Brian Pfleuger
Moderator Emeritus
I've killed and seen killed a great many whitetail deer, of every imaginable size and with weapons ranging from long-bows with hand-made arrows, to 20 and 12ga shotguns with Foster and sabot slugs, handguns from 357 and up and rifles ranging from .223Rem to .45-70.
They just don't die that hard. If you poke a hole through both lungs, they're done breathing. Rarely do they go more than 100 yards. Yet, I've seen a doe that had both lungs shredded and her aorta literally torn off the top of the heart still travel more than 250 yards.
Lots of folks see weird stuff like that and blame the caliber/cartridge rather than realizing it's small sample size deviation that's to blame.
I would not hesitate to hunt deer with a 10mm loaded with a bullet designed to be a stopper, such as the XTP or anything similar, or any lead bullet of an alloy and design that would promote reasonable expansion and penetration. In fact, I routinely carried my .357sig Glock 33 (with extended barrel for legality) when I was whitetail hunting so a 10mm would have been an "upgrade".
They just don't die that hard. If you poke a hole through both lungs, they're done breathing. Rarely do they go more than 100 yards. Yet, I've seen a doe that had both lungs shredded and her aorta literally torn off the top of the heart still travel more than 250 yards.
Lots of folks see weird stuff like that and blame the caliber/cartridge rather than realizing it's small sample size deviation that's to blame.
I would not hesitate to hunt deer with a 10mm loaded with a bullet designed to be a stopper, such as the XTP or anything similar, or any lead bullet of an alloy and design that would promote reasonable expansion and penetration. In fact, I routinely carried my .357sig Glock 33 (with extended barrel for legality) when I was whitetail hunting so a 10mm would have been an "upgrade".