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| One of Us |
Well, yesterday Nov. 13th was our opening day for Rifle Season for Deer. Got out to my stand early & was situated at he edge of my back field. Took my Browning A-Bolt in .308 and factory 150 grain Silvertip (the old style) a friend gave me a couple of years ago. I think he bought the ammo back in the late 1990's. Anyway, a nice Buck shows up at the wood's edge trailing a Doe, about 150 yards away from me. He stopped allowing me to get off a shot which I had my crosshairs square on his Lung/Heart area & I fired. The Buck went down, but then got up and sneaked quickly off I fired again but missed. Got down and walked over to where I hit him but saw very little blood, just a few drops, so I started looking for him which I found him in a very tough spot fillled with vines, small pines & Blackberry briers. Got him out, with the help of a neighbor, who was hunting nearby. The Buck traveled about 100 yards into the brush area. When I got him situated to field dress him I noticed the exit bullet hole was only slightly larger than the entrance hole, again in the Lung/heart area. I though this was strange as I've used silvertips in my .270 and the exit hole was much larger than the entrance.  Even on a 170 grain .30-30 silvertip bullet. Just wondering if the 150 grain Silvertip bullet Winchester used in this lot of factory ammo was 150 grain bullets intended for the .30-06 or .300 Win Mag. I know for a fact that a .308 will kill a Deer at 150 yards and my Browning A-bolt is very accurate, as the bullet hole was just where I placed it. The 150 grain S.T. seemed to act like a FMJ bullet on that particular Buck. What do you guys think what happened?? This is the longest shot I have taken with a .308 as most of my shots are < 100 yards.David | ||
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One of Us |
This does not sound out of the ordinary to me. If the bullet failed to hit bone, then very little expansion is to be expected. I have seen whitetail deer do amazing things after being shot. I have never used silvertips on game, but I suspect any other bullet would have provided the same results. Just my .02cents worth. | |||
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| One of Us |
How did the lungs look like? Some times bullets dont do as expected. | |||
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| one of us |
Small in, small out does NOT mean the bullet failed to expand. Look at the damage in-between the 2 holes. If he only went 100 yds before piling up than the bullet did it's job properly. I've seen does go 200yd with a blood trail a blind man could follow (the snow was painted red for 4' either side of her path) following a double lung hit. Deer will also "run dead" IE just because their brain stops working doesn't mean the legs stop working too, and from where yours ended up at it sounds exactly like that's what he did. | |||
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The lungs were intact other than a bullet hole through them. LOTS of blood in the cavity! Never had this happen before wiith this type of shot (Lung/Heart) Think I'll stick with 150 grain Power Points as I dropped a larger Buck last Season using only one round. David | |||
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Thanks, I have a bunch of 150 grain Silvertip bullets intended for the .30-30. Was wondering if these might work better with expanding? David | |||
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You might find that bullets designed for 30-30 velocities may well over-expand, esp if you hit bone on the near side. IOW they are designed to expand at the much lower velocities the 30-30 produces. The last time I looked, the "silvertips" used in the 308/30-06/300WM are nothing but Nosler Ballistic Tips wearing Winchester colors. | |||
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Not at all a weird experience. The bullet didn't hit bone. I've had it happen will my .30-30, .308 Win and .30-06 using 150 gr and 165 gr silver tips, power points, corelokts, SST's and fail safes. I've also had it happen with my .270 Win using 130 ang 140 gr bullets. But ever time it happened there was lung soup between the holes. | |||
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It happens, some deer just don DRT. Some travel a little first. But if the lungs were still intact I would switch bullets. Molon Labe New account for Jacobite | |||
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Well, first of all, CONGRATULATIONS ON KILLING A BUCK ON OPENING DAY!!!  I was in KY also and took a huge doe, one of my biggest ever, at 289 yards with a 150 Berger VLD from a 270. The bullets hit 1/4" high at 100 and 1/2" low at 200. I did not get a chance to shoot them at 300 prior to hunting but as it turns out, they sure don't drop much. I aimed about 2" below the spine over the shoulder and hit about 4" below the spine. The shot was horizontal across 2 big ravines. I've never used a silvertip (old style). Sounds like your bullet performed a lot like some say the Barnes TSX does. If you load ammo, try a 150 Btip over a medium charge of 4064 and watch what happens. So far, I've had all DRT with my 308/150 Btip combo. I use Lapua brass and Fed 210M primers. Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my guns | |||
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As far as I know Winchester didn't make silvertips for varying cartridges in the same caliber and I don't know of any ammo/bullet company that does. In other words, they don't say let's make a run of 150s for the 300 win mag and then let's make another run of 150s for the 308 win. You have "1 in a row" and you want to make a change based on what is likely one anomalous occurrence. Shoot 4 more deer with the same bullet in the exact same spot at roughly the same difference and you might have the start of a trend. Mike Legistine actu quod scripsi? Never under estimate the internet community's ability to reply to your post with their personal rant about their tangentially related, single occurrence issue.  What I have learned on AR, since 2001: 1. The proper answer to: Where is the best place in town to get a steak dinner? is…You should go to Mel's Diner and get the fried chicken. 2. Big game animals can tell the difference between .015 of an inch in diameter, 15 grains of bullet weight, and 150 fps. 3. There is a difference in the performance of two identical projectiles launched at the same velocity if they came from different cartridges. 4. While a double rifle is the perfect DGR, every 375HH bolt gun needs to be modified to carry at least 5 down. 5. While a floor plate and detachable box magazine both use a mechanical latch, only the floor plate latch is reliable. Disregard the fact that every modern military rifle uses a detachable box magazine. 6. The Remington 700 is unreliable regardless of the fact it is the basis of the USMC M40 sniper rifle for 40+ years with no changes to the receiver or extractor and is the choice of more military and law enforcement sniper units than any other rifle. 7. PF actions are not suitable for a DGR and it is irrelevant that the M1, M14, M16, & AK47 which were designed for hunting men that can shoot back are all PF actions. 8. 95 deg F in Africa is different than 95 deg F in TX or CA and that is why you must worry about ammunition temperature in Africa (even though most safaris take place in winter) but not in TX or in CA. 9. The size of a ding in a gun's finish doesn't matter, what matters is whether it’s a safe ding or not. 10. 1 in a row is a trend, 2 in a row is statistically significant, and 3 in a row is an irrefutable fact. 11. Never buy a WSM or RCM cartridge for a safari rifle or your go to rifle in the USA because if they lose your ammo you can't find replacement ammo but don't worry 280 Rem, 338-06, 35 Whelen, and all Weatherby cartridges abound in Africa and back country stores. 12. A well hit animal can run 75 yds. in the open and suddenly drop with no initial blood trail, but the one I shot from 200 yds. away that ran 10 yds. and disappeared into a thicket and was not found was lost because the bullet penciled thru. I am 100% certain of this even though I have no physical evidence. 13. A 300 Win Mag is a 500 yard elk cartridge but a 308 Win is not a 300 yard elk cartridge even though the same bullet is travelling at the same velocity at those respective distances. | |||
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It was a successful hunt and the deer only went a hundred yards right. Sounds perfectly normal to me. The 150's in a .308 lack sufficient sectional density to stay together. My guess is the bullet broke up causing the minimal damage. I use 150 grainers in my 270 which perform better than the 130's, which have shown similar results to yours. If your looking to offset the sectional density issue opt. for the new Hornady GMX or Barnes hollow points. Sectional density is still very important with copper and lead bullets. Captain Finlander | |||
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Thanks, Doc. & CONGRATULATIONS on your Ky Doe Too!! I normally reload for my .308 & use Hornady 150 gr. Spire Points as they seem to give me the best accuracy along with using IMR-4064 Powder. I am also experimenting using Speer RNSP & Sierra (BTSP) 150's with Varget & IMR-4320 powders. A Hunting Friend of mine gave me a couple of boxes of Winchester factory 150 gr. Silvertip loads which I decided to use this season. David | |||
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My Neighbor uses Winchester Ballistic tips in his .243. David | |||
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I think you are refering to the "Ballistic Silvertip" bullet which is nothing but a black coated Ballsitic tip bullet W/a silver/grey polymer tip. Maybe he is refering to the old style Silvertip bulet from WW which has an aluminum (metal) tip I believe. I remember my dad loosing an otherwise fatally hit buck back in '68 that he shot W/30/40 Krag loads that had (old style) Silvertip bullets. They didn't expand well either & the buck went in excess of 150 yds after a broadside heart/lung hit, subsequently running into a feild along side a gravel road. Some guy jumped out of his car, shot the deer in the head & claimed it. Pennsylvania had a lot of that sort of thing going on back then. I think those "old style" silvertip bullets where designed for limited expansion & deep penetration on medium sized game. If that is what he was using, it doesn't surprise me that the bullet passed through W/little expansion, especially if it didn't hit a rib on entry. GOOGLE HOTLINK FIX FOR BLOCKED PHOTOBUCKET IMAGES https://chrome.google.com/webs...inkfix=1516144253810 | |||
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+1 People tend to place far too much emphasis on their own experiences because they know them best and recent experiences because they are freshest in the mind. Both are very misleading. Try what Mike suggests, take notes, and then review all the data at the same time. I also don't consider a lung shot deer's going 100 yards all that significant. If I don't want it to move, I shoulder shoot it at the expense of the meat. LWD | |||
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I agree with most said here and will only add my experience. The .308 is the only round I've hunted with for the past 30 years. In that time I have had a 90@ "2-step" success rate. In other words, the deer or elk never went beyond 2 steps. I would certainly not credit this to great shot placement but rather the distructive nature of Nosler's "partition" bullets. I load the 165 Gr. bullet to a velocity of about 2750 FPS and it has never failed me and has always expanded well. Even with not so good placement, it provided enough damage due to cavitation that it quickly put the animal in shock. For elk I use the 180 Gr. Spitzer loaded to about 2500 FPS and it's wound path is equally devestating with many clean kills. Yes there have been a few times due to real bad placement where I had to hike out 100 yards or so to recover my game, but very very few times at that! In my opinion, your bullet failed you by not providing enough expansion, no cavitation with no shock value. Sounds like you simply "punched" a hole and the animal bled out. Your description of the wound cavity kind of points this way. My 2 cents..... | |||
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The first deer I ever shot was a doe at 15 yards from a tree stand. I shot her with a .270 using 130gr. Winchester ammo (cheap bullets). She took off like she was stung by a bee. I went to the scene of the shot and found a small piece of bone, little hair and a couple drops of blood. I started tracking and found no trace within 30 feet. An hour later I found her 100 plus yards away. She had run through thick undergrowth. When I opened her up to dress her, I found that the shot had gone in just behind the left shoulder, her heart fell out of her in three pieces, both lungs were hit and the right shoulder was only connected by few strands of ligament and skin. The bullet he went right through the joint. I was confused for some time about how she was able to run more than a few yards in this shape, and blamed the caliber at the time. Since then I have hunted with .308 and none have run more than 15-20 yards. I don't think it has anything to do with te caliber. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that the doe spotted me in the stand and we had a staredown for maybea full minute. I was wanting her to run off and when she hung around I figured I'd take her. Maybe her adrenalin was building knowing she needed to run away. | |||
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A hundred yards for alung heart shot deer is fairly normal. Could have bullet hit something like a twig or a limb before it got to him I see some strange wounds from when that happens. | |||
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Dittos! I had an Impala Ram go 100 yards after a heart shot at 80 yards with a 338WinMag. Seldom do animals fall over instantly unless bone is hit. A 100 yard track job is not uncommon. | |||
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If you don't have confidence in that bullet, then shoot it for practice and get something else. I would not worry about the short run as that is very common. During damage work this last summer, I killed 37 white tails using a 7 mag mostly with 139 grain Hornadys. I had one deer run 150 yards with the lungs shot out. If not for a good blood trail, I would have lost the deer. Weird things happen in the field. Just be glad you recovered the deer. | |||
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Not trying to be funny or combative, but what does bullet construction have to do with sectional density? "Ignorance you can correct, you can't fix stupid." JWP If stupidity hurt, a lot of people would be walking around screaming. Semper Fidelis "Building Carpal Tunnel one round at a time" | |||
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Do you have any pictures of the internal damage? _____________________________________________________ A 9mm may expand to a larger diameter, but a 45 ain't going to shrink Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. - Winston Churchill | |||
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DRS, were you using the "old" Winchester Silver Tips or the "new" Ballistic Silver Tips? _____________________________________________________ A 9mm may expand to a larger diameter, but a 45 ain't going to shrink Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. - Winston Churchill | |||
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My experience on fallow & red deer in NZ using 6.5X55, 7mm o8 etc is that instant DRT kills are often a result of hitting ribs that transfer shock to the spine & also splatter bone fragments into the lungs and shred them. Missing the ribs with a double lung including heart shot can result in the animal running 100 meters. That is certainly not bullet failure. I have found that traditional cup & core bullets like rem Corlokt & speer hotcore, Winchester, Sierra Game king, Nosler balistic Tip etc. work great on deer at around the 2800 fps muzzle velocity. "When the wind stops....start rowing. When the wind starts, get the sail up quick." | |||
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I had an experience with a fallow deer that still has me mystified and it was nearly 20 years ago. I was using my 7x61S&H at the time with a 160gn Sierra SSP . The deer was 90yds away and not quite perfectly broadside by about 10 degrees. I was sitting awkward as I had sat for a breather facing the direction the deer was heading to. Anyway I didn't want to move as I was a bit exposed so shot from where I was and felt the shot was good but the deer cantered off seemingly unhurt although I was sure I had seen a slight shoulder drop at the shot. It was about 70yds to the bush line and I found it just inside and on dressing it out found that the near side leg was broken, the heart was shreded with the top completlt seperated, and the off side leg had about a 2 in section of leg bone missing,and while I completlt understand the bleed out time and or adrenaline fuelled death run, it was the two completly shatered leg bones that have left me wondering how it ran. Never been able to explain that one but it still tasted bloody marvelous though. Von Gruff. | |||
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bullets do weird things. Just this last weekend, I shot a doe with a Kimber Montana 7mm08 (reload) using Sierra Gameking 140gr btsp. Deer flopped, another one stepped out about 2 hrs later and I shot it within 2 yds of the other, broadside -same aim point and it ran 100 yds. I always try to aim dead on the shoulder and try to take them both out...it breaks em down. But the 2nd deer apparently either wasn't exactly broadside or the bullet deflected marginally as it exited tight behind the off shoulder. I was still very surprised it went as far as it did ...and there was virtually no blood until it had ran 25-30 yards..then a tiny pin drop was the first found. Then at about 50 yds, it looked like it stopped and coughed up a lung...still went another 50 yds after...but a blood trail a blind man could follow. They have an amazing will to live! I'm also a huge fan of the 7mm bullet...I shot an 18" inside spread 8 pt the day after Thanksgiving last year with a Ruger #1 RSI 7x57 with 150gr bullet and it flopped and never even kicked. | |||
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I have to agree. Over the past 40 years I have read more "failure to properly expand" stories related to old-style Silvertips than all other bullets combined (with old style Barnes X giving a run for the money, they just haven't been used as long/much). Tim 0351 USMC | |||
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Sometimes crap happens. Had a similar thing with my 7mm Mag this year. Small hole in, small hole out, but lots of chaos in between. Two deer, two shots, DRT. But when I started looking for the exit wound on one, and didn't find it, I thought of "Bullet failure". Even though the deer dropped in her tracks. Turns out the bullet broke the back of the deer, and went between two vertabrae. Was also the only walking shot I ever took on a deer. She was quartering towards me at a decent walk to cover opening morning at 279 yards. | |||
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