First, I'm shooting a Savage 12VLP in .22-250 with 55 grain moly-coated V-max bullets at about 3500 fps (wanted to keep barrel life up a little). The rifle is incredibly accurate and consistent, as it verified the other day with a perfect shot on a groundhog at a little over 200 yards. The interesting part though, was that I hit the 'hog squarely on the shoulder but when I went to get it, it had absolutley no external damage. There was a perfect .22" hole on the left shoulder (which took me a little while to find). I had to gut it out of sheer amazement and curiosity and found everything inside nearly liquified though. Now, this was a pretty big hog, about 10-12 pounds, but I still would have expected a little more destruction. Any thoughts/similar experiences? It sure tears the hell out of milk jugs of water!

Sounds like what my 17's do on larger critters. They appear intact but are full of oatmeal when you pick them up!

They just stop moving at the shot - no cartwheeling, trailing guts, etc.

Redial

Milk jugs don't have a hide that will stretch. If you saw what happened to that hog with high speed camera work, you would be impressed.

Aaron

I've had very similar experiences many times with milder .223 factory loads. I'd label it perfect bullet performanace. Nothiing wasted and no danger to anything but the target. I hadn't shot varmints in 30 years until about two years ago and was startled when I first observed the effect of modern varmint bullets. They do kill like lightening.

quote:

Originally posted by tmoore4627:
....V-max bullets at about 3500 fps ... it had absolutley no external damage. There was a perfect .22" hole on the left shoulder (which took me a little while to find). I had to gut it out of sheer amazement and curiosity and found everything inside nearly liquified though.

I use the 40 gr. V-max in my 223...pushing around 3600 fps.... and the results you described are quite common, from my experience.

But I must admit that I did ricochet one off the head of a hog one time!!! When I killed the hog and looked at him, he had a reverse mohawk (a skinny stripe of baldness) right down the middle of his head!!! That's really hard to do with a V-max, but I did it!!!

You never can tell for certain the effect your shot will have. I've also hit woodchuck with 55 grainers and left similar small entry holes, and exit holes as well. I've also hit them with the same bulet and virtually turned them inside out.
Sometime you'll hit bone and make an incredible mess of it.
I've never been able to predict with any assurance what my shot was going to do. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

It's good to know other people have had similar experiences, I was a little surprised. Of course, when I thought back, I once took a 'hog with my 7 Rem. mag. and 139 gr. SST at 3000+ and while it split it from groin to neck, it didn't exit at all... I guess you just never can tell, especially with those fat ones.