Tough coyote or bad ammo?

[MBAlex]

Went out this morning for a quick yote hunt.

30 minutes into the stand i shot a smaller female at 125 yards with a 50gr vmax coming out of a 1:14 twist.

Yote immediately dropped with what looked like a double lung. I walk up to the coyote a few minutes later and am shocked to see it’s still alive and looking up at me off of the ground. I feel terrible and put a round straight through it’s ribs from ten yards away.

Lo and behold, I see the coyote is still breathing so I then shoot it in the head from point blank.

I looked at the first entrance wound and saw that it was maybe a couple inches too high but it looked like it caused enough damage to immediately kill it. The second shot was right in the middle of the vitals and there was a tremendous amount of blood immediately after it was shot there.

Although I hunt coyotes for this particular area for predator management and know what a menace they are, I nevertheless felt terrible for how long it suffered as a result and for how sloppy i was.

Just wanted to see if anyone has any experience with 50gr vmaxs having less than ideal results on coyotes (and any recs for better factory ammo out of a 1:14 tw) or if people have encountered particularly tough coyotes in the past?

 

[Warmsy]

No experience with coyotes, but when slaughtering farm animals, every once in a while I'll have an animal that just doesn't want to die. Chickens, sheep, goats, I've had at least one of each-carotid artery sliced both sides, no more blood... Animal just won't die. It's gut wrenching but it happens. I imagine every once in a while you'll get the same with wild animals.

 

[IW17]

It happens. I use 223 55 grain vmax primarily. I've had to put a third shot into several in the past. Basically same situation you're describing. Initial shot looks good, second shot required, then a third to finally end it. They are tough animals. Heck, I've shot one broadside through the ribs with a 12 gauge slug and had it run almost a hundred yards before piling up. Granted that was only once, but it shows how resilient they can be.

 

[dtrkyman]

Maybe poor bullet expansion? I hammered a large male once with a 204 ruger, lung shot 100%, he spun around for 10 seconds and I put another in him while he was at it.

Lasted another 20 seconds stumbling around before he expired, tough no doubt, I shoot most of them inside 50 yards with a shotgun and buck shot, DOA! Head/neck shots.

 

[JeffP_Or]

Shot a smaller female with a .223, 40 grain Winchester Varmint X - was about 35 yards give or take; right behind the shoulder. Dropped it instantly. Called a bit more for a few minutes and spent another few minutes dinking around picking up my stuff. Turned back to head over to the coyote - which I see up and stumble-running across the sage. Dropped my gear, off-hand Texas heart shot and rolled it.
Completely surprised to find a huge puddle where it first laid, a long string all the way out to the final lay down spot and a fist-sized hole in the off shoulder with a complete far shoulder separation.
As @Warmsy notes, sometimes, wild things just don't give up.
Shot that load/combo on many others nearer and further - never happened again.

 

[WCB]

Federal used to contract their load AE223GTV from Lake City Army ammunition plant loaded with the 50gr Vmax. IMO one of if not the best yote round. I have shot probably a couple hundred yotes with them and tons of other yotes with various rounds from 42gr-53 vmax, Nosler ballistic tips, Sierra Game King hollow points, etc....In the end weird things happen when shooting live animals.

I have had yotes take 2-3 shots running from .223s and even my 6mm rem. hit them roll them they get up and run again...once I had them skinned made zero sense how they kept going. Then I've shot them with my .17 hornet through the ribs at 250-300 and they just simply drop and don't move.

 

[BRoth82]

I've shot several with the federal hollow points out of a .223 with great luck, but the best was a 150 grain federal fusion out of the .270 at 50 yards. Both of them never moved an inch, and the exit hole was large enough I could put both fists into the hole.

 

[brockel]

Weird shit happens. Pound for pound coyotes have some of the strongest wills to live out of any animal I’ve ever hunted. My guess is the vmax caught one lung and not the other

 

[BLJ]

Weird shit happens. Pound for pound coyotes have some of the strongest wills to live out of any animal I’ve ever hunted. My guess is the vmax caught one lung and not the other

My experience as well. I put (2) 77 TMK’s in one this past fall before it died. One through the ribs at 45 and the last one in the back of the head around 7 to finish.
Shot another one (3) times with 7MAG/160 Partitions. Not good shots, but impressive nonetheless.
Will to live with these particular animals is impressive.

 

[Beendare]

Ive shot a bunch of coyotes with the Vmax in different bullet weights…love that bullet…it just blows them up…most drop on the spot.

 

[TheGDog]

My first shot on a yote was a quick jump-shot opportunity at like 25yds. I'd finished calling, packed up everything, still with leafy suit on was going to go down into this draw between two fingers off this ridge.. figuring make my way up and over the ridge for my next set. As I'm walking up the draw.. my eyes catch him sauntering down it towards me. He hand't seen me yet and was probably trying to find whatever was doing all that calling a lil bit ago. I see him weaving thru the bushes at the bottom of the draw so pick one and hold pointing to about where I think he'll show up at from behind this bush. He does show up, but he's partially obscured by some brush in front of him. I tried aiming to shoot over his head downward toward his spine.. but missed... he jumps around to look at the dirt poof with like WTF was that!? type of deal. Slowly and quietly I eject the round.. and while uber gently chambering another round, right at the end of the actuation, probably as the ringing in his ears dies back down... he hears the click of the bolt closing. runs up outta the draw and pauses to look back at me once on top of the finger... POW! I had to rush like crazy to get the shot off... he does a complete barrel-roll mid air!... falls to a slump.. then is sorta like a drunken sailor the head rotating/flopping back-and-forth rested upon the ground.

EFF me if like 5 seconds later.. he gets back up.. rises to his feet.. turns around and looks at me... and then takes off running up towards the top of this knoll. It's crazy windy. I get up there and start to blood trail. Blood trialed 250+ yds up to the edge of that knoll... down into the ravine behind it... the trail down into ravine points at a Juniper growing in the water rut line down there. I take off my pack and explore up and underneath and inside of it and see a 50-cent piece sized pool of blood as well.

Do a sweep all around that Juniper.. finally find two tiny drops, so made a line-segment out of them and went tthat direction now climbing up the other side of the ravine.. found a little shelf while climbing THAT finger coming off this other side of the ravine... see drops to let me know he no doubt stopped there for a second. Checked all over hell in that area.. didn't find him.

I believe that was 55gr GMX. What I believe happened was.. my rushed shot most likely hit the phalanges of the vertebrae that raise up right there at the shoulder region.. so that's why it was able to make him do that barrel roll mid-air. Observing the blood, it was all darker muscle blood and not lung blood.

That was my first lesson on just how Gawt damn tough coyotes are!

And the last one I got shooting #4 bismuth waterfowl loads... she went down with authority.. but as I got up to walk over there the like maybe 15yds to her, she also tried to lift her head up, so like you I had to use another round to end it. They're just damn tough man.

And the one before that? At like 10yds from me.. I hammered that one with a perfect doulbe-lung with the Hornady 35gr NTX load that does 4000fps at the muzzle. Damn thing did a twirlie.. then jumped over the 2.5ft branches sticking up from the fallen over burnt tree behind him.. after leaping over the tree.. books it away from me and busts thru a taller spindly bush like.. 20yds away, then hooks a left and manages to go another 25-30yds before expiring. But NICE blood trail from that NTX round!

I guess they're just CRAZY tough man. I mean.. their dogs right? How many times have we all seen our dogs smack the crap outta their heads into something.. that legit makes us cringe and see vet-bills... only to have them shake it off and proceed to go on like nothing happened, right?

 

[JMF]

In my experience, a vmax at high velocity will splash. I know several people have responded with good results but I won't use them anymore. I found the 50gr vmax at 3600 fps in most cases blows up on the entry side of the ribs with almost no penetration. The wound looks nasty but the coyote usually runs off and needs a second. I've seen it happen on dozens of coyotes.

 

[Flyjunky]

In my experience, a vmax at high velocity will splash. I know several people have responded with good results but I won't use them anymore. I found the 50gr vmax at 3600 fps in most cases blows up on the entry side of the ribs with almost no penetration. The wound looks nasty but the coyote usually runs off and needs a second. I've seen it happen on dozens of coyotes.

I’d agree, although I still use the 53gr but it’s only traveling a bit over 3000fps.

I had a coyote this year I shot at 30 yards, perfect shot, but the coyote stayed up and did circles. I put another round in it and when I checked the first shot it was exactly as you described….splash hit, large wound, but hardly any penetration.

 

[MTElkChaser]

Like others have said, I’ve experienced several “splash wounds” or surface mushroom with vmax varmint loads. I still use them, but I’ve started at least trying to shoot coyotes in front of the shoulder and even up in the neck a bit. Every one I’ve shot in the neck has dropped immediately and been dead when I walk up to it. I agree, nothing worse than seeing game suffer.

 

[Crashdoyle]

Try a 52 sierra mk

 

[Reddish]

I switched to Speer Gold 55gr or 62gr bullets for coyotes after having some ballistic tips “splash” on a few occasions as others have said. I try to hit them in the shoulders as well, not always possible but have had less run off since I’ve done that. Coyotes are tough.

 

[Crashdoyle]

Coyotes aint tough ....20 grn bullets from my 17 remington stone em instantly through the ribs without a twitch......speed, speed, speed, kills as quick as it took to get there! Can't even find a hole in em!

 

[Skerhunter]

A couple of thoughts/observations/comments on what others have written over the years, hopefully helps some people out.

My observations are similar to others. An animal that is shot/wounded tends to be much more difficult to kill (fight or flight response/adrenaline whatever it is). Single lung shots/gut shots or like the OP described maybe a partial CNS hit, these things might take multiple follow up shots. Not pleasant, no one likes to walk up to animal and find out they are still fighting to live.

Coyotes have small vitals, when compared to other animals we hunt. Obviously there are variations, but assume 3-4" max for coyotes and 10-12" for decent sized deer. So that right there means your shot will be 2-3X harder to make right? A 1 moa rifle is going to shoot 1" at 100, 2" at 200, and 3" at 300. So even if you make a perfect shot at 300 yards, you still may miss the vitals! When calling coyotes you are generally shooting seated from a bipod (daytime) or standing up using a tripod (night time). I know my sweet 10 shot sub moa groups start opening up once I leave the prone position/shooting bench. I get excited everytime one comes in, that also messes with my shooting. What I am saying is, for runners it's safe to assume we missed the vitals/CNS or only got a small portion of them and now they might seem like they are bullet-proof.

When calling a lot of shots aren't ideal, compared deer/elk/antelope. We don't get to patiently wait for them to turn perfectly broadside. Most shots calling are not perfectly broadside, a lot are quartering to us and it generally happens fast!

For bullet performance ideally you have a bullet that quickly fragments, destroying a large portion of the vitals/CNS, but we also need it to penetrate far enough! This is where it gets tricky, if your bullet fragments too quickly you won't get enough penetration to get into the heart or both lungs (not perfectly broadside shots). Now we have a splash/runner! If you use a bullet that doesn't fragment quickly enough you have destroyed less tissue, but you can gain penetration. So you might not get a splash, but you may get a similar if your bullet doesn't fragment enough (think single lung).

What else matters for bullet performance - velocity and twist rate. Prairie dog hunters want to see pink mist, when they hit one. Having them flop over is just boring. To achieve this, they shoot bullets that will fragment very quickly, at high velocity (~4000+fps) and with high RPMS (300K+ RPM). Shoot a coyote with these rounds and you will see more splashes/runners. A vmax out of an 8 twist barrel, doing 2800-3000 fps - most AR's in 223 (~270K RPM) will perform a lot different than one shot at 3800+FPS out of a 12 twist (~230K RPM). There is info online for various bullets max RPM's, I believe a vmax is around 300K, before you risk it falling apart on the way to your target. Keep this in mind with selecting your gun/bullet combo!

For me (shooting vmax or other similar bullets) I want high velocity (3600+), with the slowest twist rate possible to stabilize the bullet (lowest RPMS possible). Will I still get runners? Yes, when my shot placement doesn't not hit those tiny vitals! But this gives me minimal bullet drop to 300 yards, with a bullet that will fragment quickly, but allowing for maximum penetration. For certain situations this does become less critical for me. Calling in the daytime, with max shot distance at 50-100 yards, I can get away with using an 8 or 9 twist AR and vmax ammo. Making precise shots will be much easier in these situations. I personally learned the hard way, when I started calling at night - less precision from shooting on a tripod, 2-4x nv/thermal optics vs daytime optics in the 6-14x range, generally most shots are a minimum ~100 yards. I needed more room for error/better performance, so I had no choice but to improve my gun/bullet combo.

There are other options out there, but I wanted to keep this info specific to factory ammo offerings, using vmax bullets and my personal observations.

 

[B23]

My dad and I were up elk hunting once and a coyote walked out of some brush and stopped on a skid trail maybe 30-40 yards in front of me. It didn't have a clue I was there. I pulled up and shot it with my 300 Wby mag and 180gr bullet. It was a bit of a weird angle and I definitely made a piss poor shot with the bullet entering just behind the ribcage. Being such a close shot, through the scope I watched as blood and guts spray out the other side, and it wasn't just a little but rather a lot. So as you could imagine, I had a WTF moment when this coyote bolted on a dead run for about 15 yards then piled up. I stood there a few seconds in shock before I walked up to it. Along the way I stopped and looked at the area where I shot it and there was a lot of blood and pieces of guts sprayed in about 3-4ft semi circle. When I got up to that coyote I was in even more disbelief because it literally looked like someone had opened up its left side, from about its ribcage to its front shoulder, with one of those old style manual can openers and most everything that was still left of its innards had been drug along on the 15yd dash it made before it piled up.

I've shot plenty others, with much smaller less powerful cartridges, and they dropped dead like they were struck by Thor's hammer. Watched my dad drop one dead on the spot with 17 Hornet and 20gr Vmax at 249 yds and it didn't so much as make a single twitch.

Point being, shot placement tends to trump just about everything else and a not so great shot is just that, not so great. As someone already mentioned, coyotes, are survivors and unless you hit a vital organ or something in the central nervous system it's not likely going to be instant lights out.

 

[Crashdoyle]

Right bullet.... a bullet for elk is not the best bullet for coyotes, matters more then where you hit em.....sure you can kill em with a 180 partition, but not nearly as quick as you can with a 20 grn v-max....obviously a brain shot don't matter.....simple formula...bullet construction must match impact velocity and animal your shooting..