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Just got home from 6 days of hunting and while we didnt fill all of our tags, we got 2 doe's. I popped one in the early morning of the second day and she turned out to be a pretty good sized doe. I shot her with my Deer Creek Northwest Rifle in .45 with 80 grains triple 7 and a 225 grain aerotip powerbelt @ 80 yards.

Shot was perfect and i put it through BOTH shoulders, breaking one shoulder bone, taking out 1 1/2 ribs on the entrance shot and then the exit shot broke 2 ribs and stopped just right behind the hide. I recovered the bullet and was happy to see a perfect mushroom. Both shoulders had very little useable meat and were used for hamburger.

From the pics, you can see the blood trail i was able to follow. She slowly walked 5 yards behind a tree and then rolled a few more feet before coming to a stop. I was amazed with the massive blood trail it left and the performance of that 225 grain powerbelt.

Deer #2 my dad shot with the same rifle and load. He got it at 50 yards in Thick forest covered with brush, high grass and some kind of jungle looking type leafed folage. The deer ran/rolled 20 yards between two logs and under some thick growth. I spotted a huge splatter of blood against an aspen that measured about 4" wide and blood was thick and just running down the tree. Looking in the thicker growth on the forest floor my brother and i scanned out the area and followed a good blood trail and walked right to the deer. It was an easy tracking job even in the thick forest.

His shot went right through the lung and exited the shoulder of the oppisite side. That shoulder was useless and was cut off in the field and thrown to what ever comes along. The exit hole was the size of a silver dollar.
Here are pics of my deer i took earlier that day. We shot ours 3 hours apart. Please note that the pics are graphic so, those who have weak stomachs, Man up and deal with it :D

Here is my pic, the first shot of the deer is the entrance hole. She bled out fast and there was a heavy blood trail to follow, as you can tell from the pics.

Also some assortment of pics. The mountain in the back ground is Castle Peak where we were hoping to get an elk. 80 Degree weather messed up hunting season badly and only 2 elk were taken during muzzleloading season. My bro also grossed us all out when he gutted my deer and sliced off a chunk of liver and ate it raw. I about puked lol. He said it was actually better raw than cooked and surprised him. I'll leave that to him and choose not to eat the liver raw :D

Here is the shot i took and this is the end result.



My finger points to where the powerbelt rests behind the hide.






And below is the rifle that took her,


225 grain powerbelt.


Entrance shot,


Exit shot!


Me doing what i do best when hunting is slow.


Above pic is the Green River skinning knife i bought at the Santa Fe trails rendezvous this summer. Worked amazing! And yeah, thats my bro chewing on raw liver [:'(]

My brother and I walking through a thick aspen grove near Castle Peak,



And here is castle peak,

RE: Back from hunting
 

Frontier Gander - very nice deer. That is an amazing entry wound on that doe. No wonder she bleed so well. Also nice shooting there. You could not have placed that better.

That is some real pretty country there. So now you get to butcher and make sausage, and all the other fun stuff. Well at least you have some excellent table fare there...

Again, congratulations.

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First off, FG congratulations on your successful hunt!!!

Now, more importantly, since when is the "Perfect Shot" drilling both shoulders, or, drilling one shoulderfor that matter on anything other than dangerous game? I understand that you Southern boy's tend to hunt a lot of private land and letting an animal cross property lines would be a bad thing. However, if there is room to roam, why waste good meat? Behind the shoulder breaks two or at worse four ribs and they're just as dead with a very nice blood trail. Best of all, all you waste is a few ribs, not an entire shoulder or two.

OK, my rant is over. It is, after all, JMHO.

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To test a new bullet and see how it performs. IMO, you can shoot into a bullet trap and such and get an idea of how the bullet will do, but the best way to know for sure is on the actual game you are hunting. I had faith in the bullet since day one when the 225 powerbelt out performed the 255 maxi hunter. I was looking for a bullet that was big enough, yet light enough to shoot out to 150-175 yards and still perform. We get a lot of knocking on the Powerbelt bullets on this forum and only 1 or 2 others have posted pics of powerbelts that have actually taken game cleanly. We hear all the horror stories and never the good ones. This i believe will show a lot of people that the powerbelt is an amazing bullet to use when you are using charges that are suggested by the company.

I am more than happy with how the powerbelt performed and how the animal went down. The deer my dad took with my .45 was a lung shot that was taken slightly at an angle and just tore the hell out of the other shoulder on its way out.

Do powerbelts perform better with lower powder charges? I honestly can say yes. I used to use 120 grains and 150 grains and never got blood trails like this before. This will be my hunting load for many many years to come.
I think i see a 300 grain platinum some year, but am affraid of the damage that big slug would do!

Thanks guys, we had a lot of fun even though we had to hunt in t- shirts. Horrible season for elk and not that great for deer, but i am grateful that we were able to take the two deer that we did. They are both in the freezer now and will be cooked up very soon.

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Hey gander, nice deer. Loved the picture.

If you did that in my neck of the woods, you'd come away with so many chiggers that people would think you had chicken pox.

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I forgot to add.

When my dad shot his doe at 50 yards, i picked the deer up to see the wound and was shocked to see that part of the stomach push out of the entrance wound and stood out like a half inflated baloon. How the heck did the stomach come up out of that hole? In all the years ive been muzzleloading, ive never seen something like that happen before.

Semi, i just had to deal with a few pesty black ants :D

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Congratuatlions. Nice doe. I believe you confirmed Phil Glasgow'stheory that PB have to be shot less than 1200--1400 FPS. Where is it written on the packages that you should shoot them at this speed to get adequate penetration and full expanion on game? I have not heard or seen that. I believe you learned it on this forum, exactly like I did. Only a small % of ML hunters are "into the forums", therefore they will not know what you know. Infact, since your addicted to HNI, you know a lot more than most ML users with regard to bullet performance and selection.
Again congratulations. Chap

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If you are hunting wide open spaces lung shots are fine...If you are hunting down here in the South and a cutover or swamp is just a few bounds away, a shoulder shot ensures that the deer won't make it in there.....I let the situation dictate which I use.....

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FG, You're right, the ml hunt was warm! We saw a dozen or so elk in our area, even had a bull & cow broadside at 30 yards! If he had been a shooter, he'd be in the freezer.Too warm yet to get much response to calling.....Looking forward to 1st rifle, think I'll carry the ml instead of the .308 this year.

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Heres some pics of aspen trees that some beaver had felled and littered an entire mountain side. I spotted 4 pretty good sized lodges. One lodge was entirely mudded over! Pretty amazing little animals.
Look at the size of the chunks they take out!
I wish i would have taken pics of their "slides" These were packed trails they made that were slick and running straight down into their ponds.

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Congrats on the hunt. Those are some good photos.

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I was going to say the same thing as nchawkeye.

I would not be to quick to judge about a little ruined meat. On an openfield,where I can watch them run and drop, that might be different. But notin some areas where I hunt. When youhunt roads, paths, or places you can get to with some ease,through cedar, black ash, and balsam marshes, putting them down on the spot is very important. In placeswhere the tangle brush is so thick you can get lost or turned aroundin just a few yards of entering it. Your heart just drops when you shoot and that deer spins and runs into themarsh.

I shot a doe a few seasons back that wentinto that stuff and it took me over two hours of crawling around, over and under that stuff,to find her. How a big deer can run through that stuff and disappear like the do to this day amazes me. She was only about 30 yards in actually. When I did, she was a monster doe, and it was all that I could do to basically get her out of that stuff. I finally walked out after marking her spot with fluorescent ribbons and taking a GPS reading. Left my rifle and gear at the stand to free my hands. And returned to her, marking the easy way in and out with ribbons. She was impossible to drag I discovered. So I did the only thing else to do, I carried her out on my shoulders. That night I was so exhausted, I could hardly move or think straight. I was (I hate to admit this) at one point concerned I would not get her out.

Its like walking through a hedge with bog grass under foot. Ankles get twisted, you fall, its actually dangerous. Many hunters that shoot deer near dusk, will not go in after them until the next day. And with good reason. It is easy to get turned around in there. And that is the last place you want to spend a night in the middle of November and December. That's why I shoot conicals and roundball. To do some massive bone damage if necessary.

So when I see a deer on a path that my ATV can come down, or a skid trail, and it's only feet from the tangle... I plant it right there. If that means breaking front shoulders, spines, head shots, what ever it takes to put that deer on the ground. It gets done. A deer on the ground with a busted front shoulder is better to me then one in the tangle that I can not find, get out, or have to get out.

RE: Back from hunting
 

This isn't bowhunting. Every deer that allows me theright angle gets a bullet directed toward the offside shoulder, with the intention of breaking it. I can understand trying to avoid the nearside shoulder. I can track them better than the average guy, but I'd rather they go down in sight, which may only be 50 yds or less in many places I hunt.

Deer, and especially big deer, can amaze you at how far they will go when shot through the lungs. I've seen several shot that way, that left very sparse blood trails though I can't see how or why. Hit the vitals, then break them down if you can.

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Granted. So now you know and you won't have to turn good roasts into burger.;)

I really like the double lung shot. Any deer that I have shot didn't travel more than 50 yds after one of them. The only exception were deer that were being pushed by hounds.

Addmitably, there are circumstances that necessitate the drop where you are shots and if I may, I will offer you a better shot. I call it a high shoulder shot. About 6 inches below the back directly above the shoulder. It ruins very little meat and will drop them faster than a bad habbit.

RE: Back from hunting
 

I've used that high shoulder shot as well, and you're right. They are on the ground as soon as you pull the trigger. Although they are not always dead I noticed.

http://www.kerrlake.com/deer/white2.htm


I forget the name of that bone you are actually busting when you do that high shoulder shot. This web site listed has some good information for those of you that might not be fully aware of all the integral parts of the deer's body.

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roasts out of a front shoulder?:D:D we usually only get jerky out of the small amount of meat on the front shoulders. I honestly hate cutting up the front shoulders due to the lack of meat on them. Now on an elk or a really big mule deer, its a different story. I too, hate taking shoulder shots, but without doing it, i wouldnt have known what kind of performance the bullet would offer. After seeing this, i think i'd give it a double lung shot try on an elk. The bullet held up great and excellent blood trail.

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Good shooting nice deer,I have tried to tell several people about not pushingPB'swith heavy loads but I do think the areo tips and the platinum
will hold together with a little more powder than the hollow points. Lee

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Just can't imagine that you would use a nice "traditional" rifle like that and then shoot 777 and a powerbelt. [:'(] You know, the "traditional" cops would NOT approve!!!!

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lol so far the traditionalists have accepted it. Im going to try some fffg goex and a powerbelt and see what it does @ 100 yards. I just hate using up the real stuff due to it being such a long drive to pick up more.

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Yea, I guess it is probably ok. Since no one can actually see the powder and bullet while you are hunting, it probably wouldn't ruin the "mood". Just don't mention 150 yards shots, ok? ;)

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:D but 150 is easy with this rifle. Its the 175-200 yard shots that get challenging.

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Congrats F.G. and great pics.

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Didah post b4 n dis thred? :D

Love the pics, the hunt story and shot were good, but slap ell outa yer bro for me. ;)

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Not up in this part of the world,,,, unles of course you shoot a fawn.;)
I think our deer are a little on the larger side.

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A favorite meal is put the whole front shoulder in a large roaster (you can buy them tin ones at the store or I have a NESCO cooker).. add some water, sprinkle dry Lipton's Onion soup mix on the top of it, salt and pepper, and roast that real slow in the oven. When it has been cooking for a while then add onions (whole and peeled), potatoes (whole and peeled) and some carrots to that thing and let if finish cooking until the vegetables are done and the meat has an internal temperature of at least 140 if you like it rare, 150 for me. Then thicken the onion soup juice, and you can have roasted vegetables, and that meat on the shoulder blades is so tender you can peel it off with a fork. That is some really good eating.

Another way is to put that shoulder in the brinkman smoker and put the onion soup mix on it. Make sure there is a good water pan in the smoker and hit it hard with maple or hickory smoke for a while as it cooks. Again, real tender and excellent.

RE: Back from hunting
 

Dang cayugad, would you just stop it! I'm drooling all over my keyboard.

Went and got a deer roast out of the freezer. Here's what I do with my boneless roasts (separated muscle groups from the hind leg).

1. Stuff it with lots of garlic by making holes with a narrow knife blade and pushing in whole peeled cloves.

2. Apply a liberal coating of salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and chipotle chili powder, and massage it in.

3. Sprinkle on about a tablespoon of olive oil (or any cooking oil) and smear it all over.

4. Dust the whole thing with a little all purpose flower.

5. Put it on the pit with coals piledon one side and the roast on the other, add a few hickory chips, and cook until internal temperature reaches 130 to 140 degrees.

6. Take it off, let it rest for at least ten minutes, then slice it up thin.

IT "SLAP YO' MOMMA" GOOD!

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I have onelarge size deer roast but that is for the moose hunt in 2 weeks. You guy's are killing me. Gonna have to pull out some Octoberfest and Italian venison deer sausage for supper tomorrow night because of you two.:D

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oh man that onion soup mix is amazing! The only bad part about it is when you go running to the toilet and are saying a prayer the entire run/shuffle to the bathroom:D

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Cay...The only thing I would add...A can of Cream of Mushroom soup, helps thicken the gravy, I also add a few shakes of Worcestershire Sauce...