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

[Bowfinn]

Work is done on the bullet to cause it to fragment. Velocity alone does not do that...

Work is done on the bullet through resistance. If the bullet meets low resistance it won’t allow the bullet to change upset and damage increased levels of tissue.

I’ll attach the equation of resistance for reference. The big take away is that velocity’s input into the equation for resistance is squared, and energy or mass is not even mentioned.

 

[bowrunner81]

C'mon guys, it's still hunting season. It's too early for the threads purely for entertainment to start.

I have 2 failures.

30-06 180 speer hot cor. Impact about 2700 quartering away slightly. No blood trail. No exit. Bull Died 40 yards away.

243 108 eldm . Impact about 2450. No blood. No exit. Hard time finding bullet entry. Bull died in 40 yards.

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

 

[Spoonbill]

I have seen a 6mm bullet “fail.” 6mm bullet 55 grain copper bullet that was designed to tumble on an antelope.
I wasn’t the shooter but observed the shot and was there when the antelope was gutted.
First shot hit the antelope quartering away, if memory serves shot distance was 200-250 yards. Antelope ran and took a second shot still didnt drop but ran off. Eventually got back on the antelope and it died before a 3rd shot was needed. When gutting we tried to figure out what happened and found a hole through the liver, that looked like a knife cut. Based on a sample size of 7 animals using a 70 grain bullet from the same manufacturer, we concluded that the bullet did not work as designed and punched straight through rather than tumble.
I may have pictures of the liver, if I can find it I will post it.

 

[Dave0317]

I have never had a bullet failure, but how would somebody prove a bullet failure?

Ideally, as popular as it is to film your own hunts these days, someone produces video of a solid hit, that would have killed with the “right” bullet, but instead shows the deer live due to lack of penetration or whatever mechanism it is that makes a .223 “insufficient” as some folks claim.

I think solid evidence could also be a repeatable experiment. IE; you put a cow scapula in some Ballistic gel and shot with a 6mm and can show lack of penetration, same experiment repeated with a 30-06 ends up showing sufficient penetration.

A dead deer that was hit in the vitals is not necessarily a failure, whether there was blood or not.

Said it before, but to keep us on track,
Failure in the context of this discussion should be:
A .223, 6, or 6.5 heavy match bullet, failed to produce a kill, when placed through a part of the animal that a more traditional big game bullet (like a 30-06 Accubond or mono) would have certainly produced a kill. Whether due to lack of trauma, lack of penetration, lack of “energy” or whatever the bullet should have had more of.

 

[Dave0317]

I have seen a 6mm bullet “fail.” 6mm bullet 55 grain copper bullet that was designed to tumble on an antelope.
I wasn’t the shooter but observed the shot and was there when the antelope was gutted.
First shot hit the antelope quartering away, if memory serves shot distance was 200-250 yards. Antelope ran and took a second shot still didnt drop but ran off. Eventually got back on the antelope and it died before a 3rd shot was needed. When gutting we tried to figure out what happened and found a hole through the liver, that looked like a knife cut. Based on a sample size of 7 animals using a 70 grain bullet from the same manufacturer, we concluded that the bullet did not work as designed and punched straight through rather than tumble.
I may have pictures of the liver, if I can find it I will post it.

Thanks for sharing.

I think, this is a great write up. Up front about sample size, describes the way the bullet performed, and has enough detail to allow the reader to also see the same logical conclusion, or allow others to replicate what happened if desired.
So even without pictures, anecdotes can hold value.

But when an extraordinary claim is made, like a bullet somehow hitting behind the shoulder and not penetrating into anything vital, some more detail is obviously going to be asked.

 

[Dave0317]

Well, to be fair, we are 6 pages in of people saying bullet failures don't happen. If the only posts were actual bullet failures we would be on page 1.

This should actually be good news for everyone!

If you like 338 win mags shooting copper bullets, congratulations, you can kill things.

If you like low recoil and high hit rates, and you are killing things with 6mm, congratulations, no one has shown that it’s a bad idea yet.

I feel like you don’t see this in the archery forums as much. People have their preferences, but they are honest with themselves that it’s a preference. You like the idea of a wider cut and don’t have the time to finely tune a broadhead flight, use a mechanical. You have the time to perfectly tune arrows and like reliable penetration, use a fixed blade broadhead.

Maybe these bullets should be viewed the same way.
You like low recoil, and more than adequate trauma and sufficient penetration?
-shoot a 6mm with heavy Match bullets.
You want to maximize would channel depth and you are ok with a narrower wound channel and more recoil?
- shoot a .30 cal mono.

Not too big a deal.

 

[N2TRKYS]

Absolutely agree. Keep killing with the stuff you like to kill with.

Thread simply stands as an open invitation for those that do have some solid evidence that contradicts the piles of animals in the .223, 6, and 6.5 threads.

I’m largely curious myself. Smallest thing I have shot a deer with yet is a .308. (Unless you count arrows)
This year I plan to bring my .223 deer hunting, but figured this thread could be a good final check off to see if there is any real reason not to. So far, I’ll still be bringing the .223.

I tried out hunting with a 223 last year out of curiosity, myself. Honestly, photos of inside the animal doesn’t matter to me. Photos of a great blood trail means more to me. I’m still searching for the 223 bullet that will consistently give me two holes and blood trail.

If my deer would’ve all dropped where I shot them (like seemingly most of them did on the 223 thread) I’d still be using that bullet. Both(yeah, yeah small sample size) ran at least 50 yards. Neither had an exit. One was around 120 yards(100lbs doe) and 40 yards(220 lbs 8 point).

Good luck with journey. I hope you kill a truck load of ‘em.

 

[hunterjmj]

After reading some of these posts it seams people expect different performance possibly due to where they hunt. I've been hunting with match bullets for 10 years now and every animal I've shot with exception of 1( poor shot) I've watched die whether they went 10 yards or 50. Not sure how many I've killed but only a handful of bullets have exited. I'm fine if they don't exit because I hunt open country and it's just not to hard to track em down. I could see why some would want a blood trail in places like the Midwest where properties are small and it's like a jungle. I've killed an antelope this year with my 223 and 73 gr eldm's which passed through and he died under 20 yards. No blood trail but I tracked him with my scope and watched him fall over. I killed a cow elk Saturday morning with the same set up. She was facing me and I shot her right in the brisket and a follow up shot behind the shoulder. She maybe went 10 feet. She sprayed so much blood a blind person could have tracked her down. Anyhow, to each their own. I'm sticking with the 223 as I enjoy the fast follow up shots, scope never leaving the target and a joy to shoot. I may even shoot the kids' 243 or my wife's 6.5 cm in the years to come.

 

[Choupique]

For me, failure = failed to exit. Had that happen a whole bunch of times.

Calibers ive had it happen with: 6.5x55, .25-06, .270, .30-06, .30-30, .45-70, 35 whelen, .338 win mag

Seen it happen with many others as well from .223 to .444. I used to run a tracking dog so I got to see all manner of screwed up stuff. A dog is wonderful, you find so many deer that would have otherwise been found by buzzards. Tracks that need a dog that end in recovery are split about dead even between horrible shot placement and lack of blood trail typically without an exit. The rest of the times the shooter doesn't even know where the deer was when they shot it or where it went after. The dog is always right, and I've had people argue with me in the woods that the dog was going the wrong way many times. The shooter is wrong A WHOLE WHOLE LOT.

For me, failure to exit is bullet failure, and I've had it happen from 100 yards with a 180gr nosler partition on a 150 pound buck.

 

[hunterjmj]

For me, failure = failed to exit. Had that happen a whole bunch of times.

Calibers ive had it happen with: 6.5x55, .25-06, .270, .30-06, .30-30, .45-70, 35 whelen, .338 win mag

Seen it happen with many others as well from .223 to .444. I used to run a tracking dog so I got to see all manner of screwed up stuff. A dog is wonderful, you find so many deer that would have otherwise been found by buzzards. Tracks that need a dog that end in recovery are split about dead even between horrible shot placement and lack of blood trail typically without an exit. The rest of the times the shooter doesn't even know where the deer was when they shot it or where it went after. The dog is always right, and I've had people argue with me in the woods that the dog was going the wrong way many times. The shooter is wrong A WHOLE WHOLE LOT.

For me, failure to exit is bullet failure, and I've had it happen from 100 yards with a 180gr nosler partition on a 150 pound buck.

I've read many times on the rok where people have been upset that the bullet didn't exit but were shooting a fragmenting type bullet. Makes you wonder how many people just randomly buy a box of ammo without regard to bullet type. You don't know what you don't know. When I was a kid my dad bought whatever was on sale with little concern of bullet type. He killed a lot of deer and elk but was never concerned with bullets.

 

[JCMCUBIC]

I've had 3 times where bullet performance didn't match what I expected/assumed. All three ended up with dead animals, but the bullets (in those instances) failed to meet my expectations/assumptions of how the bullet should perform.

It's not a bullet failure for game to run. It's not a bullet failure if it doesn't exit. It's not a bullet failure if there's a lacking/no blood trail. It's not a bullet failure if it only penetrates "x" inches. etc, etc, etc.... A bullet failure is when a bullet doesn't perform in line with it's design when all the factors for impact velocity, impacted tissue/material/placement, and bullet construction are taken into account. It's my failure if I don't take all those things into account.

 

[KHntr]

I may be misunderstanding but am legitimately wanting to know how that could be proven. If there is a dead animal it would be hard to say the bullet failed if there is no dead animal it could have been a bad shot. I really dont know how someone could prove a bullet failure.

Page one. My 264wm. Whitetail and a 140 partition. First one (and admittedly I was shooting on a downward angle, but not that steep) bullet hit and turned and spiraled around a foreleg.
Second one hit a bit far back (behind the diaphragm) but it made him pretty sick and I caught up 10 minutes later and shot him at the base of the skull from 100 yards.

First one failed. Period.

Shoot enough animals with enough bullets, and eventually you’ll see some weird, unexplained shit.

 

[Wrench]

Here's a classic failure on a whitetail buck from a 6.5 140rdf impact velo around 2200fps. I had minor tissue at the scene and mediocre blood trail for 60yds. The bullet sucked the lung out the exit hole. 12 hours later I dumped a bull elk at the same speed. The elk gave me no blood trail as I shot him 2x and he folded in place. Sorry for the lack of pics there....I was pooped.

 

[Robobiss]

6 pages in less than 12 hours. This must be a touchy subject. Why are people bothered by opening a thread to hear about failures, when there's already the giant threads about success. Let failure reports come. If they don't, this thread can die.

I don’t think anyone is truly opposed to the idea, I just think there is a little bit of a disconnect on what constitutes a failure, and how one should go about proving it.

The more wild and/or unlikely a claim is, the more evidence needed to prove it. If I told you I bang-flopped a whitetail with a 30-06 you probably wouldn’t need pictures or a video to believe me, it’s reasonable enough, happens all the time.

If I said that I shot an elephant behind the shoulder and bang-flopped it with a .22lr, you would not believe me for a second and would need a lot of irrefutable evidence to accept is as the truth. Nobody would believe me. Even with video evidence and necropsy. It’s crazy.

Obviously two extremes, but the examples are extreme to prove a point. The more reasonable something is, the less evidence generally required to prove it and to convince people it happened. The less reasonable is the opposite.

The notion that a reasonably high SD and reasonably heavy for caliber 140+grain piece of copper and lead was essentially unable to penetrate *its own length* in meat is a pretty wild one. A 143 ELD-X has SD’s very comparable to a 170 class .30 caliber bullet. How many 170-something .30 cal bullets have you heard about splashing and only penetrating a couple of inches, even at WM impact velocities? Probably none.

Its such a crazy notion that what has been portrayed to of happened that it is unbelievable without further evidence. To the point that there is a lot of “there must have been another animal in front of it” “maybe there was a branch that was hit before impact” “maybe it wasn’t broadside and it was a raking shot” (still unlikely with this one)”

Again, the idea that a reasonably high SD 140+ grain piece of lead and copper failed to penetrate its own length essentially, when all of the data and testing shows that this projectile has no issues penetrating multiple times that after going through a barrier even at higher impact velocities, is a wild idea that needs irrefutable evidence to be proven or to be accepted as factual.

In the instance that has been referenced multiple times already in this thread, the only thing that could prove what has alleged to have happened to be factual is a video from the POV of the shooter that shows the orientation of the animal, the fact that there were no other animals in front of it, and that there were no branches in the way. Bonus points if the video clearly shows the impact to match up with the necropsy photos that were posted. Sans the video, the claim is a little too “out there” and unreasonable to be taken as factual.

If the video existed and clearly depicted what had happened, I’m sure a lot of people (probably Form included but I cant speak for anyone) would say “holy crap, yep, write that one in the history books, it happened”.

 

[Choupique]

It's a touchy subject because if you shoot enough stuff, eventually you'll be standing where you thought the deer should be dead, with no blood, knowing you didn't miss, and never finding a dead animal. It happens to everyone at some point.

What someone said earlier about geography mattering was spot on. A guy hunting hay fields or open meadows has different criteria for sucess than I do.

Visibility in my woods is something you must see to appreciate. Here's one I shot last year. You can't get far enough away from the deer to get a picture of the whole thing. I MUST have ray Charles friendly blood trails, because you literally have to be standing on top of the deer to see it.

That said, I expect a 180gr partition out of a .30-06 to exit a 120 pound deer from 100 to 300 yards every single time no matter where I hit it. A bit simple but if it has a picture of an elk on the box, it oughta go through a swamp deer every time.

 

[Formidilosus]

Page one. My 264wm. Whitetail and a 140 partition. First one (and admittedly I was shooting on a downward angle, but not that steep) bullet hit and turned and spiraled around a foreleg.
Second one hit a bit far back (behind the diaphragm) but it made him pretty sick and I caught up 10 minutes later and shot him at the base of the skull from 100 yards.

First one failed. Period.

Shoot enough animals with enough bullets, and eventually you’ll see some weird, unexplained shit.

That’s why “failure” must be defined. Having been apart of a lot of terminal ballistics testing and animal killing, a projectile skipping (on bone generally) wouldn’t be considered a failure, as all bullets do it at times. That would be a shoulder shrug event with a “ehh it happens”.

 

[Hnthrdr]

I've read many times on the rok where people have been upset that the bullet didn't exit but were shooting a fragmenting type bullet. Makes you wonder how many people just randomly buy a box of ammo without regard to bullet type. You don't know what you don't know. When I was a kid my dad bought whatever was on sale with little concern of bullet type. He killed a lot of deer and elk but was never concerned with bullets.

Yeah I was going to say this exact thing. Match bullets eld x/m are designed to violently fragment and dump all #energy, throw fragments all over into the animal therefore pass throughs shouldn’t be expected…

 

[Choupique]

That’s why “failure” must be defined

For me, failure to maintain straight line travel all the way through the animal is failure. In my experience, it seems to most often be due to losing the jacket or over expansion/fragmentation on close range shots.

I should clarify that I'm using "traditional" bullets designed for weight retention and controlled expansion. Partition, oryx, core loct ect

 

[Macintosh]

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.






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.

 

[HandgunHTR]

Since this thread is already a dumpster fire, I will add some gas to it.

1. Size of exits are not a good representation of how the bullet performed. First, skin is elastic, so you will never get a true representation of how much the bullet did, or didn't expand by measuring the exit hole in it. 2nd, it is the amount of damage inside the animal (wound channel) that really matters. That is why we like to see actual necropsy pictures and encourage people to do a cursory necropsy on their animals. It will help you become a better hunter if you truly understand where stuff is located in an animal and how your bullets/broadheads are actually performing.

2. A lot of gun hunters suck at blood trailing. It has been my experience that people who are dedicated gun hunters don't really know how to blood trail unless it looks like a murder scene. If the trail isn't easily spotted, they say "there isn't a blood trail". I cannot tell you how many times I have helped find a deer that someone claimed there was not a blood trail to follow, only to find a blood trail. Usually it was just a few fine drops every couple of feet, but it was there. Most of the time, if the animal is recovered, it was due to a high hit where the majority of the blood stayed in the chest cavity. About 75% of the time there was an exit as well.