6mm Remington":2euml38b said:I hate to rain on your bigger bullet is better parade, although having bigger might be better, but I can think of two experiences right off the top that caused one to pause. I had to shoot a bear one fall that was getting into garbage cans, campsites, and campers. He actually tore through the side of a pull camper with aluminum siding and went inside and destroyed the camper! Anyway this was a big bear that weighed 225 pounds in the fall when he should have been his heaviest, and yet he was skinny as a rail. No doubt he was not going to make it through winter.
I met up with him iwth his head stuck in a garbage can at a hotsprings up near the Idaho border. He trotted down the side of the lodge building and sat down watching me. I had my .12 ga shotgun and had made sure I had a slug in first followed by OO buckshot. I didn't want a running gun battle with this bear so I made sure my shot of about 30 yards was right on and hit him in the lungs right behind the shoulder. He never flinched, woofed, staggered or anything, and took off up the hill behind the building like a rocket. I followed up with the buckshot and knew that had to have hit him, yet it too never made any kind of an impact on the bear. Last I saw he was streaking out of sight behind some trees as he was running up the hillside! Finally the shots took effect and he came rolling down the hill head over butt several times until he was about even with me, stopped, and raised his head and growled. I put another slug into his shoulders and that finally killed him. He had two complete pass through's with those .12 gauge slugs, and most of the 9 pellets of the buckshot in his side also and yet he sure never showed he had even been hit with anything! :shock: The slug holes looked about an inch in diameter.
The other time that comes to mind right off is when my buddy and I put a sneak on some antelope. He was shooting his 45-70 with if I remember right 400 gr. lead cast bullets his gunsmith had loaded for him. He shot his buck at about 125- 150 yards and hit him right behind the shoulder. The buck took off after showing no effects of a hit at all. He ran about 100 yards before he went down. My buddy Don thought he missed completely, and I was wondering for a few seconds myself.
Shoot one deer with your 270 and it drops right there with a lung shot. Shoot the very next deer that's roughly the same size, distance, bullet, and everything else, and he acts like nothing happened and runs off 150 yards before he dies. I have to grudingly admit though that with larger displacement, them big guns you guys all like, they will more frequently cause the instant stops a bit more often than a smaller cartridge with less diameter and bullet mass.
Now having said that, one of the fastest stops I have ever seen, ever, was when I shot a nice buck antelope broadside at about 50 yards with my 6mm Remington. I had mistakenly (I was probably 14 at the time)chambered a round loaded with 85 gr. Sierra boattail hollowpoints I had loaded up for coyotes. He dropped at the shot as quickly as any I had seen then and now. The legs were just jerked out from under him. The bullet went in the ribs and just came undone and completely destroyed his lungs. Only a few small pieces of the bullet even hit the inside of the rib-cage on the off-side of his body. Completely the wrong bullet for the application, but it sure worked.
David
David, having hunted with slugs for a long time, as I grew up in a shotgun county (till 2006). I shot a bunch of deer that had the same effect. I can't remember many deer dropping at the shot, but blood trails we always thick and heavy. Now, having had a rifle county right next door and the Adirondacks, the 7RM with 140 PT's never let a deer step outta their hoof prints. Totally different effects. Thought I had died and gone to Heaven with the 7RM...
