The bullet failure thread

[Texas270]

Say what you wish, but you don’t often hear about Core Lokts failing. Or round nosed bullets for that matter.

 

[Steve300xcw]

Say what you wish, but you don’t often hear about Core Lokts failing. Or round nosed bullets for that matter.

How far are most folks shooting rounds like that though?..

 

[MDR]

Both of these instances were from many years ago. I've since smartened up and use better bullets. Still surprising since neither of these cals are speed demons.

8mm mauser 196 S&B SPCE on a grizz. Encountered bone and turned into a grenade. I've had other cup and core bullets hit bone and stay together much better than these.

7.62x39 Hornady SST on a black bear. Hit but not recovered. Seen later in the year with a limp from broken leg. A friend used a 30-06 with the SST on a 57" bull and had good performance so your mileage may vary.

 

[Forkasauras]

Shoot enough bullets into enough animals and eventually you’ll see some odd stuff happen

7mm-08 with 140 gr corlokts, whitetail deer from a treestand about 20 yards. Entrance and exit wounds were about 2 inches apart on the same side just behind the shoulder. Deer dropped.

Another with 180gr round nose from a 30-06. Entrance was behind the shoulder, exit was just under the offside ear.

 

[Deeker]

2 bullet “ failures” on the same hunt. 140 accubonds out of 2 seperate 6.5 prc. First was my buck at just under 400. Quartering to shot, hit front leg just under the shoulder no entrance into chest cavity. Another shot infront of the shoulder put buck down. 2nd was two days later, my buddy shot a buck at just over 600 I believe, 1st shot was back on the hips, follow up shot was through the lungs broadside. Both were killing shots, however the shot in the lungs had zero expansion. Bullet keyholed going through the body leaving a perfect bullet shape wound channel on the offside ribcage.

The second incident I can wrap my head around, I would imagine we were over the terminal range of the bullet. Gun has a 16 inch barrel. The first buck I can only guess what happened…. Both resulted in dead deer, so technically not a failure, but still concerning.

 

[Mtndawger]

This is a good thread. No doubt at all that sometimes bullets do unexpected things. A good many of the descriptions of failures leave me wondering if it was an actual failure or a marginal shot placement. I don’t really know what “ under the shoulder” means for example. To me that means out of the kill zone. Or a going away shot that is somehow supposed to go through the back straps, the spinal column and out the sternum. Seems like too shallow an angle resulting in a deflection and not straight line penetration. One guy gets 12” penetration but expects 5’. What bullet gets you 5’ of penetration? Once again though thanks for sharing the data so we can see the results. My own experience with “failure” was cow elk shot broadside @ 40 yards 3x from 280 Remington and 139 sst hornady light magnum ammo. The damn thing stood there like it was frozen and then just tipped over dead. All three simpy failed to expand. This was 2009 and my takeaway is they were “high lung” shots which I had read somewhere were the best shot placement. That’s a little high and a little back. I don’t do that anymore. Nor would I go near an sst again. I believe the eldx bullets are based on the sst except with an internal cannelure to lock in the core. I’m suspicious of the eldx as well. Plenty of folks have have had outstanding results with both.

 

[KHntr]

Or a going away shot that is somehow supposed to go through the back straps, the spinal column and out the sternum. Seems like too shallow an angle resulting in a deflection and not straight line penetration. One guy gets 12” penetration but expects 5’. What bullet gets you 5’ of penetration? Once again though thanks for sharing the data so we can see the results.

Evidently I need to clarify this since it seems to be causing some confusion….

Elk on a 60* slope below me. Shot once through the front quarters at 30 yards, elk turns and runs down hill away from the trail towards a major river following the herd. Elk goes into a small gully on an angle which changes the body position relative to me, as it gets to bottom.

60-ish yard shot with a rifle/bullet combo (300 RUM/180gr TSX) which I’d previously shot several elk with from onside shoulder through offside hip and had exits (and a couple bullet recoveries) at similar ranges.

Bullet placed expecting it to enter through spine and transverse the chest and come out through the bottom of the chest between the front legs based on the body position. Bullet instead turns 90* from line of travel and is stopped after 12” of arguably some of the softest muscle on an elk.

I find this discussion and comments here SUPER ironic to be having on this forum, where guys seem to fall in one of two camps - either its ‘14-16” of major tissue and bone trauma is enough to kill from a little rifle’ (which I fall squarely into) or the opposite end of the spectrum ‘I need a Big Super Magnum and a Stout Bullet in case I need to shoot through the paunch to get to the vitals on an important hunt’ - which I used to be.
I would think that shot on that species with that bullet is exactly what that cartridge was designed to do, and in the context of this thread I figure it falls directly in line with what the OP was asking - bullet placed properly but failed to do what was expected of it.
To see a bullet/cartridge combo that turned and stopped when impacting nothing but meat, that had on several occasions previously penetrated several feet of “heavy bone and rut thickened hide” and meat, I thought that was interesting and worth relating - but only in the sense of it fell into the sometimes weird shit happens category. I fully expected based on previous experience with that bullet and cartridge combo that the bullet would smash through 2.5’ of elk and dig into the dirt. It didn’t. Had that been the only hole in that elk, it wouldn’t have been fatal.

Seemed to fit the context of the thread.

 

[Okie-hunter]

135gr 6.5mm Berger Classic Hunter with a MV of 2830fps failed to expand on a whitetail at 210 yards. Broadside double lung shot, passed straight through with zero signs of expansion. Found the buck laying down but alive. Only available follow up shot was center mass but the 2nd bullet entered & exploded with no exit closer to how I expected the bullet to perform.

 

[Escalante11]

My first bullet failure experience came this past fall when my 14 year old nephew took a shot on his first book. It wasn't a great shot, but should have been deadly had the bullet upset to any meaningful degree. The bullet was a 115 Berger out of a 6mm Creedmoor. The estimated impact velocity was ~ 2,915. The bullet penciled through the armpit area. The buck hunkered up, acted like it was going to drop dead right there for a 30 seconds or so, then started getting some wits back and eventually trotted off acting completely normal. Unfortunately, my nephew was unable to get the buck in his sights again for a follow up shot as it moved in thick aspen. I saw that buck off and on for another month or so after that, acting and looking seemingly fine outside of a wound mark on both the entrance and exit sides of the body.

We've killed a dozen or so elk and deer with that same bullet at lower impact velocities and it has performed fantastic. Appears to be one of the more pencil-prone Berger varients however at super high impact velcoties. I've since moved back to the 108 EH as those have performed flawless for us. Will try the new TMKs this year a little as well.