Sorry for the lack of pictures - I do not do the take a picture of the dead animal thing.
I figured I would come back to this thread after using copper ammo this year. I had settled on the Federal Powershock 85 grain copper out of a .243. I was overly impressed with how the ammo grouped out of my rifle. I did not get out a lot this year and was moving through the woods on the property on a fairly windy day Saturday about 10:00AM. I had a group of approach me and selected one of the smaller bucks out of the group - I did not have them weigh it after field dressed but guess in the 100 to 110lb area. It was, frankly, the best shot that would not involve going through brush and the group had paused and was looking at me.
I did what I swore I would not do with a .243 and took what was a less than ideal shot at about 40 yards. I knew it afterwards but I took the shot anyways. The buck was facing towards me with just a slight hint of quartering. In hindsight I should not have taken that shot and when I saw the flags moving away from me I thought I was in for a long track. There was some brush as I was not in my cleared out stand area due to the wind and I was hoping for a clean miss. I walked up quickly as I had two tags and have seen deer stop after a shot to start looking and the deer lay there very much dead.
The round had entered from the front towards the left shoulder and caused a lot of havoc in that area. It had then entered the chest cavity, taken out a portion of the heart where it had just hit (no I did not measure damage) and must have been fairly in-tact still because it was a fairly hemi-spherical damage. One lung was unidentifiable and there was some minimal damage to the small intestines (though not the stomach so I might have nicked it dressing it - I will confess to not looking closely there). There was no discernable exit wound and not a lot of external bleeding but it was also a pretty quick kill.
Overall considering it was a poor shot for the caliber chosen and I was kicking myself for moving away from the .270 as I walked up with visions of a long track in front of me I was impressed. I think luck likely played some role in it and would not recommend taking the same shot again with the same rifle. Still the ammunition, which really was the point of this thread, performed as advertised. Do I think it performed better than a quality lead bullet would have? No. But I think it performed just as well and don't see myself moving away from the copper ammo because of my experience.
I figured I would come back to this thread after using copper ammo this year. I had settled on the Federal Powershock 85 grain copper out of a .243. I was overly impressed with how the ammo grouped out of my rifle. I did not get out a lot this year and was moving through the woods on the property on a fairly windy day Saturday about 10:00AM. I had a group of approach me and selected one of the smaller bucks out of the group - I did not have them weigh it after field dressed but guess in the 100 to 110lb area. It was, frankly, the best shot that would not involve going through brush and the group had paused and was looking at me.
I did what I swore I would not do with a .243 and took what was a less than ideal shot at about 40 yards. I knew it afterwards but I took the shot anyways. The buck was facing towards me with just a slight hint of quartering. In hindsight I should not have taken that shot and when I saw the flags moving away from me I thought I was in for a long track. There was some brush as I was not in my cleared out stand area due to the wind and I was hoping for a clean miss. I walked up quickly as I had two tags and have seen deer stop after a shot to start looking and the deer lay there very much dead.
The round had entered from the front towards the left shoulder and caused a lot of havoc in that area. It had then entered the chest cavity, taken out a portion of the heart where it had just hit (no I did not measure damage) and must have been fairly in-tact still because it was a fairly hemi-spherical damage. One lung was unidentifiable and there was some minimal damage to the small intestines (though not the stomach so I might have nicked it dressing it - I will confess to not looking closely there). There was no discernable exit wound and not a lot of external bleeding but it was also a pretty quick kill.
Overall considering it was a poor shot for the caliber chosen and I was kicking myself for moving away from the .270 as I walked up with visions of a long track in front of me I was impressed. I think luck likely played some role in it and would not recommend taking the same shot again with the same rifle. Still the ammunition, which really was the point of this thread, performed as advertised. Do I think it performed better than a quality lead bullet would have? No. But I think it performed just as well and don't see myself moving away from the copper ammo because of my experience.