Performance Report - 250 Grain Gold Dot
 

If you've seen my "Sheriff Seeks Second Sinful Sister" report you already know I've accomplished my goal of putting a 250 grain Gold Dot into a deer.

It's inappropriate to draw conclusions from one experience, but here's a report of my experience and thoughts.

The bullet was launched with 95 grains of GOEX FFFg. While I have not chronographed that load in this gun, my experience chronographing similar loads in other guns leads me to believe the muzzle velocity is probably just over 1600 fps. If that's correct, velocity at the 125 yard point of impact would be just below 1200 fps. That's about the velocity of a very hot loaded 45 Colt cartridge out of a beefy Ruger revolver at the muzzle.

Here's where the shot hit.



The bullet clipped the rear of the right leg, center hit a rib going in, took out the top half of the heart and everything around it, center hit a rib going out, entered the inside center of the left front leg, blew the leg bone apart, and lodged in fragments under the skin of the off side shoulder. The deer traveled 40 yards after the shot (perhaps a tad less) and left no blood trail that I could detect.

Here's the tissue damage.



How an animal could run with that kind of damage is just amazing. The leg bone and much of the shoulder on her left side were destroyed. But when she ran off of the food plot I could see no indication that her leg wasn't functioning normally.

Here are the remains of the bullet found under the off-side skin.



That wide hollow point bullet destroyed itself. I hit closer to the shoulder than I wanted (hate ruining shoulder meat) and the damage was greater than I expected.

I would put full confidence in the 250 Deep Curl/Gold Dot to put a whitetail down with authority and wouldn't hesitate to use it out to 175 yards or so if the right shot presented itself.

Still, I think I will favor the 300 grain Gold Dot and expect a little less damage with slower expansion. However, I've never recovered a 300 from a deer because they have always passed through, and have never hit that same spot with a 300. So any comparison of damage is only speculation on my part.

Here's a short video of the shot. It's of poor quality and I apologize for that. I shot it with my little Nikon Coolpix S550. Though it has somewhat limited telephoto ability it usually takes a pretty good video. But I didn't realize that I had the Continuous Auto Focus feature turned off when I fired it up.

Anyway, you can just about make out the deer, see the smoke from the shot, and the deer's reaction.

very cool... good information

Good Video.She jumped high enough. Nice shot SEMI.

You sure that wasn't a powerbelt?!! :s2:

Or a Hornady XTP??? :)

I almost wonder if most of us use too much powder...I killed 4 deer with the 300gr Hornady .430s this year and 80grs of Goex FFF and had plenty of damage...At 125 yards I would have expected to have seen that bullet staying together...Not a real problem though because fragments make wound channels as well...

The PB would have been in a thousand pieces.

Interesting....good report and Vidio. Now this put's a few questions in My mind, I thought from all the Hype and what I've read about the Gold Dots (Deep Curls) that there NOT Suppos-to come apart? Your Deep Curl certainly did.
(BP)

Looks to me like just the petals came off the bullet. if you look closely all of the lead is still intact even on the petals.only bullet that "may" have stayed totally intact on that same exact hit would be a Barnes.i suspect your "normal" jacketed bullet would have been in many more pieces and total separated form the lead.

Semisane

Shoot Semi!!! I have never seen a GD do that. I have tried to get them to break up and have not succeeded - well when I shoot rocks they do but...

I was surprised it did not exit also, but the yardage and the velocity were probably the reason for that. I shoot them around 1860/1900 fps at the muzzle - so you would think I would really see the break up...

Thanks for the report

OK Breechplug - i was wrong... but I still would shoot a GD... still hope you try them...

All of those fragments were right next to the base of the bullet on the off-side of the leg bone. It appears that some fragments exited in that area also. So I would say it held together as it passed entirely through the deer (including two ribs) and broke up as it was exiting the off-side leg bone.

I still will Mike, I was waiting for you to jump in on this one as I knew you would:) We need more Test. Ya just never know what a Bullets gonna do. That one must have been made on a Friday Afternoon.
(BP)

I'm not too surprised at the bullet's performance. The 250gr GDHP have a seriously deep hollow, unlike both the 300gr and 240gr bullets.

Sounds like that bullet hit a awful lot of bone.what really impresses me even though the petals came off, is that all the lead is still attached to the jacket, even on the petals. like i stated earlier a conventional jacketed bullet would probably have totally separated the lead from the copper jacket and been in many more pieces. Ray

I have never had one break up like that either but when you hit big bone most bullets short of a full metal jacket will take a lot of damage on big bones.
The fact that the lead and the jacket stayed together shows what it will do short of hitting big bones.

Forgot to mention this and it's totally unrelated to the bullet's performance, but I loaded that gun on December 12th. (clean dry barrel/no cap fired). I carried it for twelve morning and evening hunts before shooting the doe. Over that nineteen day span it was either in my hands, behind the seat of my truck, or leaning against the outside wall of my camp. I never had a doubt it would fire when I told it to.

Does the rifle answer you when you talk to it:s4:

Sometimes Builder. But she has a very loud booming voice.

Semi... The Muzzy Whisperer. Hey do you have link were to buy 250gr or 300gr. deep curls, i quess that what they call them now.

LOL! i bet!

www.midsouthshooterssupply.com look under reloading .452 pistol bullets, they also carry sabots. Ray

A screamer eh!:)

Most excellent answer,Semi

Charlie