150 grain Hornady Interlock failure?

MD

MD

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On the weekend I shot a deer standing in a thicket of broomstick size aspens. It took off leaving a massive blood trail and when I quickly found it it had a near fist-sized entrance wound and no exit wound.

The 270 Winchester 150 grain Hornady Interlock bullet appeared to have exploded on the shoulder, with either part of the bullet or bone taking out the top of the heart too.

Do you think this was a bullet failure or perhaps the bullet keyholing into the deer after striking a twig or even a small tree?

Like I said, it was in a thicket and I aimed for a hole between trees, but might have hit a branch.
 
Either scenario is possible, but I would go back and look at those aspens carefully, so as to try to determine whether you actually did hit a branch or small tree first. I once had a 140 Interlock do a similar thing but there was no intervening brush whatsoever, and I had to shoot the 4x4 Whitetail a second time to put him down. None of the first bullet had done vital damage, but it had disintegrated on a rib and scattered small pieces in the flank and shoulder areas. Maybe a bum bullet, but makes one nervous about the effectiveness. At least yours got some shrapnel in the vitals. Regards, Eagleye.
 
Sounds like you hit something else first. I have dug lots of fragmented interlocs out of deer where the bullet had shed it"s jacket after overexpanding, but they did the job as the deer must have been dead for me to be cutting them up!
I don"t see an interloc(esp 150gr/270) just exploding on the surface.
Enjoy your deer!
 
In my exprience interlocks expand very rapidly and fragment like crazy. They work in killing game but fail when it comes to keeping it all together. It also IMO cause a lot of meet damage, blood shot and all. My guess is you hit the deer square but it fragmented and richochet in the deer. It happened to two that our camp shot deer and I swear I will not use interlocks anymore interbonds are way better.
 
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Sounds like a branch hit to me or the deer was turning and the skin was severly stretched when the bullet struck. Large entrance holes are not a result of exploding bullets as most people think. Think of the physics of a bulleting expanding fast enough on the hair to make that large of a hole.....it just can't happen. If the skin is stretched or the bullet hits an object prior to striking the deer then you can result in a large entrance hole. Immediately striking bone under the hide can also result in a large entrance hole but I wouldn't call any of that bullet failure.

I shot a ram at 59 yards last week and the bullet pushed bone out an exit hole but the bullet remained in the body........pretty impressive as far as I was concerned. But in this case the bullet remained 90%+ weight. A bullet blowing to pieces doesn't impress me but it can often be very deadly.
 
Soft cup and core bullets(interloc,game king,etc) are great on lung shots, but they don"t hold together on bad angles or big bones. I went to Speer Grand Slam a few years ago in my 243 and had great results and good weight retention(nothing like TSX, but they get the job done).
I would have no worries about a 150 interloc in 270 for deer, in fact when I think 270, the 130gr bullet comes to mind first. When deer can do without lungs, I"ll go to something better.
 
I think that would have to be considered unusual, for a 150gr bullet on a deer. I'm wondering if that bullet hit a small branch or something right before impact?

You said it had a fist sized entrance wound; how deep did it penetrate?
Did you recover what was left of the bullet?
What was the yardage?
Was this a factory or handload? If you handload, what was the approx muzzle velocity and impact velocity?
 
I do not shoot a .270 but use interlocks in my 30-06. I have been very pleased with the perforance of the 165 gr Boat tail interlocks. As an example of good penetration and expansion I shot a mulie does at about 90 yards. She was quartering away and turned even more just as I shot. The bullet first nicked the rear leg then entered her body back of the ribs, travelled through a bit of paunch, diaphram, cut both lungs, exited her chest, re-entered the front leg, broke the large upper leg bone and exited.

This meant the bullet had passed through the hide and hair of the rear leg, the flank, the chest and the off sholder ( twice) . As well I used a square to measure over 24 inches of penetration in the body.
Another kill was on a whitetail buck. My first shot was taken at 275 yards or so. The deer had been bedded and my attempt to put one in the ribs ended up striking an antler as the deer had his head layed back over his body. He jumped up and shook his head, stomped the ground etc. before taking off. Knowing he had been hit but assuming the damage was more than a missing antler tine I took a Texas Heart Shot. This entered within a half inch of the bullseye and exited the brisket area. Complete body length penetration.Surprisingly the clean up was not bad as the bullet missed all bone in the back part of the body even the guts were hardly messed with.


I have had many kills with this bullet and recovered a few bullets ,all were near textbook or "advertising copy" perfect mushrooms. These were ones that hit major bones and none exhibited any core -jacket seperation
 
They were handloads, never been chrono'd, just a standard load out of the book. About 60 yards.

The hole was large enough to put a tennis ball in and right through the rib cage so you could see daylight from the inside once it was hung and skinned.

Never found a scrap of bullet, but we haven't cut the shoulder up yet. Not a scratch on the opposite side though.
 
I think you had a decision failure, not a bullet failure.
Shooting through as screen of bush with any type of firearm regardless of caliber, bullet design or shape is a very low percentage shot no matter how you slice it.
Low percentage shots often result in odd occurances and un predicatable results.


Hornady Interlock's are a lot tougher bullet than many folks can even imagine, and that's my take from over 100 head of game being shot with them from a wide variety of calibers at ranges from 10 to 500yds.
 
I shot a whitetail at about 10 yards. There was some willows between us but it was so close I shot anyways. The bullet hit right were it should have. The deer took off and died within 30 yards. Everything seemed normal until I looked at the entrance hole in the hide. It was wide and flat, about the same dimensions as a bullet traveling sideways. The wound channel was a little smaller than normal and went out the other side where there was a "tear" type exit. Not a puncture but a tear that you could close up.


The distance between the deer and willows was only a foot or two, in that time the bullet spun sideways.
 
I had a very close to your experience thing happen to me about 20 years ago...

I was on a watch about 15 yards away a doe came flying out I let one fly, rolled the doe, she got up and took off with a massive blood trail i could see it pouring out of her.

I found the doe, and noticed the entrance hole was ragged and like you say about the size of a soft ball. The next day I was more than wondering why so a few gang members and I went to have a look. I could not have hit a 3 to 4 inch mountain ash tree, more dead center, we noticed it only from the back end of the exit and the fresh bark pealed back. It was a corelock rem factory ammo 180 from a 30-06.

The bullet in my opinion did not fail. I failed to but the bullet where it needed to go. And I was impressed in the fact I did recover the animal not 75-100 yards away.
 
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Took the shoulder off yesterday and my wife trimmed off the "cat food." It sure looks like the bullet either keyholed or expanded before entering the deer. The actual shoulder blade was not hit, just the flesh adjacent to it, it was a couple ribs that were shattered and then either rib bits or bullet tore the top of the heart.
I can't really complain. It hit right where I was aiming between the trees, it's not as if it was deflected at all. It just ploughed through whatever it hit and kept on going.

My buddy (a Nosler partition fan) who was with me was all critical of the Hornady bullet.
 
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Shooting through a screen of bush can have strange effects. I once shot a buck about 25 yrds away through a light screen of bush, perfect broadside. Through the scope it looked like a clean shot. I aimed for the boiler room, fired, & the buck dropped on the spot. I waited 5 min. to make sure he was dead, then checked out my kill. Turns out the bullet hit in the neck area, taking out the spine. This was about 12" to the left of where I was aiming. Entrance hole was small, exit hole about golfball size. I was shooting a .270 with Barnes 130gr TSX bullet. I consider myself a fairly good shot, & buck fever is not an issue with me ;). I figure I must have hit a small branch that deflected the bullet from it's intended target.
 
Just found part of the lead core loose in the body cavity, about 5/16 " around and nearly 1/8" thick.
 
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