.45 auto hunting ammo.

A .357 through the lungs will kill a deer. IMO, a deer isn't very different from a man. slight differences in structure, and it will take a few more inches to reach lethal parts, but very little actual difference in a center mass/lung zone hit between deer and men.

Metabolically and psychologically, of course there are differences. But, the simple thing is that anything that can reliably kill a man will probably reliably kill a deer, but it doesn't follow that being minimally capable of killing a man will easily kill a deer. I believe that a deer, regardless of the similarities, should probably be hit with something stronger than a 9 mm, I don't feel that a .38 should be a chosen round either. I figure a .357 as being the bottom ethical line, with .40 and .45 also included.

Plenty of people have dropped deer with .357 rounds, my brother in law has done it twice. The biggest question is whether you can get a bullet through the ten inches or so that it would take to punch through the major bleed out organs, and if it will make a big enough hole, and how much tearing it will do on the way. Essentially, will that handgun cause enough damage, and will it damage the organs that keep the critter alive?
Don't jump all over me because I don't like the 9 as a deer gun. It's not as capable as a .357 under any possible interpretation. A 147 vs 158, about 1k fps vs 1,300 fps or so. There's no comparison.
 
I know precious little about hunting in general and very little about deer hunting specifically. But it seems to me that if you are in a tree stand with a deer almost directly under you or very very very near... your scoped center fire rifle is going to be incredibly awkward at best and practically NOT usable at worst, or at least with no genuine ability to actually aim it.

It seems to me that a carried sidearm in that scenario is a decent option, assuming you have the backing of license and regulations.

No? I guess I'm just saying that I'm not sure about all the "bad idea" posts. Seems to me like a decent idea, or at least better than a horribly awkward shot with a rifle at an impossible angle or distance.

But again... what do I know anyway...
 
Dont listen to any naysayers. As long as YOU are capable 100% of making a good shot, you will harvest a deer with the .45acp USING appropriate ammo.

You have two choices, you can go hollowpoint (bonded is preferred and heavier is preferred)
Or you can go SWC/Flat point.

With a well built hollowpoint, you MAY create more damage to tissue/organs due to an enlarged projectile, unless the hollopoint fails to expand, which is not all that rare. But you risk not getting through and through penetration. Which to me is pretty important. All bullets do is make holes on things, the bigger (generally speaking) the hole, the better.

A SWC/wide flat nose lead bullet is gaurunteed to go through and through (assuming broadsie shot, and a decently powered load, like 200gr at 1000fps or 255gr at 850+fps)
Flat point bullets with a large meplate are proven to damage more tissue than the projectiles diameter, so if you were to go this route, you would get thorough penetration (more blood loss and lower blood pressure) as well as disrupt/damage tissue much greater than a typical fmj round nose.

The choice is yours, but make sure doing suchxthings is legal in your state, and check your regulations on ammo/capacity and what-not.

In ohio it is legal for me to hunt deer with a .45acp 1911, and i plan on doing so this season.
 
Well, seven, you make a good point, but that doesn't rule out shooting a larger round, and that's what will come up for anyone who makes the point that a rifle isn't good. Go get a magnums. Forget whatever other silly notions one h as and buy 44 magnums.

Regardless of other considerations, just looking at the data and some history, then comparing anatomy and known performance between human and game, it's my opinion, maybe yours as well, that a .45 is capable of killing a deer if done right. What an 06 can do may fail with a .45 with identical placement. I have to agree that a handgun will be more convenient for shooting from a stand, but there may be a million bow hunters who have no problem. I think that a well choose rifle would be just as easy to use as one of the large compound bows, don't you think?

It's kind of sad that buckshot is illegal to hunt with here. (One bullet with a single discharge, I believe that the actual wording is.)
 
Shooting downward from a stand will actually improve the chances for success with a .45. If you hit the spinal area, game over. Missing the spine will stick put that round through the thing and into the ground, possibly.

As some people have said, limiting shots to bow hunting parameters would be a good idea. It doesn't matter if Elmer Keith killed elk at incredible ranges, or what truly dedicated handgun hunters can do, the poster seems to be looking at it as using what he has and staying within his limits.
 
I don't hunt, but have read good things about 255 grain WFN (wide flat nose) bullets from Bear Tooth Bullets.

I have bought these from Bear Tooth and loaded some up fairly hot but don't remember the exact grains using Unique Powder. They easily went thru several 2x4's so penetration is plenty. This flat nose design does a lot of damage.

There are loads for them at the Bear Tooth sight and other forums. Remember .45 Colt used a round nose flat point with less meplat and could take down most game in North America.
 
The problem is penetration. Hunting deer requires significantly more penetration from the 45 auto than most of the personal defense ammo can yield.
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How much penetration would a .45 Auto need to get through the ribs into the vitals? When I butchered all the deer I killed, I found that even #4 buckshot pellets would penetrate all the way to the hide on the off side.
 
Some states require the usage of expanding ammo, which would rule out any Hard lead projectile. I am going to hunt these massive ohio whitetails this season, and after i get one with the Recurve bow, i will use my 1911. I am going to be using Hornady Critical duty ammo, because it is what i have and is very accurate in my gun. If you decide to go hollow point, use a load that has very high penetration compared to others. Like the Federal HST in any weight, heavier being better. From the gel testing i have seen, hst typically has very deep penetration, typically over 15". I believe gel is also stronger/denser than living tissue, you may get better perfomance on living targets than what you see happen to gel blocks.

An average ohio buck is lets say 200#, his chest area is roughly 21" in width, with a a layer of thick skin on thr outside, and strong ribs protecting his vital organs. We can estimate his heart sits dead in the middle of his width, and that entrance on one side, would take about 6 or 7 inches just to reach it, and his heart is about 4" wide, so you need at least 10" of real worpd penetration to enter his body and go through his heart. Any penetration or damage after that is bonus, and will result in a quicker death. We all know how tough these animals arr and how long they csn function even with a fatal wound. I would Opt for a wide flat nose Hard lead projectile unless you are limited to expanding, then i would use a Federal HST 230gr.

It doesnt take 1000+ ft/lbs to kill a deer, you just have to put a hole through his heart or lungs or brain. My recurve bow generates about 40 ft/lbs of energy, yet will go clean through a deer broadside. I have seen american ram and african warthog killed with a razor broadhead blow dart gun.

You just may have to do some tracking. Without a CNS shot, he may run 100 or more yards, be prepared to track him, but i am betting if you hit him in the heart, he will be dead within 50yds
 
I am now wondering if a copper HP like a barnes would be just as good as a bonded round. May have Better probability that it will track straight.

Using a bow is completely different in principle from a gun. you don't measure them in projectile energy. You measure them in how much tissue you cut through, how much you make them bleed. The broadhead will rip through the tissues to what, almost two inches in one direction and an inch or so the other? Just a little of impact energy is needed, the rest is sectional density of the projectile and how easily it blows through those tissues. A sharp pointed tip and a few slicing blades.
 
An average ohio buck is lets say 200#, his chest area is roughly 21" in width, with a a layer of thick skin on thr outside, and strong ribs protecting his vital organs. We can estimate his heart sits dead in the middle of his width, and that entrance on one side, would take about 6 or 7 inches just to reach it, and his heart is about 4" wide, so you need at least 10" of real worpd penetration to enter his body and go through his heart.
Click to expand...
I have shot, examined the bullet damage and penetration on many, many deer. One thing I particularly liked was Barbecued deer ribs (bucks only does are way too fat). I would cut the chest into slabs of ribs with a table saw...crude but effective. What I noticed by doing that, was that a deer's ribs are not very substantial and when I was finished eating the ribs, and only the bones were left, it struck me that the ribs do not represent much resistance to a bullet (or #4 buckshot) at all. Further examining the chests of deer, I discovered that with the hide, skin and bone (ribs), there is 1 scant inch or so of barrier before encountering the vitals, which are relatively soft (especially the lungs, liver). I came to the conclusion that all a projectile had to do was to shoot through that inch or so of chest wall and then the projectile is relatively unimpeded as to damaging the heart, liver, and lungs. Therefore, almost any .45 Auto load save for hardball maybe, would be sufficient to kill a Whitetail deer. I have killed about eight deer with #4 Buckshot (as well as many others with rifles), and found that even the modest mass of the #4 Buckshot pellets would penetrate from side-to-side completely save for when the deer about 30 yards. Then, the #4 Buckshot pellets would be found under the off-side hide (there would be bruising around the pellets when the deer was skinned), having done their job. If a #4 Buckshot pellet consistently and successfully penetrates a buck's chest, why would any reasonable .45 Auto bullet not? In short, there is virtually nothing "protecting a deer's vital organs".
 
A person can look at the meat department at a rack of ribs for hog or even beef and find that the bone really isn't that substantial. It might offer no more resistance than a sheet of 3*8 inch plywood. I believe that the FBI barricade tested for that particular item. Even so, there's at least a good possiblity that the round will just slide right through the critter without even touching bone.

rib bones don't need to be dense as lead and hard as rocks, they aren't weight or muscle bearing bone, just protective in nature and don't carry the same weight as the hip bones or others. I can't think of any similar items in the skeleton. That's why you will notice that they are wider and oblong, the purpose is just to prevent an injury that may have been lethal from resulting in anything but a serious bruise.

After it gets through the bone and hide, well, yes, there is meat, fat, other tissues that offer resistance, and the heart is as tough as a baseball glove, but it is correct that punching through a deer is easier than lots of people assume.

Twenty years or so ago, when winchester brough out the "black talon" rifle rounds, the partition type rounds that were supposed to give the deepest possible penetration, Wal mart here got in thousands of boxes and stacked them ten yards high on the shelves.

Wait, seriously, the missouri white tail isn't a 600 pound roosevelt elk, caribou, or moose, but people were buying rounds designed for heavy game at $2 or $3 each?

I do believe in the use of plugged hollow points like hornady makes. A rubber plug in a hollow point round will prevent the cavity from blocking up with immobile gunk, and if the material is chosen well it will function exactly as the body tissues would in initiating expansion.
 
Hard cast from B.B. will glean at least 2' of straight line penetration into soft tissue TYPICALLY. If you cant kill a deer with that you've no business in the stand.

Side comment. As mentioned above on calibers for deer. I grew up in the hill country of Texas, sooo often I would hear idjits speak of needing at least an .06 for white tail....#120 white tail :rolleyes:
 
My dad used a 30-06. I wanted a 25-06. Since he was paying half for what I was going to buy he got to choose, and he insisted that I get a -243. Once in a while, you get a guy who understands that what you need and what you like to have are two different things.
 
I've used .44Mag (Marlin 1894) & 10mm (G20SF w/ 9" barrel) on southern Whitetail,
but never .45acp, recently have been considering .45-Super for that job...
All it takes to upgrade is a stronger recoil & hammer spring...
which most folks do for reliability anyway...

Through a carbine, I wouldn't mind using .45acp,
but I'd have to use .45-Super for a pistol...
the extra FPS would make a difference.
 
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