Good 2009 Ohio Season -Update w/recovered XTP
 

Hey everyone, thought I'd let everyone know how my season went this year. I wasn't able to make it back to Ohio for gun season, but my dad borrowed my ML and managed to get himself a small 8-pointer.


This was about 3 weeks ago. He was up in his tree stand and saw the buck limping along- someone earlier that morning (probably one of our drunk neighbors that tend to send wounded deer over onto our property) had shot one of its rear legs almost completely off. So he lines up and fires. Well, my dad is no Davy Crockett to begin with, and on top of that he just had eye surgery, so he hits the buck too far back- clips the liver and hits the paunch. The buck slowly walks away- about 80 yards, and lays down. My dad's friend comes up about 5 minutes later to see what was going on and my dad told him what happened- so he sneaks up, sees the buck with its head still up, so he shoots it through the neck to finish it off.




Here's a pic of the bullet my dad shot - a .40 cal 200 grain XTP. As you can see, this was really pushing the limits of what this bullet can do. It did fully penetrate the deer- found under the off-side hide, but it did shed its jacket and pancake out. It was only a 25 yard shot, so the impact velocity was at or over 2000 fps. But they did get the deer, so that's really what matters.

Fast forward to yesterday- the bonus weekend of Ohio gun season. It was snowing all night, and then snowed all day. It was a beautiful day to hunt. By the end of the day there was 7 or 8 inches on the ground.



I didn't see any deer in the morning. My dad saw some does, but got busted when he tried to raise his gun. My hunting buddy's daughter shot a button buck at about 9am. Shot was about 60 yards and she was using a Traditions Tracker loaded with a 240 grain XTP and 70 grains of JSG. She hit it a little far forward and they had to track it 80 yards or so and finish it off.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful until about 3pm when we did a little mini-drive of this strip of land. Only my hunting buddy was driving and he must have spooked almost 20 deer out of there. He ended up shooting a doe, also using a Traditions Tracker with a 240 grain XTP. I was up on a ridge overlooking some open area that the deer might come through on the drive.

I had been there awhile when I saw 2 does booking it out across the open field, but they were at least 400 yards away. Soon after, I see a single doe coming up out of a draw, straight towards me. I get ready and crouch down, since I'm out in the open with no cover except the tall grass. As it comes up towards me, it sees me and stops. The only shot I had was a severe quartering-to shot, almost head-on.

I didn't want to shoot because I didn't have clear shot - there was a bunch of high grass between me & the doe, but I didn't really have an option because it had spotted me. So I shoot, and through the smoke see the doe collapse like a rag doll. I reload, walk up and see no follow-up was necessary- it was stone cold dead. Turns out I hit about 6" high, and 6" back from where I was aiming, and pulverized the spine. Don't know if the grass threw the shot off or not, but hey, it didn't matter:biggrin:.



I was pretty happy to say the least. Again, I found out that I'm probably pushing the limits of what the 200 grain XTP can do. It was about a 40 yard shot, impact velocity of 2000 fps or more. The entrance hole was bigger than a golf ball, and it appeared that the bullet fragmented upon hitting the spine. I say "appeared" because I didn't find the bullet, though I will be looking for it tomorrow morning when I skin & butcher the deer. But again, 1 shot, 1 dead deer, so I'm not complaining. But I am going to think about backing off a bit on the powder in the future. I was using 95 grains T7 FFFg with a .45 cal CVA Hunterbolt.



So the 5 of us went home yesterday with 3 deer, which is pretty good in my book. We also had a blast, which is the important thing- that and the fact we have a lot more meat than we did before :biggrin:. In fact this year has been a record year for us- so far 15 deer taken by 6 hunters on a 60 acre piece of land. To say that that part of the state has a deer overpopulation problem is a gross understatement. Here's us 3 posing with our "trophies".

thats what i call meat in the freezer congrats

im glad you have had a good season mine has been nill in the first week i saw 5 deer on the drives and didnt shoot once the 20 or so of us give or take killed 14 deer when last year we killed 57 in the first week this weekend we stayed home and hunted local and the four of us who hunt together every weekend killed 3 and i still havent took a shot. i figure its karma since ive tagged out the last to years and shot the biggest bucks the last 3 years running so its about time i get a rough season. ive been hunting solely with the omega this season and have let deer walk that i would have shot with the mossberg 20 ga that whole im not gonna shoot the first one through and be holding an empty smokepole when the buck comes out of the brush. i let to many walk under me in bow season and now im payin for it but hey i still got muzzleloader and when it comes in the first one through that isnt an immature buck gets a shockwave its freezer fillin time so those slick heads are in for it in january. well im glad to hear someone has had a good ohio season congratulations and let the smoke float in the breeze

I enjoyed the report OldSmelly. Congratulations on a fun and successful hunt.

I've never put a .40 200 grain XTP into a deer, but I've sure been trying to do just that. For the last two weekends I've been carrying the Renegade with the .45 GM LRH barrel loaded with 85 grains of GOEX FFFg under the .40/200 XTP. I haven't chroned my load, but it should be quite a bit slower than your load of 95 grains T7 FFFg. With any luck, I'll be able to post a bullet performance report sometime after Christmas.

Plenty of meat now, nice hunt. The snow looks real good. Congratulations

An excellent report, great pictures. good information on the bullet, and lots of good meat for the freezer. Way to go all of you. Nice job hunting. Glad you're getting all the snow too.

I went for a walk yesterday on my trails in the fresh snow. Never saw a deer track. This area is really empty of them. Maybe the herd will come back in time.

It will went the Wis DNR stops killing does for a few years and lets the herd build back. Dave do you think our legs will hold out until than.

Excellant end to the Season, Congrat's! Gotta love the 240gr XTP's, it's all I have ever used. I'd stop using the 200gr and use the 240's they'll hold up a-lot better under pressure.
(BP)

Thanks for all the replies guys. That was a really fun day of hunting.

Well, just finished butchering the deer- what a long day! We got a lot of meat out of it, so it was worth it. Towards the end, I found a present - the XTP I thought had fragmented! Turns out I was wrong to doubt the folks at Hornady:patriot:.




As you can see, the bullet did shed its jacket and lose more than 50% of its weight. I don't have a scale to measure it so that's just a guess. The real surprise was where I found it.

The bullet entered at a slight downward angle, above and behind the front shouler. Upon hitting & severing the spine in half, it travelled through the deer towards the rear end and I found it lodged in one of the rear hams. If it had gone about 5" inches further, it would have exited the back end of the deer. Total penetration was at least 30 inches.

That's the good news. The bad news is that fragments from the bullet scattered all through both rear hams- looked like the deer jumped on a grenade. I had to toss some meat because of it, and I'm sure I'll end up eating more than a little of that XTP during the next 6 months. So I'm seriously considering switching to an all-copper bullet like Barnes, or maybe a Lehigh to avoid the lead poisoning issue. But that's for next year.....

Semisane- you should be fine at the velocity you are shooting it. I used to use 80 grains of T7 FFG, which was probably close to your load of Goex, and I took 1 deer with it- the bullet performed superb- complete pass-thru, exit hole the size of a golf ball. Good luck!!!!

Too many people over load their guns with too much powder. Again this is my opinion. I just don't think it is necessary!

I have been hunting BP for a while and you don't have to pack in the powder to get an effective kill. When using BP or Pyrodex in my NEF Sidekick I use only 85 grs. of powder. Now that is the max I use and it is effective out to over 100 yds! I shoot the 300 gr XTP Hornaday sabot and have never failed to harvest deer each year I have been hunting with it (7 yrs).

Now as to my Hawkens Carbine, I use 75 grs. of Goex 2F under a 325 Barnes Expander MZ sabot and it also is more then enough to kill deer out to 100 yds.

Next year I will be taking my Hawkens Carbine PRB gun into the woods and will be using a .495 ball with a .015" patch and 65 grs of Goex 3F. I am more then confident that I will be very successful with this combination.