Bullet failure

[RaySendero]

I shot a doe last thursday morning.  I shot her with a 300 Model 7 300 saum.  I did not have time to make up a bunch of different loads.  I had some 150 grain hornady SP interlocks.  I have had good luck out of hornady bullets.  I loaded them up with a close to max load of RL19.  I shot this does broad side about 60 yards through the boiler room.  When I skinned her out, the bullet never exited, the entrance wound was as big as football!!!  Wow, too much damage.  I found the copper jacket a piece of the bullet that weighed just 42 grains!  I am not complaining but i have never shot a deer with a rifle of that size and not had a exit wound.  I think I will look into some premium bullets before hunting with this rifle again.

Sorry about me jumping in late, but I do have a question:

What portions of the front shoulders or backstraps did you loose?

[deerman12]

Hey Ray,  Mainly just the rib side and some shoulder meat.  My brother is a butcher.  He and I have been cutting up deer for 25 years and both agreed we had not seen anything like that damage.  She didn't run but just about processed her with one shot. Crazy amount of damage.

[Darrell Davis]

Morn'in deerman12,

Yep, I agree that a preminum bullet is a good choice for your saum.

We have such a great selections of bullets these days, much better then when I started to reload.

My first critter taken with a reload, was a mule deer buck taken on October 12, 1968. The first of a number of "box bucks" taken in the Snake River breaks of Washington state.

The term "box bucks" came about because the racks were so small you could put a bunch of them all in one card board box.

Regs. changed in that area a number of years back but I never took anything bigger then a box buck until moving to Ideeeeeeho back in 1990.  Saw a few, but never got one.

Anyway, I used an old style cup an core 100gr. Hornady which when I finally got one into him, came apart. 41 years later that empty jacket still remains in my collection of retreaved bullets. "The finally got one in him," is a typical buck fever story and maybe something I should start a tread on, just for the fun of it.

Now Hornady has come a long ways since those days, as have most bullet manufactures, but back then there was Nosler and Bitterroot bullet companies and possibly a few others making preminum bullets.

What to do?  Well a friend from when I had still lived in Oregon - late 50s, had a 300 Weatherby in which he loaded a bullet made by a company by the name of Nosler, so I decided that might be a good choice for my hunting.

Started loading the old screw machine made 95gr Nosler for my .243 and to say I was impressed is a great understatement.

I have over the years, taken some critters with other then Nosler Partitions, but all in all the partitions have just flat done the job, and in a number of cases have done so without excessive damage even though the impact location was less then the most favorable.

Used to be able to buy "reject" or 2nds of the Speer bullet company from LoLo's in Lewiston, Idaho, not far from where I live, and have been using my stash of 150gr. Grand Slams in the wife's 270, but the Nosler Partition will remain my personal go to bullet in my .300win. mag. for as long as I can get or afford to buy them.

Keep em coming!

CDOC

[bilmac]

Years ago the Forest Service tested a bunch of calibers to rate them for bear charge stoppers. The 300 mag was one of the worst they tested, the 06 was better. I suppose mags would do better today with the new bullets available, but super high velocity is not good for penetration.

[jeep08ham]

I had about the same thing happen to me when I was learning to reload and hunt deer, back in a previous century.  I thought high velocity was the real killer.  Since that time, I have changed my thinking and seen a much better control of damage to the animal I am hunting.   Also very quick and humane kills.   I have killed 53 head of deer, antelope and elk all with Hornady Interlock bullets.   I have never had to shoot twice.   Have used calibers from 25-06, 270 Win, 7 Mag, 300 Win and 338 Win.   Joyce Hornady was a good friend and mentor to me on bullets so I guess I am very partical to criticism when someone says the bullet failed.   It did what was called of it on this occasion and the bullet had no choice of the amount of powder that would be pushing it at velocities beyound its design factor.  Hornady manuals list the velocites that bullets should be used at.

One of my experiences when I was first learning with a 220 Swift was to load a really hot load and shot a coyote at about 50 yards.  This was when a good pelt could get you $70!   It blew off one side and did not penetrate all of the way thru a skinny coyote.   That cost me money so I backed down and had good success after that. 

[wareagleguy]

I thought the purpose of the big ole giant magnum rifles was to push a heavy bullet the same speed as a standard rount?  So why do all these guys use a giant magnum and load it with a small bullet?

I think this story is exactly what happens when the wrong bullet is used for a load.

[SHOOTALL]

Maybe so they can shoot flat out to longer range than a standard rifle using the same weight bullet .

[anweis]

I think I will look into some premium bullets before hunting with this rifle again.

Yes, do that. The bullet did not fail. It killed the deer.
You just happened to be using the wrong cartridge and wrong bullet if you expected less meat damage.

[jedman]

  I have a close friend that when he was to make his first trip out to Wyoming for deer and antelope hunting bought a 300 Weatherby Mag .  He brought it over to my place to sight it in and when I seen what he bought I told him , take it back and get a 7-08 this is way to much gun.
He was told by guys he worked with that all hunt with 300 mags.  Don't mess around with something like a 30-06 or 308 Win.  you wount like it .
Well he bought a bunch of Weatherby factory loads of  from 150 partitions to 180 SP's and all Im going to say about it is, In the 9 years he has owned that rifle I know of at least 5 animals that he has shot with that rifle that required several more finishing shots because poor bullet performance and even at 250 + yards the bullets are just not up to the velocity they are impacting at .
He said this year after having all sorts of problems putting down 2 antelope does with it,
" This thing aint nothin but a Mameing son of a ----- ! and I was there to see it and agree.
I know maybe that Barnes bullets or Grand Slams or something tuffer might do the job alot better, but I just dont get why so many people buy a big magnum rifle when 90 % of the game they are going to hunt with it probably weigh less than 200 lbs.

They do have there place where they shine but for most
us there just to much gun for the purpose.   Jedman

[bilmac]

 Jed     I have seen that time and again myself, a guy brings way too much gun for what he wants to shoot and instead of killing them like stones, they end up chasing wounded animals all over the mountain. I don't blame the rifles so much as the hunters though:

1 They are afraid of the gun. Even if it isn't a hard kicker, the muzzle blast is horrendious, add a muzzle brake and the blast is worse.

2 They have this whopper of a gun so they do things that shouldn't be done. Sure the big 300s will kill at 5 or 600, but that don't help       you place the bullet at that distance.

3 Often times the guys that have to use super guns are lacking experience. Instead of starting at age 13 hunting rabbits, all of a sudden when they are 50, they decide they need to kill an elk. By then they have more money than sense and think that throwing money at any problem will solve it and that bigger is better.

[Darrell Davis]

Morn'in Jedman & Bilmac,

Maybe I can shed a bit of light on the rifle selection made by some of us, but then maybe not.

As per hunting experience way back, well I started with .410 for "graydiggers" - a large ground type critter back over 50 years ago in the then rural hills outside of Salem, Oregon.

When my father thought I was ready for it, I advanced to a model 514 Rem. single shot, thru which I put a lot of ammo before it left the gun rack.

Moving on to the early 60s, I found myself in Easter Washingon and hunting in the Snake River breaks, an area of wide open and rough country.

My first 300 was not a good experience, being a post 64 winchester with all the bad that could be said about them.  It soon was traded for a RUGER #1 in 7mm Rem. Mag.

Down the road a few years after a venture into business and back out I again started to hunt and a friend made a RUGER#1 in 300 win. mag. available to me at a good price.

It worked, partly because of the RUGER quality over the winchester and partly because I did not make the same mistakes I made with that first 300.

Hunting with the solid possibility of longer shoots, I chose to stay with a rifle providing enough bullet size and speed to do the job at those ranges.

Have I ever been disapointed? No!

Have I made a lot of long shots? No.

But one thing I have found over the years is, using premimum bullets I see no greater meat loss then I would with any one of the listed rifles, and far less then when those rounds are loaded with the typical off the shelf bullets.

I never allow the 300 to hurt me, on the bench or off, and I have never once been over gunned even with the smallest whitetail.

If a person can shoot a larger caliber well, more power to them.  If not they should by all means down size!

Other then that, let the choice be left to the hunter.

Keep em coming!

CDOC

[bilmac]

Not saying there aren't folks who make good use of the big 300s, I know quite a few guys who do well with them. But I also have seen lots of guys who have no business shooting a rifle that they are afraid of.

[jedman]

 I really dont want to beat this to death , I just am not a fan of anything that has Magnum after it's name, just a personel thing.
If I lived in Alaska, or on a big ranch out in the western US, or hunted Africa, I would own a bunch of them I suppose.
I just see the trend in the last 25 years, magnums, short magnums, ultra magnums, super short magnums, compact magnums and on and on they go.
I have probably more rifles than most small gunshops and none are mags, I just dont need any ?  Jed

[yooper77]

I wouldn’t buy a magnum if I went or lived in Alaska, there are lots of great cartridges that do the job just as well or better then the big magnums.  There is something to be said about a gliding metal cup and lead alloy bullet construction moving at about 2700 FPS from the muzzle of standard cartridges that harvest animals with precision each and every time.

Your eyes take a beating with the magnums as well and could result in irreversible retina damage.  Yep they can blind you over long time use in years to come.  That also goes with using any firearm over long time use, but the magnums speed things up.

yooper77

[drdougrx]

I've only used my 300 on 2 animals...a black bear and a moose.  I used it on moose because I was hunting NewFi and I knew there might be long shots...but really...I just had it built and I was dying to use it.  I used it on black bear in September 2008...just because I hadn't hunted with it since 1993 or 1994.  Either time my 30/06 with a good standard, non-premium bullet woulda worked just fine.

[Darrell Davis]

Some of the comments about "Magnums" sound about like a friend on mine who has "a thing" about any cartridge with a belt attached.

That would be true if it was a belted .223.

But WOW, it still sure is a great thing that we can have such a discussion.

We have many great rounds to select from, and it seems like we have the advertizing people to thank for some folks dislike of some very good ones.

Of course, if those advertizing folk had called the .308 something like the 30/06 Mini, we'd have some people declaring the .308 to be just too small for hunting whtetails for no other reason then, name.

Same would apply to any other "Mini" round which happened to make it to market.

Sure glad they didn't put a belt  or "Mini" on my .243!

Keep em coming!

CDOC

[bilmac]

Yooper   I just noticed the headstamp on your bullet. 338-06 is a wildcat isn't it? So does A-square make it's own brass for it? And where does the Weatherby name come from?

[Oldshooter]

 If you have only one rifle then ya gotta do what ya gotta do. If'n I was hunting in da woods, and shootin under 150 yards I would not take a 300 mag, maybe a 30-30 or 35 remy or even a, 44 mag!

 And I wouldnt use a sledge hammer to bang P'ants!

And if i did i woudn't tell anybody!    most here know about the warp speed bullet thang!

[yooper77]

Yooper   I just noticed the headstamp on your bullet. 338-06 is a wildcat isn't it? So does A-square make it's own brass for it? And where does the Weatherby name come from?

The 338-06 was a wildcat, but A-Square put their name on it, so its a 338-06 A-Square.  I have a Weatherby Mark V Ultra Lightweight in 338-06 A-Square.  I also have some Weatherby (Norma, made in Sweden) brass and its headstamped 338-06 A-Sq along with the Weatherby name.

This cartridge is so nice, because I use 30-06 Springfield brass for my reloads and there are tons of great 338 caliber bullets available.  This year I shot a White-tailed doe with it and I used a 200 grain Nosler / Winchester combined technology Ballistic Silver Tip bullet, IMR-4320 powder, and Winchester large rifle primer.

yooper77

[anweis]

There is something to be said about a gliding metal cup and lead alloy bullet construction moving at about 2700 FPS from the muzzle of standard cartridges that harvest animals with precision each and every time.

In the 1970s i went hunting quite a bit with an old timer. I witnessed about 20 boar, red stag, all sorts of deer, and brown bear being shot and killed quickly with one shot. No fuss, no running more than 40 yards. Most of the animals just dropped and died. Back then, i was really interested in anatomy because i wanted to be a veterinary doctor. I helped butcher all the animals that he harvested, over 50 of them. I rarely saw blood shot meat, or destroyed meat. Mostly if was small entry wounds, 1/2" exit wounds, and broken bones and tissue damage in between.
I did not care about ballistics and bullets back then, and did not even know what kind of firearm he was using, but i kept some of his old shells. As i left my childhood home 30 years ago, i forgot about those shells.  I returned, and i found them last summer. They were marked 6.5x54.   It makes sense: 160 grain round nose bullet at 2500 fps or so.

[Brithunter]

Methinks you have better look up the velocity of that cartridge  you  a bit over the top as I believe it's more like 2200-2300fps and yep it's drops em well 

[sixshot]

  Well, you've held up pretty well to all the comments, some good, some bad, but good experience for all of us. Of all the posts I read on the different forums I think I learn more from bullet failures the most.
  Its really hard to ask one bullet to do everything at every dstance, you just have to load up for what, in your experience you will need. Again you are rolling the dice.
  I'll give my 2 cents worth on guns, bullets, distance & shot placement. Since I haven't used a rifle in many years my opinion might be outdated. First I don't think a magnum anything is necessary for deer, agree or disagree, I don't think premium bullets are necessary either, good ammo, either factory or handloaded will handle any deer out there. As with a revolver (my choice) you have to have 2 things, shot placement & pentetration, you had shot placement but because of all that extra horsepower at close range your high speed thumper hit like a lightning bolt, 400-500 fps slower & it would have exited.
  Distance is always the unknown, you can control everything else but distance "almost" never can be predicted. Now to shot placement, this is the controversial one, just my opinion here but head & neck shots should always be avoided, they can be spectacular or they can fail miserably. I doubt anyone who's ever gone with the head shot rule can say every miss was a compete miss! Shooting through the ribs will waste almost zero meat, there's a lot more meat on the neck than there is on the ribs. Not much meat on either!
  I know that eastern tree stand hunters are usually shooting at an unalarmed deer at a known distance & usually from a rest, thats much different than here in the wild & wooly west, I've seen 2-3 deer running around with their lower jaw shot off, its not a pretty sight. The shot behind the shoulder is much safer & the argument about losing meat just isn't  really valid....my opinion!

Dick

[mirage1988]

A lot of deer get their jaws blown off too by hunters(?) taking head shots at close range because they don't realize the bullet path is about 1 1/2 inches below the crosshairs at 20 yards. The neck shot is much better as long as the spine is in line with the vertical crosshair, but I only take the double lung shot, or none at all.

[SHOOTALL]

we run deer with dogs and take the shot we are given .

[Brithunter]

Hmmm SHOOTALL  how does that effect the venison? The meat that is? I was always led to believe that when a Deer runs and is spooked, and being chased by dogs they're going to be spooked  makes the adrenaline pump and that taints the meat whcih is why we strive to catch the deer unawares as it makes for better tasting meat.

Here in the UK the only people who use dogs to chase down deer are poachers and do so mainly at night. The hunting, chasing down, of deer deer using dogs was banned a looooooooooooooooong time ago even though it was done in times passed by and we even had a "Deerhound" breed of dogs bred for it. The ban made them almost be lost but for a few who loved the breed and have just about kept it alive. This had nothing to do with the more recent ban on hunting with dogs which was politically and class envy motivated by the Labour party and aim squarely at the Fox Hunting with hounds.

[700xcr]

Hmmm SHOOTALL  how does that effect the venison? The meat that is? I was always led to believe that when a Deer runs and is spooked, and being chased by dogs they're going to be spooked  makes the adrenaline pump and that taints the meat whcih is why we strive to catch the deer unawares as it makes for better tasting meat.

Here in the UK the only people who use dogs to chase down deer are poachers and do so mainly at night. The hunting, chasing down, of deer deer using dogs was banned a looooooooooooooooong time ago even though it was done in times passed by and we even had a "Deerhound" breed of dogs bred for it. The ban made them almost be lost but for a few who loved the breed and have just about kept it alive. This had nothing to do with the more recent ban on hunting with dogs which was politically and class envy motivated by the Labour party and aim squarely at the Fox Hunting with hounds.

It is prohibited Washington state USA to use dogs for any bing game hunting. Only able to use dogs for upland bird, waterfowl and rabbit hunting. I am with you on big game being chased and have a high adrenaline. I even try shooting them standing or lying still.

[454Puma]

My experience with this type of bullet blow up was with Speer 165 gr in an '06 at 80 yards on a Mulely doe. Perfect broadside shot.  Deer dropped so fast I thought I had missed! When I skinned the deer there wasn't anything in the chest cavity but mush! No exit hole -bullet hit a rib going in and simply detonated inside the chest! Found pieces of it but that was it! Now I load them to about 2600 fps instead of 2800!  And I get complete pass throughs!  I'm not a Mag guy-I think they are way to much for most deer hunting-period definately at 60 yards! I guess this is why the 30-30 is still so poular in deer camps form 0-200 yards where most deer are shot it gets it done!

[SHOOTALL]

Brithunter,
Here in Virginia we are allowed to use dogs for deer east of the Blue ridge mts . It is the way I have hunted for over 40 years . as it takes alot of folks to "cut" the deer off from escaping it was a community event when i first started hunting but has become a club event now. As far as meat quality i don't see it as a problem . I do stand hunt in ML season and from time to time in reg. deer season . The worst tasting deer are bucks in full rut walking or running I like to fill the meat locker with doe myself . I will say what you do with a deer has alot to do with taste . It should be field dressed and cooled if you want good tasting meat . Yes ya'll banned it loooooooog ago , maybe that is why we allow it here now 

[Wyo. Coyote Hunter]

  Deerman, while some may not be skilled enough to use mag. rifles or have the need for them.. The 2 best hunters I have known both used them for some of their  deer hunting..These guys were hunters.. They didn't sit for hours on end in a tree stand, or blind. One was the best tracker I have known.  He killed several whitetails in hard hunted country on public land in their beds. So while some don't care for mag.s, that is good, for it leaves them for folks who like them and can use them.  The number of folks who can use the power and range of a mag. is not  great.. To use them effectively you have to be a skillful rifleman. To the tree stand hunters a .300 sav. or .30-30 is enough.
Now for your bullet problem.. I have shot lots of deer with a 150 in both the 06 and several 300's.  While the experience you had was rather rare, I KNOW the 150 grain bullet from a big .30 should not act like that on a deer. I would think you may have had a defective bullet...Such things do happen, I have had a number over the years. Not great, but some. A second thing that could have happened is you may have hit some small brush or grass between you and your target..I had this happen only once, but it was about 10 years ago, I shot a huge doe in some light brush. I thought I had picked a clear spot for the shot, but when I got to her there was a huge pile of hair, and about a mushball size hole just behind the shoulder.  Little of the bullet hit the other side.  When I dragged the doe out, I stopped at my spot, and looked the area over.  In the weak morning sun, I could see some small branches that probably caused the bullet to open before hitting the target...Or maybe it was a defective bullet, but I have shot thousands of them before and since without having the same thing occur.  These bullets were Serria... As far as having meat destroyed, the most damage I have seen in the last 6 years or so was this fall with a .30-30 150 gr. WW Hollow Point. Far from a mag. caliber.....

[deerman12]

I hear ya coyote hunter.  I bought this gun mainly because of the rifle type and the cheap price.   I love those model 7's.  I have 2 in 7mm08, one in 270 wsm and one in 300 saum.  I like all of these rifles.   I think inside 200 yards, it really doesn't matter that much.  No, I am not saying a person NEEDS a magnum but if a long shot gets presented nice to know you have enough rifle.  That is part of the fun to hunt with different rifles and compare results.  I like to read some of the..."why didn't ya".  Hell, anyone can be a armchair quarterback.  Sometimes in the field you just can't order a shot like you want it.  Our muzzloading season starts the 19th, I guess I will get after them again this weekend.   You were speaking about the hollow point 30-30 doin that massive damage, I have a buddy that uses 168 hollow points in his .308 and wonders why there is so much damage???   I have tried to tell him but he is 7 years older so he is naturally smarter than I.