I concur
Explain This Please
- Thread starter bozoben
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Hey man I'm not here to argue, I'm here to learn. If that goat ran off because of a poor shot I'll own it straight up. The thing is, I hit him within 2-3 inches of where I aimed.
I'm trying to make this a learning experience.
What I'm not trying to do is to justify a poor shot or place the blame elsewhere.
Again, I'm not here to argue, but I'm not blowing smoke. If you could slow down and watch the video zoomed in like I have 100 times you would see that the hair your seeing flew up from where the bullet exited the far side of the animal. You can see the bullet impact the hide and you can see the shock wave ripple outwards from that point.
Try to zoom in if you can and watch it frame by frame, it will be more clear.
Yes, that is where I saw blood which confirms the point of impact.
That's what I did and I took a screenshot of the video when and where it hit. It grazed the top of his back not where you're saying it hit. If it would've hit where you say he'd be dead within a very short distance. There's no way it hit there.
jdavistx
Well-Known Member
Spin drift?
Impossible because the hillside that appears to be directly behind him is over 1k yards behind him.
If you look at the pic that the shooter sent where he circled the hit that's a gut shot. Hair flying doesn't tell me anything. Hair flies everywhere just when they duck under a fence. The only way a guy would know for sure is to recover the animal. If it is a gut shot it wouldn't matter what the bullet did. If the bullet did it's job or not many of critter can go for days with one in the guts.
I wouldn't let it get to you. Truth be told all the comments including mine are only a guess. Without recovering the animal to know for sure I would just call it bad luck. You can blame lots of things but at the end of the day it's over and we will never be certain what actually happened. You walked into a hornets nest by posting that because we all see things differently. Just brush it off and be glad you were able to get out and hunt
Calvin45
Well-Known Member
Interesting. My experience not aligned with this though I already have some guesses as to why…in my experience on whitetail deer the 270 kills notably faster than the .243, but my .300 win mag definitely has a real world benefit over the .270. I know individual animals do have different amounts of "will to live" as well but it's still been my experience that the sub .30 cals are more likely to "reveal" these tenacious examples of a given species haha. Maybe I've just been lucky with my .300 and unlucky with my .270 but I've never had one go more than 40 yards with the big .30 and have had more than one go beyond 400 yards with the 270 (and that's not including the story I shared earlier, these were solidly hit animals, one of them had a hole in its heart we discovered upon field dressing!). I don't get it when I hear people (usually older hunters which makes this even more confusing to me) say that the cartridge doesn't even matter, it's all about shot placement. Obviously shot placement is the most important thing, but with conventional chest shots I really have observed that as a rule the more horsepower the quicker the death. I suppose the older hunters I know that say this are also men who have often used exactly one centerfire cartridge for all their hunting career (and it's almost always a .308 or a .30-06). Bullet construction matters too no doubt, and I agree with you absolutely that a 300 grain 338 on a pronghorn very well may just poke a hole and not upset at all, but that bit about 7mm and under doing better just hasn't been my experience at all. Note as well I'm definitely not arguing your experience, just sharing mine.I stopped hunting pronghorn and deer with anything larger than a 7mm a long time ago. Got tired of the bullet zipping through and no energy being transferred to the animal. 7mm flattens them out properly. 6mm's and 6.5's are just fine for pronghorn. They are tiny. 338 guarantees a pass through with almost zero energy transfer. Not enough critter there to even let most bullets open at all... unless you're using the lightest bullets in that caliber.
Looks like it's just a combination of too much gun and a poor shot placement. Improperly shot antelope basically turn into a terminator that can run 50mph+. Sometimes they won't stop running for 20 miles.
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Now as to my theory as to why our experiences don't match…I live in northern Saskatchewan (well geographically about the middle of it haha). Do you thing the possibly larger body mass of the deer here, but more so the ultra thick layer of fur and fat they have on by late November in preparation for harsh winters, changes the game when it comes to larger than 7mms performing as well, or better, than smaller calibers?
Oh my goodness. Does it align with my experience from five years ago!? It is an archery shot with complete pass through with 1.5" rage broadhead. After 12 hours waiting, the antelope rose from its bed and ran into the horizon never to be seen or found. Mind you I am board certified large animal surgeon and to this day I do not know what actually happened there (The shot is definitely undertone spine). Now I can see that a 338 RUM can be just as surprising...
misterc01
Well-Known Member
Thank you for yhpur efforts in trying to ensure you did no leave he animal suffering. Form the video appears the animla was doing fine.
The bullet grazed it's back or went thru no mans land . Fur flew and you can see the bullet trace and impact behind the animal, you said you would own so do so
BlazerBeam
Well-Known Member
I have shot tiny bodied animals with huge bullets and the bullets expand and make big wound channels. In my opinion, your situation is the result of not having a polymer tip on the bullet. You have to hit something solid or have a lot of mass that the bullet will travel through in order for it to open up. I've shot an antelope through the center of the ribs with a 300 grain Accubond out of a 338 rum at 580 yards and he belly flopped on the spot. Wound channel was large. In order for predictable, 99.99% of the time expansion to happen with little resistance, there has to be a tip or a much larger hollow point on the bullet than what a Berger has. Just my experience anyway
