Lost Deer

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RidgeHunter

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I shot nothing but .270 130gr ballistic tips for years and was pretty happy with their performance on deer. Great expansion on double lungs. Huge, very short blood trails.

I shoot 225gr Accubonds from my Whelen. They don't expand like a ballistic tip on deer but they don't need to. Real happy with them too.
 

retrieverman

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Hard to blame a ballistic tip when you do not recover the deer. I have a 7 Rem Mag loaded 67.0 grs of IMR 4831 @ 3148 fps with 150 Nosler Ballistic Tip that I believe is a great deer load. It shoots about .6 five shot groups on my best days and just under an inch on others. The reason I like the 150 Nosler BT in .284 is because that it has held up enough for close shots with devastating results and expanded good with long shots. All the deer Ive taken with this load has been 14 - 175 yds except one. One deer shot at 464 yds broadside center punched both lungs expanded to near quarter size on exit through. All deer and one antelope shot with this load dropped and/or recovered very quickly because they were easy shots. Its been through shoulders to vitals, spines, necks and several head shots. Even the 464 yd shot was easy with rangefinder and wind near 0 mph. If at any time one of those bullets were not placed where was needed it could be a deer load that failed or blamed on the bullet construction by some. But for me if this load fails its because of a bad shot.
I’ve got no problem with ballistic tips per se but not 130 gr in 270 for deer. I’ve killed a bunch of stuff with 150 gr BT in a 300WSM. In my opinion, a BT under 140 or 150 gr is a “varmint” bullet.
 

DRC458

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I'm still a big time ballistic tip and Accubond fan in 7mm and larger, Partition fan in the lessor calibers. This was from a buddy's Booner he couldn't find on Tuesday and Wednesday. 250yd broadside, .300wm with 180gr Barnes. Several spots like this over 2/3 of a mile and then just quit, vanished. His tracking dog has been 4 for 4 this year until he had to look for his own lol. Couple of those successfull recoveries were almost 3/4 mile of sniffing too. Retired Marine, I've seen him shoot, anything can happen I guess. Grid searched swith several guys on surrounding quarters with no luck.
View attachment 147731

WOW! We've never failed to recover one with that kind of sign! That's amazing! (Alien abduction?)
 

magna19

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Just posted on fb looks like same stuff. If you get lucky and recover you get to know where not to hit.
Screenshot_20191128-142629_Gallery.jpg
 

Oklahomabassin

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Some good reading here. When my son started hunting I gave him my Ruger 06. He was still pretty young so I loaded up some 168 grain SGK at about 3/4 power. I think I had 100 loaded so he could get used to the gun and get some range time in. I used 4895 but don’t remember the amount. It was a really accurate load out to 200 but most of our shots are under 150. He told me yesterday that he’s down to two rounds. I said
‘Well,that will get you through this season’. He’s never lost a deer and I see no reason to even go full power at this point.
Better pull a bullet a weigh a charge before he shoots those last 2 rounds.
 

RidgeHunter

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RE ballistic tips, I should note our deer in the NEOK Ozark foothills are not big bodied like out in farm country or anything.

That said I am beginning to become a sturdier bullet guy and haven't shot a ballistic tip since I shelved my last .270. I am going to be putting together a .270 or 7mm Rem Mag over the off season for a longer range/western gun...and I plan to run either Accubond or Partition in it and just run the same bullet for everything. Part of the appeal of rifle hunting to me is opening up hard angle shots etc that you wouldn't take with a bow. I certainly feel confident running a 225 grain accubond through about any weird angle lol. You can broadside double lung a deer with a sharp stick, or a tiny rifle with varmint bullets, but I don't want to only take perfect shots with a rifle. And I see few downsides to shooting a more controlled expansion type bullet even at smaller deer etc.
 

RidgeHunter

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225gr .35 Accubond

Exit, quartering to but still behind shoulder. Not much expansion but still a big hole. 20 yard recovery.

i-q3kcJTH-X2.jpg


This is the exit on this buck, the entrance was much higher (close shot from a bow treestand) and straight through the other shoulder. Mule kicked and ran 50 yards on 3 legs. Blood trail was a a crime scene - think it disconnected some heart hoses and the low exit caused it to be so heavy. This one opened up a bit more after breaking the other shoulder.

i-mwp5npc-X2.jpg
 

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