ORIGINAL: bowhunterjohn
I have hunted whitetail now for 5 seasons. My first season I bought a CVA staghorn magnum 50 cal. I started using the 295 grain hollow point powerbelt bullets. I had great luck with them, shooting a less then 1 1/2 inch group at 100 yards. I shot 6 deer over the next 3 seasons with the combination. Never had one of them run farther then 65 yards, in fact 3 of them piled up.
This season I wanted to flatten out my trajectory beyond 125 yards. I went to the 223 grain aero tip powerbelt. This year I shot 5 deer with that combo from 24 yards to 82 yards. No problem as long as I put it thru the shoulder or hit the opposite shoulder. I noticed that my length after shot increased. My hunting partner used the same combo and shot a buck on opening evening of shotgun season. He double lunged it and it bled ok at first, but soon went to drops. THen nothing. Luckly it was on a trail that worked back to a main trail and we found it about 200 yards away.
Then my son shot a nice doe last weekend of shotgun out of my blind at 55 yards. It was right at sundown so we gave her 45 minutes and then went to look. She ran off like she was hit hard, but we hunt in horseweed and its hard to watch them for very long. Well that night we found no blood trail, so we came back the next morning at daylight. Looked for 2 hours and found no blood or deer. Then two weeks later while making new paths thru the horseweed with my four wheeler I found her about 175 yards from where she was shot. The hit was a little back, but still she should have been bleeding.
My question is should I go back to a hollow point? or a heavier bullet? Or should I go to a 245-250 grain hollow point for an inbetween compromise?
I rarely have the opportunity to shoot beyond 125 yards.
Any suggestions or comments would be great
We just had the PBdiscussion on this thread:
http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=1886707
Read that over for ideas. As for what you should go to, I did this little experiment 3 years ago after having PB fragmentation issues. I asked the forum for advice and picked 5 bullets which I shot in my two muzzleloaders, I shot for accuracy and ease of loading. I also did penetration testing and did an extensive search on the internet for articles on bullet performance in ML. I documented my finding here:
http://www.the-gleasons.com/bullets_penetration_tests_for_mu.htm
There are several links on that page which you should look at, in particular this article:
http://www.snipersparadise.com/tsmag/July03/july03.htm
Now I don't think you have to go to all that work to find a bullet/load that will work in your gun,a Nosler Partition HG bullet, a BarnesMZ Expanderare all excellent hunting bullets. I use a 300g Nosler Partition Jacket Protected Point in a Crushed Rib sabot, with 100g of 777 loose 3Fand I clean with bore butter between shots even in the field. Here is a Nosler Partition bullet taken from abrisket hit deerat 40 yards, I found it under his skin between the bucks legs when I went to gut him. Best wishes for find the right bullet/load combo that works in your gun. I have aKnight Disc and a TC Omega.
Chap Gleason Va
