I took this video to show a weird experience I had with my deer this year.

The shot was low and really did not enter the chest. It did kill the deer quickly which was great. I was just surprised at the scenario and thought I would share.
http://vid613.photobucket.com/...ana09/1130141530.mp4

Did you recover the bullet? It is possible it fragged which caused enough internal injury? Nice buck.

The bullet went through. The hole I point to first is the exit.

Bullets and shots can do some really weird things sometimes.

Saw a 170 class buck killed on a High Fence place I worked at a couple of times, west of Fort Worth.

When the guide and hunter brought the buck in, there was no sign of blood on the animal.

Turns out the hunter took the shot with a .243, the bullet hit the buck at the base of its right antler went across the back of the head and exited at the base of the left antler. There was basically a quarter inch gap thru the hair and hide across the back of the skull under the antlers, but the skull had not been penetrated. The buck however was graveyard dead at the shot.

hydrostatic shock stopping the heart? maybe bruising the lungs enough to stop breathing for a bit? was he coughing any blood?

I think it was a hard hit. There was a resounding smack at the shot and he ran off on three legs. He went out of sight in two bounds and was done within 30 seconds.

Hydrostatic shock can be quite traumatic to the internal organs:

Doesn't seem that odd to me. The bullet passed against the outside of the ribs, breaking them in the process. You don't know if the bullet was on a straight course next to the ribs or whether it hit the ribs and ricocheted off, deflected by the ribs. A broken rib or two smacking against the heart and lungs at twice the speed of sound would be more than those organs could take. Thus the "bloodshot" heart and lungs. With broken bones you get bone fragments acting like secondary missiles. There is also the temporary wound cavity to consider.

quote:

Originally posted by Grenadier:
Doesn't seem that odd to me. The bullet passed against the outside of the ribs, breaking them in the process. You don't know if the bullet was on a straight course next to the ribs or whether it hit the ribs and ricocheted off, deflected by the ribs. A broken rib or two smacking against the heart and lungs at twice the speed of sound would be more than those organs could take. Thus the "bloodshot" heart and lungs. With broken bones you get bone fragments acting like secondary missiles. There is also the temporary wound cavity to consider.

Exactly my thoughts after watching the video!

Bloodshot heart and lungs ? That's all it might take.
Secondary missiles ? I once butchered a deer shot with a 270, 130 gr .Shoulder hit .As I was slicing the ham I came across a small hole .That continued half way through the thickest part of the ham where I found the cause - a 1/8 " piece of bone ! That's a good example of secondary projectile damage .

I believe it because I’ve seen it three times in my years of guiding. Once with a bit of damage to the sternum, but I couldn’t find any evidence of secondary projectiles. And twice I’ve seen it with no significant damage to the sternum or ribs and no signs of secondary damage - just a bullet path between the skin and the sternum resulting shortly in a stone dead animal.

It doesn’t make sense, but I’ve seen it. At the time I blamed it on some sort of shock, but it isn’t logical. I just couldn’t figure out any other way to explain the dead animal with no other damage in any of the three cases.

When you see enough animals taken you see weird things. I’ve seen two big, pregnant sows die very quickly with only text-book gut shots. That doesn’t make much sense either. Just like probably many of us have seen animals take several seemingly ideal heart/lung shots and still live a little while. The science isn’t always clean with this stuff.

I agree with that. Did you check the lung tissue and find small bits of bone like coarse grains of sand?

I have has similar experience with high shot under the spine which hit the rib and the lungs were just soup.

The other thing to remember is that if a rib is hit and broken off from the sternum or the spine, it will vibrate and that will cause a lot damage to the insides.

Finally - the Sierra boat tail GK at that velocity will expand very dramatically without coming apart - not very different to a Nosler BT or even a Nosler Partition at close range.

quote:

Originally posted by Topgun 30-06:

quote:

Originally posted by Grenadier:
Doesn't seem that odd to me. The bullet passed against the outside of the ribs, breaking them in the process. You don't know if the bullet was on a straight course next to the ribs or whether it hit the ribs and ricocheted off, deflected by the ribs. A broken rib or two smacking against the heart and lungs at twice the speed of sound would be more than those organs could take. Thus the "bloodshot" heart and lungs. With broken bones you get bone fragments acting like secondary missiles. There is also the temporary wound cavity to consider.

Exactly my thoughts after watching the video!

As was stated in another discussion elsewhere on AR, No One is ever sure of what is going to happen after the trigger is pulled.

We know what we WANT to happen. We know what the HYPE about a certain bullet/load states will happen.

In actuality we really do not know nor can any of us guarantee what the results will be.

If anyone wants to top this, Be My Guest.

I got into a ground stand fairly late one morning a few years back. I was cussing myself for being so late, but I decided to see what would happen.

Fifteen minutes after getting into the stand, I noticed movement out of the window to my right. I already had my rifle sticking out of the window in front of me, so I waited to see what was going to happen.

A few seconds after I saw the movement a small 8 point buck stepped out to the edge of the right of way in front of the stand and started walking toward the feeder.

When the buck stepped out he was less than 20 yards in front of the muzzle of the rifle. He did not stop after stepping out and walked down the right hand side of the shooting lane until 40-45 yards away from the blind. At that point he turned mostly broad side but still quartering to the right away from me.

I was all set and ready to shoot and when he stopped, I dropped the hammer on him. Thru the scope I could visibly see blood and tissue hitting the tree on the off side of the buck.

The little bastard clamped his tail to his ass at the shot and took off down hill from where the shot was taken.

I saw where he went and walked down to the last point I saw him and he was laying at the bottom of a 20 foot plus drop off into a creek, bleeding out thru his mouth and nostrils.

Now, this little sucker covered about 60 yards or so after being hit.

When I cut his chest cavity open, the entire top third of his heart was gone.

I had made the shot with my .375 H&H using a 250 grain Barnes "X" bullet. Never believe all the hype about bullet performance.

CHC---Not trying to top you, but when I was in Junior College back in 65--67 I had enough free time to do game patrol work out at Fort Custer near Battle Creek, Michigan. My Dad was Chief Records Administrator at 6th Army Corp and we belonged to the Sportsman Club at the Fort since he was a Federal Civil Service employee. One day during the hunting seasons that we ran for the Army I was with Dad, who was an acting GW there and we came across a guy that was obviously tracking a deer. We stopped and asked if he needed help and he answered affirmatively, so we parked the jeep and went on the track with him. We found the big doe that he had shot with a 12 gauge slug and when we helped dress her out her heart was blown in half. We asked the guy where he was when he shot her and he pointed to a spot that had to have been close to 200 yards from where that doe dropped. You just never know how far one will/can go and I still look back on that after almost 50 years and just shake my head!