I was thinking the same thing. Is he shooting a squrril gun or a very small load or perhaps got a hold of some damp powder?

A few year back I had a buddy shoot a deer "in the shoulder", dang deer ran off...We searched for him and never found him...
A couple of weeks later my brother was hunting the other side of the farm and killed a deer that had been shot in the shoulder...
From his discription of the rack we believe it was the same deer...

Seems the deer was quartering away and the bullet never made it into the chest cavity...Now, this deer was hit with a 130 gr bullet from a .270...Just goes to show some strange things can happen when hunting...

I think so! I have heard some strange stories about this powder. Someone on one of the forums talked about the powder's inherent ability to be sensative to moisture.

I used it a while back, but had a few issues about getting it to act in a consistent manner. Lucky for me I was at the range and not in the field.

Does Jim Shockey still work for this powder company and sell it???

I know they still sell Jim Shockey's Gold under the American Pioneer name. Guess it's the same stuff, just more refined. My father has had good luck with the Shockey version out of his Encore.

I agree with cayugad.That load should have made a clean kill even through a tough shoulder. I only hunt with patched round balls and have had excellent results over the years. I have shot many deer through the shoulders with a varitey of calibers and always had clean kills.

The only time that I have had a problem with penetration happened in 2005. I was shooting a 58 caliber loaded with PRB pushed by 130gr of GOEX 3-f. I had previously cronographed this load the the range at more that 1800 fps. It worked perfectly at the range, shooting pretty flat from 25-100 yards.

With this load I shot a buck in the shoulder@ 25 yards and ended up blood trailing it for more that 250 yards. When I caught up with the deer I shot it through the neck to kill it.
When field dressing it I noticed that one lobe of its right lung was destroyed and the left lung was untouched. I also noticed that the exit wound in the neck was a slit about the size of a knife blade.

The man who butchered my deer returned my bullet telling me that he found it just under the right shoulder. It had flattened to the diameter of a quarter and not much thicker. I can only surmise that flying bone fragments from the shoulder did the damage to the right lung. I have since reduced my load to 90gr f 3-f and have had complete success with full penetration.

Getting back to your load. I see no reason that you should not have at least penetrated both lungs. I have successfully used that same load in many of my 50 caliber rifles over the years. I have always used GOEX black powder.

Did you recover the ball? If so, what did it look like? Studying the shape of recovered ball can sometimes give you answers as to how your load is performing.

I am using 90 grains of Pyrodex pushing a 250 grain Shockwave in my .50 cal Hawkens. Its a good load for my gun and works great. Might have been some damp powder like mentioned.

I used the same load in my other .50 cal thats an old inline using a no.11 cap So I started there with my new Hawkens. Results on paper are impressive at 50 yards with the Hawkens. Complete pass throughs with massive damage is all my older .50 cal left on deer. Hope its the same with my Hawkens this season.