ORIGINAL: vaslugger
Lost a nice 8 pointer tonight with at least a 18 or 19 inch spread.I grunted him in here in Virginia to within 35 yards and then shot him behind shoulder.Not sure if I knocked him down or not as I could not see from the smoke.Went over after reloading and finally found some blood.I tracked him by flashlight for over 35 minutes and he was bleeding about every 5 feet and I tracked him over 100 yards.He made a large circle and went back to the river and crossed the river and went onto posted land that I dont have permission to hunt.I am sure he will die as he lost way to much blood to make it bleeding that much.I was shooting the Hornady XTP 240 grain in my Genesis behind 100 grains of T7.Using my fiber optic front sight and williams peep sight he was just 35 yards away but it was close to dark.While I saw the front sight perfect thru the peep it was hard to actually tell exactly where I was on the deer as it was just not enough light to pinpoint my shot so I aimed behind the leg the best I could.Extremely thick where this happened sometimes a 10 yard shot is hard in this area but there are lots of deer there.Good Lord willing next year I will put a scope on my Genesis in order to see better for those dusk shots.I had one but put it on my Marlin 45-70 instead.To say I am disappointed is an understatement but I know the deer wont go to waste as other critters will benefit from it.Man this was a nice buck but the experience will be with me forever. Mike
Been there done that, my experience is that 300g bullets penetrate better and shoot thru the deer, no doubt that the deer died, I take shoulder shots now or brisket shots, this breaks the big gone holding the front leg to the body and goes into the chest cavity. This is another reason to shoot "strong bullets", a strong bullet by design doesn't fragment (XTP looses it jacket) and will keep on penetrating and provide shoot thru for blood trail. You need the off side blood outlet because your shooting down, given the lo light conditions I think you hit him high and I think there was not shoot thru, therefore the lungs must fill out and go out the entry hold, or the mouth, but that takes a while and that is how the animal was lost. Like I said been there done that. Shoot 300g, shoot thru with whatever bullet you select, shoot high shoulder shot or brisket. Chap