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Post by cedarthicket on Dec 28, 2009 15:21:44 GMT -5
Jabba, indeed there are lots of good, heavier, solid bullets that will work fine in sabots. It seems that an awfully lot of hunters are convinced that they must use the lightest, fastest, flattest-shooting bullet possible for deer hunting. And too often they choose the lighter weight hollow points that have jackets too thin to hold the bullet together upon impact.
For example, last year I shot an adult doe at 45 yards, broadside, and the bullet hit perfectly, just behind the left front shoulder. It ran off into the adjacent woods, where I expected to find it maybe 20 or 30 yards into the woods. To make a long story short, the deer went about 100 yards, lay down, got up again as I spooked it, and ran another 100 yards. When field dressing the deer I noted the chest cavity showed the typical broken rib of the entrance wound but not even a fragment of the bullet had hit the right side. Apparently, nearly all of the bullet’s damage was to the left lung, and the deer left a very poor blood trail after the first 100 yards. I wish now that I had looked more carefully for bullet fragments. The bullet was a 200 grain, .44 caliber, Nosler jacketed hollow point inside a green Hornady sabot in my .50 caliber TC Thunderhawk. The powder charge was 100 grains of GOI FFFG.
Light weight, soft lead, thin jacketed, hollow points at relatively high velocity are not something I would recommend for deer. However, as it has for Tickman1961, the heavier 240 grain, .44 caliber, Hornady XTP jacketed hollow point has performed well for me. With the same powder charge it is going somewhat slower than the Nosler and, I suspect, but do not know for sure, it may have a thicker metal jacket that prevents bullet disintegration upon impact at the velocities we are using.
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Post by jabba on Dec 28, 2009 17:08:53 GMT -5
I have lost deer, and I have ALMOST lost deer too many times now to even consider a small hollow point bullet. I concede that there is A LOT I don't know about jackets, and velocities. What I DO know, is that the VAST majority of the deer I kill are between 10 and 40 yards, with a Longest shot EVER of 140. With only 2 at about 85, and ALL of the rest inside that. My log shows 46 deer that I have killed, ALL of which except for 3 have been with muzzleloaders, as I hunt with a muzzleloader even during fire arms season. The 3 were 2 THIS year with a bolt action shot gun shooting sabots, and the other was a doe with a .44 mag handgun about 10 years ago.
Personally, I'll stick with over 300 grain bullets, without hollow points. I like the flat nose, I like the conicals (Not as much as the Keith Nose though) and I like it to be a shot put. They go straight, brush and bones be damned. Not to say that I can shoot indescriminantly through thick brush... but I can get away with a lot more than I could with a light bullet.
Since I only push my bullets with 70 grains of FFFG 777, they are not going all that fast anyway. I get a .50 cal in hole, and about a 2" out hole, and blood trails look like they were put down with a 5 gallon bucket. I try to take good shots, and don't take too many iffy ones... although I am guilty of it THIS year. I tried to slip one into a doe a little too far back, and pulled the shot low... gut shooting her, and having to track her about 800 or 900 yards to the WORST possible place she could have gone as far as getting her out was concerned.
The other muzzle loader doe I shot this year, was a neck shot... and she obviously dropped in her tracks.
I'm taking the shotgun to Atterbury tomorrow.
Jabba
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Post by jkd on Dec 30, 2009 18:09:23 GMT -5
IMO, shot placement is the key... my son has taken four deer with his Optima .50 with 245gr Powerbelt copper jackets, and the only one that didn't drop in its tracks was a quartering on shot on a doe... broke the lead shoulder and went down parallel to the spine exiting the far hip, breaking that joint... she went 70 yards down a ravine where he made a finishing shot on her... the recovered first round had expanded to almost 3/4"... If you want more penetration and less expansion, Powerbelt Platinums are designed for that... if you want more expansion, they've got an unjacketed lead hollow point... Here's a video of a guy taking an elk with one shot from a Powerbelt at 160 with a 100gr load... now if they do that kind of job on elk, I don't see how the round isn't going to work on deer. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ8N3yaCIq0
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Post by cedarthicket on Jan 2, 2010 23:00:14 GMT -5
Jkd, sorry for the delay in posting. Several days of intestinal flu, I believe, got me down. Anyway, I agree that shot placement is a key point. No matter what kind of bullet is used, or the velocity, a bad shot is a bad shot and lost or extremely hard to track game is the typical result. However, it still remains for the bullet to do its job AFTER you have done yours (placing it on the right spot). The bullet must be able to penetrate into the vitals and do SUFFICIENT damage there (tissue damage of the central nervous system, heart, lungs, and/or critical blood vessels) to cause the animal to quickly expire. If the bullet does not cause the animal to expire within a few yards of where hit, we ask that the bullet cause SUFFICIENT EXTERNAL blood loss to produce a readily followed blood trail to where it expires.
In the personal example I gave of the 200 grain Nosler JHP the shot placement at 45 yards was about as perfect as it gets. However, the bullet “dumped most of its energy” in the rib and left lung. Had the bullet been pushed at perhaps 200 feet per second slower, or been constructed of harder lead, or not had a hollow point, or had a thicker jacket, or hit precisely BETWEEN the ribs it may have performed beautifully. It may have expanded in a much more controlled fashion, taken out both lungs and exited the far side. If so, (and I have observed it several times (with ribs broken on entry AND exit) with the Hornady 240 grain XTP bullets) I would likely have found the deer expired within 40 to 60 yards of impact at the end of an easy to follow blood trail.
Regarding the elk hunt video, I did not see where the bullet hit the elk or how it performed. 160 yards is a fairly long shot for an iron-sighted ML rifle, and with 100 grains of powder the bullet (250 grain Powerbelt) velocity upon impact was certainly much less than it would have been at say 45 yards. While I wish we had more details of the bullet’s performance I will certainly congratulate the hunter on his prize. And, I am not making a blanket condemnation of Powerbelt bullets. It is just that under certain conditions they may fail to perform as expected or hoped. None of us have the time or dollars to exhaustively research every new product that hits the shelves. Many are content to always go with what has worked for them in the past. Others continually want to try something new. I am somewhere in between, trying to learn as I go. Hopefully, this will result in my making fewer mistakes that result in missed, or wounded and lost, game. I nearly lost the doe in 2008 with the 200 grain Nosler JHP. I do not want that to happen again.
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Post by jabba on Jan 3, 2010 9:16:34 GMT -5
I shot a doe once with a 325 grain speer holllow point at 15 yards dead broadside. I KNEW I hit her. There was NO blood. I tracker her about 250 yards before I found a SPECK of blood. Then the trail got better and better. I still found her, still alive, and jumper her up again, eventually having to put a kill shot on her. That shot was dead perfect, broadside @15 yards. The problem was bullet related.
I agree shot placement is VERY important, but I have seen TOO many good shots and crappy blood trails to ever shoot a light HP bullet again.
I am NOT saying they are wrong for anyone else. I am saying they are wrong for ME.
Jabba
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