Caliber, weight, energy. bullet type deer hunting

[Colville]

There was a good discussion about the .270 and the bullet use, 130gn vs 150 on deer. The discussion covered bullet type sierra's vs noslers, energy, expansion etc.  I'd like to expand on that a bit. I saw a deer shot last year, .270  150grn boat tail at 30 yards. While the hit wasn't perfect (lets just stipulate that placement is key) the shot was freehand and a tad high and toward the tail end of the lungs. The deer left a blood trail from both sides for a quarter mile... kept on going...... lost. Hit was fatal, just not in a timely fashion and I've seen deer hit similarly go down much quicker.

I have several weapons, I'm proficeint with them. I have only a "book" knowledge of the diffent bullet types and uses. If some generalizations could be made with respect to deer, what are preferred bullet styles, grain weights for 100 yards and under and say 150 and over for the most popular calibers.. 06,  .270 .243 .308 etc? Unfortunately or fotunatley depending on perspective, I haven't 100 or so deer to slay at a variety of ranges with a variety of loads from different angles of approach.

I keep seeing folks in here with real respect for the 7mm-08. I've always looked at the chart on it and said.... eh... shoots like a mortar even compared with my 06? After following some of the discussions in here I'm begining to change my mind. Most of my hunting is done at 100 and in and very often 50 yards and in. It appears that there is "some" consensus that it is preferable to have a wider, heavier, quick expanding bullet (slower) for greater performance. Is it the general idea in here that a 7mm-08 or 30-30 or .35 for close in may provide for improved bullet performance on the deer than one might get from a greater energy, high FPS bullet that expands late ala the .270 discussion?  

I have almost exclusively used noslers. 150's in my 06, 150's in my .270 and 100's in my .243. While 180's would be slower and heavier in my 06 at the ranges I'm shooting would the design of this bulle be for heavier game and deeper penetration before expansion than I desire? Should I go 130? Anyhow, there is no magic single answer but I"m looking for generalizations about grain weights and bullet designs on deer and varying range. As always I fully appreciate the discussion and nice to have it pre season to boot.

Colville

[huntsman]

All this talk about the .270 not killing deer effectively at short range begs the following true account. A mature whitetail doe (@80 lbs field dress) at 17 paces was shot between the fourth and fifth ribs almost exactly midway between the top and bottom lines broadside. Rifle used was .270 Winchester with Federal soft point 130 grain ammunition. The bullet left an exit hole the size of a nickel, shattering opposite fourth rib. The deer jumped and spun upon impact, dashing and then loping off through the brush. I waited the requisite 10 minutes before beginning tracking. The blood trail showed a good hit, bright red blood, not buckets but easily followed. I found the doe piled up 65 yards from location of hit, dead as a stone. Field dress revealed an intact heart and arteries/veins but a virtual lung soup.

Similar hits on deer at longer distances have shown direct evidence that on shots inside 50 yards, some of the deer ran a little further, but never more than 80 yards. Deer shot at 70 to 125 yards dropped like rocks when hit with various heart/lung placed shots with this ammo.

IMHO: There is nothing the least bit weak about the .270 at short ranges loaded with factory soft point 130 grain bullets. You can, however, expect a little further run after the shot. I will continue to use 130 grain ammo in my .270 with no shadow of a doubt about what it will do to the heart/lungs of a deer.

[myronman3]

i have yet to have a deer shot with my 270 take even one step after the shot.  these ranged from deer at all out run and those  totally relaxed.   ranges ran from short to 240-250 yards.

[longwinters]

I have always been an 06 fan.  I have shot deer from 12 paces to 150 yds and they dont go far . . . if anywhere.  The 270's that men who hunt with me use also do not lose deer a/c poor ballistics etc...But I will be using the 7M-08 this year.  Why?  Just for a change of pace.  As a side note: I just dont think that there are nearly as many "poor" calibers as there are poor shots and guys that stretch the details cuz they dont want to admit they screwed up.  Out to 300 yds there really isnt much that isnt effective on putting down a whitetail.  Just my opinion of course  :roll:

longwinters

[Dave in WV]

I can't see a .270 not up to deer hunting. I've hunted with a .243 for 10 years and don't feel under gunned. I load 100gr core-lokts and they work great for me.  The wife of the  fellow I teach hunter safety with shot an elk four years ago with a .243 using 100gr partitions as did another woman on the same hunt. Two shots, two elk.

[Colville]

I do not doubt the effectiveness of the .270 at short ranges. I think the broader question was one of hair splitting and how fine should one should split em. The question is really one of what's "ideal" rather than will any given round kill. I don't doubt that anything from a .22 to a .375 will kill a deer at 45 yards any more than all of them won't if you can't hit a deer vitally.

I think my direction here was; what is the ideal grain and bullet design for a given caliber on deer at varying range. Is it better to have noslers, speers, spitzers etc and are they ideal at x range found in a certain grain load?  

In the continueum (sp) from .243 with 100's up to 7mm rem mag with 175's is there an "ideal" effect or a deminishing returns point on a given caliber and round? As it was said earlier you might see a deer drop like a sack at 150 with that .270 130 and see the same shot send one for a jaunt at 40 yards. Both no doubt are leathal. Buy if you are sitting in your stand and shooting 50 and in or 100 and over with .270 are you going to change your grain or bullet design? With an 06? I recognize this is hair splitting and that quality shots at either range will be effective with any of the calibers and loads discussed. I shoot an 06 as often as not so which load 130, 150, 180, nosler, spitzer? Lots of variety of choice just trying to get the best tool for the job. Thanks for the thoughts!

Colville

[Dave in WV]

colville, I read an interesting article this week on knock down power. The writer told of a buffalo culling hunt in Africa. The men culling the heard used the same loads and shot the animals as closely to the same point and angle as they could. Most dropped instantly but others didn't. The were trained as vets so they did autopsies on each animal and found the ones that dropped instantly had damage to the vascular area of the brain. The ones that didn't drop instantly did not have that damage. These animals were shot in the heart. They concluded the bullets hit as the heart was pumping blood to the brain and the shock caused an over pressure. Maybe this explains why animals drop sometimes and not others. Dave

[sport240]

I'll chime in here just to help the relection process along if I can....

To start off with the .270 is an excellent whitetail caliber...ther is nothing another caliber can do that the .270 can't for whitetail deer...period.

Secondly, what I'm suspecting here is bullet construction....I'm gonna draw some stones here, but what the heck....there are alot of new-fangled, fancy, multi-construction bullets made for deep penetration, controlled/delayed expansion.  One must remember that a deer (especially the 70-100lbs deer you fellows down south hunt) is a thin-skinned animal....it is not a hog, nor a moose....you do not need special bullet construction that will delay expansion to kill a deer...I'd even say...Stay Away from these Bullets!!! They are simply not designed for deer, but rather Elk, Moose and certain Sheep.  If your taking a Fail-Safe, of Swift-A-Frame or even certain Nosler Partitions and hitting deer with them at 100-150 feet with velocities around 2800-2900 fps...you can bet your bottom dollar that those bullets simply will not do what they are designed to do...they may just end up acting as FMJ's and pass right through that deer...then you go on a nice little walk for a couple of hours....

What you really need for deer at those ranges is Energy Transfer....you want to take the energy stored in the bullet and make sure it is transferred and is dissipated in the deer itself, not a tree 100 yds from the exit hole.....Soft points are excellent for deer hunting, some hunters will even tell you that flat noses are even better because they really "whomp" the deer in it's tracks spending all of it's energy on or very near impact...you will get some fragmentation, but remember that some fragentation is'nt all that bad if it happens inside the deer...it is excellent on arteries and such...get away from the 100% weight retention, 2X expansion, deep penetration/controlled action bullets for deer...get a good solid bullet (ie..Core-lokt's, Interlock's, Power-point's) and it should do just fine...

My 2 Cents...

Sport240

[Graybeard]

Deer are really NOT that hard to kill. Put a decently constructed bullet in the right place and they are dead. Now putting them down where they stand is a whole nother ball of wax. That don't happen that often unless the CNS is struck by the bullet. Can but can't be depended on to happen.

Is there an ideal caliber, bullet, cartridge combination? Nope I don't think so. Lots of them yes but a single one nope.

For me the 7-08 with 140 grain bullets of standard construction has proven itself time and time again to be an excellent choice. So much so in fact that even tho wife, oldest son and I have all three used her old Rem. Model 7 in 7-08 on game ranging from a squirrel to deer to hogs to exotics to ferals it has never ever missed and never ever required a second shot. The same can be said of all other rifles so chambered I've owned. Right now that's the only cartridge I can say that of for me personally. I've used lots of others all fully up to the job but for one reasonor another something went wrong and a miss or second shot was needed.

Why? Dunno. The 7-08 just seems a perfect combination of power, accuracy and mild recoil that engenders accurate shot placement and has a velocity range that doesn't require premium bullets to hold together at close range. I've used it on game from just off the muzzle to a bit over 200 yards and with perfect success in all cases.

The .270 Win. is likely my next favorite and I've always used one of two bullets both of which have performed superbly. They are the Hornady 140 BTSP and the Nosler 150 PT. My son is still using my last rifle in this caliber which I gave him for Christmas one year and still using those same two bullets to knock the deer over nicely.

I sure like how the .30-06 performs and in it I've used the 180 grain Remington RN Core-Loct the most. Sure is effective.

Love the old .35 Rem. with 200 grain RN bullet from any  of the manufacturers of it if you happen to be a lever action fan. Would hate to be without that one also. It kills all out of proportion to the paper ballistics it has.

Yeah I've used others but those are my favorites and why.

GB

[Power]

My take on this is there are 2 results usually seen;

1. Bullet explodes inside the target expending all it's energy, animal drops in it's tracks.
2. Bullet travels through expending some or most of it's energy and leaves a guarenteed blood trail while the animal runs some distance.

No way to insure you'll get one vs. the other, even with the "perfect" combination. To that end if you want an animal to drop in it's tracks you need to either hit it in the spine/neck/brain or use a hyper-fast caliber that will put a quickly-expanding bullet into the gelatin-like mass that is the animals body. The hyperbolic shock that results from that bullet hitting a water-like mass is usually what makes the creature drop (like shooting a milk-jug full of water - partition usually goes through w/out much explosive effect, balitic tip blows up like a depth-charge).

If you are hunting bigger, hardier game you would need a LOT more transferred energy to get the same results (again, this is a generalization). Since most of us don't want to shoot a 20mm rifle at 3,000 fps w/ a 1,000 grain balistic-tip we tent to go for a bullet of more solid contruction (Partition, A-frame, Fail-safe) that will penetrate well and impart most  of its' energy into the game, sometimes resulting in a bullet that exits and leaves a blood trail. Using a better bullet insures the bullet will go in as deep as the math allows (bullet weight & caliber x velocity x density of animal),  and imply maximum external bleeding effect (like using an arrow).

If you want it to drop dead at the shot shoot it in the head or spine. However, those are very low percentage shots to make every time and not moral to use most of the time by most hunters for that reason. If you can make that shot 90% of the time you probably are justified to use them. However, if you ever see a deer that someone has shot it's jaw off and it's run around for a week suffering you'll never try a head shot. Same thing with neck shots (through the esophogas - deer kinda starts to rot to death). Spine shot gives more room for error but you ruin some awesome backstrap so that's not that great either.

To me, your best bet is the heart/lungs. For deer shoot whatever shoots well in your gun and avoid the heavier-designed bullets unless you have reason to use them (I shoot 175g Partitions in my 7mm for deer and elk so I don't have to change). Best thing you can do is practice. You shoot something in the heart, it's going to die quickly, and 99.9999% you'll recover it.

[John Y Cannuck]

I had a newbie hunting with me a few years back, he nailed a standing broadside doe at about 80 yards with a 150gr Winchester silver tip 270 factory load. Being a newbie, he aimed at the whole animal, not the heart / lung area. Result was a dramatic, and horrifying gut shot. The deer didn't go far, it trailed innards behind it for maybe a hundred yards. Pretty much everything below the diaphram fell out through the huge hole in the off side.
Disgusting, and he sure was told about it, standing there with a goofy grin on his face. Hell of a way for an animal to die.

It did demonstrate however the kind of power that the 270 delivers to target. I would never have done that kind of damage with the 30-30 I was carrying that day. But then I wouldn't have gut shot it either.

[rpseven]

Encore with a 24' bullberry barrel 7mm Remington Mag with a 140 gr. sierra spitzer boattail at 54.1grs. of IMR 4350. Thats what I will be shooting this year. Here is a thought, I seen some Sierra 120grs. 7mm's at my local gunshop and I was curious on how they would work on these southern whitetails and this is the reply I got back from sierra:
The 120 will be a bomb in the ribs on deer!  If not having to shoot thru brush and can wait for the soft-tissue shot; this would be the best choice!  Good hunting and thanks for using our products!  Do you live in Decherd and have just changed email addresses?

Just a thought!!!