should a bullet exit an animal or not??

[kyote]

I have read in areas of the GB forums about exiting of bullets are not exiting of bullets.seems some hunters have to have a blood trail to follow because of poor shot lacement and inadequate bullets preformance.so they want the bullet to exit.then some shoot an animal and it goes to the ground because the bullet blew up and did not exit.and they seem to think the bullet failed??I even saw where one feller wrote that his pappy hit a deer in the ham and the bullet blew up and the deer ran off and when they found it the deer could not get up and was looking at them when the had to give it the coupe de grace.and the feller said it was poor bullet preformance..WHAT? poor bullet performance???I would say poor shooting skills.

I have read, to my recollection that the better performance or maybe the performance you want is a bullet to all most go thru the animal just laying on the underside of the skin where it would have exited with a little more power.

I saw a guy shoot a once in a life time hunt "oryx".they are guided by LE and game and fish guys because of security reasons and uxo concerns.well,It was a nice oryx so was the one behind it.the bullet went all the way thru and killed the other one.the man was arrested removed from the range can not hunt here anymore.and was fined big time."what is one of the rules of firearms???"

I was in texas and this ole boy with a .300 wheatrby shot a nice white tail.the bullet went thru and  killed a nice doe behind it.not legal and not following the rules of firearms.wonder what one that is?

that was only animals dieing needlessly..I have storys about folks getting shot by exiting bullets.

I have had bullets exit before.but try to hunt with the cartridges and firearms suited for the game that I am hunting I only used to use my 30-06.and could load bullets and powder accordingly.the ole oh6 is sweet..

I was just wondering what some of the experts thought about this.

[R.W.Dale]

I have read in areas of the GB forums about exiting of bullets are not exiting of bullets.seems some hunters have to have a blood trail to follow because of poor shot lacement and inadequate bullets preformance

 Odviously you either are very lucky or have not taken much game, Because even if shot placement is perfect and the bullet preform as expected a deer/elk can still go an alarmingly long distance. If you kill enough game you'll eventually have an experiance where an animal that should be dead will run off like a lightning bolt and that's when an exit wound/blood trail becomes a necicity not an option.

 Mine was when a large doe was shot through the heart with a .50 caliber powerbelt, this particular deer ran over 200 yds through the thickest cover. When the postmortem (cleaning) was preformed the heart literally rolled out onto the ground completely shot loose.

 I'm glad you like your 06 but one day you'll find out that it's not the hammer of god you've always thought it to be AND when that happens you'll wish you had a blood trail as well.

[Graybeard]

ABSOLUTELY. I'm not gonna hunt with anything I don't expect to exit.

[quickdtoo]

Ummm, I like 2 holes myself, one in and one out, it don't get no simpler than that!!

Tim

[dukkillr]

Yes, it should exit.  I'm with GB, I wouldn't use a combination that wouldn't go through a deer.

[Don Fischer]

Seem's to me it would be hard to find a legal cartridge using a suitable bullet with good shot placement that wouldn't go completely thru a deer size animal.

[handi243]

Exit

[kyote]

Okay...looks like more powder goes in to the 06 case for now..maybe when I get back from turkey day festivitys I might have to take some out..will see what others have to say.

[Graybeard]

Seem's to me it would be hard to find a legal cartridge using a suitable bullet with good shot placement that wouldn't go completely thru a deer size animal.

Then yer jist ain't shot enough of them with enough different rounds Don.

My first handgun deer was shot with a .44 Magnum using an old (pre XTP) Hornady 180 JHP from about 25 yards broadside thru the lungs. Bullet was found under the hide on the far side and only barely mushroomed at all. I should still have it around here somewhere. Since then I've not used any less than a 240 grain in the .44 mag and haven't had another stay inside.

I shot one deer with a .243 Winchester using Hornady factory ammo with the 100 grain SP. My sight picture at the time the gun went off tells me it should have been a double lung shot but the results tells me it wasn't. The buck did take a step just as the trigger broke and it "might" have been a bit far back in the lungs or even in front of liver but still either way it "should" have been a good killing shot. The buck ran at the shot and I got down and went to look for blood. No such luck, no exit and even tho I followed the trail it took for at least the couple hundred yards I was able to see him run still no blood. Had it exited there would have been a big spray of blood but there wasn't. Result was lost deer. It was found a week or so later by folks who hunted with me laying dead in a field about 1/4 mile away. The buzzards gave away its location. From their description of the antlers it was the same buck. I've never taken a .243 afield since and just can't make myself do so.

As best as I can recall tho it seems all others I've shot have been pass thru shots. At least at the moment I can't think of any others that weren't.

[lewdogg21]

I even saw where one feller wrote that his pappy hit a deer in the ham and the bullet blew up and the deer ran off and when they found it the deer could not get up and was looking at them when the had to give it the coupe de grace.and the feller said it was poor bullet preformance..WHAT? poor bullet performance???I would say poor shooting skills.

That was me.  Was it a bad shot? Yes.  The animal started to bolt as he pulled the trigger.  Anybody who claims they only hit their intended target perfectly every time and never miss is probably lying to you.  The point was the bullet hit the back ham and fragmented into numerous pieces which was terrible bullet performance from a supposedly high quality big game bullet. 

[Don Fischer]

Graybeard,

I've never shot anything larger than a rabbit with a hand gun. maybe your right there. But I have shot deer with a lot of different cartridges including, I think 3 with the 243. I don't care for the 243 either as a deer cartridge but, people have been very successful with it. You'll notice I also said: "suitable bullet and good shot placement. I saw a guy shoot a good buck in the butt with some Federal factory load, 180gr, from a 30-06 that did not exit. While the bullet was probally suitable, the shot placement stunk!

I also recovered one 117gr bullet from a 25-06 out of a deer that had gone in, struck a bone and vered off course up the spine. The spine was shattered for a good ways and the bullet was lodged several inches below the head, in the spine. I suspect that had the same shot been taken with one of my 6.5's, the bullet would have cleared. I strongly believe that the best bullet's for hunting what we call big game in any caliber, are the mid to heavy bullet's and would not concider less than 100grs in 24 cal. Anyway, that is the extent of my recovered bullet's in deer. One recovered bullet in a bear was a 140gr Sierra from a 7mm Rem mag, if you could call what was recovered a bullet. Choice of bullet was bad but the placement was good. Head on the bullet hit the bear in the center of the chest, I'm not sure any bullet I'd care to shoot would penetrate the entire length of a bear.

Have also shot a number of elk and never recovered a bullet. Again, for me good shot placement is the route of least resistence to the vital's. If someone in fact want's to shoot light for caliber bullet's and see how much mass they can get thru and still kill an animal, complete penetration may well become suspect. Again I'm also talking about only rifle cartridges, I know little of handguns in big game hunting. I have heard many stories of light weight, lightly constructed bullet's doing incredable thing's. For the most part I believe they are stories to justify the use of to light a bullet at high velocity and usually in to small a cal. We see where different bullet manufacture's are indeed offering better constructed bullet's in these cal's, ie: the 22 cal Nosler partition. Given enough velocity I'm sure they penetrate beyond their size. But velocity and energy fall off rapidly putting them into the short range show off cataglory to me.

It would be hard to stop a well constructed, suitable bullet, from a legal cartridge with good shot placement from exiting. Of course, all exit wound's are not equal!

[stalker1]

Should a bullet exit or not? I think that if it does exit then it should expend as much energy while in the animal as possible. A pass-through, once it leaves the animal, is wasted energy and dangerous. The only way you can control this is through good shot placement whenever possible, (tough in hunting conditions) proper load selection, etc. If it stays in the animal then I think it should do as much damage as possible to vitals while remaining as intact as possible through controlled expansion. By doing this you have a good wound channel that hopefully gives you something to track if it stays on it's feet or gets back up after going down.


Just my .02 worth

[flintlock]

I like to have a bullet that exits on broadside lung shots, and gives a good sized exit wound...I don't care if it exits on high shoulder shots...I once used bullets that would exit every time...I found that lung shot deer were running 100-125 yards before piling up...When I shoot deer with the "softer" bullets they run 25-60 yards on lung shots...With high shoulder shots, as long as the bullet penetrates through the closest shoulder blade and the spine, the deer will drop.

Bullets open up faster at higher velocities (closer range) than at longer range, so you need to experiment with different bullet construction to see what works best in your gun for the ranges that you typically shoot....The same bullet that opens up well at 250 yards might come apart on a high shoulder shot at 25 yards, so its a comprimise...I have 2 main bullets that I have settled on through the years, one works well for woods hunting where shots will be within 50-60 yards, the other works better for shots past 200 yards...I am fortunate in that one of these prints 1/2 inch higher than the other, so I don't have to change my zero...

I try to shoot 6-7 deer before I form a hard opinion on a deer bullet...Sometimes strange things happen..You need to shoot a bullet that gives you enough confidence so that you know you killed the deer, even if tracking after the shot is tough...Last year my brother shot a big doe at about 85 yards..He was shooting a .270 with a Federal Premium 130 gr Sierra GameKing  SPBT..
A good cartridge with a good load...He has killed at least 100 deer with this load...The deer was quartering toward him, it was getting late and he hit the deer just behind the front shoulder...His shot was about 6 inches too far back, due to the angle....We tracked the deer for about 150 yards, through a thicket, and into a swamp...The exit was plugged by intestines, so we had very little blood for about 100 yards or so...If he had hit the deer properly, it would have dropped right there, or gone less than 50 yards...No problem with bullet preformance, it was operator error...

[R.W.Dale]

If it stays in the animal then I think it should do as much damage as possible to vitals while remaining as intact as possible through controlled expansion. By doing this you have a good wound channel that hopefully gives you something to track if it stays on it's feet or gets back up after going down.

 The problem with that is entrance wounds bleed very little if at all.

[jpsmith1]

BIG hole, clean through.  I've killed deer successfully with a light .24 cal rifle, but prefer to see a through and through hole.  More blood, more damage, easier tracking.

As far as "expending all of it's energy inside"  I though that was debunked years ago,  Bullet energy means little to animals.  You might be impressed my downrange energy figures and velocity thingies, but animals are notoriously illiterate.  I've not found too many animals that have read ballistics charts.  You can expend thousands of foot-pounds of energy in a shoulder or a ham without reaching the vitals.  Still not a dead animal.  With a deep penetrator, that shallow wound turns into a deep, long wound channel and a dead animal.

You can't kill it unless your bullet makes it to the vitals.  The only way to 100% ensure that will happen is to use a good bullet that will penetrate from any sane angle.

[TribReady]

I'll just add to what's been said. I think with most whitetail shots in the US, at the very least where we hunt, a standard soft-point bullet works best.  Rapid expansion on a relatively small animal at relatively short ranges.
As far as exit, this year provides a perfect example. My father shot a buck thru one lung and top of heart. It ran about 50 yds and died. He saw it go down.  That's great, great shot and all, but there was no exit. The bullet lodged in the far shoulder blade.  We backtracked the 50 yds and no blood trail, even with snow.
My deer was shot at 30 yds or so, double lung pass thru. She ran about 30 yds and died. The blood trail was unreal. It was everywhere.
Now both these deer fell close to where shot, but as stated, deer that are shot well and should die right away can and will run a long, long, way.  Ask any of us bowhunters about that.  All that being said, it's obvious that an exit wound clearly gives the advantage. Anything to better a blood trail will help. It may not be needed all the time, but when it is, you'll be very happy to have it 

[Redhawk1]

I like a good pass through shot, that is why I choose my bullets carefully. I also want the max energy expended in the animal I am shooting.
Good penetration, good bullet expansion equals maximum energy transfer, which give the most tissue damage. Shot placement is the key to success.
You don't want a bullet to zip right through an animal and do no major tissue damage either. Exit holes are nice as long as your bullet did it's job on the way through.

[GRIMJIM]

I think redhawk summed it up. I know a guy that hunts whitetail with a 22-250. Way too small for me, sure if placed right it will certainly kill a deer but I prefer too use something a little larger. I stick with the old standard winchester 30-30 silver tips. A lot slower than the 22-250 but with more punch, and the soft point gives good expansion even at close ranges.

[clodbuster]

The discussion you can find on Veral Smiths topic is very explicit on wound channels and killing power and it makes very good sense to me.  I want a moderate wound channel all the way through the animal.  This is achieved by a mushroomed bullet passing all the way through the animal at good velocity and exiting.  Energy never killed a mouse or moose.  The energy transfer argument doesn't work for me only the longest possible wound channel.  The bullet stopped by the animal didn't have enough energy to do its job as well as it could..

[Redhawk1]

The discussion you can find on Veral Smiths topic is very explicit on wound channels and killing power and it makes very good sense to me.  I want a moderate wound channel all the way through the animal.  This is achieved by a mushroomed bullet passing all the way through the animal at good velocity and exiting.  Energy never killed a mouse or moose.  The energy transfer argument doesn't work for me only the longest possible wound channel.  The bullet stopped by the animal didn't have enough energy to do its job as well as it could..

We all don't have to agree and probably won't.  But answer this for me, the hydrostatic shock is caused by what?  I will tell you, it is the transfer of energy from the bullet to the animals tissue. I stick to my original answer, until you or anyone else can actually prove other wise.

[beemanbeme]

If the transfer of energy doesn't count for anything, what does it mean when I have shot deer with a rifle and knocked them off their feet and made an even more lethal  shot with an arrow and had them run off to be tracked???

[Graybeard]

No deer has ever been "kocked off it's feet" by any shoulder fired arm no matter what anyone here might believe. It's a physical impossibility. If you doubt it take a bucket and fill it with sand. Now shoot that same gun into it and let's see how far the bucket moves. Hint it won't.

The deer merely reacted to the noise of the gunshot and the pain of the wound combined and did what it did. The very next one you shoot at that same distance in that same place will act totally different. Just the nature of the beast.

But you guys who believe in paper energy just keep on believing, heck maybe the tooth fairy will come visit you also. 

[Redhawk1]

No deer has ever been "kocked off it's feet" by any shoulder fired arm no matter what anyone here might believe. It's a physical impossibility. If you doubt it take a bucket and fill it with sand. Now shoot that same gun into it and let's see how far the bucket moves. Hint it won't.

The deer merely reacted to the noise of the gunshot and the pain of the wound combined and did what it did. The very next one you shoot at that same distance in that same place will act totally different. Just the nature of the beast.

But you guys who believe in paper energy just keep on believing, heck maybe the tooth fairy will come visit you also. 

I saw a tooth fairy several years ago, I think he took one of my guns. 

[Drilling Man]

  I think these pictures of this meat buck i harvested tell the whole story!!!  I walked up to him and took a pict of the entrance, and flipped him over and took the second pict...

  Entrance wound,


  Exit wound,


  I shot him with an 8mm 200NP at about 125 yards and he ran about 35 yards...

   DM

[jpsmith1]

Exactly.  Perfect shot.

[R.W.Dale]

 A great illustration of the diffrence in the amount of blood loss from an entrance and an exit wound.

 Nice buck, I bet he'll make some great stew

[clodbuster]

My point about energy transfer goes to the argument that "the ideal is to have all the energy of the bullet transferred to the animal".  I say, better to have enough energy to blow all the way through  and waste some of it as the bullet flies away.

[darat100]

No deer has ever been "kocked off it's feet" by any shoulder fired arm no matter what anyone here might believe. It's a physical impossibility. If you doubt it take a bucket and fill it with sand. Now shoot that same gun into it and let's see how far the bucket moves. Hint it won't.

Graybeard

I have to agree, except the whitetail bucket is extremely topheavy on 4 spindles 18 or so inches tall.  A shot at the top of the back and a lot of leverage can definately knock a deer over.  I have a tendency to believe a deer has no desire to jump upside down on his head.  A quick reaction might be to blame in some circumstances, but I had a doe flip back end first and then the front end followed.  Ever seen a deer jump butt first?  I haven't.  Not saying they don't, but I have never seen the back end first.

[Drilling Man]

My point about energy transfer goes to the argument that "the ideal is to have all the energy of the bullet transferred to the animal".  I say, better to have enough energy to blow all the way through  and waste some of it as the bullet flies away.

  To add a bit to your post:  Folks are so "over gunned" these days who cares if some energy is expended in the ground on the other side of the animial?  It's amazeing how many folks think they need a cannon to kill a deer these days!

  DM

[R.W.Dale]

extremely topheavy on 4 spindles 18 or so inches tall.

 Think about it YOUR legs are longer than 18" (I would hope) and you only have two of them. So how in the world do you think you keep from being knocked down by the rifle you're shooting? If your rifle doesn't knock you over shooting it, it isn't going to knock a whitetail over either.

 Newton's third law applies to firearms as well as everything else in the universe.

To every action (force applied) there is an equal and opposite reaction (equal force applied in the opposite direction).