Powerbelt Success / Powerbelt Failure ???
 

Saturday morning one of the guys in my hunting club shot a 82 lb. doe at somewhere between 90 - 110 yards.

He used a 245 grain hollowpoint copper clad bullet over 70 grains of Triple 7 FFG.

The hit was high chest, right at the rear of the shoulder. The doe dropped at the shot. The bullet took out a small portion of the bottom of the spinal vertebrae and stopped under the skin of the off side. The plastic base was under the skin on the off side also, having traveled through the chest with the bullet.

Here's the bullet - success or failure?

Dead Deer---No Tracking Needed = Success:s1:

Advice: If he must use Powerbelts, Then Next time use 348g PB and same 70g powder charge, with better shot placement;)

Or

Switch to the 250g THOR, with 80g powder charge, with better shot placement;)

.

I suppose it depends on how you measure sucess. It for sure killed the deer which is good. However, that's hardly what you want a bullet to look like after recovery.

As they said, a dead deer is a dead deer. But seeing that in the deer would sure make me not want to load it again. I shoot that same power belt, but never had a chance to shoot a deer with it. I would call it a successful hunt with a failing bullet.

I think you nailed it Cayugad. That's what I would call it too.

I agree TN. I know I'll never use them. As far as I'm concerned, I don't want or expect to be able to recover the bullet from a broadside shot on an 80 lb. doe.

Well that's good advice Lane. But you know me - I've already told him that next week we're going to see how 300 grain Gold Dots shoot from his gun. :p

Oh well at least he got the deer

What Dave said.
Failure with a fortunate outcome.

I guess this would be a personal preferance, as some people like a bullet that (fragments) as it has the chance to take out more vital organs. As in your Friends case as the bullet entered and hit the spine causing it to fragment thus causing more damage elsewhere. Where were the (different) parts of the bullet found inside the Deer, what other organs if any were destroyed?
(BP)

I would call it failure with a lot of luck

with the 245 Powerbelt and with clipping shoulder and hitting the spine, i call is success. You should see what happened with saxmans deer with 2 pellets and a lung shot. Maybe 25-30 grains of bullet was all he found.

Thats funny how the base stayed on. Have him pop in on and off a few times and spin them around.

Another thing though, i think that HP held up a lot better than what the aerotip would have. The Aerotips have a bad habbit of pushing through the center of the bullet, weakening it.

Well he dd get the deer this time but any bullet that does not hold itself together better than that with only 70 gr is pitiful. What if his shot were a long quartering away shot like the 170# buck I took this year? The gold Dot is a good choice plenty of expansion and the right penetration to go with it. Lee

Everything you see in that picture was within a two inch circle under the hide Breechplug. The top part of both lungs were pretty torn up, and a fragment went into the stomach and slit open part of the stomach wall.

I think these lighter PB's need to be placed like one would place a roundball. Which means the further range, the more risky it becomes. When I look at the bullet, it appears that it retained as much weight as a 50 cal roundball but that it shed its mushroom. I think that the sheding of the mushroom would be common when thick bone is hit with a PB.

Regarding your friend Semisane, was he aiming for the spine? I'm not a big fan of spine shots particularly with a muzzleloader. There is region near the spine where the lungs are thin and where a deer can sustain injury and still live a substantial period of time. Furthermore, high lungs shots tend to leave little indication at the sight of impact that a deer was hit and will not bleed as well making tracking difficult. In any event, a spine shot at that distance ... with a muzzleloader ... without the luxury of the rests one provides himself at the range .. is cutting it close regardless of the projectile chosen.

It also occurs to me that if one were to miss the spine sufficiently to hit the high lung region that it might be adventageous to have a bullet which rapidly expands or perhaps even fragments so that more damage to the lungs result.

I'd be switching to a heavier bullet, but that looks like it did the trick. The damage that woulda caused with a centerpunch would've been perfect. Passthroughs aren't always the best thing--a bullet blowing up that hard in the lungs would put something down fast.

No, he wasn't Pglasgow. Actually, he was surprised at where the hit was because he had a pretty good rest on the window ledge of a box stand and was aiming for the heart/lung area. He's a decent shot too. I suspect the plastic base staying with the bullet may have affected trajectory.

Did you find evidence of the base with the deer? That much deflection doesn't seem reasonable to me even with the base staying with the bullet. At least I have never found that much deflection with the PB's I've shot at the range.

I think it prudent to consider the possibility that he didn't shoot as precisely at the hunt as he does at the range. This is true of about everyone and that includes me.

I really do think if one is going to be shooting over 100 yards and if one is going to shoot a full bore conical he needs to go heavy as opposed to the 245 your friend was shooting. If one wants to shoot a 250 projectile beyond 100 yards it would be advantageous to go to a jacketed saboted bullet.

I don't like the looks of it. If this guy does not like sabots, have him try FPBs. They have held together for me. I'm switching to the muzzleloader this weekend and hope to punch a hole through a big fat doe. FPBs have worked well on the 3 deer I've shot with them. All pass-thoughs with decent size exit holes.

It's not that he doesn't like sabots - it's that the sporting goods stores around here stock a ton of PowerBelts, so that's what he picked off the rack. He's not a regular ML shooter - only hunts with it the week of ML season.

Yep! Happens to everyone. :s13:

:) I guess you don't believe me. But when you think about it. How far was he off? Maybe 13 inches? If the rifle's point of aim was scewed by as little as 1/32" (at muzzle and breech of a 26" barrel) when the gun fired, then that would account for nearly 9" of deflection at 100 yards.

Anyways, it is different in the field. The target can move at any time and the rest situation isn't the same. Preparation for the shot is simply different. I don't use bags and such to rest my rifle at the range. Fact is, the range I practice at doesn't have bench's. We get large rocks to rest our rifles on. I like to also practice prone with rifle resting on my pack and standing without rest also. Those are conditions I find while hunting here.

Another thing to consider, had that bullet struck below the spine high in the lungs, then it is quite possible that the deer would not have been recovered. That's with a powerbelt or any other bullet for that matter. What would our judgement be then? Perhaps if it were a powerbelt we would have an inclination to "suspect" that the PB blew up and that if it were an xtp, it was cleanly missed. :s13:

I never answered whether the PB failed or not. My primary reason for not answering it is because I didn't think that the question was valid. The PB performed just how I would expect it to so it really isn't valid to say it failed. Its not jacketed so it isn't going to work like a jacketed bullet. The entire responsibility for the effectiveness of a projectile lies soley and wholly with the individual who discharges it. The Powerbelts are more limited than other bullets there is no doubt about that. It is the responsibility of everyone who decides to use them to understand how that choice is a limitation and use them bound by their limitations. Otherwise, select a projectile which is less limited.

In any event, it ended well and there is some deer on the table. :)

I not only believe you, I agree completely. As I said, it "happens to everyone". I know it's happened to me.

I thought he may prefer a full bore projectile since he's shooting powerbelts, but as is often the case guys shoot what they can find easily, or what someone else said worked for them, without really trying a variety of things. I'm guilty of that. I shot maxiballs in my sidelocks and I've only shot FPBs in my inline. BUT, I'll say I never had accuracy or terminal performance issues that made me want to consider another option. Anyway, from my limited experience and accounts I've heard, FPBs do reliably shoot through deer. Some have issues with loading, and some don't get the accuracy they want.

SemiSane, let him try some of the ones I sent you ^_^

Ken

I'll do that Screwbolts. If they shoot well for him maybe I can get him to buy the mold - as in "you buy the mold and I'll cast all the bullets you'll ever need". :s1: