Last week while mule deer hunting in CA my son shot a nice sized mule deer buck with his 6.5 Creed at 327 yards. It was quartering to us and he made a bad shot hitting it square in the guts. A solid drum thwap and the deer jumped and walked over the hill. It's California so we are shooting all copper bullets. His rifle shoots Federal 130 gain Barnes TSX factory ammo very well so that's what he was using. We sneak up after a 30 min cooling off period because I felt it would need a follow up shot. As we sneak up the deer is bedded, jumps up and runs off zig zagging throught the junipers. The next time we see him is 500 yds away for a second as he continued walking into the juniper cover. Three of us comb the area for 3 hours. We find his tracks and I followed them for 1200 yds before losing them in a lava field. Not a single drop of blood. A few hairs at the shot impact on the ground and nothing else. Fast foward 2 days later. Still looking for the buck. We find what we think is him in an alfalfa field and wait for him to move on to the public. My son kills the buck with neck shoulder shot. Upon inspection we find a 6.5 cal hole in the middle of him so I field dress the deer. The bullet enter the main stomach with small hole and never exited. The deer was fine. No rupture of the stomach or internal bleeding. No pass thru. Bullet was just somewhere in a mass of alfalfa?? Has anyone ever had this happen? Poor shot placement for sure but really has me questioning my Creed. Maybe I should have taken the 7 mag. All ended well but it would have no matter what because the buck was alive and eating when we located him again. Dangdest thing I've ever seen in 35 years of hunting. Ruger American Predator with 22" barrel. Velocity is 2790 at the muzzle.