I am directing this at guys who cut and wrap their own meat. I am hoping to get some real answers without the thread getting muddled-up with "guesses" from guys who only field-dress their game before dropping it off at the processor. If I had not cut this up myself I never would have known about all the bloody meat.....

I shot a cow elk last Friday. The weather was dry and temp about 50 degrees. She was looking at me, but was not keyed-up yet. At the shot she ran 40 yards, stopped, and then fell after about 5 seconds.

The facts:
-30-06, 150gr Hornady GMX(thanks again Mike Dettore), impact velocity was a bit less than 2800fps.
-She was standing broadside and the bullet hit a few inches behind the left shoulder, hit a rib on the way in, center-punched the upper-rear portion of both lungs passed between two ribs and exited.
-She fell on her left side(the entrance side).
-She was field-dresses and loaded into a rig about 20 minutes after being killed.
-We got her hung by the hind legs and skinned and quartered by about an hour after she was killed.
-She was hanging in a 36 deg. meat locker within about 2 hours of the kill.

The next morning I loaded the meat into plastic bags and loaded her into my truck for the 6 hour drive home. The trip was cold and wet, but the meat was protected in the bags. Once home I hung the quarters for a day and a half(temps were 36 at night and 44 during the day). I started cutting and wrapping meat starting with the two hindquarters, then the right forequarter. Everything went well and the meat seemed extremely tender(I cooked some backstrap and found that it could be cut with a fork-the best meat I've had yet). When I cut-up the right forequarter(exit side) I found almost no bloodshot meat and the exit hold was the sized of a quarter.

The problem came when I started to cut-up the left fore-quarter. Looking from inside the ribcage there was no bloodshot meat around the entrance hole. I started to filet the meat off the ribs(my retired butcher grandfather calls this meat the "rib lifters"). Immediately I began to find massive amounts of black congealed blood. Most of the blood was in between the slabs of muscle, mixed in the membranes that sit between the muscle. I began slicing further and further away from the entrance hole, only to find that the blood extended all the way up into the neck. In some of the meatier portions, such as the neck and brisket, the blood was actually in between the muscle fibers themselves(imagine perfect, pink muscle fibers with black blood in between them).

Here are some photos:
The tip of the knife points at the entrance hole. The first slit was made to trim around the bullet hole. The others were made to figure out how far the blood had traveled. You can see blood where the shoulder was cut away.


This photo shows more meat that has been fileted away from the ribs. The black, congealed blood had traveled into the neck and down to the brisket



In this photo you can see where the blood had traveled into the membranes around the backstrap, down to the brisket and into the neck:




I was pretty upset with the mess and I could see that I was going to have a lot of extra work if I was going to save any of the meat. I cut off the shoulder and found that it was free of blood. I made slices up the neck and found that the blood stopped about a third of the way up. There was black blood in the membranes around the backstrap, but upon cutting it free I found that the meat itself was fine(what a relief!)

As it was after midnight and I had to be up at 6 to teach school I wrapped the backstrap and put the clean neck meat in a bag for grinding later. I wrapped the shoulder/leg in butcher paper and tossed it in the freezer to be thawed and processed later.

I then finished cutting the meat from the ribs and neck. I found that the blood had migrated about 2 feet from the entrance wound(I don't think the bullet caused all this bloody meat). I placed the bloody meat in an ice chest filled with ice. I opened the drain and raised the other end on a block of wood.

This front left quarter was the one that received the bullet, and was also the one the animal fell on and the one that was on the bottom while transported from the field. Of course the blood traveled into the neck which would have been the lower side when the animal was hung for skinning and also for aging.

It froze the next couple of nights and the ice didn't melt much. I took the meat out and found that some of the blood had drained/washed away. I don't believe much blood had actually migrated out of the meat, but it was cleaner now and at least I could see what I was dealing with.

I cut the rib meat into 1" to 2" wide strips and removed the membranes and blood from between the muscles. As stated before, some of the muscle itself had blood between the fibers themselves, this was cut away and discarded. I was left with about 70% clean meat and 30% bloody meat and membranes(which was thrown away).

So, having never seen this, I am wondering what would cause/allow blood to travel so far and taint so much meat? Have any of you guys experienced this?



A side note: during field-dressing I was inspecting the lungs(the bullet had center punched the "lobe" that sits below the spine and above the diaphragm and the ranch owner/guide reached into the chest cavity and said, "man, you didn't leave much heart!" I was confused as my bullet hadn't passed closer than about 12" from the heart. I said that I didn't hit it with the bullet and he replied, "well it sure doesn't feel right." I took the heart and found that it was completely flaccid like jello or a deflated balloon(of warm liver). Once on ice it firmed-up and took on the normal heart shape and rubber-ball texture.

In my opinion, your experience is normal.. very seldom do I not have to trim out bloody membrane like that. Any slightly angling shot will clip a quarter and make the same mess you show in the pixs.. I just trim away all that's bad and am thankful for what I end up with.. you can't make an omelet without breaking an egg or two...

As these other two have said, pretty normal. I have found when I use a bullet that is higher velocity I have this problem less. That being said, if you make salami, ground jerky, pepperoni, etc this meat is still very usable. I often have success washing this meat out by soaking in a light salt water solution for a few hours, then allowing it to air dry.

I process all my own meat and deal with this situation on a regular basis.. I use cold water with some vinegar in it and a cotton cloth to clean up bloody meat...works pretty well. You can salvage a lot of your meat with some effort...

Z

Lora and I have been processing all of our game meat for several years and as the others have said, what you experienced is pretty standard.

From your description, you were doing about as good a job as can be done as is possible. The few times I don't get blood shot meat, is when I get a thru the rib cage shot on the heart and lungs. If I hit the shoulder, even with Barnes bullets, I get blood in the muscles.

Hydrostatic shock, I believe, is what it is called. The faster the velocity is, in any given caliber, the more of the bloodsoaked meat you will get. One elk I shot with a .416 Rem had less blood soaked meat than any other animal I have ever taken. Velocity causes the amount of trauma you are experiencing I believe

I don't know if I would attribute this only to velocity. I've shot elk with a muzzleloader (250 grain Barnes at somewhere about 2,000 fps) that have bloodshot like that. I think it's partly due to the fact that the elk was alive after the shot. Internal blood is pumping out through the bullets holes, so it stands to reason that it's also going to be forced along the partitions between muscles. I don't remember seeing massive intramuscular blood like this on animals that fell at the shot. Immediate death (via a CNS hit) seems to reduce this significantly. But, if the heart is still pumping, blood's moving and it will be forced out into places you wouldn't otherwise expect.

having buthered hundreds of critters from om deer on up.

I seen this a lot I clean up what I can and toss the rest. Loseing a front quarter isn't loseing a quarter of the meat.

I will gladly lose a whole front quarter if it means recovering the whole animal.

You got good advice from the rest
My .02 cents....
Aim for the ribs

Soak it in salt water(1 cup for 2 quarts for about 4 hours.)This should draw most of the blood out.Then rinse and soak in clear water for about the same amount of time.Rinse dry and cut it how you want to.

Guys, thanks for the advice.

quote:

Originally posted by ravenr:
My .02 cents....
Aim for the ribs

I'm glad you weighed in as I know that you know your stuff. Just to make it clear, I did place my shot through the ribs well behind the shoulder. In each of the three photos the tip of the knife is pointing at the entrance hole.

My hit was farther back than it needed to be. The bullet entered several inches behind the onside shoulder and it exited about 14 inches behind the off-side shoulder. As this was a meat hunt I wanted to make sure that I didn't hit the shoulders.

In the end I only lost a few pounds of meat(though it was a lot of work saving what I did save) so it was not the end of the world.

I just scratching my head as I have never seen blood travel this far(there was blood pooled in the neck and brisket). Keep in mind, this was a mid velocity hit(2700-2800fps) with a controled expansion bullet(hornaday GMX) that only went through the ribs and lungs.

Thanks again for all your replies.

and so you did.
I didn't realize the photo's were of the rib cage and neck.
I glanced and saw a "shoulder" instead.

Would agree with Hydrostatic shock.
If I had to guess, the shock tore the vein/artery that supplies the front shoulder.
Until the heart stopped the blood was forced
into the layers of meat and membrane.

My apoligies for miss reading your 1st post.

Don't worry about misreading my post. It was kinda drawn out and confusing.

I really appreciate all of the replies. This site is filled with knowledgeable guys. Thanks again.

if I can't massage the blood out to my satisfaction under cold running tap water, then the dogs get it.

sometimes I see a little more congealed blood, sometimes less, never seen what you have described, but I have not shot elk.

My wife is a great "cleaner" of my poor butchery

I do my best to cut out clots but the cold water/salt soak overnight in the fridge before she cooks it does a great job

I have been processing my own meat for my entire life, and each year generate upwards of 200 pounds of clean boned-out meat, killed with bullet and arrow. Any time you hit an animal in the chest cavity blood will flow out of the wound in between the muscle groups as you observed. On a smaller animal like a young deer or an antelope I generally do not bother trying to clean the coagulated blood out from in between the thin layers of muscle that lay on top of the ribs; it just isn't worth the effort to salvage a pound or two of meat. As you move forward toward the neck and the layers of meat are thicker it most definitely is worth the trouble to clean up. And of course with something as large as an elk, all the trouble is worth it.
We clean off all the "jelly" stuff as well as any connective tissues and fat and pitch it. Likewise, any meat that has blood puddled in between the muscle fibers themselves, which will give it a purple-ish hue, should be discarded. In my experience it is that more than anything else that will give venison the dreaded "gamey" taste so many non-venison eaters complain about. All that should be left if you do this is clean lean meat. Just work slowly and carefully. Doing so is the reason it takes me about one football game to butcher a deer, from skinned hanging carcass to little white packages in the freezer.

Really the only way to avoid what you observed is to only make head or neck shots, which is inadvisable for many reasons that have been discussed here previously.

It all boils down to how many blood vessels have been compromised, regardless of the alleged insult ie metal/bone schrapnel hydrostatic shock etc. No rhyme or reason.

That is pretty impressive. It almost looks like your cow was vehicle hit the night before. Did she fall on a rock or something when she tipped? I have butchered alot of critters too and never seen bloodshot meet that far both directions from the heart.

I have seen this type of meat damage from using Nosler Partitions. That's why I don't use them.

What we have in commom is remarkable! I'm a retired (this year)school teacher and a cow elk was on my 'bucket' list. I shot mine with a 30-06 165 Partition @ 2825fps mv at 80-100yds. she was hit a foot or so back shattered 2 ribs, sliced the liver, through one lung and taking out one rib on exiting. The same bullet path, except in reverse, as yours. There was no reaction to the shot except she reversed course. She trotted (ran) 50-60yds, wobbled and fell over. Again, remarkably the same bloody meet. On boning out the meat that portion was left for last. We were tired and tossed it. I'd say what we tossed rib bone and all might have weighed 15lbs, not enough to worry about. It's the first elk that I have eaten, and is excellent. The liver is wonderful. capt david

Thanks for all the insight and suggestions.

I wasn't going to pull this thread back up the page, but since it has received more comments....

To be clear: it was shot with a Hornady GMX(a lead-free bullet) not a Nosler Partition. The bloodshot meat was not due to an injury as the shoulder that was directly in front of the bloodshot area was clean an blood free.

"Soaking" the rib and neck meat on ice for several days made the clean up much easier. I only lost 6-10 pounds all told.

After giving this more thought I think I know the answer to the blood traveling so far from the wound site: She fell on the entrance side and the hide blocked the entrance hole. Organ tissue was forced into the exit hold which blocked any gas from escaping. I believe that the time it took for up to retrieve the vehicle allowed gas to build up in the carcass which forced the blood that was pooled up in the chest cavity to flow into the entrance wound and from there into the membranes between the muscles that cover the ribs. That is my theory anyway(and it doesn't explain the blood that was in between the muscle fibers in the brisket and neck).

Oh, and I realized that this was not the first time I have seen blood all over the outside of the ribcage:


A bushbuck I shot in Cameroon New-Year's morning 2012. The 2 holes in the shoulder are exits. The bullets were 270gr Barnes X from a 375H&H(@2500fps). I wasn't in on the processing of this animal, but as you can see there was a lot of bloody meat.

The first shot was through the heart as he crossed the trail in front of us. The second was during is "death run"(quartering away, exited through the shoulder). He ran into a fallen tree at the end of his sprint.