I find this happen to me many times when I shoot foxes with 22 cals (223, 22lr, 22WMR and Hornet)
I definitely got them on the heart as autopsy shown, but some how, they always can jump back up and do a runner for at least 100 or 200 meters.
I stop shooting them on the head after I got a headless body that jumps! into the car and proceed to bloody everything inside.

I reload the 150 gr Accubond for my .308. It seems to do very well when I do my part on whitetail deer most drop in there tracks with a high lung shot and the one's that run leave a great blood trail.
Joe

Everybody has got an opinion on this one. I like a 130 grain Remington core-lok in a 270 at the shoulder line---mid way up. It works for me. Although, like Vince says...somewhere around the third vertebrae below the scull.

I've heard of this happening a bunch of times. With that much power, it shouldn't happen; I'd just count it up as bad luck.

Cary

How about a 90mm recoiless rifle? That should drop him ok.

Come on now! Everybody knows that you just have to shoot zombies in the head...

This isn't one of those silver bullet things, is it....or is that a warewolf?

Cary

165 grain Sierra HPBT. 59 grains of H4831 for my .30-06 seems to do the trick (2700 fps). Or a 170 grain Speer HCFN. 32 grains of W-748 for my .30 WCF works pretty good too (2000 fps).

Beats the hell out of a "silver bullet". Seen the price on those silver ones? Either that or they just don't have any zombie deer here...