After reading RMillers topic about favorite calibers and the loads that went with them it revived a bullet performance question that I have had that I just can't figure out.

A couple of years ago I killed a decent sized MN whitetail with a 30/06 using a 165 grain hornady SST going 3000 feet per second at muzzle. I blew a tending grunt call and he literally ran at me so fast I could barley get my gun up. I shot him at about 20 feet from a tree stand. It was a solid hit behind his front shoulder right into his boiler room. He ran off about 40 yards before he tipped over.

I have hunted for 30 years but I don't have the kind of practical bullet experience that a lot of you guys have.

I had a very large exit wound which I expected with the nature of the SST bullet at the range I shot him at.




What I can't figure out is the entrance wound I got. Any help would be greatly appreciated.



BTW I am an average sized guy with average sized hands. The distance from the web of my thumb to the tip of my index finger is 6".

Thanks,

Jason

That is interesting. I have had similar entrance wounds with the old Ballistic tips, but I did not get the baseball sized exit. On one I got no exit and the other was a dime sized exit with almost no bruising. I assume my jacket ruptured and blew hide apart leaving pure soft lead to disintegrate on one and tear-drop through on the other. The one with the exit was bang flop with respritory soup. The other (my biggest MN buck at the time) went 50-60 yards, tipped over, and died in 3 minutes of a sucking chest wound. that buck had one destroyed lung and one deflated. Fortunately he landed and lay on his good lung which filled rather quickly. Tipped cup and cores are a crap shoot with impact velocities over 2700FPS.

quote:

Originally posted by just-a-hunter:
That is quite common with the SST when it is close to that 3000 FPS or faster. They are among the most explosive bullet on the market. I'm guessing it exploded on the first hair it touched.

I've seen the same bullet fired from a 300 Win Mag not make it through the near side shoulder on a spike bull elk. It required a follow up neck shot that all but decapitated the spike. In my opinion they are 10x more explosive than the Btip.

They are among my favorite target bullet because I have had great results getting them to shoot well. Worst elk bullet choice on the market in my opinion.

Todd

I know that they are explosive but it dosen't make sense to me to make a 6 inch long narrow whole on the way in and a 4 inch round hole on the way out?

Simple answer .... SST

Great varmint bullets!!!

My theory is shot angle

I killed a large 9 pointer in 2012

It was a 150 grain Accubond from old rusty 30-06 at 2850 on an extreme quartering away 60°+ on ground level

I was dragging a doe to the truck and this old buck must have heard the noise and was looking for some action and was investigating the noise.

As I was moving my gear and rifle forward the deer and I had our brief introduction. We both looked at each other at the same time the buck had made me and was wheeling on a pivot and getting ready to haul some serious ass

The entry wound was about a 6" slash starting at his last rib and ending with the exit out of the base of his neck only about 3/4" in dia

quote:

Originally posted by just-a-hunter:
That is quite common with the SST when it is close to that 3000 FPS or faster. They are among the most explosive bullet on the market. I'm guessing it exploded on the first hair it touched.

I've seen the same bullet fired from a 300 Win Mag not make it through the near side shoulder on a spike bull elk. It required a follow up neck shot that all but decapitated the spike. In my opinion they are 10x more explosive than the Btip.

They are among my favorite target bullet because I have had great results getting them to shoot well. Worst elk bullet choice on the market in my opinion.

Todd

With you 100% on this one. I tried SSTs in my 30-06 one year out in Wyoming. The 4x4 mulie I shot quartering to me on his left shoulder at about 75 yards dropped on the spot and had an entrance hole the size of a baseball and no exit. A few days before that we went out for a couple hours the night we got there and I ran into a good herd of elk. I had forgot my Interbonds back at camp and only had the SSTs in the rifle. I had a cow tag and picked out an adult cow at the back of the herd that didn't appear to have a calf with her. I was set up on my tripod at about 100-125 yards and shot her right through the ribs. The herd took off in a cloud of dust and I lost her in the crowd. I went to where I shot her and it was almost dark, so it was hard to find any sign and my buddy and I that came over to help look gave up until daylight. The next morning it took us three hours to finally find her laying under a juniper about 125 yards away from where I shot her. Upon dressing her out I found that the bullet had exploded on a near rib and the near lung looked like a hand grenade had hit her. There was absolutely no penetration at all and with the weather still warm that was the only animal of many I've shot over the years that I have lost any meat from. After that I went to the Hornady SPs and BTSPs for antelope and deer and stayed with the Interbond for elk with no problems at all.

My disappoimtment with the SST 150 gn in 30.06 was solved by reducing speed to MV 2700 fps and seeing better behaviour from that projectile. However have since gone to using Interbonds as I consder them superior to SST.
I agree with Ted Thorns theory re shot angle.

If you got an exit hole, the bullet definitely didn't explode on impact. The skin could have been under tension and torn as the bullet passed through or it could have hit at an angle. SSTs are definitely not ideal for high velocity impacts but they don't explode on the outside of an animal either.

I am sure that angle plays a part. I have seen some wicked entry wounds from angled shots.

That said, if you watch a slow motion ballistic gelatin test, you will also see the entry point expand outward as the bullet passes through.

The bullet is displacing hide and flesh as it passes through, that imparts some energy to the entry and forces the hide outward and back.

At high impact speed, this would be more pronounced and could account for some opening of the entry point.

Just a thought. I don't think that the bullet used has a lot to do with entry wound geometry.

Jeremy

The thing is there was not that much of an angle he got up on me so quick it was almost a square broadside. He was just a little bit angled away but the entrance was about 1" behind the front shoulder and the exit was only 2" behind the back shoulder so not that much of an angle.

There was however the vertical angle of the tree stand to the ground. I was about 10 feet up and he was practically on me when I shot so there was a good downward angle. You can see in the photos the entrance is high up on the shoulder but the exit is almost down to the belly hair.

quote:

Originally posted by sheephunterab:
If you got an exit hole, the bullet definitely didn't explode on impact. The skin could have been under tension and torn as the bullet passed through or it could have hit at an angle. SSTs are definitely not ideal for high velocity impacts but they don't explode on the outside of an animal either.

I tend to agree with sheephunterab on this with the type of exit wound I got it's hard for me to imagine a bullet blow up on impact.

Could the large entrance wound been caused by a secondary projectile like chunks of bone?

Had that happen on a mulie buck that I shot at a sharp downward from atop a rimrock. The 150 grain Speer bullet (30-06) struck in the middle of the back and it looked like I shot a pillow with a cloud of deer hair blown up into the air. The deer went down but needed a finisher. It created a 5" surface wound as a lot of bone pieces shattered and blew the hide/hair off.

Another theory is bullet tumble on entry or angular entry

These are caused by deflection in brushy hunting areas

quote:

Originally posted by ted thorn:
Another theory is bullet tumble on entry or angular entry

These are caused by deflection in brushy hunting areas

I was kind of wondering about that. I have never seen it before in person so I don't really know what it looks like. I would love to hear more about it.

I did see a a few very small branches in the tree below me that I could possibly have hit with the downward angle of the shot.

If this happened would it cause that bullet to tumble at that velocity? and would a tumbled 165 grain bullet cause this type of entrance wound?

Also, what would be the effects on the explosive expansion of the SST and subsequently the exit wound if the bullet struck the deer tumbling?

I took physics back in college but I think I missed the day we talked about bullet tumble theory.

A tumbling bullet would be unlikely to exit. It would run a curved path in the animal and have poor penetration.

Jeremy

quote:

Originally posted by farbedo:
A tumbling bullet would be unlikely to exit. It would run a curved path in the animal and have poor penetration.

Jeremy

Thanks Jeremy, well since I did not have poor penetration or curved path tumbling bullet is out.

So I guess I am back to the steep downward angle theory.

I once shot A doe in the chest behind the front leg with a 165 grain sierra out of A 30 06. The animal dropped at the shot. When skinning the animal we found A nine inch in diameter entrance wound just behind the hide, and one inch exit hole on the far side. We thought at the time this was very strange. when we got the hide back from the tanner we found A perfect print of the 165 grain sierra boat tail going through the hide sideways at the entrance wound. For as many years as I have shot animals I have had way more than my share strange or unexplained phenomena between bullet and animal.

quote:

Originally posted by Matt Norman:
Could the large entrance wound been caused by a secondary projectile like chunks of bone?

Had that happen on a mulie buck that I shot at a sharp downward from atop a rimrock. The 150 grain Speer bullet (30-06) struck in the middle of the back and it looked like I shot a pillow with a cloud of deer hair blown up into the air. The deer went down but needed a finisher. It created a 5" surface wound as a lot of bone pieces shattered and blew the hide/hair off.

I don't think so in this case as there were no signs of bone fragments anywhere in the entrance area.

No blood in the entrance either just in the exit wound does that tell me anything?

A friend of mine shot a ddeer with a 300 win mag and 150 speer spitzer. The shot was less than 50 yards and the hit was angled on the ribcage. The deer ran quite a ways and I jumped it at about ten feet. As it ran I could see a soft ball sized hole in its side. It was losing chunks of lung as it ran. When it finally died we could not believe the wound. There was about 4" of three ribs tore off and the hide over the hole was just gone.

I think your deer might be similair and there was enough of chunk of bullet to make an exit.

This year a friends father shot an elk with his 7mm mag and a 154 SST the recovered bullet was 54 grains. They are a soft bullet.