Discussion about bullet performance

Republic of Alberta said:
Just wondering how many of you wash off the lungs and heart with water after gutting to see what kind of damage is actually done? I usually do, and then I cross section the wound to see what actually happened.


I always hear people talk about turning the insides to "soup" or "jello". The body cavity always looks like soup when it is full of blood, especially if it is clotted. I can see how people mistakenly believe that a lot more damage is done than actually exists if they don't clean things up a bit.



I should have taken a picture of the TSX wound in that deer's lungs. It really would have been worth 1000 words. I think that I am going to start doing that actually. One thing that has always pissed me off is people taking pictures of recovered bullets, then based on what the bullet looks like they determine how successful it was. Retarded. Taking pictures of the wound, that is money shot baby.
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What happened after the deer was hit, and how far did it go?
 
Never mind, I found it:

I pretty much told all there was to say, 120g TSX 3350Fps muzzle velocity, 50- to 60 yard shot on a broad side doe. At the shot the doe had no reaction to the hit at all, not a big deal but it is nice to get the "wump" sound and see the deer react in some way. Deer ran off, I followed up some blood 10 yards from the hit. Kept following blood, which was an ok blood trail, but nothing to write home about. Found the doe dead about 60 yards away or so, it happens like that on lung shots some times.

Gutted the dear and did a good autopsy on it. Found the shot entered right behind a line drawn straight up from the back of the leg and midway up the body, a loony sized hole on the inlet of the rib cage a golf ball sized hole on the outlet of the ribs....sounds good so far but that stuff dosen't matter as much as what happens in the middle. The lungs were not dammaged much at all. There was a 2-3" wide "spot" where the bullet entered it looked much like an arrow wound or a low velocity bullet wound. The outlet of the wound in the lungs was a 1.5" wide slit. The over all apperance of the lungs (if you did not view the wounds) looked like it had not been touched. I even cross sectioned the lungs, there was no trama exept the narow wound wich had nearly no buising around it.

Mabey this is what people want from a high velocity rifle, I don't. I expected somthing different, I had informaly tested this bullet before and also retrieved the tested bullet. Though it was not much of a test it made me expected a much bigger wound.

My idea of good dear bullet preformace on a lung shot is to see and hear a reaction to the shot most times, find the deer dead, open the body cavity and see the lungs a bloody mess, lots of dammage and to have an exit hole on the off side. Seems reasonable enough.


This bullet killed, but I just don't think it is a great deer bullet, unless you want small wounds from your 7mag
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Seems fine to me...A 60 yard dash isn't uncommmon using any bullet/rifle combination. and animals don't always give a reaction to being hit, espeially with a lung shot...

Everyone has different ideas on what they want a bullet to do, but we shouldn't expect a deep penetrating premium to act like a more frangible bullet, nor the opposite.
 
My 2 bits
I agree with martinbns, in when we talk about the different game we may encounter on the hunt. If all I was hunting was coyotes, I would probably use the nosler ballistic tip. If I don't know how long my shot may be at deer, moose, or elk, I always use a nosler partition. They are designed to open up at any velosity(like a ballistic tip) but, because of the partition design, they keep on truckin to give me that exit wound that will assist with quick bleeding and no late nights with the lanterns looking for specks of blood. I am not yet sold on the barnes x bullet. i am sure that within 2 to 3 hundred yards they perform as they are advertised. when you are taking those long shots at your dream buck I NEED TO KNOW that they are going to open up every time. I feel that when we are dealing with velosity under 3000 fps the less expensive brands will do fine (speer, hornady,sierra). I have to say to boomer that for the most part moose are big babies and will go down quick, when hit in the boiler room. elk, whitetail bucks, coyotes, owls, and crows are tuff sob's and will cruise. And to gatehouse I would like to say that I love the new .375 ruger only because it is the answer to standard length actions. It still does not hold a candle to my .378 weatherby (brno 602)
 
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