TTSX preformance on Mule deer for those intrested

[khh]

Shot this nice buck a few weeks ago with a 257 Weatherby Vanguard series 2 and a hand loaded 100 gr. TTSX .I have never chrono'd this load but I suspect it's in the 3450 fps range and very accurate .Shot was 250 yards quartering to me. I hit him angling in through the scapula , through the right lung , liver , stomach and was found in the left ham resting on the femur. Hole through the lungs and liver appeared to be about 1.5" . He gave no indication he was hit at all , much to my dismay, and just tore off. I'm not sure when the pedals broke off but it went though 3 feet of deer.

 

[26NosFan]

Great deer, how far did he go?

 

[khh]

He ran about 150 yards but got out if my sight. He didn't look like he was hit at all.

 

[Charlie-NY]

3 feet of penetration and it just ran off! Ran another 150yds!
The tenacity of some of these game animals is just unbelievable.

Congrats on a beautiful buck.

 

[jmad_81]

That is a very nice deer! Congrats.

 

[kraky1]

Really nice buck there...wooohooo.

 

[.300winmag]

Awesome buck! I'd bet he's around 180", if not a tad more. I've got a buddy that had a similar experience with a Barnes and muley, his was out of a 7-08 though.

 

[khh]

3 feet of penetration and it just ran off! Ran another 150yds!
The tenacity of some of these game animals is just unbelievable.

Congrats on a beautiful buck.

My friend was ranging for me he called 250 and I shot the first shot. I heard him call a few more ranges but the last I heard was 382 at which time he was running pretty much broadside and I tried a shot . There was a loud crack he was instantly gone into a draw. The first thing I did was ask my friend if it looked like it was hit He said "no" , which at the time I happen to agree with. He had some does with him and it was a Chinese fire drill for a few seconds but eventually the does ran back out of the draw and stood in a group staring down in there. We both felt that was a good sign. When we found the buck he had only traveled about 10 yards after the 2nd shot and the back leg was completely broken off just hanging in the skin but there was no break in the skin that I could see. We both agree the leg was not broken the last time we saw him. He also had a front tooth missing. He must have really piled up when he went down. If there was a break in the skin on the leg I would have said the 2nd shot broke the leg. The first shot was right on the button.

 

[Dr. Vette]

3 feet of penetration and it just ran off! Ran another 150yds!
The tenacity of some of these game animals is just unbelievable.

Agreed.

So far of 3 doe taken this year they've all run anywhere from 40 to 80 yards. Each has been a double lung hit with excellent placement. Deer will run, and despite all of the hunting shows that's just the way it is. The one that ran the least was killed with my daughter's 223, the furthest with my 35 Rem. Apparently small kills better than big. :grin:

#4 did not run, but that's because Dad shot it in the neck (on purpose) and dropped it where it stood.

Running of deer has no relationship to the performance of a bullet.
You got him, and that's what counts.
Great job!

 

[Cleveland48]

Amazing buck! It's funny how they manage to run like nothing is wrong with them after a solid hit. I've had some do that myself.

 

[DrMike]

Mule deer are hearty animals. They definitely can take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. Dr. Vette is correct in his assessment that there is no correlation to the distance covered and how dead they are. Amazing animals. The only animals that is more amazing is an elk. They never cease to amaze me with how hearty they are.

 

[shoots_5]

3 feet of penetration and it just ran off! Ran another 150yds!
The tenacity of some of these game animals is just unbelievable.

The one that ran the least was killed with my daughter's 223, the furthest with my 35 Rem. Apparently small kills better than big. :grin:

I think the quote you're looking for is speed kills! The thing that produces DRT results isn't the size of the hole, it's massive amounts of hydrostatic shock being delivered in a vital area.

Same thing happens with steel targets. I've shot AR500 steel at 200 yards with my 338 Lapua and a high velocity 22 caliber round will leave more of a mark in the steel than a big 300 grain bullet packing thousands of ft/lbs of energy!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[JD338]

Beautiful buck, congratulations.

JD338

 

[Guy Miner]

Congrats on that beautiful buck!

I've never had a buck run 150 yards after being hit. Dang. Were you at all worried that he'd get away?

Am a bit surprised that you recovered the Barnes. I only shot a couple of bucks with the 100 gr .25 cal Barnes TSX and got tremendous penetration from it. They're good bullets, but... Interesting... I was running them at 3340 fps via my .25-06 rifle, about 100 fps behind your estimated vel with the awesome .257 Wby. Love that hot-rod .257 Wby by the way...

Glad you got such a great buck. I LOVE hunting the mulies!

Guy

 

[Guy Miner]

That recovered bullet of yours looks remarkably similar to the 100 gr TSX I recovered in this bullet test, into the water jugs, several years ago:

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=16540

Regards, Guy

 

[Dr. Vette]

3 feet of penetration and it just ran off! Ran another 150yds!
The tenacity of some of these game animals is just unbelievable.

The one that ran the least was killed with my daughter's 223, the furthest with my 35 Rem. Apparently small kills better than big. :grin:

I think the quote you're looking for is speed kills! The thing that produces DRT results isn't the size of the hole, it's massive amounts of hydrostatic shock being delivered in a vital area.

In our case this year I suspect it had to do as much with the environment in which they were shot as anything else. The two that ran further were in an open field with about 1 acre of cornfield in front of our blind. The one that ran less was in the woods and heading into a swamp. It took a lot more to dodge through that than to run in an open field, and I suspect that's why it ran less.

For a fascinating read, check out Weatherby: The Man, The Gun, The Legend. With regard to speed the most fascinating part of the book is reading Roy's Africa trip diaries. He long believed that velocity would kill, but when many animals surprised him and didn't drop he was surprised. By the end of the readings what I took away was that shot placement is far more important than anything else. Oh, and as an owner of several Weatherbys it's not that I don't believe that velocity helps but it's not all there is.

To get back on track, my business/hunting/shooting partner has used the 80gr TSX factory load in his 257 Weatherby and had several DRT kills on antelope. The 257 can definitely do the job.

 

[khh]

Congrats on that beautiful buck!

I've never had a buck run 150 yards after being hit. Dang. Were you at all worried that he'd get away?

Am a bit surprised that you recovered the Barnes. I only shot a couple of bucks with the 100 gr .25 cal Barnes TSX and got tremendous penetration from it. They're good bullets, but... Interesting... I was running them at 3340 fps via my .25-06 rifle, about 100 fps behind your estimated vel with the awesome .257 Wby. Love that hot-rod .257 Wby by the way...

Glad you got such a great buck. I LOVE hunting the mulies!

Guy

First of all, thanks to all for the kind comments he's a great buck and I feel lucky and humbled to have taken him.

Guy,
I was dumbfounded I had somehow flubbed the shot. Like most guys on this forum I shoot a lot and really work at longer range . I really don't consider 250 all that far, its a range I shoot at regularly .I'm certainly not saying I cant miss at 250 , but man , I was prone on a sand bag as steady as you can get. I know when I've made a good shot and the first one I knew exactly where the cross hairs were when the gun cracked. I hadn't allowed any for wind because I was on a huge bluff and he was in a hole right next to the bluff. that was the only thing I could think of. After the 2nd shot and he was out of sight I rolled onto my back and ask my friend did it look like he was hit when he said "no" . All I could say was "That's as good as I can shoot" and strangely I really felt that , he got the best I can do at this time that's all I could ask of myself. Maybe I knew or had a incline I had hit him , it certainly didn't feel like that, but I was ok. I'm happy/relived the first shot was right there . I couldn't have walked to him and placed it any closer to where I wanted to hit him. If it would have been the Hail Mary 2nd shot that killed him I would be really questioning , toiling and suffering a lot of anxiety over that first shot.

 

[kraky1]

Here in wisconsin our whitetails can do some amazing sprints after a lethal shot.
The deciding factor often seems to be whether the deer knew it was being hunted or not.
Those that figure they're in danger (or even something isnt normal) seem to rev up and go when the crap hits the fan.

 

[desertcj]

Awesome deer! I've yet to kill one even close to that class. I know it isn't always easy to do bur I think drilling them square through the shoulder blades really stops them when shooting mono metal bullets vs behind the shoulder lung shots.

 

[cloverleaf]

Last year my BIL hit a whitetail with a 12 ga slug, Maybe 30 yds away, down through the lungs and demolishing the top of the heart. That deer ran 75 yds. Hard to say what a deer will do when hit. There is no magic bullet or caliber, as much as we'd like to think so. You did well and that is a beautiful Buck. CL