Wife killed her first deer!!

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CarJunkieLS1

New member
So today after hunting all season long my wife finally was able to get a shot on a deer. It was a small doe, but a legal deer none the less. It was ~125 yards away making a brisk walk right at the shooting house we were sitting in. My wife got her gun out the window and was following the deer in the crosshairs. I took my grunt call and made a loud grunt and the deer put the brakes on immediately 55 yards away the deer was slightly quartering toward us. A few seconds later I hear a boom and the doe bucked her back legs like a wild horse and sprinted towards the tree line.

She had her front onside leg pulled off the ground so I knew she hit her, but I feared a fleshwound. After 30 minutes we climbed down and we found ALOT of deer hair and only a few drops of blood. It didn't look good, but we followed the tracks (no blood) into the thicket and gradually saw more and more blood. Fortyish yards in we found her dead.

The bullet was a .243 Win 95gr NBT going ~2850 fps it did kill the deer, but it exploded inside the deer. It did break the onside shoulder, but I found no damage to the lungs or heart. The onside shoulder was destroyed, but all I found was the broken shoulder and pieces of copper jacket the bullet did not exit. I'm at a loss as to what killed the deer my guess is a piece of the bullet severed the aorta and it bled out internally. Next year my wife will be shooting Accubonds or Partitions.

 
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Panfisher

New member
Her big smile says it all. 40 yard run with a dead deer sounds exactly like a .243 hit. I load plain old 100 hornady bullets for my wife, work perfectly.
 
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CarJunkieLS1

New member
Yeah a 40yd run is perfectly acceptable. Except for I want exits. I'm almost positive had it been behind the shoulder it would've exited, but that shoulder bone was trashed. Entrance was nickel sized and all I found was bullet fragments. I consider that a "failure", but it kill the deer so it technically didn't "fail". I'll just load Accubonds or Partitions for next year.
 
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tahunua001

New member
ballistic tips are designed more or less for varmints so they usually disintegrate very quickly upon impact, especially if they hit bone. nobody in my family uses them anymore. we've all switched to other brands.

on the other end of that spectrum I would be hesitant to recommend an accubond from a 243 either. you likely would not get the necessary expansion in the relatively low amount of tissue before it passes through the other side and would likely just poke two small holes. I would recommend something along the lines of a hornady SST or a good old fashioned cup and core bullet like a federal powershok. I've always had luck with 100gr powershoks out of my 243.
 
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Buzzard Bait

New member
Bullet failure???

Some times I don't get it. The deer is dead in the back of the truck. The deer died grave yard dead within 40 yards of where it was shot. The hunter is smiling ear to ear in a picture with the dead dear, looks like success to me.
She shot it and drug it home so now you better get in the kitchen and start cooking some back straps for her. You are a very lucky man to have such a beautiful lady to go hunting with you.
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tahunua001

New member
Where do you get that information?
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about 15 year's hunting experience and personal observation. I suppose nosler's marketing info is much more reliable.

The SST is designed to perform identically to the ballistic tip.
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I would very much like to know where you get your information. unless it's in writing somewhere or you were privy to the design of the SST, I think that such a statement is erroneous at best.

You seriously think a Whitetail is not big enough to expand a .243 Accubond?
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definitely not deer the size of the one pictured. I've seen labradors which are larger.
 
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CarJunkieLS1

New member
Thanks guys for the kind words. The bullet didn't "fail" in regards to it harvested the deer, but I much prefer exit wounds. She hit dead on the shoulder breaking it into pieces and the bullet was in pieces also. I also believe that if it had been the standard double lung shot the bullet would've exited. If I can achieve the same accuracy with 95gr Partitions as she gets with 95gr NBT's there isn't a deer that she can't drop.
 
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AllenJ

New member
Congratulations to both you and your wife, great job.

Lots of people believe that the terminal ballistics that you saw on that deer is exactly what you want from a 243, they want the bullet to expend all it's energy inside the animal. I'm like you though, I like exit holes because they leave bigger and better blood trails to track by. For that reason I shoot Barnes bullets in my 243. My cousin and I have shot more than a few elk with Barnes and they have always done an excellent job.
 
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Picher

New member
Ballistic Tips are good bullets out to 500 yards, but several years ago I had a 130 grain .270 Win one blow up on the rib cage of a small doe at about 50 yards. It never took a step, but fell over sideways. When I went to look at it, the scene behind it looked like a 50 cal had blown out all kinds of tissue for about 12 yards. Never saw such explosive damage, but meat loss was minimal.

Since then, I've used Hornady GMX rounds in .243 Win, .270 Win, and .30-06 and results have been perfect!!! It's also nice to know that there are no lead particles in the meat.
 
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reynolds357

New member
Tahuna, maybe your years of experience have been flawed when it comes to the ballistic tip. I have hunted with them since the year they were introduced. The very earliest ballistic tips were explosive. They were not intended as a varmint bullet, but they still over expanded in large game. Very shortly after that, Nosler made the ballistic tip a clone of the "solid base" with simply a polymer tip. At that time, over 20 years ago, the ballistic tip became a true medium to large thin skinned game hunting bullet, just like the solid base it would replace.
The SST is an interlock with a polymer tip. The sold base and interlock were both medium to large thin skinned game bullets. They are both designed to do the same thing and they perform near identically.
I have shot no less than 40 whitetails with the 140 and 150 7mm ballistic tip. I use 7-30 Waters, 7x57 Mauser, 7-08, 7 WSM, 7rem mag, 7 WBY. and 7 Rum. I have had 2 140's not exit and they were fired from the Waters. If a 150 Ballistic tip can survive the velocity of the 7 Rum and repeatedly exit whitetails, it is no "varmint bullet."
The accubond expands very rapidly, but it does not shed as much weight as the ballistic tip. A white tail will most definitely expand a 6mm accubond. A .338, probably not.
 
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tahunua001

New member
how about we just agree to disagree?
pointless bickering aside, could you please explain to me how my hunting experience is flawed? I have never heard of a "flawed experience" before. should be enlightening.

you have killed a great deal more whitetail than me, we are only allowed one a year up here, however all of your experience is with bullets of a single caliber on a single game animal of a single general size. I have seen ballistic tips used in 7mm, 243, 223, and 308 against deer, and pronghorn. I have also used or seen the effects of accubonds in 25-06, 6.5 japanese, 6.5 swedish, 7mm rem mag, and 300 weatherby, in everything from deer, to black bear, to elk. perhaps it is the wide variety of calibers and game I've seen them used on that flaws my experience? maybe I just need to buy a few more 7mms and only hunt whitetail from now on?
 
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Snyper

New member
Quote:
You seriously think a Whitetail is not big enough to expand a .243 Accubond?
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definitely not deer the size of the one pictured. I've seen labradors which are larger.
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Bullet expansion is a result of it's construction and impact velocity

The size of the deer makes no difference at all

It's like the silly fallacy that a bullet can "pass through too fast to have time to expand"
 
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