.270 Ammo Question

[DAD]

Hey Y'all,

I mainly bow hunt, but I like to shoot one deer a year with the rifle. I am having some blood trailing issues and I'm trying to figure out what exactly is going on.

I have a Howa 1500 .270 and I shoot Federal Fusion 150 grain bullets. I bought 6 boxes of these rounds several years ago and have been using them ever since.

All the deer I shoot either drop on the spot or run and are dead within 100 yards. During the week of Thanksgiving, I took an old doe off our property. I shoot and she sprints off. I go down where she was standing and no blood. I have never missed a deer with this rifle and I was really confused. I started to follow in the direction she ran and 20 yards later I find a few spots of blood. Every now and then I find one or two spots. After 80 yards I start looking around and happened to see her dead on one of my trails.

I loaded her up in the Polaris and brought her to the skinning tree. The entrance hole was the diameter of the bullet and the bullet somehow tumbled and exited low. Hit her lungs. Never hit any bone.

Is this something common when not hitting bone? What can I do to improve the quality of the blood trail or is this just the nature of the beast?

Unless I drop the deer, a my rifle shot deer always seem to run farther than the ones I stick with my bow.

 

[AlleghenyMountain]

At one time a friend and I were hunting together with both of us using 270s with 150 grain bullets. His were ballistic tip handmade (don't remember the brand of bullet), I was using factory Winchester Power Points. I watched him shoot a buck, a quartering shot, and I found the deer, only because I had a better look where he went and had a hunch. There was not a single drop of blood left, about a 75 yard shot. The next year he was with me when I dropped a buck in his tracks. My theory is that my bullets expanded faster. I'm not a student of these things as others are, just my experience. My opinion is at closer ranges, my old tech cheaper bullet killed faster.

 

[PorterNY]

I shoot a .270 win as well… I have been shooting 150 grain ABLR bullets that I had originally purchased a few years back for elk hunt… my experience on 5 different whitetails ranging from 85 to 330 yards has all been similar…. The deer have run/stumbled about 20-40 yards after the shot…. I have had really good blood on all that I have shot

 

[Glendon Mullins]

Dont know, possibly hit a branch on the way to the deer and slowed the bullet or started the tumbling then but still hit the deer? possible i guess

 

[WCB]

If you are looking for blood trails don't shoot a rifle. If you expect every deer to fall within feet of being shot...lower expectations. Stuff happens just like bowhunting. Guys have pass through after pass through and great blood trails then one deer they shoot they don't get the pass through and little blood and they try to rethink everything.

 

[JimGa]

Bullets can do weird things, even the "best" bullets occasionally can surprise you. If you have normally had good results, I wouldn't let one example sour you.

 

[Silveroddo]

I had similar experiences with Fusions and a 300wsm, I'm not going to go to the extent of blaming them, but I did quit using them and have no plans of going back. I've also been using Winchester Power points, Had one buck go 100 yards shot through the heart running to beat hell, the next one piled up in his tracks.

 

[Vern400]

One idea for you. I'll take heat on this and don't care. Draw a line straight up the front leg as you'd see a sideview. Drop the bullet in on that line about 6 inches down from the top of the back. The ideal shot will hit the tip of the scapula, expand and break a few ribs going in and out about 2 or 3 inches below the spine. There's some margin for error in each direction. You destroy the nerves that work the front legs. They might run but won't go anywhere. I hunt near water, and dead deer sink, gone forever. I've shot the last 40 or 50 deer with 150 gr gamekings at 2800 fps. The farthest one moved was 20 feet.

Last year I shot 2 with 150 gr old school ballistic tips and the exit holes were like a pencil. Both ran and darnit lost one. Shot the same spot. If the deer are maybe 250 lbs SBT gamekings work. Quarter size exits with my rifle. I will try Accubonds but not those old BTs I have. Too many stories about the old ones from my friends. I'm talking 25 year old bullets here when ballistic tips were new.

That's what works with me. Heart or lung or liver shots...they run dead. 100 yards is a long ways in a dark swamp! Take out the front leg internet and they flop right where they stood. I can't guarantee you can make the shot. But I guarantee a heavy game king out of your 270 will stop them graveyard dead on the spot if you do.

 

[Triggernosis]

Since switching to the Hornady SST bullets nearly 20 years ago I've never had to worry about a blood trail. If an SST hits 'em, they pretty much drop right there or within feet of where they were standing.

 

[Hoytboy247]

I’m old school and shoot the old Remington core-lokts with great success within 250 ish yards


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[Libtard McSocalist]

Bullets tumbling upon impact is the norm. But it doesn’t sound like you got great expansion which is not ideal… normally I see bullets tumble/deflect after hitting bone not so much on a “meat hit”. If call that one a fluke and keep on keeping on. If the previous 6 boxes where satisfactory maybe the blood trail stars aligned and it wasn’t meant to be that particular time. You found the animal that’s what matters

 

[Zappaman]

I’ve used the Fusions (and now Gold Dots) in several calibers for about 7 years now (all my own reloads, Fusions we’re RMR pulls). Several deer, pigs and one elk (at 200 yards 130g Fusion neck shot). Most have gone through leaving a nice pool of blood. I pulled a perfectly mushroomed 115g gold dot out of a 250 lb pig last spring that made 15 yards after the shoot (running at full speed).

So far, I’ve never had to track any of about 10 animals I’ve hit with this bullet. It expands VERY wide but doesn’t blow the off shoulder to pieces but instead leaving a clean 1” hole on the exit. Good weight retention too.

I can’t explain what happened with your shot here though. But I have shot pigs through high Texas grass and had the bullet break up and tumble with expected results… follow up shot needed and many holes and blood resulted. I’ve also hit tall Kansas grass 10 ft. or so in front of my 300 yard target at the farm (a few times) where the target looked like a bucket of nails out of a 12g hit it.

 

[lyle_destroys]

Since switching to the Hornady SST bullets nearly 20 years ago I've never had to worry about a blood trail. If an SST hits 'em, they pretty much drop right there or within feet of where they were standing.

The SST really is an underrated bullet, I've shot quite a few deer with them out of a 257 Roberts at moderate velocity and it kills like lightning.

 

[Rblumenberg]

This could just be one of those nature of the beast instances….

 

[Prelude8626]

I’ve had a similar situation with the cheaper Winchester power points but it could have also been a number of other things. How close was she?

 

[DAD]

I’ve had a similar situation with the cheaper Winchester power points but it could have also been a number of other things. How close was she?

125 yards

 

[SDHNTR]

There’s no rationalizing this. Doo doo just sometimes happens. Never have I fired a rifle bullet at an animal expecting a blood trail. It’s not a broadhead and kills by much more than just hemorrhage.

 

[Zappaman]

Dead deer anyway... sometimes bullets hit "something" and they can make pretty amazing turns despite the bullet used I've had a lead sabot slug go into the neck and come out of the belly on the lower rib cage on a deer barely quartering to me- at lleast a 35 degree "turn" then 2 ft of further travel.

Had a pig do a similar thing where bullet hit the shoulder then took a left and headed up the neck behind an ear. But all animals made it next to the potatoes... so a good ending to a mystery that continues to this day.

 

[Panhandler80]

It happens. Glad you found her!

 

[bootstrap]

And this is the difference between real world hunting and punch holes in paper.

I had one those go when you can hunts a few weeks ago. Standing there glassing some blow downs when movement to my left caught my attention thought I had a clear quartering away shot…small twig turned it into a neck shot that almost missed.

I to have stopped using the Fusion, I do like the Accubond out of my .277 WLV.