I appolagize to all hunters

[Kevin Stenberg]

I take my responsibility to humanely kill all of the deer I take very seriousely. That is why I ask for your forgiveness. I lost 2 deer this year and I am devastated by it.
The only bright spot I can see. Is it may have been a combination of alloy and load I was using. That is why I want to get your opinions. On my loads
Facts 3 hits on deer. 2 at 10 yards and 1 at 70 yards. Not 1 of the animals blead externally.
Deer #1 10 yards walked under my stand and started to walk away. She turned to look up at me. I put the crosshairs between her eyes. her departing run was a normal bound. I found 4 drops of blood 200 yards away in 1 little group. Nothing else.
Deer #2 10 yards walking very fast at me. Almost a run. I took him high and in front of the shoulder. Bullet was found in back of the offside shoulder and low. The bullet put a dime size hole in the heart, and liver and made mush out of the lungs. It traveled 200 yards without any blood trail. The bullet I found was about the size of a large pea. No bones were hit. The bullet must have just grazed the ribs. the death run was head low to the ground tail down almost in a crawl position.
Deer#3 70 yards broadside shot, shot not hurried, It was my normal shoulder shot centered front to rear and about half way up the shoulder. I couldn't see the exit run or if I had broken the front leg. I did see the front half of the deer be driven away from me at the shot. 2 of us spent an hour with flashlights, an the next morning we spent another 4 hours searching ( more of a search for a body) Not 1 drop of blood was found. My friend has much more exp. finding lost game than I.
My load was. 7TCU 135gr (357 maximum) Thore mold 50%WW/50%soft + 1%sn air cooled PC 24gr/blc2 Tula SRP After my first loss I went to my range (my home) and shot once at 25/50/100 yards. The first 2 shots were touching and the third was off by 3/16"
I shot once into water jugs at 50 yards. 1 heavy kitty litter 1.5gal jug which exploded. 1 3gal cooking oil jug which was a pass through. it had thicker plastic. A second cooking oil jug. And almost exiting the third jug putting a very apparent dent in it. The bullet had a perfect mushroom to 5/8th".
I can't figure why my combination didn't work? Kevin

 

[Rick]

Kevin, I'm confused. Was it a 7TCU or was it a 357 Max.

 

[freebullet]

You don't owe us an apology. I can tell your pretty tore up about it, I would be too. Wounding game is the last thing any of us want but, if you do this long enough it will happen.

I lost mucho sleep over a doe I wounded during an archery hunt years ago. Tracked her a long ways...like miles. I found her the next day stripped by varmints. That's the beautiful thing, mother nature doesn't waste much. We've harvested numerous previously shot deer. It happens.

Learn everything you can & move forward. I'll add a thank you for being man enough to admit what happened.

The folks that owe an apology are the one's that fire off a mess of shots & don't check for signs of hits. The one's who waste big portions of what they take. The ones who ruin others hunts with their stupidity or dangerous practices. You sound like a stand up guy trying to do it right, that is respectable.

 

[Ian]

Me meant Mike's 7mm bullet.

 

[Chris]

Kevin, I'd like to offer you the same advice I got from an older hunting partner when I first wounded a buck: "Don't beat yourself up over this too much, it eventually happens to everyone".

You followed up the track as best you could and probably learned something about tracking during the process. That's good.

I have tracked a lot of wounded deer... I'm the guy they come to around here when they lose one... and it's not always easy. Deer don't always bleed a lot either, no two are the same. In fact no two hits on deer act the same: One may bang flop on a chest shot, another runs 100 yards with no blood (typical of a low lung shot), the next leaves a sprayed blood trail that you can see in the dark.

If you flip a coin it is possible to get 3 heads in a row... that may have happened to you. Although perhaps #1 could have been a grazing wound, deer #2 didn't die as quickly as hoped for, and only deer #3 was lost on a solid hit. Still, bullets deflect on brush unseen by the shooter on occasion, I have personally seen and verified this 5 times.

I think it's a good idea to examine and test your projectiles though. Eliminate any variables you can. You can only do the best you can do, stay at it and don't punish yourself unnecessarily.

 

[Intheshop]

You "cleared" yourself when admitting the remorse....that is all.

For discussion purposes,a stupid sharp Broadhead cuts/slices tissue and it bleeds like the dickens.Compared to bullets,that tend to "frazzle" ( technical term) tissue ends.Consequently the wound channel cauterizes faster.

The discussion takes a sidetrack because folks get so dang passionate about this or that "scale" of performance that we seem to gravitate towards.So,having said that...

A sharp edge metplat in my experience,is critical in cast performance on living tissue.Can't really back it up with any fancy engineering theory....just old scool observation.The initial smack,followed by deep wound channel puts m down.

One of the biggest deer I every shot was with a jacked up 06 @75yds.Blew the ole boys heart right out....like to never found him.Took off faster than if hit by a cattle prod.B&C buck.Wasn't ready for the dinner plate?

 

[Kevin Stenberg]

Thank you all. I did have a good run going. So I will have to start a new one.

 

[freebullet]

Cheers to that!

 

[Ian]

A sharp edge metplat in my experience,is critical in cast performance on living tissue.

Yes. That's one way, a good one, too. The caveat from those who apply that principle is that you must discover exactly what velocity is best for your particular bullet, because in the example you mention, there seems to be a very narrow margin between too fast and not fast enough to achieve good effect.

 

[fiver]

this might sound rough.
but I won't use the 7mm with cast to hunt with.
in the testing I done with it I found it to be marginal at best and not enough at the worst.
I had too much penetration and not enough terminal effect.
you have to have a balance. [no matter the diameter you start with]

in your water testing you got a 5/8" inch punch up of the boolit.
water is very hard on a bullet and will make them mushroom much more than protein laced water bags that flex and flow.

my advice should you wish to stay with the 7mm.
back off the penetration and up the internal damage.

 

[Kevin Stenberg]

I have been considering getting rid of 1 of my 7TCU a barrel swap back to the 223 it came with (think Axis). An keep the Contender Carbine, just because I love shooting the TCU it is accurate and level shooting out past 100Y. But if some one came up with a trade for most any Carbine barrel it would be considered.

 

[Brad]

What you have is a load that is capable of taking deer but it also leaves the possibility of lost deer. I considered hunting with my 32-20 Marlin for deer but never did for that exact reason.
Lots of people use a 223 or 22-250 for deer. Works fine on standing broadside shots. Any marginal hits are not going to turn out well.
Hell, I almost lost a deer hit with a 350 HP from a 45-70. Lots of damage, too little penetration. Someone else finished that one for me.
I tend to agree with fiver on this one. I considered a 30 cal with cast as the bottom end of "good" choices. Even then I want 165 gr or more of bullet and not too much expansion. I want the penetration that keeping a bullet long gives.

As for apologies, you owe me none. You followed up. You are working to avoid a repeat.

 

[fiver]

unpredictable stuff happens in the field.
look at little girls deer this year.
the first shot made a neat slice in the heart and it gave a good kick jump like it was hit properly.
only when it decided to leave the area it was apparent the shot wasn't immediately fatal.
after the autopsy it was clear the deer would have recovered from the initial shot even with the slice through it's heart muscle and 2 holes in it's body.

 

[JSH]

Your bullet may perform well on the media you used. If you have a local locker plant see if you can get some bones. Large leg bones are a bit much for studying shots for deer.
I have saved deer ribs in the freezer for such things.
Old bones you may run across may be a bit hard and store bought dog chew bones are worse.
I have taken a fair number of deer with a 7TCU, this was prior to me casting, so all were taken with either a Sierra or Hornady bullet.
Your alloy sounds about right to me. It may be soft enough but not tough enough. The "pea" size comment has me scratching my head.

 

[freebullet]

A marginal hit from anything is just that- marginal

Sounds like the op was using bullets to hard or tough. We're I in his position I'd proly use soft hollow points & only take clear broadside shots. Problem solved.

If that's not an option wet pack & shoulder bone shooting tests may be in order. I dunno but, when a bullet is tough enough to make it through an adult deer front shoulder it generally isn't the best for broadside shooting.

To me it's more of a pick your poison deal. Rather than attempting for a do-all bullet I choose one end of the spectrum or the other & apply it as I've intended. Same goes for jax. Heavy bonded elephant killers aren't the best choice for soft thin skinned game, just as thin jackets & soft points aren't great for shoulder shoot throughs.

 

[Chris]

Using larger caliber rounds has built in advantages... for me deer rifles start at .35. You make do with what you have or like, but larger and heavier bullets driven at appropriate speed remove some uncertainty. Personally, I design my loads to leave two holes in the game... they kill better and leave more blood.

 

[Rally Hess]

Sounds like you did your part after the shot, and way more than many will. Rest assured nothing goes to waste in the wild.