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.

 

[KHntr]

Since this apparently needs to be said…In the context of this particular thread, I personally classify these pics as showing a bullet failure.

This was not from my bullet.
I have zero knowledge of what bullet was used, what cartridge it came from, nor the distance it was fired from.

I make the assumption that it was a relatively close-ish shot, give the level of damage shown to the bone. I also base that assumption based on how far away from the bone where I found lead and copper fragments. I also make the assumption that it was a quartering to shot, based on the lead fragment pattern in the meat on the outside of the scapula.

I cow called this bull out of the timber and down the timber edge from about 500 yards at first light. I watched him walk and trot towards me on a string until he got to around 130 yards and then started to realize he couldn’t see any cows. When he turned mostly broadside-ish and slightly quartering in I laced him with a 150gr TTSX through the front quarters from my 280AI over crossed hiking poles.

He ran in a tight half circle and headed for the tree line and I stuck him again broadside just as he got to the trees and he disappeared. At no point was this bull limping or showing any sign of decreased mobility.

When I was peeling the meat off of his scapula I started to find lead fragments. No bloodshot at all, just lead frags. And a few shreds of copper. Thought that somewhat odd, as I’d killed him with a mono. When I started to debone his humerus I hit bone in places there shouldn’t have been bone. Thought it interesting enough that I boiled the bone for a better look.
Lots of little protrusions of bone in sharp little points and had fused itself back together. Was first shot at least a year previous.

 

[KHntr]

 

[streamerfish]

Never actually seen a bullet fail....

I've seen copper bullets that barely mushroomed and poked small holes...but that's a design characteristic, not a failure.

I haven't seen a cup and core style bullet "pencil", but I can see or believe that its possible, just never seen it.

I have never seen a bullet not penetrate deep enough....

 

[Deeker]

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.

I will clarify my under the shoulder statement. Deer was quartering towards me. Hard quartering, between broadside and full frontal. Shot was between the leading shoulder socket and elbow joint. Approximately heart level. Shattered the bone …. I believe would be the humerous on a person, not sure if it is called something different on a deer. I wish I would have found rokslide before I made that shot, I would have looked much deeper into what happened. All I thought about was the deer being dead and how fun the pack out was going to be. Rookie mistake.

 

[nettereo16]

Virginia has an apprentice deer weekend for new hunters. I took my wife (girlfriend at the time) out using a 18” 6.8spc AR - very friendly gun for her to shoot.

Hornady SST 120gr 6.8spc - she shot a doe at 80yards back of the lungs/liver, ran off. Gave it time and after dark came across the deer bedded with her head still up. VA is a state we can't finish off after legal hours, so we backed out and came back first thing and the doe was dead. Made for a long sleepless night and a bad first deer experience.

Bullet penciled through. I had the 6.8spc SST perform well other times but lost a lot of confidence in it and would always try to clip some of the shoulder meat to hope it would expand.

 

[chicoredneck]

Seeing a theme here with some SST and Berger bullets failing to expand.

 

[robtattoo]

Virginia has an apprentice deer weekend for new hunters. I took my wife (girlfriend at the time) out using a 18” 6.8spc AR - very friendly gun for her to shoot.

Hornady SST 120gr 6.8spc - she shot a doe at 80yards back of the lungs/liver, ran off. Gave it time and after dark came across the deer bedded with her head still up. VA is a state we can't finish off after legal hours, so we backed out and came back first thing and the doe was dead. Made for a long sleepless night and a bad first deer experience.

Bullet penciled through. I had the 6.8spc SST perform well other times but lost a lot of confidence in it and would always try to clip some of the shoulder meat to hope it would expand.

I'm sorry, but that is 100% operator error, not bullet failure. Back of the lungs & liver? Even if the bullet had expanded, it would've still been a long, slow kill.

 

[J_Jacobson]

The 156gr EOL is the only bullet I've seen repeated failures with. Five critters and three failures resulting in lost animals. Went back to ELDMs.

 

[nettereo16]

I'm sorry, but that is 100% operator error, not bullet failure. Back of the lungs & liver? Even if the bullet had expanded, it would've still been a long, slow kill.

Standard broadside through the rib cage shot. Sure, a bit further back than ideal but this bullet didn’t expand at all. Literal pencil hole & a relatively close shot.

I’ve experienced other deer shot in the same location and bullets disrupt and kill quicker. We recovered this deer but I’m still considering it a failure, looked like it was shot with a fmj.