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I have been shooting that same 162gr BTSP out of my STW for a while now. Up until this last kill I never really had any concerns about them. All of my previous deer kills with this bullet have been simple broadside shots that resulted in a nice silver dollar sized exit hole followed by the deer dropping in his tracks. The last one was an angled shot in which I finally recovered my first bullet of this load. I was not very impressed with what I found.







Remaining weight is 74gr. I can't say the bullet really failed, after all the deer did die, just not on the spot./quote]





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And they won't always die on the spot. Regardless of bullet.

That's the nature of the game. Judging a bullet on whether the deer falls "in it's tracks or not" is foolishness.

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How about reducing the load for the Hornady bullet and using it as designed? (less than 3k) Just because you can load a max load, it is not always the best load. If you are hunting where there is only 150 yard shots why have a load for 250 yards? The deer will still die getting hit at 2700 fps, the bullet will retain more weight, penatrate deeper and probably even exit. Leaving you two holes for the blood trail if you do not place it where you really wanted.

I down load my 300Wby to about 30-06 level with 150gr Hornady, for the white tails here in east Texas. I just do not need all of that horse power to kill these deer or even the hogs over 200lbs. This load is accurate and more pleasent to shoot. I am not recoil shy, as I enjoy playing around with my 458 Lott.

Hog Killer

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It seems to me that the spine is one of the harder bones on a whitetail. I have seen some pretty impressive bullets do weird things after hitting the spine. My mulie doe this year was shot at a bit over one hundred yards,at an extreme angle, with a 30-06 using 165 gr Hornady Interlock Boattails. Muzzle velocity is est at 2850 fps. The bullet nicked the near side ham, entered the body cavity breaking 2 ribs and passed through paunch, liver, diaphram, lung,off side rib and exited the body only to enter the front leg, breaking it and stopping against the bone.It passed through 24 inches of deer including the hide and thick winter coat a total of four times breaking four bones in the process. Recovered weight is more than 109 gr as that is the max on my small scale.The mushroomed bullet averages 0.48 inches.

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