.45-70 results on Ohio deer

[bdbrown66]

So, I took my new Henry .45-70 up to Ohio to hunt with my dad this past Monday and Tuesday. The owner of the farm we were hunting requested that we shoot only does this year, as the population needed some trimming. We were happy to oblige.

Monday afternoon, shortly before dark, I connected on a decent sized doe at about 200 yards, quartering away. She ran about 100 yards, and I thought I had missed. Then she stopped and just keeled over. Postmortem examination showed that the Hornady 325gr. LeverEvolution had entered just behind the rib cage on the right and exited just in front of the rib cage on the left. Somehow, I had managed to miss both shoulders, the tenderloin/backstrap, and the guts...all of which was a good thing. It plowed thru the liver and created a lot of internal bleeding.

On Tuesday, in the same location, I took a shot at a nice-sized doe at 175-200 yards about 15 minutes before dark. She was quartering toward me, so I lined up on her front shoulder. At the shot, she dropped to the ground like I had hit her with a ton of bricks. She laid there for a minute, then started kicking. OK, that's fairly normal. She kicked for about 30 seconds and then stopped. At that point, I figured she was done. No sooner did we start to gather up our things, than she started kicking again. As we watched, she kicked her way out of the field and into the woods. I told my dad to gather up our things, I was going to go make sure she didn't crawl halfway down the hill. I walked down to where she had been, blood everywhere. I mean, lots of blood. I made a quick loop thru the woods, expecting to find her, but didn't. There were several large piles of brush in the area, and my first thought was that she had crawled up under one of them. So, we got out our flashlights (it's getting dark by this time) and spent the next 15-20 minutes looking into the brush piles. No luck. So I came back to where she had left the field and started working the blood trail. Lots of blood initially, but it just kept going. Apparently, she got back on her feet at some point. The further she went, the less blood we found. We trailed her for 200-300 yards thru the woods until we reached the property line. By that point, it had gone from profuse bleeding to just a drop here and there. At that point, we lost it altogether. I have no doubt that she laid down somewhere on the neighbor's property and bled out overnight, but I'll be darned if I've ever seen a deer shake off a hit that hard, and with that much blood loss, and walk away from it. I was kinda bummed about it all.

On the bright side, the Henry seemed to shoot very well at fairly long range. I will spend more time on the practice range with it to improve my comfort level with it, but I'm impressed so far.

Cheers,
Brian

 

[Guy Miner]

Well heck. Congrats on the doe taken!

And on the other one? Wow - that's a lot of bullet to shrug off. Dang. All I can offer, is that I've never been reluctant to pop another bullet into 'em if I'm worried about them getting up and dashing off - which the doggone things will do if given opportunity.

Guy

 

[Anonymous]

Holy cow! That's a lot of pop to absorb and walk off.

I have to agree with Guy- I'm not at all bashful about giving them another, but rarely would if they're grounded.

Stuff like that happens, but thankfully it's rare. I agree that it is likely on the neighbors property DOA. Perhaps you could arrange a retrieval? Most folks are pretty understanding of the situation.

I plowed into a whitetail many years ago with a Federal 220gr out of an '06. It was a good hit, broadside through the pump room the deer dropped and then that deer jumped up and ran for 1/2 mile leaving a veritable red carpet in it's wake. It was still kicking when we got to it although it had totally bled out by that point. My buddy cut it's throat, but nothing.... empty. So we sat there on it for a good 2 minutes waiting for the inevitable to occur before we finally just shot it with a pistol in the ear canal. Tenacious creatures on occasion. I'm thankful moose seem somewhat softer in that reqard.

 

[Dwh7271]

I am also from Ohio, shot a few deer with the 325 FTX and was underwhelmed with the performance. The accuracy is very good though.
Performance through ribs or right behind the shoulder is great but it it certainly not a bullet I'd personally want to put in a shoulder at 100 plus yards.
The ones I've recovered have all separated core and jacket and/or deformed.
I realize it sounds like I'm hammering the bullet and that is not my intent. It's a fine bullet used behind shoulder and such. I just feel it's asking a lot for it to blow through a shoulder at 200 yards. There are plenty of better bullets for that.
I know there are a number of folks that really like these bullets and loads and best of luck to them.
Blow a few of these bullets into wet newspaper (or water-filled milk jugs)at 25, 100 and 200 yards. That'll tell the story for you.

None of the comments are meant personally by the way. Congrats on the first doe and sorry about the second.

 

[tddeangelo]

Could you have hit very high on that doe?

My daughter's first shot at a doe was with a 257 Bob shooting a 100gr PT at like 2300-2400fps. Mild kicker, but enough punch to kill deer to 150 yards or so.

So a big mature doe steps out at about 100. My daughter let the jitters get the better of her and let her shot drift high, as we later found out. The doe was decked. I mean....smacked down is the only proper term for it. Slapped to the ground. She started to do the "Curly shuffle", and I was trying to explain to Megan to chamber and fire again, but the excitement had really gotten the better of her and it was not easy to cut through that.

After about 30 seconds, the deer gained her feet and was gone like shot out of a cannon.

That was mid-October.

In the following January (this past one), I killed a big mature doe with my flintlock. Happened to be about 200 yards in a straight line from where her episode occurred, and similar 3-deer family group.

The doe was dropped on the spot by the round ball, and I figured there was little remarkable here. Then I skinned the doe and found a big, puss-filled wound dead in line with the back of the front shoulder, with the wound itself being just above the vertebrae. My best guess is she hit very high, above the spine, which messed with the doe's CNS enough to prevent her from gaining her feet for a minute or so, and then she did and was gone.

Could something similar have happened?

As for tenacity, I shot a mulie last November in Nebraska. 215 yards with a 140gr AccuBond smokin' out fast from a 264WM. I mean...FAST. He was bedded when I shot him, and he never stood up. Never reacted in anyway. Just laid there while the rest of the bedded herd booked it out of town. Some had to jump over him, I recall.

He just laid there like nothing happened.

So I shot him again. Heard and saw the hit.....dumped him on his side, and he was kicking.

Then still.

Then head up.

I walked down into the canyon and when he seemed serious about getting up when I was about 70-80 yards away, I shot him again...all three behind/through the shoulder.

Then I walked up to him and he tried in earnest to get up again. There was enough struggling that I couldn't just watch and I shot him a 4th time right at the muzzle. 30 seconds or so later, he finally expired.

All four bullets did as you'd expect from an AB....gnarly wound channels that turned the front end into ground meat. That deer just wouldn't flippin' die.

 

[bdbrown66]

Hey, guys. Thanks for all the input. I'll try to respond as best I can.

Guy - Had I known she would have gotten back on her feet, I would have put another in her right away. Honestly, I was expecting to walk down there and find her dead or mortally wounded in the woods, and a second shot could be done "surgically" if needed, to avoid further meat damage. Live and learn.

Hodgeman - The lady who owns the next property doesn't live there, so I would have had to track her down. Plus, I had to leave the next day to come back to KY, and I can't bring back an unbutchered deer from OH due to CWD. On top of that, it was about 60 degrees Tuesday afternoon, and wasn't supposed to be cold overnight. Most likely, the meat would have spoiled before I could have gotten to it, even if the other factors hadn't come into play.

Dwh7271 - I bought a set of dies and intend to work on some reloads before next year. Hornady's are what I had to work with this time around, and we'll just have to see how it goes. They may or may not be my bullet of choice; as others have said, sometimes the bullet does exactly what it's supposed to do, and the animal just won't go down. Years ago, I shot a buck in OH with 12-gauge slugs. Hit him 5 times before he went down for good. At least 3 of those shots should have been fatal. BTW, where do you live in OH? I grew up in Jefferson County, on the Ohio River. My folks live out in North-Central OH now; we were hunting in Richland County.

tddeangelo - It's certainly possible that I hit high, I just don't know. All I can say is, she went down HARD, just like you described. And she bled profusely, at least for a while. Beyond that, I'm at a loss to explain.

Cheers,
Brian

 

[Dwh7271]

BTW, where do you live in OH?

Central Ohio west of Columbus about 30 miles or so.

 

[bdbrown66]

BTW, where do you live in OH?

Central Ohio west of Columbus about 30 miles or so.

Plain City area?

 

[Dwh7271]

S of there a bit

 

[NYDAN]

I would bet that you hit the doe above the backbone. The backbone dips way down to the center of the body as it approaches the neck. A hit there often gets an initial reaction but then the deer recovers and runs.

 

[1Shot]

Strange things happen sometimes. My hunting buddy once shot a nice buck one afternoon about 250 yards from his tower stand in a picked peanut field with a 100 gr Sierra bullet out of his 25-06. Like normal it dropped in its tracks and never moved. Since it was still about 1 1/2 hours until it got dark and it is legal to kill more deer and he did not want to mess up my hunting since I was in the next field beside his he stayed in the stand. Periodically he would look at the deer laying in the field as he scanned the field looking for other deer. It had never moved one bit. After dark I get the truck and go to his stand to get him and his deer. We go walking out to the deer which has by this time been on the ground for over 2 hours. When my buddy is about 10 yards from the deer it raises it head looks at him and jumps up and takes off across the field and into the woods about 200 yards away like it had not been touched. There was not another drop of blood from the place it was laying that we could find and we never did find that deer. Where that deer was laying the ground was soaked with blood. I dug down in the sandy soil as far as my long arm could reach and still there was blood in the ground. Like I said strange things happen sometimes.

 

[Dwh7271]

1shot,
If that happened to me at last light that one may have freaked me out. :grin: :grin: