Finally got out to the family hunting grounds with my Glenfield model .30(Marlin .30-30).
Shot a very small Hog, about 15 lbs. It was dancing around, like piglets do, and my broadside shot turned into a severe quartering-towards shot, exactly as I pulled the trigger. Blew the poor little guy nearly in half. In retrospect, perhaps I should have gone for the ear shot. I was plenty close enough (30 yds) to ensure proper placement, presuming he'd held still long enough. There wasn't enough left to bring home for meat
That evening, I shot a small spike for the freezer. My wife had tried to shoot him, but couldn't get situated in the blind to get comfortable for the shot. So I decided to let the .30-30 be heard. Try as I might, I couldn't get the spike to stop walking angling away from me. At first he was about 75 yds, but angled quartering away, and wouldn't stop. Not running.... just walking in that direction. I led him a good bit off the shoulder to the front and remembering what little shotgunning I'd done, forced myself to follow through. Right before he ducked into a thicket, at about 130 yds(as paced off) I fired and he hustled over to the brush, with his off side leg flopping around.
SWEET, ITS BACKSTRAP TIME
so, i thought... but not quite
We gave him 30 minutes or so, thinking he was hit good but just in case since he didn't drop in his tracks. Walked to the far end of the meadow, and looked for blood for a long while. Found exactly where he was standing when I shot, from the tracks and kicked over rocks, and searched out from there for blood. NOT A SINGLE DROP, anywhere. Stepped into the thicket where he ran into thinking for sure there would be some splatter on the taller brush in there. Nope. Just so happens he was laying up under a big cedar tree staring at me. Barely breathing hard.
"Holy crap I missed, and he's bedded down right there." I thought to myself.
From 15 yds away, I put a round through the back of his head when he looked away. Expecting quite a mess, I told my wife to look away(she's sensitive to such messiness, new hunter and all). No splatter, but he flopped over and expired in short order. Exit hole was just below his left eye socket and was little more than a half inch. To this day I've yet to find the entrance hole in the back of his head. It shattered his skull and did the job, but without the explosive damage I'm used to from such shots. I used to use the head shot exclusively on does with my old .308 to save the meat.
Field Dressing revealed that I had in fact hit him with the first shot, but several inches back of where I'd though(from a 2-D, aimpoint POV). The Bullet went in at the front edge of the right ham, and out the left rib cage, just clipping the back of the left(offside) lung. puncturing the Liver and Stomach. This is my fault for shooting at a moving deer, when I'm unfamiliar with such matters. I though since he was only walking that I could pull it off. Any one of a dozen things could have gone wrong.
I couldn't find the entrance hole in the hide for the first shot until I skinned him. The Exit hole was barely .30 caliber, as measured by comparing to a spare unspent cartridge I had with me when skinning him.
All in all, this is quite disappointing considering all I had heard and seen from this ammunition. No bullet or caliber will make up for a bad shot, I know that. But I at least expect a fair exit wound and at least SOME blood on the ground.
I've witnessed the killing of and recovered dozens if not hundreds of deer dispatched with the venerable .30-30 Winchester. Nearly all with the 150 gr. Remington CorLokt, and most at similar ranches to this incident, some up to 200 + yds. The few that did not flop at the bang, left easily followed blood trails, even the ones with poor shot placement such as this one was.
I'm going back out the last weekend of December, and will hopefully have a better experience. I don't want to give up on the "wunderammo" just yet, but we'll see. What do you guys think?
I'll probably let my dad use the old .30-30 and I'll try my hand at some up close stuff with my grandfathers m1 carbine.