zekeskar

Just got back from a nice, cold whitetail hunt in MN. I had my first " herd" experience and double kill.

But one of the deer had unusual bullet effect (see below).

I was startled by the sound of multiple deer running through the woods towards my climbing stand at about mid morning after nothing to that point. They emerged from the thick woods running towards my stand - 4 of them, all does and fawns. I really didn' t identify the various sizes at the spur of the moment, but did realize right away I didn' t see any antlers. This was good since I' d volunteered to be the meat harvester for our party. A couple of our hunters wanted to hold out for trophy bucks if possible and I took it upon myself up-front to do my part to thin the herd of does and get meat for the freezers. We were in an intensive harvest area.

One of the deer turned to my left and hesitated, giving me a nice broadside shot at about 35-40 yards. So I quickly took it and was confident it was a good shot. The deer ran off, but I was very sure of my shot so I didn' t attempt a running shot at it. Besides I don' t like running shots and it disappeard into the brush almost immediately.

I then watched the others bolt off to my right, but one came right at me and hesitated momentarily at about 20 yards in an open area. I then took the first front-on chest shot of my hunting career (about a half dozen deer and two moose). I tried (and later saw that I succeeded) to place the shot high center, just below the neck, and of course, my shot was angled downward. This deer dropped on the spot (with no gut or front quarter damage upon cleaning later, which was my only fear and what I was trying to avoid).

I quickly looked back at the spot I shot at the first deer and immediately saw a bright red blood trail. Seriously, this trail was the size of the center stripe on the road - very obvious, even from my stand. At this point I was very confident I had two deer down. It' s always amazing to me how a deer can run off with the heart/lung damage I' ve seen, and this deer was fatally damaged in spades.

Since I was farily confident of a fatal shot on number one, and had been watching deer number two lying still, I didn' t wait too long as I organized my stuff, unloaded and lowered my gun, and climbed down (climbing stand - it took a few minutes). I walked past the second deer and made sure it was dead. I then followed this thick blood trail about 30 yards and found the first deer hard against a tree. To my surprise it was a very small doe fawn (no spots though!). My brother calls these types " fuzzies" . I' d never shot a fawn before and it was a little unsettling having a black lab of about the same size (just kidding, but barely), but I got over it. The only reason I regret shooting the fawn and will probably try to avoid it in the future is that it would have been nice to have a larger deer, but we ended up with enough venison anyway. I' m confident that taking the doe fawn was in the spirit of the intensive harvest. I did get a little kidding about " Fuzzy" though.

We come to the point of this post - what the heck happened to this bullet? I' ve shot other deer with this cartridge - 180 grain 30-06 factory Remington Corelokt PSP. A chest shot produces a tiny entrance wound, and generally an exit wound about thumb diameter with.

This thing had an exit wound as large as a baseball or even bigger - it just blew out the rib cage. The really odd thing was the entrance wound. The hole through the hide was normal - a tiny hole with little blood. But under the hide, between the skin and the ribs, there was a large area which looked like the skin had been torn away from the chest - with accompanying hemotoma type area between the hide and rib cage. The entrance hole through the ribs was abnormally large. Then the lungs and heart were almost completely blown out, and, as I said, a very large exit wound through the rib cage and hide. It basically destroyed the entire rib cage behind the front shoulders and heart and lungs.

In dressing the deer I was very happy to see that all the damage was in the ribs and chest organs, no gut or meat damage (which is the point of aiming where I did, but I was worried when I saw the damage to the chest).

As I said, I' d never shot such a young deer before. I' m wondering if the soft bones of the ribs flexed and therefore the bullet didn' t punch through like it would with an older deer. This then caused the bullet to mushroom earlier and more than normal - with the result described above. Or could you think of something else going on.

I' ve always been happy with the way this bullet worked on the deer I' ve shot at similar ranges. But if this is the sort of damage that one might expect with this cartridge, I would definitely look for a different one. I chose the 180s over 150s or 165s primarily because they shoot better through my gun, and someone told me (if I recall correctly) that the 180 corelokt was a good velocity and would produce good slug expansion and retention for close range deer.

Anyway, I was very happy with my shots and the quickness and accuracy that I was able to take them. I specifically worked on shooting second shots this fall - speeding up an accurate first shot at a kill zone-size target, chambering the second shell (gotta remember that part!!), moving to a second kill zone sized target quickly, but only as quick as accuracy allowed - and various shooting positions. I used milk jugs filled with water and recommend that type of practice. I believe it paid off (and was fun too).

Thanks for any comments -zeke

rickt300

I feel you are getting excellent bullet performance from your 30-06. The 30-06 is a very powerful rifle for deer and you were very close to the deer you shot at and I wouldn' t change a thing. Good shooting too. It may have been that the young deer probably just had less resistance to the bullets energy. Being softer more damage happened.

lhook7

I had the same thing happen to one of my bullets last year. It was a 7mm Mag 175 grain Remington Corelokt. I shot three deer last season with this ammo the first two the round performed great, but the last one was a management buck I took from about 25 yards. I shot him through his left shoulder and when I was cleaning him there was no exit wound. The bullet appeared to have come apart so fast after hitting the shoulder bone that there wasn' t enough left to exit. The buck dropped in place and the left shoulder where the bullet struck was completely destroyed. I was concerned because this was such a short shot and I did not get the penetration I would have liked. I decided to switch to Remington Premier Bonded Scirocco bullets. My reasoning for the change is that if I had to take a long shot with a Corelokt and achieved the same results as I had on the short shot on the management buck I would have a wounded deer on my hands.

thegreatmarton

Congrats on the double harvest!

bobo21

I was using 180 grain core lockt until one night I shot an Axis at 40 yards and the bullet never made it through the other side of the deer. After skinning the animal I found that the bullet bounced in the rib cage twice and lodged itsslf between a rib and the skin. I found the bullet whole as one piece and mushroomed pretty good. I didn' t hit any major bone except the rib bones. I don' t know if the ribs on an Axis are stronger than a whitetail but I have to go back to the federal premiums 150 grain that I was shooting because of this occurence. Over the years I have seen several different exit wounds on animals and found that when a bullet hit' s bone it usually makes for a larger exist wound. In your case you may have gotten neck skin, throat, chest bone which I find is very thick. Most front chest shots hit a lot of meat and bone compared to a heart lung shot which is all soft tissue with the exception of a rib cage which is most cases is a hard cartlage.

The only time I have experienced a large exit wound was on a doe I harvested using a .270 150 grain core lockt it however was a bad shot and hit the frontside shoulder. The exit was about 5" in diameter.

I know use a special hot load made specific for the .270 in 130 grain and notice that the exit wounds are only about 1.5 to 2"

I went from 150 grain to 180 grain with the .30-06 based on the ballistic' s going three inches high (maybe 4) would carry the bullet out to 400 yards (I think), maybe a bit further. I don' t remeber the specifics.

webejonesin2

congrats on your harvests.