Over the weekend I was stalking down in Thetford where I took a small 6 point roebuck and a muntjac doe, who's carcass is in the picture below.

What really surprised me was the path of the bullet and the fact it did not exit even on such a small animal.



To give a perspective on size, the carcass weighs around 7.5kg. The blue circle on the inside of the ribs represents the entry hole, while the blue X on the other side of the carcass shows the point where the bullet hit the opposite ribs..

However instead of exiting, the bullet deflected along the path of the blue arrows before blowing up in the haunches causing the damage shown..

The shot was taken with a .308win loaded with 150grn Speer Hotcores and was taken at a range of about 30yards...

Maybe I need to break out the 9.3x62mm for Muntjac in future!

regards,

Pete

Just be glad he was not charging

I"m coming down your way in 3 weeks to shoot Muntjac, and i was hoping to use my 243.Unfortunately, it"s off being rebarrelled, and it"s looking like i might not have it back in time.
This leaves me with my .308, but going by your experience and comments by others here I might be just as well with the 308 anyway.
good shooting

quote:

Originally posted by Pete E:


Maybe I need to break out the 9.3x62mm for Muntjac in future!

regards,

Pete

Brass Thief,

Charging munties aside, lots of people use a .243 on them and have great results.
I am sure 99.9% of the time either caliber would perform well...

I haven't shot a huge number of munties, but enough for this incident to seem "strange"..

I am guessing its a just a one off...

Regards,

Pete

Pete,
are you using laft handed bullets
you need a proper caliber like the 25

will we be seeing you on Arran this year?

regards
griff

Pete

Just came across this on modern stalking (if you haven't already seen it)

http://www.modern-stalking.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=624

Seems like the same thing happened on this Muntjac

quote:

Originally posted by Pete E:

The shot was taken with a .308win loaded with 150grn Speer Hotcores and was taken at a range of about 30yards...

Pete,

I trust your visit to the St Herberts went well (I heard a rumour about a rather high ranking members ND recently?)

I think the above statement about range is the clue. Close in bullets are both a little unstable and also higher velocity. Higher velocity means more expansion and perhaps a greater chance of unequal expansion which might cause such dramatic veering.

Old muntjac bucks are actualy very very tough indeed. They have neck skin about .25" thick and thick muscular necks. I have recovered 154gr 7mm bullets from them.....

This toughness on bullets does not IMHO translate to difficulty to kill, I would happily use a 222rem on them all day.

I really dont like Speer Hot-Core bullets and i suspect they are the culprit and nothing else. I shot a whitetail buck this past season probably around 150lbs live weight. I hit him with a 6.5X55 shooting 140gr Speer hot-cores and he was only 35yds away, the bullet did not exit and i suspect it did the same thing as in your Munty.

You're not a Herbert are you Pete?

Please tell me it is not true.

Pete, i have supreme confidence in my .243, what i meant was that if i don"t get it back in time(from rebarrelling) i will be forced to use the 308 which i felt was overpowered for such a small deer.
If i have to use the .308, i wonder if my usual 150 gr Hornady SST would be suitable?
I tried using 130 gr"s for ROE, but the added vleocity just smashed them up even worse than the 150"s.
good shooting

Jon, 1894mk2,

I've been a member for a few years now and enjoy it very much. If you enjoy deer and deer stalking, its hard not to enjoy it...As with any Club or organisation, there is a certain amount of politics ect that goes on, but I tend to keep out of it and just enjoy myself..Again, like other organisations or clubs, the membership is somewhat mixed...a few I count as good friends, few still are not my cup of tea, while the majority are simply people who love deer stalking and enjoy being out and about with like minded folks...

As for the rumours, stalkers seem to like their gossip, so I am not going to spoil their fun by saying any more

And there are at least three other members who post here on AR , probably more if you count some of the European folks!

Regards,

Pete

quote:

Originally posted by griff:
Pete,
are you using laft handed bullets
you need a proper caliber like the 25

will we be seeing you on Arran this year?

regards
griff

Griff,

Funnily enough, Paul has been trying to twist my arm to go up with him and a couple of others.
Truth is i really don't think i am fit enough as yet although I am improving slowly...

For now I have stick with my "carpet slipper" stalking in Thetford!

regards,

Pete

brass thief, fgulla ,

I think both you chaps have made some good points. When I first started using the Hot-cores i was very happy with them, but over the last couple of years, I 've started to change my mind because odd incidents like this.


As to the Hornady 150grns, The simple answer is that I don't know as I have never used them..

I have some Hornady 165grn Interlocks to try, but i haven't worked up a load as yet..A friend has also had very good luck with Remington 180grn RN which he says performs well on everything from Muntjac to Fallow..He says on Muntjac the big relatively slow bullet causes less damage than the 150grn he had tried...

Regards,

Pete

Pete, that would concur with what i found by going lower than 150gr. I had some lovely little Hornady soft points in 130gr, they shot real flat and were a joy to shoot. I thought that the smaller bullet might be a good all round size for the Roe and Red that were on the land. Never got to shoot a Red with them but found them a bit too destructive for my liking on Roe.My mate had a 30 06, and found the 165"s and 180"s to be easier on meat than the 150"s.
I"ll stick to my SST"s if i have to use the 308 for munties. I got onto the SST"s about a year ago when a mate gave me a handful of bullets. Most accurate bullets i"ve used in the 308, way better than the old soft points i"d always used.
good shooting

quote:

Originally posted by brass thief:
Pete, i have supreme confidence in my .243, what i meant was that if i don"t get it back in time(from rebarrelling)

Who is rebarreling your 243? Mine was done by Norman Clarke with a Border 9twist and I have to say it is SO good.

Re the 308 I would say that you could do better than the 150gr SST - I haven't used them myself but they are likely to be quite expansive. The 150gr interbond does not expand so fast and works very well for me. I have used 165gr BTs on muntjac and roe out of a 30-06 (2,800fps) and there is very little carcass damage.

I liked the 130gr hornadies but found them a bit too expansive like you. They have a very poor BC so are not quite as flat as you might think. For short range they would probably do very well if you were to use a start load.

The bullet on the L, is a 160 SGK 7 mm bullet (7x64) recovered from a Muntjac. Frontal shot at 80 m ; the bullet was excised from the opposing ham.

BTW, the head was awarded a CIC silver medal.

Hi, they are tough but when faced with overwhelming opposition they have no option but to surrender.........
Shot one last year with my .300 win. 165gr Sierra GK backed up by 71gr of V160.

No blade needed for the gralloch but aside from the fact that most of the offside rib cage was missing, there was surprisingly little carcass damage.

I agree with some of the other comments: essentially its a question of bullet design. In my case magnum velocities and shortish range caused disintegration. In the case that started this thread it looks like either an odd shot that turned on a rib and when met with rather stiff resistance in the hindquarters gave up. Or an overtough jacket in the first place for the size of animal.

BTW I'm not advocating .300 win for muntys it just happened to walk across a ride a the wrong time and where I was stalking all muntys are given pretty short shrift.

Cheers

Z

quote:

Originally posted by Pete E:
Jon, 1894mk2,

I've been a member for a few years now and enjoy it very much. If you enjoy deer and deer stalking, its hard not to enjoy it...As with any Club or organisation, there is a certain amount of politics ect that goes on, but I tend to keep out of it and just enjoy myself..Again, like other organisations or clubs, the membership is somewhat mixed...a few I count as good friends, few still are not my cup of tea, while the majority are simply people who love deer stalking and enjoy being out and about with like minded folks...

As for the rumours, stalkers seem to like their gossip, so I am not going to spoil their fun by saying any more

And there are at least three other members who post here on AR , probably more if you count some of the European folks!

Regards,

Pete

As the grand Phubar of the Order of the flintknappers it is good to see that you have finally 'come out.'

Note to Griff: I will be visiting the Arran project during the first week of October. hopefully we will catch the rut this time.
I will be bringing a small team from the South with me, so we should all be in for a laugh !!
I still have the write up for the last trip to post. I promise to publish it before we go on the next trip.

As for the muntjac. In future I suggest you leave the trick shots to the 'A' stalkers.

Seriously though. I had a similar incident about 3 years ago. That time was with speer 120 grain in a 6.5 x 55. The shot placement was just behind the left shoulder. same sort of range( 30-35 yards).

First sign something was up was the lack of an exit wound. later inspection showed that the bullet had 'turned' in the beast and racked down the opposite side of the rib cage,(breaking almost all of them) until it lodged in the haunch. Bullet weight was about 60-70%
of original.
Conclusion was that the jacket must have started to part from the core in an irregular fashion. This must have thrown the bias of the bullet out causing the strange trajectory.

It would be interesting to note if you found very heavy bruising along the side where the broken ribs were.
The flank on mine almost acted like a catchers mit, in the way that it contained the bulllet.Rather than bursting and producing an exit wound, it appeared to have billowed and retained the bullet inside the animal.

Strange things happen.............