Match The Bullet To The Game Animal

One deer season some years ago I went into the woods with my Model 71 Winchester in caliber .348 WCF. I found a nice tree to set under and leaned back against it, watching the edge of the woods. Past the woods was a large bean field. Not too long after sunrise a nice Whitetail buck came sauntering by after have a had a nice breakfast in the field. I raised the rifle slowly, put the sights on him ... he was less than 30 feet away .. and shot him using a Hornady 200 gr. JFP at 2650 fps. At the shot the deer turned directly away from me and ran out into the bean field. He sounded like a horse galloping. I put the sights on his butt but hesitated shooting. The shot I had fired into him was placed good, so I waited. The deer ran 100 yards like it had not been hit before slowing, stumbling and finally falling. When I cleaned him I found the shot was through the right front shoulder, clipped the vessels above the heart, got both lungs and exited the left shoulder. It was about a .34 caliber hole in and out.

Later in the week I shot another Whitetail at about 40 yards. I used a 6" .41 Magnum with 200 gr. Speer JHP's at 1420 fps. The deer collapsed at the shot, then made a leap off it's back legs, hit the ground and kicked it last.

Why the difference? Bullet placement and performance. The .348 bullet simply punched a small .34 caliber hole through and never expanded. It only clipped a couple major blood vessels and it took some time for the animal to bleed out. The .41 bullet expanded but still punched clean through breaking both front shoulders and taking part of the heart while doing it. While the rifle had much more muzzle energy on paper it's performance was less than spectacular due to my having used too hard a bullet for the animal being hunted and hitting the animal a bit too high.

It was a good lesson. Match the bullet to the game animal. And in any case, put the bullet in the right place. Even if it does not open up it will still take them down, though often not as quickly.

That is pretty much the way hardcast lead bullets work. I killed a lot of game with hardcast bullets in the .45 Colt and that was mostly the norm ... a quick run and then collapse .. though if I did not put the bullet in proper place it was sometimes a long run. But there was blood leaking out both sides of the animal. Hunting hogs one time I was walking through the woods on the trail of some pigs when off to my left, down over a hill, I hear a gunshot. All of a sudden here comes a huge old pig running at me with blood spurting out the left and right sides like it was coming from a garden hose! It ran about 20 or 30 feet and collapsed, totally bled out. A .500 Linebaugh with a big flat nose slug knocked a huge hole in and out. It was quite impressive.