A Real Mess

Bruce Mc

Handloader
Oct 26, 2005
1,278
623
I got out this morning to shoot a doe. Of course one of the does must of been coming in because three really nice bucks were trailing her. That kinda delayed my hunt a bit while I watched the bucks. That doe finally walked off with the doe so I went back to the hunt. I had my eye on one doe that did not appear to have a little one with her so I zeroed in on her and took an easy 100 yd shot. DRT. Well now for the mess, I was aiming behind the shoulder for a shot that would crossover and exit back ribs. I pulled off a bit and hit her square in the shoulder and came out last rib. It made the biggest mess you ever saw. Anyone want to venture the caliber and bullet I used. Pardon the gore but I wanted to show the result.
 

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I'm tempted to say leave the 50 BMG at home the next time you hunt.

Seriously though, I've had results like that on deer with the 30-06 and top loaded 150 gr. Sierra Pro-Hunters. Used them for years until I finally got wise and went to heavier weight bullets. I got similar results with 130 gr. bullets in the .270 as well.

I have no idea what bullet you used but many years ago I hunted the northweat corner of the state of California. It was extremely thick cover ans shots were short. Sometimes very short. If you hit a deer and it ran off, the odds of finding it was slim and none. Some of us oaded 170 gr. 30-30 bullets in out 30-06s to and estimate 2400 or so FPS. They left wounds like that but the deer usually went straight down when hit. I don't remember one running more than about 10 or 15 feet after a hit. We figured it was better to lose up to half a deer rather than lose 100 percent of that deer. I was a lot happier when I got to hunt more inland as then I could use regular bullets for my hunting.
Paul B.
 
The 110gr AccuBond from my 257 Roberts was still cooking along at better than 2800 fps when it impacted the shoulder. Best I could tell the bullet fragmented the shoulder and ran along the bone and angled back across the body and exited with a 2" hole on the last two ribs. Not what I planned but it was a DRT. Other than a meal of backstrap tonight all of the meat is going into smoked sausage. A few pounds from that shoulder won't be missed, much.
 
The 110gr AccuBond from my 257 Roberts was still cooking along at better than 2800 fps when it impacted the shoulder. Best I could tell the bullet fragmented the shoulder and ran along the bone and angled back across the body and exited with a 2" hole on the last two ribs. Not what I planned but it was a DRT. Other than a meal of backstrap tonight all of the meat is going into smoked sausage. A few pounds from that shoulder won't be missed, much.
Didn’t think that AccuBond would be that destructive at that velocity. I some of those 110s , I wonder if I would have even the ears left if ran out of my 257 Wby😁
 
The projectile definitely left a divot in the right shoulder. Jim is assuredly correct in his observation that the tracking job was short.
 
congratulations. sometimes things don't go as planned. I'd bet all of us has experienced and unplanned rapid disassembly of deer. I once muffed a shot on a small buck and hit him dead in the ham with a 180 core lockt from an -06. it took a perfectly round grapefruit sized chunk from his ham.
 
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