Round penetration or energy in the animal

[ShortMagFan]

If I ever need a blood trail after shooting an animal with a high powered rifle, something has gone terribly wrong.

Tell me you haven’t shot a lot of big game without saying you haven’t shot a lot of big game …

 

[FredH]

I like a bullet that quickly expands to 60 caliber, penetrates in a straight line and leaves a 1 1/2" or larger exit hole. This is easier done with 7mm and up cartridges and bullets that start out weighing 130 grains. I like to see a spray of blood and internal parts out the far side.

 

[roadrunner]

Tell me you haven’t shot a lot of big game without saying you haven’t shot a lot of big game …

I'd wager he's killed more big game than you, just not all of them with a rifle...

 

[Choupique]

What are your thoughts on rounds blowing out both sides or all the energy within the body cavity. Let’s say within 100 yards

I place priority on straight line penetration and controlled expansion. I need broken bones and very liberal blood trails incase the deer does get off. Best performance to me is bonded bullets with good sectional density and a lot of diameter.

Ive posted pictures like this before. Its difficult to describe how thick our woods are. I killed a deer this evening that ran 30 yards and it took me 30 minutes to drag it back to the trail. I didnt cherry pick that first picture - thats what the deer ran off into. Without an extremely liberal blood trail or a good dog, you aren't finding a deer in there.

That said, im trying a .223 as soon as I get it sighted back in and trying out the tipped match bullets. I dont see how a deer shot in both lungs with a violenty fragmenting bullet wouldnt be spitting blood everywhere.

 

[Davyalabama]

I use the high shoulder shot, the energy dump there is what I like.

To each his own.

 

[ShortMagFan]

I'd wager he's killed more big game than you, just not all of them with a rifle...

I don’t know either of you from a hole in the wall. So you may be right. My “experience” includes about 30 deer on the wall and a couple hundred others over close to 40 years. So I’ll stand by my comment that the idea something “has gone horribly wrong if you have to track a big game animal shot with a high powered rifle” is an extremely naive comment that I’d expect from a keyboard warrior who doesn’t have much real world experience shooting critters

 

[Davyalabama]

I don’t know either of you from a hole in the wall. So you may be right. My “experience” includes about 30 deer on the wall and a couple hundred others over close to 40 years. So I’ll stand by my comment that the idea something “has gone horribly wrong if you have to track a big game animal shot with a high powered rifle” is an extremely naive comment that I’d expect from a keyboard warrior who doesn’t have much real world experience shooting critters

Yeah, I've had to track a few in my day as well. Sometimes animals can do funky things with all that adrenaline pumping through their bodies, plus the will to survive. Add in wind gusts, terrain, etc. Yeah, lots to go wrong and any millisecond.

 

[roadrunner]

I don’t know either of you from a hole in the wall. So you may be right. My “experience” includes about 30 deer on the wall and a couple hundred others over close to 40 years. So I’ll stand by my comment that the idea something “has gone horribly wrong if you have to track a big game animal shot with a high powered rifle” is an extremely naive comment that I’d expect from a keyboard warrior who doesn’t have much real world experience shooting critters

Let me help you (and Q_Sertorius) out. If you hit a big game animal in the vitals, the tracking job isn't a tracking job. If you have to track the animal after you shoot it with a high powered rifle, then something happened to have not hit the vital organs.

Something went wrong:

1. Incorrect aim and you hit the animal too low.
2. Downrange obstacle you weren't aware of or didn't account for and you hit anywhere else not intended.
3. You "flinched" or pulled your shot for whatever reason.
4. Poor terminal ballistic performance (should've used the glorious 77 TMK probably).
5. The list goes on and on.

Most of us with real world experience, both positive and negative, understand fully what was meant by the so-called "naive" comment.

And to beat "those guys" to the reaction punch...

 

[ShortMagFan]

Ah ok. So blood trails leading to dead animals don’t qualify. Got it!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ShortMagFan]

“If you have to track the animal after you shoot it with a high powered rifle, then something happened to have not hit the vital organs.”

I’m sorry I can’t help myself. The quote above is such an ignorant statement. Again, I don’t know you, but I’d expect that comment from someone lacking experience is shooting big game. Just last week my son and I shot does at last light from different stands. Both does ran into nasty thickets. In both instances we followed the blood trail to dead deer with scrambled lungs that would have been a lot more difficult to find in the thicket in the dark without a blood trail to follow.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Choupique]

I think yall are arguing semantics

 

[TechsanHunter]

I hate not having a blood trail to track.

 

[wapitibob]

“If you have to track the animal after you shoot it with a high powered rifle, then something happened to have not hit the vital organs.”

I’m sorry I can’t help myself. The quote above is such an ignorant statement. Again, I don’t know you, but I’d expect that comment from someone lacking experience is shooting big game. Just last week my son and I shot does at last light from different stands. Both does ran into nasty thickets. In both instances we followed the blood trail to dead deer with scrambled lungs that would have been a lot more difficult to find in the thicket in the dark without a blood trail to follow.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In the 57 years I've had a hunting license, I have never had to blood trail one of my rifle shot animals. Maybe my day is coming but at 69, it might want to hurry up.
To the only point you made worth commenting on, Pronghorn like to run after getting shot, and will do so till the brain runs out of oxygen if their legs are intact. The furthest I have seen was about 75 yards and it had no heart. "Tracking" not required when the tallest vegetation is 12" high.
Mule Deer distances, after the shot have been measured in feet. Elk tend to slowly walk 20ish yards, stand there for a few seconds, lose the back end when the brain starts to shut down, then tip over.

 

[alexnelon]

In the 57 years I've had a hunting license, I have never had to blood trail one of my rifle shot animals. Maybe my day is coming but at 69, it might want to hurry up.
To the only point you made worth commenting on, Pronghorn like to run after getting shot, and will do so till the brain runs out of oxygen if their legs are intact. The furthest I have seen was about 75 yards and it had no heart. "Tracking" not required when the tallest vegetation is 12" high.
Mule Deer distances, after the shot have been measured in feet. Elk tend to slowly walk 20ish yards, stand there for a few seconds, lose the back end when the brain starts to shut down, then tip over.

Elk and Mule deer don't really run though. You can shoot an elk 5 times before he moves out of his shadow.

Whitetails are spring-loaded.

I shot a whitetail last year that the shot severed the offside front leg completely, blew out the heart and lungs in chunks onto the ground next to the leg, and that deer ran almost 200 yards on 3 legs before the lights went out.

I have never shot a whitetail deer that didn't run.

 

[7RemMag]

I thought that's why we're all supposed to shoot a light recoil caliber with the silver bullet of all silver bullets?

That's a decision each individual has to make, I suppose. I'll stick to shooting a little bit "larger" cartridge and shooting for the front shoulder. It hasn't let me down yet when I did my part.

“If you have to track the animal after you shoot it with a high powered rifle, then something happened to have not hit the vital organs.”

I’m sorry I can’t help myself. The quote above is such an ignorant statement. Again, I don’t know you, but I’d expect that comment from someone lacking experience is shooting big game. Just last week my son and I shot does at last light from different stands. Both does ran into nasty thickets. In both instances we followed the blood trail to dead deer with scrambled lungs that would have been a lot more difficult to find in the thicket in the dark without a blood trail to follow.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I tend to agree with what you're saying, by and large. I can think of numerous times in my hunting career where a critter (mainly deer) was hit well and proceeded to run far further than one would expect. One instance in particular, I put a 139 gr Interlock from my 7mm Mag through the front shoulder of a full-sized whitetail doe at 150 yards. This doe ran several hundred more yards down some trails and into the neighbor's hay field before finally expiring. Lungs were annihilated upon gutting. I wish I could find the picture. The bullet exited. I can't recall actively looking or following a blood trail, because both dad and I had grown up on this patch of ground and were confident we knew where the deer was headed. As we made our way that direction, we saw her laying out in the field. I can't think of any logical reason that deer made it as long as it did other than that for whatever reason, it didn't want to give up the ghost. The end result was still a recovered deer, but if there hadn't been a blood trail, and we didn't know the ground, it could've been an unrecovered deer.

I can think of NUMEROUS examples drawing from my own and others' experience where a good hit still required following a blood trail out of sight. Sometimes even several hundred yards. I don't doubt that wapitibob's experience might be totally different than that of others, and that surely, he isn't blowing smoke. I've seen his posts before and agreed with some of them. However, like you, I can't really help but find his comment to based on a fair bit of naivety in this case. I've seen far too many instances where what were for all intents and purposes perfect shots resulted in some amount of blood tracking in order to locate the animal. Furthermore, I can't see a situation where a blood trail to follow could be something that wasn't desired.