I always read how "That (insert small cartridge) is ok for your small deer, but for our big deer, its only marginal."

Who has proof, anecdotal or statistical, that bigger Whitetails are harder to kill than small ones?
I don't buy it. If a bullet penetrates TO the vitals, it will go all the way through the vitals. Who has ever heard or a bullet being stuck in a lung? Maybe a big deer has a thicker shoulder blade, but thats more of an archery problem than rifles. Besides, I aim for two lungs, even with a rifle.

I think big deer are easier to kill. They have a much bigger kill area! That 40 lb doe requires precision shooting!

For the record, I have only killed two deer over 170 pounds, so I don't have much of a sample of big deer. 20 or so small and medium deer all died easily. The only hard to kill deer were the many I missed.

What about other species. Whitetail, Mule Deer, Caribou, Elk, Moose... As they get bigger, more bulletproof?

i find that an alert edgy deer is less likely to drop on the spot.
and since big deer usually get to be big by being alert they probably are more likely to run when hit and can cover more ground.
bigger deer =more blood, longer stride, ect.
i agree that a small bullet through the vitals will kill, but when?
dead aint always down.

I have killed more than 160 deer in my 25 years of deer hunting in body weights ranging from 40 lbs to 270 lbs. I have shot them with varying cartridges from 223 to 300 WSM to a 50 cal muzzleloader. I shot my largest (antler and body weight) with a 50 cal muzzleloader, and he went 30 yards and was dead. I have killed much smaller deer that have run nearly 100 yards, but the shot placement may not have been as good.

In my opinion, shot placement has more to do with killing deer than age, size, or even bullet diameter.

I've shot a ton of Mo. deer, pretty heavy ones, deer are easy to kill with almost anything including .223 and .220 Swifts. You just can't break them down from behind with the little guns on a ribcage shot they are sudden death.

It isn't as bad nowdays as in my youth but in my neck of the woods the .22 rimfire family has killed tens of thousands from game thieves. Shot placement before anything else on every animal in the world I would think.

Back in 2003, I shot 2 white tail bucks. Both were shot with my 375 H&H.

One dropped in its tracks.

I shot it at about 80 yards off-hand, entered at the back of the right shoulder and exited slightly in front of the left shoulder. I hit it with a 250 grain "X Flat Base".

The other I shot from my stand at about 40 yards as it was standing almost broadside.

Thru the scope, I saw the hit and saw blood and chunks of meat and lung knocked on to the tree the deer was standing in front of.

Now I was using the same bullet and load.

At the hit, and this was the smaller of the two bucks, he clamped his tail to his ass and took off.

He covered 60 yards in about 2 seconds and went over a creek bank and fell about 30 feet straight down.

When I got to him, he was laying with his nose in the edge of the water, bleeding out.

I was by myself that day, in fact that was the last time I went by myself, so I had to gut that little bastard out down in the creek bootom and then drag him up the bank.

When I cut his chest cavity open and started pulling out heart and lungs, I found that the whole top third of his heart was gone, There was just the connective tissue between the chest wall and the sack surrounding the heart was all that was holding.

In 37 years of hunting I have had deer drop on the spot, run a hundred yards and everything in between.

Proper bullet placement helps, but I ain't never seen a deer going to school and learning how they are supposed to die or where.

The only shots I know of that are DRT, are head/neck/spine, and with a high shoulder/spine shot, even though they drop, they will live a long time not being able to move anything but their head. JMO.

quote:

Originally posted by bja105:
Who has proof, anecdotal or statistical, that bigger Whitetails are harder to kill than small ones? I don't buy it.

Jason, this topic will be alive and well even when you and I and the rest of us are dead. Probably because you will always have those who shoot what would be considered "the bare minimum" to those who shoot what is "adequate" and the rest always take a rifle considered to be "overkill."

My position has always been along the same lines as what KSTEPHENS touched on: It IS NOT whether or not the caliber/bullet will KILL the animal. It is WHEN and in what manner.

I could take a 22 LR (illegally) and shoot a deer in the heart at 60 yards and punch a small hole in one lung and a major vessel. It may take the deer 24+ hours to die from bleeding out. It may only take a few. Who knows. But that said, we can now say the 22 LR will indeed KILL a deer. Woopee do.

To each his own. I personally like calibers 270 and larger, knowing full well there are plenty of smaller calibers that will kill small and large deer. I like a certain amount of power and the 270 is my minimum. The only reason I have for this is because I've never owned or shot a smaller caliber at a deer, and the 270 was my first rifle ever. I saw no need to go "backwards" so to speak.

For what it's worth, I know of an individual that killed a mule deer, very large bodied, with a partition bullet from a 22-250. The deer ran about 20 yards, walked in a couple of circles, stood another 20 or so seconds, then fell over and died. So I know this combination will put down a large bodied mulie at 80-ish yards. At what yardage will this combo become less effective? I do not know. I also do not know how a small southern Alabama Doe would react to an identical combo vs. a huge mulie from Alberta. My guess is given a shot at 100 yards or less in the lungs, they are both going to be deader-n-hell, but when?

One of the smiths that built one of my 270s uses a 22-6mm for most all of his game. He prefers to shoot the minimum caliber for the task. His words: "If you put the bullet in front of the diaphragm, the deer/antelope is going to die." True, but when? After it runs into the canyon 200 yards down a steep grade? On the spot?

There's no question none of us can predict what any game animal WILL do when hit with any reasonable bullet in the vitals, however, it is my opinion based on experience, bearing witness to, and from lots of feedback on sites like this, that there is some truth to "the bigger the better."

That said, it is also my opinion that if I had a 300 pound whitetail buck in full rut, broadside at 100 yards, after a hot doe, I could shoot him square in the high shoulder with a 243/partition or TSX and he'd drop right there, vs. shooting him in the lungs only with a 270/130 grain remington corelokt, where he could dump right there, or run a hundred yards.

When possible, I ALWAYS aim for shoulder.

I've shot a very large number of whitetail deer, more than typical by a big margin, this due to having a couple of farms I hunt on depridation permits at. IME, bigger deer are tougher than smaller ones. There will be individual examples all over the charts, but over a fairly large sample quantity, I can say that bigger is tougher.

Although I don't have a large 'sample quantity' on other species, I think it's just kind of intuitive that bigger critters are tougher to kill than smaller ones. One small example I would lend to this, is that I have shot a lot of smaller critters with a .270, i.e. possums, rabbits, coyotes, feral dogs, cats, bobcats, armadillos and others. All of these died instantaneously. No further progress. I have shot a lot of deer of various sizes with the same rig, and some moved some more, sometimes quite a bit more, but never so with the smaller critters--I guess the smaller critters had something that makes them die, damaged quicker and more severely than the bigger ones, so therefore I reason the bigger is tougher.

YMMV

I certainly hav'nt shot as many deer as some on this site but enough to form an opinion. Deer are deer. Put a bullet through the vitals and you will have a short tracking job. The amount of ground they cover after the shot seems to depend more on factors other than there size. JMHO

quote:

Originally posted by SteveM70:
I certainly hav'nt shot as many deer as some on this site but enough to form an opinion. Deer are deer. Put a bullet through the vitals and you will have a short tracking job. The amount of ground they cover after the shot seems to depend more on factors other than there size. JMHO

mmmm.....define "short tracking job."

regarding factors other than the deer's size, I agree.

100 yards or less, typicaly less in my experience. Most, between 30 to 60 yards.

No question about it. A small 1.5 year old deer is much easyer to put down quickly than a 300lbs 7 year old. We are talking about a mature strong deer weighing 2x as much as an adolecent. Much stronger in every way including will to live.

It's still a deer though, trying to have a discuston about needing a different gun or bullet would be almost silly.

Premium bullets make a big difference in the "marginal" calibers nowdays. In the last 2 weeks I have killed (4) bucks ranging from 80-165 pounds all have been one shot kills and the furthest run was 25 yards. I did this with the 70gr TSX in a 223 takeing various angled heart/lung shots. The results speak for themselves.
That being said I ABSOLUTELY would not attempt any of those shots with a standard lead bullet.
The 80 and 160 pounders both went 15 yards and fell stone dead with their vitals having 50cal holes through out.

Perry

Im not sure size has much to do with it key deer are tiny but hard as hell to kill even with big holes in heart lungs they fight a long time.

didnt someone once say an object in motion tends to stay in motion and an object at rest...

I shot a running (i mean flat out hauling ass like the John Deere logo) buck this year and hit him right in the heart. he didnt flinch. kept runnning and covered 50+ yards probably. the blood trail was amazing 4' across. no spurting, his heart was hamburger, the blood was just pouring out. he only stopped when his guage hit E.

i have shot much larger bucks that simply picked up thier feet and fell on them w/ the same rifle. the difference was that they were feeding and didnt know what hit them.

A few years ago in Michigan,I shot a big bodied buck with a 257 Roberts.I was using Remington Corelockt bullets.I was no more than 40 yds from the deer and put it behind the shoulder.The deer had never known I was there.This is the only deer I have ever lost hunting with a rifle.There was very little blood or sign that I had hit it.I searched most of the day and could not find it.It was recovered by another hunting party 1/2 mile away.Shot in both lungs with no expansion.The hole was the same going out as going in.If I would have shoulder shot it,the Buck would have been mine.I was glad that someone got it and it wasn`t wasted.I am not a fan of small calibers for any size deer.I am not saying they don`t kill,but I want to see a blood trail or better yet a Bang flop.I only shoulder or neck shoot now.

Rumor has it that the long standing Typical Mule Deer record buck harvested by Doug Burris in Dolores county Colorado was killed with a single shot from a ......................243.

I'm of the belief that a deer large or small is dead when hit correctly with any centerfire rifle bullet so constructed to penetrate far enough into the vitals to contact them (heart, lung or lungs), you can throw elk in there too.

Our Saskatchewan whitetail bucks will usually run 300 pounds give or take.Mule deer are bigger. You can bet that that mature bucks die harder than small bucks and does, at least if you judge killing power by distance covered. I've killed well over 100 deer with everything from muzzleloaders through .22 centerfires on up. On average big calibers kill faster than small, and more tellingly fast calibers kill faster than slow. My STWs kill deer faster than my .375 H&Hs.

quote:

I always read how "That (insert small cartridge) is ok for your small deer, but for our big deer, its only marginal."
Who has proof, anecdotal or statistical, that bigger Whitetails are harder to kill than small ones?

Deer are easy to kill. So are pronghorns and caribou. Move that up to elk and moose and it's a different story. Large bulls are tougher than smaller cows. Kudu are easy to kill but smaller-sized oryx and zebra are tougher to put down. So, what's my point?

I can never understand why a lot of guys always want to kill game with the smallest possible caliber that is legal. Sure it's possible but why do it?

quote:

My STWs kill deer faster than my .375 H&Hs.

I believe it. They probably blow a bigger offside hole, too.

quote:
My STWs kill deer faster than my .375 H&Hs.


I believe it. They probably blow a bigger offside hole, too.

Depending on the bullet, they often do. I regard that as a good thing.

I have shot deer with everything from a .223 to a .458 but the 7mm Ultra Mag seems to stop them quicker than anything I have used. However, someone else may experience entirely different results. Fact is no matter what you use or where you hit 'em (aside from spine or brain) some deer just don't know they are dead and will travel some.

My thoughts are this, bigger calibers are better at not getting deflected as much and breaking down bone. Bigger deer have larger, thicker and stronger bones. There is a reason kids break there arms much more frequently then adults, size density and strength.

Think of it this way. If there was a 100% chance of a perfect broadside shot I wouldn't spend 1 second worrying about the caliber.

Now if there was a 100% chance if have to blow through the shoulder to get to the vitals I'd want the biggest and heaviest caliber I have. Breaking the shoulder on a bigger stronger heavier deer is going to take more then a little guy.

The deer I have shot and that is only 8 of them, all dropped at the shot except one...and that one was due to shooting Silvertips rather than my usual CoreLokts...and finally after shooting the Silvertips, which ice picked, I got a CoreLokt into him and that one did the trick...where the 5 other Silvertips went singing on through to no effect. Soft point CoreLokts if you want to drop them in their tracks...

If a wound is severe enough to cause a deer to bleed to death it will, but Doc said it very well, is that what you really want? I like it when they drop on the spot and where deer are concerned and it doesnt take a DG rifle to achieve it. Ive seen good sized muleys taken in spectacular fashion with a .25 cal rifle, but bigger and stronger animals do go down a bit harder than smallish ones. Its simple physics.