Variety is the spice of life

[jdmidwest]

I have a 6mm Remington aka .244 Remington.  It likes a Hornady 75 gr bullet with some IMR powder behind it.  Usually dumps its load inside, does not go thru.  Dumped my buck last year in its track out of my Model 7.

This year was all black rifles in the deer camp.  I have built 300 Blk Outs for the kids and I have a new 6.5 Grendal to play with.  Looks like 2 of us are going into extra innings for black powder season.  Son in laws took home their first bucks in life, 8 and 10 pts.  Special time in their lives, one shared the hunt with his young son and my Daughter was with her husband on his first deer/buck kill.  Daughter and I have not been so lucky.  That full moon late in the morning goofed up first weekend.  Deer were moving a little better this weekend.

Plenty of deer, just nocturnal and holed up when first shots were fired.  Moved game cams out to the fields today.  Keep an eye on them for the next month and monitor movements.

Good times at the old deer camp.

[Seth]

I can’t drop deer to save my life. On the doe, I shattered her scapula, ripped apart the lungs and she still ran 50 yards. Same deal with the buck. I was a touch below the spine on both deer though too.

I’m shooting some .270 reloads pushing 130gr Swift Scirocco bullets at 3060-3080 fps. Love how they work on the deer I have taken with them. Worked well on a big cow elk last December as well.

[MOPanfisher]

Deer seldom drop for me or my wife.  The little rabbit sized one took the bullet a little low but it tore the hear apart, busted both lungs and exited the the off front leg just below the knee.  It did exactly as all the others, jump, kick, run, crash.  This little bugger slid a few feet and ended up under a couple of limbs which made him hard to spot at first.  The only shot that routinely anchors them in their tracks are ones that take out some spine, whether a high hit, neck shot or what I call a high shoulder shot that get spine and front shoulders at same time.  Effective but you have to do a bit more trimming of blood shot meat.  Dang things can still run on two broken shoulders or with heart and lungs destroyed, but no too far if both lungs get hit well, and usually an easy blood trail of needed.

[jdmidwest]

My 30.06 always did good with Federal 180 gr soft tips. They usually dropped with any chest hit. Better shock to the system with hard hitting big bullet. Always punched thru both sides even at long range.

But shoulder issues from surgery have left me with lighter calibers again.  I am going to have to play with some bullets to work up better loads for them.

[nomolites]

I have only had deer drop in their tracks with a shoulder shot from my .50 Thompson pushing 245gr Hornady XTPs in a sabot.  I love shooting deer with that thing, that is why I don’t get excited about taking a gun buck early.  Would rather take with my bow or muzzleloader.  Didn’t see any bucks worth the Partition last week, passed on another one last nite so I’ll be breaking out the bow again this weekend.

Mike

[fishinwrench]

2 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

My 30.06 always did good with Federal 180 gr soft tips. They usually dropped with any chest hit. Better shock to the system with hard hitting big bullet. Always punched thru both sides even at long range.

But shoulder issues from surgery have left me with lighter calibers again.  I am going to have to play with some bullets to work up better loads for them.

Yeah .30-30 or .30-06 always dropped them right now.    

I knew nothing about blood trailing until I took up archery, and then got a .243 which required almost as much chasing as a broadhead kill does.

[MOPanfisher]

Back in my big boom days I remember blowing large chunks of lung out an exit hole with a 7 Mag and the deer ran about 30 yards straight into a tree.  Lots of deer take the hit and wobble around for a few seconds them fall over.  Some bolt immediately.  I like it when my wife says that it jumped and kicked and bolted,,means I am gonna find it pretty quickly.  Its when someone asks me to help trail one ad I ask what happened at the shot and they say it humped up and then ran off, gut shot usually or worse they heard the crack of the bullet hit, and the deer fell down and quickly got back up and ran off, but they found good blook but lost it.  Seems like it is usually a leg hit, and will bleed heavily for about 75 yards, then diminish to a trickle then just occasional spots before disappearing.  They seem to run to the other side of the world and are seldom recovered. 

[Haris122]

I’m out again as we speak. Guess it’s nice that the phone has service at this spot. Though 7th day at it is really testing my patience to where I’m on the phone way more than I should be. I’d be happy if I get one and it at least doesn’t go more than 10-15 yards before falling back down and dying in short order from the first (and hopefully only) shot. And wouldn’t mind seeing if the bullet opens up with this ammo, and if it stays inside the deer or exits out, too. I’ve only taken 3 deer ever so far, each time I shot at least once more cause I was either surprised that they got back up, or didn’t drop at all, from the first shot. But nowadays I’m thinking 1 definitely didn’t need any followups, and leaning that way in regards to another one.  Last one unfortunately did. I’ve seen 7 deer so far this season but each time they’ve seen me first. Feel like I was hitting up good spots but for whatever reason hardly saw any where I thought they‘d be. 

[Seth]

3 hours ago, MOPanfisher said:

Back in my big boom days I remember blowing large chunks of lung out an exit hole with a 7 Mag and the deer ran about 30 yards straight into a tree.  Lots of deer take the hit and wobble around for a few seconds them fall over.  Some bolt immediately.  I like it when my wife says that it jumped and kicked and bolted,,means I am gonna find it pretty quickly.  Its when someone asks me to help trail one ad I ask what happened at the shot and they say it humped up and then ran off, gut shot usually or worse they heard the crack of the bullet hit, and the deer fell down and quickly got back up and ran off, but they found good blook but lost it.  Seems like it is usually a leg hit, and will bleed heavily for about 75 yards, then diminish to a trickle then just occasional spots before disappearing.  They seem to run to the other side of the world and are seldom recovered. 

I hate gut shots, but they do happen. As long as you recognize that you hit one in the guts, just back out and give it 12 hours. I'm 99.9% confident at finding gut shot deer AS LONG as they weren't pushed too soon.

[fishinwrench]

I know there were some folks around here that would gut shoot them on purpose so they'll run off and die, rather than to drop dead in their yard where they'll have to deal with it.    Supposedly they had called MDC and were told it was ok.   (Surely not, right?)

Thankfully those jackasses have moved somewhere else.  

I'm sick of the deer around here too, but if you're gonna start killing them at least do it right, and feed them to your dog or something.