Argument against small caliber? Blood trail/exit wounds?

[K9kodi]

I’m with the displacement crowd. If you get a solid performing bullet in a smaller caliber it’s devastating, sure. Use a comparable or relative bullet in a 300 or 338 or such and why wouldn’t it just be that much better. Of course in speaking 300 yards and in, out here in the coast of east

 

[Choupique]

Use a comparable or relative bullet in a 300 or 338 or such and why wouldn’t it just be that much better.

The prevailing opinion, which i agree with, is that the carnage would be excessive.

Im going to try to shoot a deer with an ELDX from a .338 next year just for the hell of it and I expect it to be horrible.

 

[CMF]

. They decide that they can't get over there before dark, and won't find the blood trail in the dark, so they just leave and come back in the morning. To me, that's a pretty clear sign they shouldn't have taken the shot to begin with.

unless it's 90 degrees, whats the issue with leaving it? It's ten times easier to find animals in daylight and processing goes way better after a nights sleep vs hunting all day and cleaning an animal at night.
I've left several whitetails in MS with 50-60 lows, and elk in CO, and never lost meat.

 

[SloppyJ]

In my experience, yes, the lack of a blood trail has been the largest issue. The vast majority of the time they fall in sight. When they don't, that's where it becomes a problem in the thick woods that I hunt in the south. I've found that bumping up to a 6mm with specific ammo (berger 108s) has solved that problem and it looks like the new TMKs might be even better. My son still shoots a 223 though.

We've had one deer out of about 10 that we have had to track after a 77tmk shot because he went rouge and shot it in the wrong spot due to a heavy quartering angle that he hadn't experienced up to that point. The deer was hit but there was no blood to be found and subsequently, we did not find that deer. Unfortunately, it was the largest buck we had seen all season. This was an issue with shot placement 100% but there wasn't much room for error.

I don't really consider a 6.5cm to be small. I shot one deer with a 130tmk this year and it was one of the nastiest blood trails I've ever seen. I don't think I ever had to stop walking.

 

[WCB]

I've seen many elk killed with 7rems, 300wins, even .375 H&H and not have an exit and no blood trail every thing from monos to match bullets. I guess I'm the odd man out and don't even think of blood trails when hunting with a rifle. Even less concern myself with pass throughs.

 

[mad_angler]

This can be an issue with these small, fragmenting bullets. The animals have massive internal damage and die within 50-100 yards. But there are often no exit wounds or minimal exit wounds.

A bullet like a 180 grain corelok from a 30-06 will almost definitely leave an exit wound.

But if the angle isn't right or the shot is sorta high, you also will not get blood trails. A 30-06 has been my whitetail gun for years. Depending on the shot, I often do not get blood trails.

For me, I go to the likely area and then start gridding. Since it is only a 50 yard circle, it is usually fairly easy to find them...

 

[K9kodi]

The prevailing opinion, which i agree with, is that the carnage would be excessive.

Im going to try to shoot a deer with an ELDX from a .338 next year just for the hell of it and I expect it to be horrible.

I agree, but I’ll take carnage over a loss of game or making suffering longer than it should be.

 

[mtnbound]

The prevailing opinion, which i agree with, is that the carnage would be excessive.

Im going to try to shoot a deer with an ELDX from a .338 next year just for the hell of it and I expect it to be horrible.

I have shot deer with a .338 WM and with a .243 using the same bullet design; you are going to have to shoot a lot of deer to accurately determine which bullet does more damage because there are so many variables: impact velocity, impact point, impact angle, animal's physical build, etc. All animals can be killed, but making a determination based on the results of one shot proves nothing.

 

[hibernation]

unless it's 90 degrees, whats the issue with leaving it? It's ten times easier to find animals in daylight and processing goes way better after a nights sleep vs hunting all day and cleaning an animal at night.
I've left several whitetails in MS with 50-60 lows, and elk in CO, and never lost meat.

I'm not talking about times that you lose a blood trail at dusk, or have a marginal hit so you back off to give it time. I'm talking about taking a shot near dusk at such distance and in such terrain, that you already know with certainty you won't be able to get over there and find it that night - before you even pull the trigger. Leaving it overnight isn't a contingency plan in this scenario, it's just the plan.

I've left animals overnight out of necessity, sometimes it's fine, sometimes it's not. Bears and coyotes can get on it. Meat spoilage can definitely start to occur on an elk hindquarter overnight, depending on how quick it actually dies during the night. And depending how quick you actually find it in the morning.

Pulling the trigger and then immediately heading back to camp doesn't sit right with me. I just think that it should be a consideration when taking a longer shot: what's the recovery going to look like, how long will it take me to get over there, do I have enough daylight left for this?

 

[SDHNTR]

Methinks most of this site could greatly benefit from spending a few seasons bowhunting. But then I suppose such understanding would make half the threads here unnecessary lol.

 

[Skerhunter]

I’m in the “don’t expect a good/great blood trail” camp, no matter what you shoot (standard rifles/big rifles/broadheads/MLs). Too many factors we can’t control determine what a blood trail looks. Also with a rifle they generally are not needed.

In order to have a “great blood trail” you need an animal to run a long ways (no bang flop or die within sight). You need the blood pumping (heart working/blood pressure up/artery hit). You also need a hole that allows lots of blood to flow from the body (not clogged/clotted with tissue/hair/desbris or up higher so the cavity fills first). When the stars align and all this happens you will have a ton of blood from POI to the carcass. This rarely happens with rifles in my experience. I suspect a lot of these shots the animal expires too quickly vs archery where they are guaranteed to cover some ground. I think people get hung up on this scenario and expect this every time an animal runs off.

All we can control is shot placement and the bullet we use. If you want a guaranteed bag flop the only solution is a good CNS hit. At that point caliber/bullet selection doesn’t really matter anymore.