.223, 6mm, and 6.5 failures on big game

[HighUintas]

Would those be failures tho? 40 yards isn’t to bad. Did the bullets not open up?

Ha no they're not failures. It was a joke. I was surprised I got no exit with the 180 speer, but didn't care caused it dropped him quickly.

 

[bmart2622]

In no way would I consider not getting an exit or lack of blood trail a bullet failure

 

[TaperPin]

Double lunged a cow at 150 eating off a hay stack with 100 gr Partition at 243 velocity. She ran around 350 to 400 yards. Seems pretty half ass.

 

[Choupique]

no way would I consider not getting an exit or lack of blood trail a bullet failure

If the design of the bullet is meant to give straight line penetration measured in feet and a 150 pound deer catches it because the jacket separated, how's that not a failure?

I get your point. Dead is dead and fragmentation helps with making stuff dead quickly. Recovery of the animal is the goal, and lack of a liberal blood trail dramatically affects my chances of recovery. For me, a bullet designed to penetrate and doesn't penetrate due to structural failure is a bullet failure.

 

[Hnthrdr]

Double lunged a cow at 150 eating off a hay stack with 100 gr Partition at 243 velocity. She ran around 350 to 400 yards. Seems pretty half ass.

Buddy double lunged a doe pronghorn with a 7 rem mag at 200 yards with a 160 grn accubond, she ran just shy of 400 yards before she died

 

[Formidilosus]

So this has nothing to do with bullets. It’s two ways of relaying the exact same and 100% true story that I hope illustrate why many people want either extensive details or photos. One example I feel like provides enough relevant details and info to get the full context. The other is all opinion but provides nothing for anyone else to understand the context. I think many folks who are challenged on a post are challenged quite rightly due to simply not providing anywhere close to enough info to illustrate the conclusion. Not all. But many.

Example 1: I shot a deer this weekend with a bow at 20 yards, broadside, from a tree stand. Shot went high based on lighted nock and observed impact, entrance I believe was high lung directly above front leg, so exit should have been mid lung. Initially I did not think the arrow passed through because I saw it protruding from the off side as it turned and ran. However, I did find the arrow 30 feet past there, good blood end to end, but two of the 4 blades (so one full blade-piece, slick trick magnum broadhead) had both blades broken off. I did not recover the deer. I spent a total of 4 hours following blood trail. Also had a dog tracker came and look, despite reasonaly good carnage at several points aling the trail, the blood trail became very sporadic and due to the cover extremely difficult to follow. We hit a creek we couldnt cross after 230 yards of trailing And called it quits. I went back the next AM and continued the search in daylight without finding another spot of blood. Takeaways: first deer ive shot in a long time that wasnt buried in the dirt just past the deer. Speculate due to “barely pass through”, long trail and diminishing blood, broken blades and abrasion-marks on arrow shaft that I hit shoulder blade possibly forward of the lungs or just clipped a lung. Unsure of whether to call this a broadhead success or failure. Photo below shows first blood found 30 yards into the trail, as well as a good representation of the cover we trailed it thru.

View attachment 782827




Example 2: i tried slick tricks, Id stay away. Worked a few times until it didnt. Pretty easy shot, maybe a touch high but should have been a dead deer, it broke blades and never found it. Never again.

Spot on post.

 

[bmart2622]

The purpose of the bullet is to kill what you are shooting at. It needs to penetrate and damage vitals, I could care less if it separates or exits the off side. Lack of blood trail has as much to do with shot placement as bullet construction and as someone else stated, a "lack of bloodtrail" can be pretty subjective. Ive also never seen a bullet manufacturer making any penetration depth claims or straight line penetration claims....maybe some have, I just havent seen that.

 

[Harvey_NW]

Since it's been brought up multiple times, here are the pics from my thread about a 143 eld-x that my friend shot a deer with. This was a mature blacktail buck, broadside at 140 yards, 6.5 Creedmoor, factory 143 eld-x Precision Hunter ammo. He says this buck was standing by himself in a lane with no obstructions or vegetation, clear line of sight, shoots the buck with a bang flop result, while walking up to the buck it stands at 30 yards and he shoots it in the back of the head terminating it. While gutting it, he noticed none of the vitals seemed to be damaged, but continued working and got the buck home. Upon skinning the buck he recovered the majority of the jacket and part of the core from the center of the impact wound. No other notable fragments were found, and there were no penetrations into the cavity. No holes or lacerations to any of the bloodshot rib meat where the bullet was recovered on the outside.



I have since informed him that he doesn't know what he's doing, didn't take enough pictures, doesn't remember what actually happened, and needs to quit shooting deer through other deer and still hitting the target deer exactly where he intends.

I'm jk, but it was poured on pretty strong.

 

[TaperPin]

Buddy double lunged a doe pronghorn with a 7 rem mag at 200 yards with a 160 grn accubond, she ran just shy of 400 yards before she died

We haven’t had that problem with that bullet at 7 mag velocities. Many of us hunt exclusively with the 7 mag Accubond combo and it’s been boringly reliable on all size of critters.

 

[Choupique]

never seen a bullet manufacturer making any penetration depth claims or straight line penetration claims.

They all make some variation of high weight retention and high penetration claims. The only ones explicitly claiming straight line penetration distances are dangerous game bullets. All "hunting" bullets tout controlled expansion and deep penetration.

That said, it is not unreasonable to expect said penetration to be in a relatively straight line, and to be of sufficient distance to go through a deer from basically any angle. A whitetail deer is what, 18" wide? The FBI expects 9mm hollow point bullets to go nearly that deep.

My experience of poor bullet performance has most often been traditional hunting bullets from small caliber rifles. I had a cheap cup and core 140gr soft point from a 6.5x55 at about 60 yards not exit. Was caught in the offside hide, core and jacket separated. Had centered a rib on each side. Deer ran about 50 yards with a tough blood trail. That's a failed bullet IMO.

 

[Hnthrdr]

We haven’t had that problem with that bullet at 7 mag velocities. Many of us hunt exclusively with the 7 mag Accubond combo and it’s been boringly reliable on all size of critters.

Right? I was just as floored to see it. It resulted in a dead antelope, yet it was amazing to see something like that when it should have been a bang flop. Not sure how to explain it, wild animals are tough I guess?

 

[Ucsdryder]

Since it's been brought up multiple times, here are the pics from my thread about a 143 eld-x that my friend shot a deer with. This was a mature blacktail buck, broadside at 140 yards, 6.5 Creedmoor, factory 143 eld-x Precision Hunter ammo. He says this buck was standing by himself in a lane with no obstructions or vegetation, clear line of sight, shoots the buck with a bang flop result, while walking up to the buck it stands at 30 yards and he shoots it in the back of the head terminating it. While gutting it, he noticed none of the vitals seemed to be damaged, but continued working and got the buck home. Upon skinning the buck he recovered the majority of the jacket and part of the core from the center of the impact wound. No other notable fragments were found, and there were no penetrations into the cavity. No holes or lacerations to any of the bloodshot rib meat where the bullet was recovered on the outside.

View attachment 782862View attachment 782864View attachment 782860View attachment 782861View attachment 782863

I have since informed him that he doesn't know what he's doing, didn't take enough pictures, doesn't remember what actually happened, and needs to quit shooting deer through other deer and still hitting the target deer exactly where he intends.

I'm jk, but it was poured on pretty strong.

Well in one breath we hear, “pictures or it didn’t happen”, then we hear “Ignore the pictures and the posts”. Sometimes I feel like I’m listening to a Kamala speech.

 

[bmart2622]

They all make some variation of high weight retention and high penetration claims. The only ones explicitly claiming straight line penetration distances are dangerous game bullets. All "hunting" bullets tout controlled expansion and deep penetration.

That said, it is not unreasonable to expect said penetration to be in a relatively straight line, and to be of sufficient distance to go through a deer from basically any angle. A whitetail deer is what, 18" wide? The FBI expects 9mm hollow point bullets to go nearly that deep.

My experience of poor bullet performance has most often been traditional hunting bullets from small caliber rifles. I had a cheap cup and core 140gr soft point from a 6.5x55 at about 60 yards not exit. Was caught in the offside hide, core and jacket separated. Had centered a rib on each side. Deer ran about 50 yards with a tough blood trail. That's a failed bullet IMO.

"High weight retention" deep penetration"...all subjective and all debatable as to what is acceptable. Shooting an animal in the chest that destroys vitals and kills the animal is a pretty objective fact thats hard to argue with despite not getting a pass through and I could absolutely care less about weight retention when Im standing over a dead bull that died seconds after being shot

 

[wyosam]

You aren’t attempting to “invalidate” anything in that instance and that’s a poor comparison.

This thread is “show and tell” for bullet failure. If all we get is “tell” we don’t learn anything.

The downside is that real data that is complete is not obtainable. Partial failures that still manage to result in a dead animal (either by luck or successful follow up shot) that is found would be the only thing that are countable. True data isn’t attainable. My guess is that most lost animals that weren’t recovered that “were hit well” probably weren’t bullet failures, but some probably are. Not measurable though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Leaf Litter]

I'm sure this thread will be popular with the RS hivemind

 

[HandgunHTR]

Since it's been brought up multiple times, here are the pics from my thread about a 143 eld-x that my friend shot a deer with. This was a mature blacktail buck, broadside at 140 yards, 6.5 Creedmoor, factory 143 eld-x Precision Hunter ammo. He says this buck was standing by himself in a lane with no obstructions or vegetation, clear line of sight, shoots the buck with a bang flop result, while walking up to the buck it stands at 30 yards and he shoots it in the back of the head terminating it. While gutting it, he noticed none of the vitals seemed to be damaged, but continued working and got the buck home. Upon skinning the buck he recovered the majority of the jacket and part of the core from the center of the impact wound. No other notable fragments were found, and there were no penetrations into the cavity. No holes or lacerations to any of the bloodshot rib meat where the bullet was recovered on the outside.

View attachment 782862View attachment 782864View attachment 782860View attachment 782861View attachment 782863

I have since informed him that he doesn't know what he's doing, didn't take enough pictures, doesn't remember what actually happened, and needs to quit shooting deer through other deer and still hitting the target deer exactly where he intends.

I'm jk, but it was poured on pretty strong.

This is my first time seeing these pictures, but I have some questions.

In the first picture, I can clearly see about a 1.5-2" deep hole in the meat of the shoulder. That should have caused some bruising in the same area of the ribs as that is a lot of energy being dumped in a small area.

In the second picture There is bruising along the spine area on the left and a small amount on the right. How did that get there?

In that same second picture, and the third, cropped, picture, I can see daylight at the spine/neck junction, however in the first pic there is no indication of a hole in that area. How did that get there?

This leads me to believe that the first picture and the remaining pictures are not of the same deer. Did you take these pictures, or did you get them from your friend? The dots just aren't connecting for me, mainly because all of the pictures after the first one look very similar to deer that I have opened up that were shot in the spine above the shoulder or in the neck.

 

[Hnthrdr]

Well in one breath we hear, “pictures or it didn’t happen”, then we hear “Ignore the pictures and the posts”. Sometimes I feel like I’m listening to a Kamala speech.

Trust the “vibes” bro!

 

[Choupique]

and kills the animal is a pretty objective fact

Killing it isnt enough. I need to recover it the day it dies, and two holes help do that reliably.

So objectively, failure to exit is a failure for me. Smaller caliber bullets going fast do not exit as reliably as bigger bullets do.

I did the frangible bullet thing for a while with a .25-06 and 6.5x55. Both gave spectacular kills until they didn't, and i lost a deer with both that were found later via buzzards. Both had no exit wound.

So, while I of course will not argue that small match bullets can effectively kill stuff, I will argue that they are not the best sauce for my area.

 

[Formidilosus]

Well in one breath we hear, “pictures or it didn’t happen”,

Can you qoute that?

then we hear “Ignore the pictures and the posts”.

Can you quote that too? Or is it an inability to follow a logical thought process and look at evidence presented?


This is post below highlights a couple of the many issues with those “pictures”. You are intelligent enough to follow the exact same though process and reasoning as @HandgunHTR, if you just can’t stand to follow the many other peoples processes and reasoning, and see that the event as laid out, did not happen.

This is my first time seeing these pictures, but I have some questions.

In the first picture, I can clearly see about a 1.5-2" deep hole in the meat of the shoulder. That should have caused some bruising in the same area of the ribs as that is a lot of energy being dumped in a small area.

In the second picture There is bruising along the spine area on the left and a small amount on the right. How did that get there?

In that same second picture, and the third, cropped, picture, I can see daylight at the spine/neck junction, however in the first pic there is no indication of a hole in that area. How did that get there?

This leads me to believe that the first picture and the remaining pictures are not of the same deer. Did you take these pictures, or did you get them from your friend? The dots just aren't connecting for me, mainly because all of the pictures after the first one look very similar to deer that I have opened up that were shot in the spine above the shoulder or in the neck.

 

[bmart2622]

Ok, I just shot a doe yester with a 243 shooting tipped power shock bullets. I hit her right in the V, she jumped up in the air and ran about 15yds. I found the separated jacket under the offside hide, no exit and no blood trail but by your logic that's unacceptable performance?!?! Cmon!!!