Ballistic Tip Failures......

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Several deer have fallen to 165 grain hornady SST bullets in front of my .308. Those little plastic tipped bullets seemed to do the job just dandy.

ET
 
Ok I will call a spade a spade. but I will also not be using taht ammo for deer anymore. Hogs yes but deer no. I did nto shoot any of the Leverevolution yet but I also do nto see too many differances between the zombie BS. I only bought it becasue it was a cheaper "ballistic". lesson learned and i will pass it on to my noy and my friends. Back to $15 a box hollow point and lead nose for sure. Going back to the old and reliable. I have killed man deer with just that and thats what it will be from here on out. Also the rifle did have a scope and liek i mentioned it was sighted in the day before. Teh ballistics of the BT's was a hell of a lot different and shot abotu 5" higher that my "typical" ammo. I adjusted to that and fired a groupe of 3 at 2" and went with it. Now i need to sight that bad boy in again to ammo I trust and get more time behind the rifle. One last thing i have to add. The bone i found was abotu teh sixe of a nickle and was smooth/flat to the likes of a rib, but that could haev been the top or bottom of one and just not effective enough to get it done. Thank every one and i will let you all knwo hwta happens whit the switch back.
 
If you hit the very bottom of the rib cage there's nothing vital there. I just saw that done too. It did enough damage to disable the deer but didn't hit heart or lungs. That gun was a lot more powerful than a 30-30 though.

I'd try the LevaRevolution. They're designed for the task. They'll work fine, if they hit where they're supposed to. ;)
 
My tip after seeing several hundred Ballistic Tip failures
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Failure to do what? Several hundred? Sorry but that's a bunch of BS unless you think BT's should blow up mountains or something like that. I've been shooting and hunting with Nosler BT's for 20+ years and have had one failure and it was I'm sure a fluke where the bullet entered between two ribs and exited between two ribs, I found the deer the next day in a swampy area laid up on a cypress mound 350-400yds from the stand. Unfortunately it was 90 degrees during the day and 80 or more at night. The shot and placement was all my fault, too high and too far back so essence it was as much my fault as the bullet's.
 
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If it was SST's, I love them in my 30-06 for deer.

For 30/30, get yourself a FN mold and some lead and cast your own. You'll never go back to condom bullets again. :)
 
nobody gonna comment on the second shot when the first animal wasn't tracked enough already?

you doubted your ammo and your sight-in and still took a second chance?

I know you guys are probably not high on laws/regulations (I am not either) but I fully support a law that states that you have to have access to a tracking dog when hunting.

Another tip could be to wait up to an hour or two before beginning to track, that way the animal isn't rushed out of the area and instead it seeks a shelter to lay down
 
Husqvarna said:
nobody gonna comment on the second shot when the first animal wasn't tracked enough already?

you doubted your ammo and your sight-in and still took a second chance?

I know you guys are probably not high on laws/regulations (I am not either) but I fully support a law that states that you have to have access to a tracking dog when hunting.

Another tip could be to wait up to an hour or two before beginning to track, that way the animal isn't rushed out of the area and instead it seeks a shelter to lay down
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There's very little reasonable in that entire post.

Why would you doubt your gun after one bad shot? It was sighted in a couple days before. The most reasonable explanation is simply a bad shot by the shooter, no reason for an experienced hunter to think he's going to do it again. Plus, he took corrective action, making the second shot prone to try to ensure a good shot.

A law requiring tracking dogs is just asinine. It would literally be impossible in a great many situations and would eliminate hunting in a good many places. These aren't people we're shooting. If one is wounded and gets away, it's not the end of the world. It's not Bambi. They're not self-aware. They're animals. It confounds me, that we will willingly poison mice, which are "intelligent" mammals every bit as much as deer, but we act like we're talking about cruel and unusual punishment of humans when it's a large animal like a deer. If we have to treat them like that, we shouldn't be shooting them in the first place. Silliness.

Waiting an hour or two after the shot is not always feasible or wise either. Sometimes, yes, but it's no generic answer.
 
I do have another theory about that second shot, in light of some others saying the bullet is not well constructed. You very well may have hit just above or below the joint on the shoulder leg juncture. This bone structure is very strong and can cause a bullet to frag and blow out bone with out giving the penetration nessary to make it to the boiler room and shut down the ship. I have seen this happen!

I know I have had one true fail that I know of. 100gr core loct, 243, 450 yards. The deer shot bolt up right and dropped back into the woods. I waited about 30 mins before going to check out the hit. There was a solid blood trail and I thought,"he is dead at the bottom of the hill". One step into the woods and he jumps up and takes off up the next hill. Where he was lying was a huge pool of blood and I knew all I had to do was just wait a few hours and go get him. Then just over the a shot rang out! I followed the blood to the deer where a young man from next door had taken him!:D He shot him from about 75 yards with a 280 and the bullet holes where with in 2 inches of each other! Nice deer for a nice young man! Next year I was using the 260!
 
I don't see how it is impossible, sure Sweden isn't Alaska but we do have the northern parts which are wast areas of nothing but wilderness. but we do hunt more in groups, so you can kinda share the tracking dog. or if you go out alone and don't have a dog you call around some and check who might be on call if it happens.

it isn't a human no but WE are humans and have a morality/ethics
 
I don't see how it is impossible, sure Sweden isn't Alaska
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What ABOUT Alaska? Or Colorado? Or similar states? Or Canada? Some guys are hunting several days travel into the wilderness, sometimes accessible only by air. Requiring a hunting dog for them would be near on impossible and certainly prohibitively expensive. And for what? My experience indicates about a 7% chance of wounding an animal and being unable to recover it. A good number of that 7% are wounded such that they don't die, so no recovery by dog or any other method short of shooting from a helicopter would recover them.

Yeah, we're humans, we have ethics. Those ethics extend to making a reasonable effort to make a good shot and a reasonable effort to recover wounded animals. If you do those two things, a lost animal is not a moral or ethical issue. It happens. It's life. They're animals.
 
This is the internet I all sorts of BS finds it's way under the bridge but REQUIRING a trackin dog is pure silliness.

The thing that jumped out most to me in the first post was the fact he was aiming behind the shoulder. IMO that's where the problem starts. All things are fine and great IF you hit right behind it but miss a couple inches back and you'll be lucky to find the deer. If the deer is even at the slightest cant towards you then even if you hit right behind the shoulder you may be SOL. Had it happen to me this year:

50 yard shot, slightly quartering into me, off hand. Thought I hit low but had a good blood trail so I started trackin. Got over to where a friend was on stand and he opened up as I pushed some other deer outta the thicket. The deer I shot though came right back in front of me, blood all down the side RIGHT BEHIND THE SHOULDER. After some gutting of the other deer I went back to work on the blood trail which had slowed to a trickle. 1/2 mile later I jumped that doe up and off it went. No blood and no hope after that. My shooting and the fact that it was facing slightly towards me caused the lost deer (And no I didn't sit down and have a good cry over it).

Years ago I read the best place to aim on deer was the off side shoulder. Not the one you see, the one you don't. Aiming there it's about impossible to miss the vitals. It's something I always try to do yet as my story indicates isn't always accomplished.

As for the bullet failure or not....... There is not one current commercially available .30-30 round that won't drop a deer if the shooter does his part. Bullet failure my butt.
 
We hunt as a club on leased land. If we have member that shoots a deer and it runs off in one of the bays, swamps or thick planted pines, we'll get a dog in there. Usually there is no shortages of labs or others that'll gladly join the in hunt. Requiring it though is a bit of a stretch.
 
re Brian for those animals that don't die we use people on temporary blinds/stands and/or dogs that either stand/front the animals (again I don't know the english word for this) so you get another chance, or some dogs catch or even take care of it themselves, with training the dogs only go for the intended animal.

atleast over here we hunters face great scrutiny from animalactivists and so on so we have to be very ethical about it all. tracking animals involved in traffic accidents fall on some of us hunters.

But I stand by my first statement: I wouldn't take another shot at an animal before I knew the first one was down, and I put some real effort into tracking it, if it was a hit that will kill eventually it is my obligation to put that animal down.
 
atleast over here we hunters face great scrutiny from animalactivists and so on so we have to be very ethical about it all. tracking animals involved in traffic accidents fall on some of us hunters.

But I stand by my first statement: I wouldn't take another shot at an animal before I knew the first one was down, and I put some real effort into tracking it, if it was a hit that will kill eventually it is my obligation to put that animal down.
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You've let the animal rights ethics corrupt your thinking too. We ARE very "ethical" about it when we make the effort to make a good shot and a reasonable effort to recover the wounded animal.

Being shot does not, by a wide margin, guarantee death to the animal. That sounds like another fantasy created the animal rights nut jobs. I've seen quite a few animals with obvious old wounds (as in years old) that were getting along just fine.

Who says that it's unethical if the animal is never recovered? Animals die every day, no human involvement needed. They rot and/or get eaten by other animals. Same thing happens to one that's shot and never recovered. How is unethical because it's life was shortened by a human but not if it was shorten by disease?

Is the implication that it's ethical to kill the animal if you eat it but not ethical if you don't? Why does that not apply to mice? Woodchucks (Groundhogs)? Etc?

See, you're letting the anti-hunters define the parameters. They weasel their way in until you start to think like them.

It's either ethical to kill animals or it's not. If it is, human involvement extends to making a reasonable shot and reasonable effort to recover the animal. Even calling that a "moral" obligation is a stretch. As I said, if it's a moral obligation, why doesn't it extend to other relatively higher-order mammals such as mice?

It's not a tragedy if an animal is not recovered. It sucks, it's a bummer, it ruins your day, yeah, whatever, but it's not a moral issue.
 
I don't let them define it, but I don't disregard their presence and the influence they might get, prepare for the worst you know.

maybe it is just semantics we argue about, reasonable effort is kinda the wording in our laws aswell, and for us having access to a tracking dog isn't a hassle. as hunters we do have a code informal if you wish to follow, and shooting at another animal before your first is down violates that IMO.

and I do very much hunt for the meat, or predator/varmint control. So I want to get my meat, heck I take care of the animals we track from accidents if it isn't too mashed up and within a couple of hours.

tell me about the groundhogs and whatnot, surely there is a purpose to it? otherwise we might aswell okey claypidgeon shooting with real pidgeons
 
Husqvarna said:
tell me about the groundhogs and whatnot, surely there is a purpose to it?
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Purpose to it.... They're annoying. Does that count? We shoot them, in theory, because they ruin farmers crops and can be dangerous to livestock (stepping in holes). In reality, I shoot them because it's a challenge to hit them from a long ways away and I enjoy it. Coyotes too. Shoot them and they lay where they fall. Crows, same thing. Starlings, English Sparrows too.

It's no different to me than if I enjoyed golf or basketball. If I make a really long shot, we hoorah and High-5. It's a game.

These animals are of no use, alive or dead, at least in the numbers that they exist. I shoot them because I can and so do 10s of thousands of others.

The only reason deer are different is because a lot of people eat them. There's no ethical difference. I don't eat 95% of the deer I kill. I give them away or take them to a butcher shop to be donated.
 
We shoot them, in theory, because they ruin farmers crops and can be dangerous to livestock (stepping in holes)
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well thats all fine and good, even if it is just an excuse.

but I don't know about what you wrote later.

like I said earlier would you be okey with breeding birds to be let out and shot for peoples enjoyment? that was popular back in the day but we have come a long way since back in the day. Have competitions were deer run in a trought and you shoot them?

sure hunting isn't a life or death thing in the western world anymore either but to me it is not just a sport
 
Husqvarna said:
like I said earlier would you be okey with breeding birds to be let out and shot for peoples enjoyment?
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Many states do just that... except the birds are actually eaten. Our state environmental agency raises Ringneck Pheasants, native to Mongolia, and releases them in pre-scheduled places and times for the express purpose of hunters, who are waiting with loaded guns and dogs, to kill them.


.... but we have come a long way since back in the day.
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Well, we've certainly MOVED a long ways... the direction is up for debate.
 
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