Muzzy Blood Trails?

[Buelrdr29]

I shot at a bull today. 49 yards and it was frontal with a slight quartering position. 340gr ELDX and 84gr (weight) BH209. I gave it 30 minutes and went to look for the bull. I did not find any blood at all. Was in a swampy wetland with chest high grass. With all the smoke from the shot I can not confirm a hit and with no blood I am assuming a miss.

Friends have said they have had very poor or no blood trails with muzzy hunts. What is the gerenal consensus? Or is it just like a rifle and depends on where you hit?

I did spend 5 hours grid searching to try and find a dead bull. No luck.

 

[LCguy]

That load, at that distance, if you did hit him, probably exploded immediately and did not get very good penetration.

My experience with a boredriver on an elk was similar. Hit a cow with a much "cooler" load than 84 grains weight of Blackhorn and it fragmented pretty good. Was luckily able to retrieve her.

Pretty soft bullet to be shooting that hot, that close. I'm sure it is very deadly at 150+ but probably fragmented, if you did hit the elk at 49 yards. More powder/velocity does not always equal better performance.

 

[LCguy]

Also add that I am not an expert by any means but that has been my experience with softer bonded bullets out of a muzzleloader.

 

[HighUintas]

I would get some help and go spend a day with them searching. At 50 yards, I can't imagine not putting a lethal hit on him.

I think it's likely just like a rifle as far as blood or no blood. It just depends on location, bullet construction, and impact velocity.

I shot a bull broadside at 110 with a 30cal 180gr soft point going 2850fps at the muzzle. That bullet didn't exit and left absolutely zero blood . Zero. Luckily, he was piled up 35 yards from there.

I've only shot one bull with a muzzy. 58cal round ball, neck shot. He bled like hell, but also dropped on the spot.

 

[Buelrdr29]

I would get some help and go spend a day with them searching. At 50 yards, I can't imagine not putting a lethal hit on him.

I think it's likely just like a rifle as far as blood or no blood. It just depends on location, bullet construction, and impact velocity.

I shot a bull broadside at 110 with a 30cal 180gr soft point going 2850fps at the muzzle. That bullet didn't exit and left absolutely zero blood . Zero. Luckily, he was piled up 35 yards from there.

I've only shot one bull with a muzzy. 58cal round ball, neck shot. He bled like hell, but also dropped on the spot.

My hunting partner was there to watch it all happen. We searched for 5 hours or so together. Damn WA jungle.... you can't walk 5 feet in a straight line without brush in the way. Glassing g is almost pointless as well.

 

[HighUintas]

My hunting partner was there to watch it all happen. We searched for 5 hours or so together. Damn WA jungle.... you can't walk 5 feet in a straight line without brush in the way. Glassing g is almost pointless as well.

Ahhh WA jungle. Yea that would be problematic

 

[KnightExtreme]

Being the Bullet used is Newer there is not a lot of good details on how well they will work. I get some think new has been thoroughly tested but being "new" there aren't many Reviews on them and big game like elk. I bought into the Polymer Tip ML Bullets but as I read some ML's as they don't well perform. Some suggest I go with a hollow point Bullet that is know for good expansion. I know this too late to help, sad you have not found your elk. Hope you get back out and search again. (Maybe get a tracking dog)
KnightExtreme

 

[ElDiablito]

It’s very common to not have muzzy bullets exit, especially on bigger game like elk. That ELDX is a pretty soft bullet, so assuming you hit him, it entered, exploded and may or may not have reached the vitals. Very unlikely that the bullet would exit on the shot you described.

Sometimes you’ve got to take the shot you have with the bullet you chose to use. In this case you’d have likely been better served with something like a very heavy lead (420+ gr) or controlled expansion like a 300 gr Barnes mono/Nosler Partition/Swift A-Frame.

One of the differences in centerfire and muzzy loads, is the relatively slow velocity combined with large bullet diameter (and in many cases very soft bullet construction.) This often results in no bullet exit and longer/tougher tracking if the animal doesn’t fall within sight.

I could tell you all kinds of stories from my muzzy hunts over the past 40 years about tracking animals including a kudu that we tracked for more than 24 hours with essentially no blood trail.

 

[CascadeHunter180]

By no means a muzzleloading expert but figured I’d share my experience from my muzzleloader hunt last weekend.

I shot a 4 point mule deer at 125 yards, prone. He gave me a perfect broadside shot and I was able to make a perfect shot, double lung behind the shoulder. Similar to your experience, the smoke made it nearly impossible to see if I hit him or not, but I thought I saw him mule-kick when I shot. I walked up to where he was standing and scoured for blood. It had rained the night before so I was able to see his tracks super well. I tracked him about 40 yards with 0 blood before I decided I should wait to go any further. I waited for a while then decided to climb the ridge above to contact my dad and brother who were watching my stalk from across the basin. They told me I hit the buck, but he ran into a timber stringer quite a ways away.

We decided to wait until the morning to attempt recovering him, just in case he was still alive. Got over there the next morning and found him dead, like 5 feet from where they saw him disappear. He didn’t even bed, he just collapsed. He only made it about 250 yards from where I shot him. I examined the impact and it was perfect, but he didn’t bleed one drop. I backtracked him just to look for blood and there was absolutely none.

No explanation for it other than I think it was a crap bullet.

 

[CMF]

My hunting partner was there to watch it all happen. We searched for 5 hours or so together. Damn WA jungle.... you can't walk 5 feet in a straight line without brush in the way. Glassing g is almost pointless as well.

GET A DOG!!!!!
If he's in a jungle chances are you just aren't seeing him. I shot a whitetail one time and he only made 150yds, we went in that night, night before youth opener with 7-8 people and walked right by him. Dog found him next morning.


Not a ton of Muzzy shots on elk, but my daughter shot one two years ago about the same distance, right at dark and we had no blood. Heard something run off, but there was also mule deer around. Not knowing for sure we waited for morning. Went back in the morning and went the way he went and found him 100yds away, perfect shot.

 

[5MilesBack]

My middle daughter shot a big bull at 30 yards broadside with the 338gr Powerbelt Platinum, right behind the shoulder but a little high. He went about 80 yards, then she snuck in and put another one through the lungs from about 40 yards. He didn't take another step. There wasn't a single drop of blood that we found from either shot, even after he went down. I had to run my hand back and forth over his hide to even find the 1/2" holes.

My youngest daughter shot a cow moose with the 340gr ELDX and there was blood pouring down her side from the entrance wound, and she was blowing blood out of her nose and mouth. She only went about 30 yards though. Those are our only two ML experiences.

 

[ResearchinStuff]

I've shot a lot of deer with a muzzy, not getting an exit is common, as are poor blood trails. I'll disagree that on a frontal a 340 gr bullet blew up without hitting the vitals though. If you made a good shot that bull is dead.

 

[SloppyJ]

The worst time I've ever had was with powerbelts. Between all of us at camp I think there were 6 shots and only one recovery. It's thick brush, hard to explain how thick. If you know the type of southern undergrowth that has walls of briars growing up trees, it's like that.

One of the two that we found that weekend ran 70yds with no trace of blood until she collapsed. I shot one the last morning and I watched her kick and heard her crash. Still it took an hour to find her next to a pond because there was no blood. Since then I've started using the harvester gold bullets and things have been much better. I'd also like to try the Branes TMZ but haven't got there yet.

I imagine your bull is dead somewhere within a few hundred yards.

 

[PathFinder]

Suggesting that a 340 grain bullet at MZ velocities blew up and didn't penetrate is utterly ballistically illiterate.
Not having a blood trail isn't unusual, but that bull is almost certainly dead.

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[Caseknife]

The one and only muzzy bull I killed last fall was with a Barnes 290 T-EZ at 50 yards. I had chrono'd the load prior and it was 1650fps. Perfect shot behind the shoulder, bull went about 10 yards, stopped behind a tree and then tipped over. He was still laboring, so I reloaded and then walked up to him and shot him in the neck. The bullet mushroomed perfectly, jellied the lungs and stopped in the offside shoulder. Don't think there was much of a blood trail, but obviously didn't need to look. Interesting part was there was no bloodshot at all around either wound channel. In fact the bullet in the neck ended up going through the grinder in a less than fist sized chunk of meat, grinder didn't like it at all.
That said, don't expect a blood trail the same as a center fire rifle wound when muzzy hunting unless the shot is very low in the chest or some other extenuating circumstance.

 

[Buelrdr29]

Thanks for all the input guys. I hope the bull lived. But we spent 2 days looking for it and never found a body or blood. I think he made it out of the swampy bottom we were in. So we walked and grid searched all the finger ridges around the area and did not find it. Found the tracks out for the cows that busted and a bull track with them. So we followed those and searched hard. Nothing further found.

There goes year 6 of my elk hunting journey. Closest I have been to a harvest. Damn hunting is hard!

 

[LCguy]

Suggesting that a 340 grain bullet at MZ velocities blew up and didn't penetrate is utterly ballistically illiterate.
Not having a blood trail isn't unusual, but that bull is almost certainly dead.

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Shooting a soft bullet like the Hornady Bore drivers at magnum speeds can absolutely cause them to blow up. It will penetrate, but not very well since it'll start fragmenting pretty much right at impact. I've seen it myself with the 290 grain version of the bullet the OP describes.

 

[ElDiablito]

Suggesting that a 340 grain bullet at MZ velocities blew up and didn't penetrate is utterly ballistically illiterate.
Not having a blood trail isn't unusual, but that bull is almost certainly dead.

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Likely dead? Yes.

Impossible for the bullet to have blown up and fail to penetrate sufficiently to quickly kill/reach the vitals? Absolutely possible. Seen it myself (with other bullets).

 

[Buelrdr29]

I have a hard time thinking the bullet blew up. It is only going in the 1850 fps range. Most worry about expansion under 1300 fps. These seems like it is right in the design velocity. But who the hell knows.

It grouped well at 100y when zeroed. So bullet should be sticking together in flight. And had softball sized groups at 200y in bench shooting conditions.

 

[ElDiablito]

I have a hard time thinking the bullet blew up. It is only going in the 1850 fps range. Most worry about expansion under 1300 fps. These seems like it is right in the design velocity. But who the hell knows.

It grouped well at 100y when zeroed. So bullet should be sticking together in flight. And had softball sized groups at 200y in bench shooting conditions.

Doesn’t take much to make that particular bullet explode. I and others have shown this in water jug testing (granted - water is harder on bullets than game - but this tells you that it’s a very soft bullet compared to many other choices.)