Shot placement with alloy slugs?

[rdnck]

Chris--Congratulations on a really fine elk. Doing it with a Number 3 Sporter and a cast bullet is The Way To Go. Doing something the right way makes a special event even more special. Shoot straight, rdnck.

[Brent]

Doug, If I can do it, anyone can. Give it a whirl.

Brent

[pete]

ironramrod; Correct me if I'm wrong but the Garret stuff seems to be geared more for higher velocities and maybe a harder bullet is desireable.
nineteen76; That sure is a nice bull. Don't know how you feel about George Custer but there's a picture of him with an elk he shot in the Blackhills with a Remington rolling block in 1874. Kinda neat.

I hear quite a bit about pass through and if you can get it with good internal expansion that's great. But the miniscule extra tissue damage gained with a pass through isn't worth the minimized internal damage. I think it's better to impart more damage to vital organs than to rib cage and skin. Granted a bullet that expands and found under the skin on the far side didn't open up to that size all at once but I'm sure you can bet it was opening up fairly well earlier on.
Dan O; You mentioned the Nosler Partition penetrating more than some others. That's true but even it expands, it just doesn't self destruct at high velocity.
Seems like every bullet out there brags on it's mushrooming ability. B.p. bullets should be no exception. Fun topic.

[Brent]

Pete,

The pass-through advocates (and I'm one of them) like two holes to bleed through. the better for trailing.

Also, two holes make it harder to breath by breaking the vaccume that is require for the lungs to work.

A bullet just under the offside skin is a well used bullet, but I'll still take two holes and I believe I can attain that with a soft bullet of sufficient weight. So far that's been the case anyway.

Brent

[rdnck]

Pete--Listen to Brent on this. It's not about the tissue damage of the exit hole. It is about the extra air leak. Animals die of suffocation. Even when they are heart shot, and bleed out, the ultimate cause of death is SUFFOCATION. They suffocate because there is not enough blood available to carry the oxygen needed to sustain life.

You want to collapse the lungs for the quickest incapacitation. The diaphragm separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity.When the PRESSURE DIFFERENTIAL between these two cavities ceases to exist, the lungs can't function and they collapse. Suffocation begins immediately, rather than waiting for the blood supply to diminish to the point that there is not enough available oxygen.

A single entry wound often becomes partially or wholly clogged with tissue or fat, thus closing up the air leak. Indeed, the direction of the entry wound itself tends to put displaced tissue in a position that will aid the wound to close itself due to the internal pressure in the body cavity. A second EXIT wound is almost much larger than the entry wound, and as tissue is displaced from the inside out, the wound tends to stay open and leak air. The air leak is the real killer.

A 500 grain or heavier bullet at 30-1 gives deep, pass through penetration AND expansion on anything from deer to buffalo. It is the bullet I have found to work best, and I have never recovered one from any animal, up to and including buffalo. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Shoot straight, rdnck.

[Scott Tschirhart]

I also come from the pass through school. For the reasons here mentioned.

Moreover, the tracking job is often easier, particularly if the shot was taken from an elevated position. A high lung shot without pass through might take a while to start leaking. However, if the shot goes down through the body and out, it leaks almost instantly.

[ironramrod]

Pete,

You're right from what I could see, the Garrett site is primarily talking about smokeless powders and with higher velocities. Most of my experience with the hard cast flat nose bullets has been with muzzleloaders, but the ballistics of those rifles with big conical bullets is reasonably similar to BPC rifles. I shoot the 415 gr. LBT hard cast flatnoses (0.451 cal) with 117 gr. FFg in a T/C rifle with MMP sabots (MV=1474, sd=8); not very traditional, but they are effective. These are non-expanding flat point bullets; thus, they have a built-in mushroom on the bullet when it leaves the barrel. According to the LBT book I referred to earlier, Mr. Smith presents some data to indicate that wound channels are caused by tissue spray of the nose of the bullet. Thus, whether a bullet mushrooms to create the flat nose or it leaves the barrel with a flat nose, the results will be similar. I would also assume that once a bullet hits a big bone that there is a certain amount of schrapnel in the mix as well.

These bullets seem to be really tough, they seem to make very straight wound channels, and they do not seem to break apart when they hit big bones. I have shot a couple of deer squarely through both shoulder blades, and they both had nice round .45 cal + holes through them. Thus, they seem to be fairly resistant to tumbling as well. Also, I have never found a bullet on deer size animals; I don't know about larger than deer size animals. Wound channels through internal organs are impressive. Lungs/liver typically are ground up in pieces; hearts typically have a hole about 1-1.5". Exit holes are about the same size as entrance holes. A friend of mine shot a knot-hole in a 20" dbh aspen tree at 100 yards once; he said the bullet blew splinters out the back side and the tree look
somewhat pregnant. He also said is T/C pure lead maxi-balls/maxi-hunters did not exit the same tree.

Re: hardness, I cast them from wheelweights at 740-750 deg. F and drop them out of the hot mould into an ice cream bucket of cold water that has an old t-shirt in it to cushion the fall. After a 36 hr. hardening cycle the 400-425 gr. size bullets have a BHN=24-25; really hard. In the Shiloh (.45/110) I have been using wheelweights at least to this point and casting both the Lym 457125 and 457132 bullets. I am still in the learning process, and have not used these for hunting at this point. I cast them the same way as the ml bullets, but then I anneal them to a BHN=8; about the same hardness as 30:1 alloy. I have not shot them on paper beyond 200 m yet, but at that distance they will shoot 5 shot groups of about 2.0-2.5" if I have my head in the game properly and all my ducks in a row. I do get some lead flakes, but they come out easily.

I don't know how these bullets will perform at longer ranges yet, and I have not shot them in matches out of the Shiloh. I shot 1 silhouette match several years ago with a Browning 1885, and it really didn't do all that much for me. Probably an attitude problem on my part, but I kept thinking I could be shooting prairie dogs instead.

I'm starting to run out of info that might be of interest to you. Not only that but breakfast is sounding better by the minute.

Regards

[ironramrod]

Pete,

I don't know how the emoticon got in the last post. The sd should have been 8.

Also, I agree with the others that exit holes are good. Additionally, one wants to have the bullet exit with some sizzle to it so that it is still making large wound channels through organs/tissues on the off side rather than a caliber size hole.

Regards

[pete]

Guys like I said if you can get a pass through with decent expansion along with it that's great. No doubt the best scenerio. I agree with the double hole to leak air. My question comes from guys using hard bullets to get pass throughs at the expense of minimal internal damage. Maybe, and I say maybe there would be less tracking needed if these harder bullets didn't drill a neat hole through. There is also the issue of internal bleeding, and a bigger hole would help facilitate that.
I'm not advocating using a bullet that'll stay inside just for the sake of staying inside just a softer bullet that may or may not exit but causes more internal damage.

[Scott Tschirhart]

Pete,

I see where you are coming from. I shot those harder bullets in the Marlin because I was shooting them at 1800fps and I think a softer bullet would not have worked as well.

In the shiloh, I cannot get that kind of velocity with black powder and so I have gone to a much softer bullet, but I am at 522 gr instead of 400 and the bullets have a round nose rather than a flat.

In handguns, I am still using a wheelweight bullet because I shoot a 435gr bullet at around 800fps. I don't want deformation at all, I want a straight wound channel. The .512 diameter and the huge flat point offer plenty of tearing and I get pass throughs on hogs from every angle tried.

There are probably several ways to skin this cat.[/img]

[pete]

Scott; If I get a custom hunting bullet made I was thinking of a round nose too. Or at least a small flat point instead of the big meplats that the lever guns need. I figure with the soft bullets I use either one will work ok.

[zrifleman]

With my limited experience using PP bullets on game, its's not so much the shape of the nose or the alloy. 420-500 gr PP bullets were made to be "bone breakers", deep penetration on big boned animals. Rather than the classic shot behind the shoulder, I have opted for dead square on the shoulder or a broken back or neck. Not much meat loss and no chase after the shot. Last year my hunting partner using my Sharps 45-70-420 PP took a nice buck---the shoulder shot put him right on the ground. Years ago I put down a nice deer at 100 yds that had stayed on it's feet after a hit from a 300 Win Mag. One shot from my 45-70 Borchardt with a 420 PP--broken back ended the pursuit. This year I used the trusty 420 PP over 90 grs of 2fg in a muzzle loader to roll one with a neck shot. About 20 yrs ago I lost a really nice buck that I lung shot with a 500 gr PP--he stayed on his feet for 400-500 yds and into the waiting arms of another hunting party. Big or small--the point of the shoulder is my target.

[zrifleman]

With my limited experience using PP bullets on game, its's not so much the shape of the nose or the alloy. 420-500 gr PP bullets were made to be "bone breakers", deep penetration on big boned animals. Rather than the classic shot behind the shoulder, I have opted for dead square on the shoulder or a broken back or neck. Not much meat loss and no chase after the shot. Last year my hunting partner using my Sharps 45-70-420 PP took a nice buck---the shoulder shot put him right on the ground. Years ago I put down a nice deer at 100 yds that had stayed on it's feet after a hit from a 300 Win Mag. One shot from my 45-70 Borchardt with a 420 PP--broken back ended the pursuit. This year I used the trusty 420 PP over 90 grs of 2fg in a muzzle loader to roll one with a neck shot. About 20 yrs ago I lost a really nice buck that I lung shot with a 500 gr PP--he stayed on his feet for 400-500 yds and into the waiting arms of another hunting party. Big or small--the point of the shoulder is my target.

[Scott Tschirhart]

Pete,

I like to shoot my deer through the front shoulder. Here is are photos of the entrance and exit wounds of a deer I shot yesterday with that Lyman bullet at 30-1.





I was not unhappy with the results.

[pete]

Scott;
Congratulations. That's pretty impressive performance. Did it hit any big bones?
I try for behind the shoulder depending on shot angle. Obviously when animals are quartering toward me I'll try farther fwd and quartering away I'll try a little back. Unless it's buffalo then I want broadside at least on the first shot, they're tough.
Speaking for me and me only a spine shot, neck shot or shoulder bone shot etc. attempt would be a trick shot since I'm not good enough to pull those off consistently. Behind the shoulder gives me the most possible margin for error. High I hit the spine. Forward the shoulder. Low the heart. A little far back I'm still in the lungs.
Out here stalking on the plains, shots can vary greatly and trying to hit an antelope's or deer's spine from 50 to 200 yards would be touchy to say the least.
If you're shooting out of a stand or over a feeder there's time and opportunity for more precise placement. Here we walk alot and/or spot and stalk so shooting opportunities can be quick and varied.
The last deer I got came up out of a ravine in a hurry getting my scent by swirling winds and stopped at 100 yds. just for a second to look around. I had to shoot quick and he was a little closer than I thought and I hit high and broke the spine. Obviously he dropped right there but that's not quite where I had intended to hit. Had I tried a spine shot he'd been gone. Just an example.