bullet failure ?
After many years of deer hunting and hunt club ownership, I lost my first deer with a rifle this season.
I am an old, lazy, meat hunter and I hunt over a food plot from a popup blind with my shooting table and sandbags inside.
Last year I shot a deer with my father-inlaws old 7-57m/m Mauser. I only take neck shots to save meat damage and am very selective about the shots I will take. Bullet didn't open up but was close enough to spine to paralyze deer. This year at 60 yards, I held further back on neck and knocked doe down. She low crawled out of plot, jumped up and ran off. We found a tiny piece of meat with two hairs where exit would have been. The bullet was 140 Remington soft point handload.
Is this bullet designed to open at 7m/m Mag velocity instead of 7x57 m/m velocity? What would work better?[?]
Keep Your Powder Dry
I am an old, lazy, meat hunter and I hunt over a food plot from a popup blind with my shooting table and sandbags inside.
Last year I shot a deer with my father-inlaws old 7-57m/m Mauser. I only take neck shots to save meat damage and am very selective about the shots I will take. Bullet didn't open up but was close enough to spine to paralyze deer. This year at 60 yards, I held further back on neck and knocked doe down. She low crawled out of plot, jumped up and ran off. We found a tiny piece of meat with two hairs where exit would have been. The bullet was 140 Remington soft point handload.
Is this bullet designed to open at 7m/m Mag velocity instead of 7x57 m/m velocity? What would work better?[?]
Keep Your Powder Dry
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I feel for you...I lost a deer with a bow shot through the neck at 12 yards. The deer ran forever...I found gallons of blood but no deer. I searched for two days.
If you did not hit the spinal column or blow out the major arteries that deer may live. I don't think bullet failure at 60 yards is real probable.
However,
I am not fond of Remington ammo, brass or bullets. Try a Nosler balistic tip and see if your rifle likes them.
Better luck next year, sorry about your loss.0 -
shoot them in the head if you have all that type of equipment. probably not the bullet or anything. deer are quite amazing creatures and can run away from all sorts of injuries. you just hit it in a part of the body where there was nothing vital to its survival. i prefer to shoot them a little behind the shoulder. you dont damage much meat and they usually drop in their tracks.
When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.0 -
I've used the 7x57 successfully for years (probably 30-35 deer) and don't think bullet failure was your problem. Sounds more like a fringe hit.
Mobuck<BR>0 -
GaBob,
I'd have to agree with the 'fringe hit' theory or the shot passed straight through. However, factory bullet failure is not uncommon:
Two years ago I was was hunting out in NV with a friend and his son. His son made this spectacular 350 yd shot on a Mulie laying prone resting on backpacks. I heard the "thump" of a good solid chest hit. The deer humped up, went to his front knees and scooted off behind a juniper. I thought it was a sure kill and we'd find the deer ten yards off. We ended up tracking him around 750 yds. He never even left a blood trail for 250! He circled back and when we found him the 150 gr. Win. Powerpoint had gone straight through, broke a rib on the backside and NEVER expanded. I've sworn off Win. PP's ever since. This was a .308 Win out of a Rem. Mod. 7
Nosler gives the best performance for hunting without breaking the pocket book, so if you reload that's a thought. If not, Federal Premium's(they use Nosler a lot) and Winchester Combined Technology's (NOT PP's!) are good choices. -Good luck
P.S. I shoot two 7X57's and never had bullet expansion problems so I doubt it's the rifle.
We have the second amendment so that all the rest are secure....UNK>0 -
Neck shots are unreliable at close range with anything but a highly frangible bullet (NBT, TNT, HP, SST, etc). I shot a doe in the neck last summer on the crop permits at 225yds in the neck with my 168gr SMK from a 308 at 2710fps MV. Dropped her in her tracks (heard the thud through my muffs). I then set back behind the truck waiting for some more shots. When I preparred to leave and went to find her,..amazingly she had gotten up, left no blood at all, and was nowhere to be found. My rifle being dead zero at that range, and capable of less than 1" groups at that distance, and shooting from a bull bag on the hood, I didn't fringe hit her,..I smacked her properly,..but that bullet coupled with the little resistance a neck provides,..made for a clean pass through shot. had that been a NBT in any of my rifles,..there would have been almost 1/2 the neck gone around the POI.
why chase the game when the bullet can get em from here?....
Got Balistics?0 -
I doubt that it was a fringe hit. The rifle is free floated and glass bedded and very accurate. I shoot prairie dogs every summer so a 60 yard shot off a sandbag rest on a grazing deer is a chip shot. As I said, last year the exit hole was dime sized. I had a similar failure with Remington Bronze Point with M-1 Garand on a lung shot. Finally found him. Neither that deer or the one this year bled at all.
Thanks for the bullet suggestions. What weight bullet works well with twist of a 95 Mauser? (I do reload)
Thanks again
Bob
Keep Your Powder Dry0 -
if you don't hit anything hard most bullets will pass through,unexpanded, and if you don't hit anything vital, the deer will definitely get away. if you can hit prairie dogs, why not shoot them in the head. then they will either run or drop, no tracking involved. did you go after the trail with a blue light, it can see blood we don't. everyone slips up on a sure shot every once in a while. the deer could have moved suddenly right as you pulled the trigger. there are a million different things that could have happened.
When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.0 -
I think I will follow Justc and Bperdue's advice. I will get some Nosler Ballistic Tips and try them. Also started to shoot this last one in head but it was bobbing up and down grazing and looking around. I had a bullet failure years ago with a Zero Bullet Co. bullet in 30-40. Shot small buck behind shoulder and put him down but exit hole was pencil sized. Found out later that bullet was designed for 30-06 velocities
Any of you fellows get down to Ga next deer season look me up.We usually plant about 27-30 food plots. Average year we harvest about 40 deer(over half does)
Thanks again
Bob
Keep Your Powder Dry0 -
my best friend just moved to Conyers Georgia (outside Atlanta), i was down there this past weekend helping him move in. he is going to school to become a funeral director at gupton jones. what a poor poor fellow, his dad owns a funeral home and it is a family business. give em a good whistle and they will perk up real quick, and look long enough to blast em. i prefer headshots when i have a good rest as i too am somewhat lazy and don't want to chase bleeding animals through the woods. you might even look into the V-max's for rapid expansion and fragmentation on a fleshy part such as the neck. just to make sure you hit something vital.
When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.0 -
We are about 150 miles below Hotlanta just across the creek from Eufaula Alabama.
Keep Your Powder Dry0
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