the buck i killed this year ,never made not one step, after i shot him.i was using rem.308,with reloads of 43.2 grains 4064,for powder.barnes triple shock ,165 grain bullet. now at 187 yards the deer never moved,it stood there 3 to 4 seconds,started wobbleing,the went down.intrance and exit hole were found. but the deer never bled from either hole(both hole about big as a dime)when i opened him up blood came from everywhere.if he had ran aways would he left a blood trail? just wondering if barnes is a safe bullet to shoot in case a blood trail is needed to recover the animal.anyone else out there shoot barnes tripleshock with similar or diffrent results

ky hareraiser,

From what I understand your deer was dead on the spot from the bullet. Reason there was no blood on the outside is that the heart stopped pumping blood, and the reason there was all that blood in the inside was because of the force of gravity making the blood flow out of the organs where the bullet hit while it was standing.

Animals dont bleed after they are dead as the heart stops pumping. The animal just took some time to calapse.

Good shooting!

Dimitri

Dimitri wrote:

Reason there was no blood on the outside is that the heart stopped pumping blood, and the reason there was all that blood in the inside was because of the force of gravity making the blood flow out of the organs where the bullet hit while it was standing. Animals dont bleed after they are dead as the heart stops pumping. The animal just took some time to calapse.

Another reason I've found is fat and tissue can plug up the entrance and exit holes. I hear this is very common with blackbears. They just bleed internally. I've had some deer with utterly destroyed vitals that covered quite a distance with no blood trail... looking at them up close I've seen fat and tissue that plugged off the holes.

Yet another possible reason I've seen is deer hit high. Blood flows down into the lungs filling them up, the only blood that exited was from trama to the skin around the holes. I like to hit deer a little lower when possible, it lets'em drain a little easier...


-DallanC

well I did something similar last weekend with my 270 and dropped a dink buck on the spot but i got him through the spine but he didn't bleed much at all but like you when i opened him up he bled like crazy

i think it is because he didn't run off his heart didn't pump the blood out but if he did run the he should have bled his lungs out but that is just what i think

Dallan,

Didn't think of that at all.

Dimitri

Dallan,

I've had that happen to me with fall bears when they're at their fattest.

KY,

The only thing that troubles me a little is the fact the exit hole and entrance holes were the same size. Sounds as if the bullet didn't expand and with a 308 getting out to 200 yards, it should have. Some of the newer bullets seem only to expand well when driven by a magnum. Might want to think about switching to a less "high tech" bullet to get a better expansion.

I've been shooting the Barnes blue XLC for about 4 years now and love them. THis fall I got one shot heart/lung kills on a mule deer and a cow elk. the distances were 174 yards (deer) and 60 yds (elk) and both bullets penetrated fully, and didbleed from both holes. Maybe that deer had an unusually elastic hide.