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Old 12-15-2006, 07:04 AM
  #62  
ahankster
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: mississippi by way of Florida
Posts: 357
Default RE: Don't OverDrive PowerBelts-Pics

Lane,
I understand where you are coming from, all your deer have dropped pretty close by and that is great. But, had they not dropped close by, you probably would have had a very difficult time tracking them. I consider myself a pretty good shot, you probably are too, but things happen and deer move, what if you hit it in the liver and only clip a lung or worse, hit it further back? That sucker could run for a loooong way. Heaven forbid that a big bruiser buck of a lifetime walk out and you pop it only to have him run off with little or no blood trail. That one happened to me last year, a quartering towards shot on a 130 class deer that went through the liver and both lungs. Deer went over 250 yards in some very thick stuff before I found it. At first, no blood trail at all and gradually it became a flood. I am certain that without two holes, I would have either never found the deer or would have found it a day or two later after the yotes and buzzards had found it.

In my job we concentrate allot of energy in minimizing factors that could cause bad things to happen. Once a factor/situation is identified (and can't be eliminated), then we put in place things so that if that "bad" thing happens we are either protected or have a way to deal with it. I look at hunting the same way. It is a risk/benefit kind of thing. I know that most of the deer I or my kids shoot will drop within 40 or 50 yards, but some of them can do some amazing things. When they do that "amazing" thing, like a heart shot deer runs 250 yards (I've seen that too) I want to make sure that I have something in place to deal with that situation. That thing for me is a hole in and a hole out so I can be as reasonably sure as possible of a good blood trail.
I am blessed right now to be in a great situation where I can hunt pretty much every day, between myself and my two sons, we kill 8 to 10 deer a year (could be waaay more). I usually get one or two with a bow, the boys occaisionally get one with their 20 gauge, but all the rest are with M/Lers. I know I am not an expert, nor have I seen everything that can happen with a M/Ler or deer, but when you shoot that many deer a year and hunt almost every day, help people track and clean deer almost every day, you see what works and what doesn't.

As far as the PBs go, I have said before and have no problem saying again that there is an easy fix to make them have better terminal peformance. The first step would be to make that cavern they call a hollow point smaller or no hollow point at all. It would give it a better ballistics and lessent the tendancy to frag. The second thing would be to thicken the copper wash and make it a real plating, especially around the lower half of the bullet. The third thing would be to harden the lead a bit. The mix they use is extremely soft. Maybe what they should do is have a new product called the "high velocity power belt". Employ these improvements and advertise it as such.

We still have about 6 weeks of hunting left here and the best is still yet to come.
Good luck
Hank

Hank
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