A few years ago I snook up to about 50 yards on an average size Montana mule deer buck. My intent was to take him with my 454 and 300grain xtp which was an absolute max (book) load if the perfect broadside shot presented it's self if not I wasn't going to shoot. The deer hadn't a clue I was in the area he was relaxed feeding by himself an hour before dark life was good for the moment. He turned totally broadside to me relaxed not alert. I wanted to shoot him through the front shoulder like I have lots of deer so it would break his front shoulder and kill him quickly where he dropped. I had a perfect solid rest and squeezed the trigger. I believe I saw the bullet impact dead center in the shoulder just as I wanted and the deer fell to the ground just like I expected. Immediately as fast as the deer hit the ground it was up and it came running past me on 3 legs 10 yards away. I was in shock and expected him to fall over dead so I didn't shoot a 2nd time as he is running out of sight! I paid careful attention to that leg he was holding it wasn't limp and it wasn't dangling so it didn't look broke and no blood at that time. I was pissed and shocked this had happened. I followed his trail tell after dark in the patchy snow and found nothing. I came back before daylight the next morning and started over and found a small dry spot of blood maybe as big has my palm no deer anywhere I kept looking for him tell night fall and never found him. It makes you sick when stuff happens like this that should of never happened. My friend lives fairly close to the area and long story short he had described to me this very same buck feeding with does months later in his back yard on a few occasions. He said the deer had a slight limp nothing major. So what do you think went wrong? I think about this all the time and yet have come to a conclusion. Best I can figure that was Robodeer!

I had the same experience awhile ago. I rushed the shot, when pulling the trigger I pushed the nose of the gun down, causing the bullet to hit the upper part of the outter leg. The hit was actually just below the brisket. I know this because I recovered the deer a week later, about 1/4 mile from where I had hit him. I was a horrible mistake, and I truly hope to never repeat this again.

the facts is the facts Jack, you blew it. I have myself done the same thing, a shot that I knew was a gimme and the deer went down like it was poleaxed, I held for the heart, just behind the shoulder, and hit the deer in the neck, just below the atlas, didn't matter, the deer was dead, but at fifty yards, I was twelve inches off to the left, if he had had his head up I would have hit nothing but air. Did the same thing a second time a couple of years later. Sometimes the gods smile on you, sometimes they laugh at you.

Deer are the only animals to dumb to know when they're already dead.

well, if it was a max load and it wasn't a 300 gr xtp mag then it's entirely possible the bullet completely blew up but you'd have gotten more blood even on a superficial hit and damage. most likely, and i think we've all been guilty of this is hit further down the leg or clipped the brisket

it was the xtp mag. Soon as I get enough phone books I'm going to do some testing with different bullets. Although I'm not hunting phone books...

I can't say I have seen a deer do this with a firearm, but I shot a doe a couple years ago that had mange on the last day of or regular deer season. I shot her twice with my bow at 12yards and both arrows hit within an inch of each other and passed through the middle of the rib cage. I've had a buck twice this does size go 20 yards to die with a similar with just one arrow, but when I came back 4 hours later we found that sick little doe still alive.

last year my dad made a heart shot on a nice buck and had to shoot him again the next day 16 hours after the first shot.
here is the shot my dad made. Sometimes an animal just has more fight in them than a bullet or arrow can take out of them, other times its just lucky for them that you hit that one small nonlethal spot.

Now there is a bucket of guts, thank you Cookie!!

I shoot a lot of deer (over 2000) with handguns and a lot of those with .454s. I've had problems with 300 gr. XTPs- poor penetration, poor expansion. When I'm testing bullets, I consider any large caliber bullet I retrieve from a whitetail a failure. I've gotten several from the not-so-big WV whitetails. This soured me on .45 XTPs a long time ago. I use mine on groundhogs and sigh ins. This is not based on one or two kills.

Yup, each animal is a law unto itself.

sorry guys I probably should of warned that the picture was kind of graphic, but though it was important to the story haha

Good info Doc, thanks for the post!!!


Whit, nor the first time you have posted that comment. Just as relevant now as the first time.


Cookie, I am not a tree huger and you didn't offend me any. I see that every time I have the privilege of harvesting game.

Every bullet impact is , in of itself, a singular event....read that somewhere.

It's impossible to say what happened when we don't recover the animal. I will say while equipment can fail 90 percent of the time it is user error. Yes it can make you sick but it will happen to everyone if they hunt long enough. Sometimes we see what we want to see but I wouldn't be able to see impact at 50 yards with a heavy recoiling handgun. 75-100 yards probably could tell but only if I lifted my head at the shot and that would just make my shooting worse than it is already. It's also possible you saw the bullet hit the onside shoulder and he was turned slightly away and you exited the brisket missing the lungs. If it makes you feel better I will say the bullet blew apart on the shoulder and didn't penetrate enough to reach the vitals.

There's a lot of room around 'em.

Sometimes we hit where we want, and some times we do not. I have witnessed extremely good shooters miss, sometimes by a little and some times by a lot, myself included. I have tracked animals for hours that should have been DRT. It happens, nobody's perfect.

There is no way to know what happended without having the carcass to inspect, but I suspect the shot may have gone low and just caught the thigh. I wouldn't let it obsess me, just keep shootin'.

Something that struck me when reading your account.

If you saw the impact, it sounds like you you where looking over or to the side of you gun as you fired.

Maybe this caused the bullet to go a bit astray, or maybe I'm miss reading the situation, who knows.

Just a thought

Good thought, but I don't know.


I shot a decent buck with my 54cal flinter in 1997. The shot was at 35 yards and I saw where the bullet hit. Right behind the leg in the middle. The deer ran off, but he didn't go far.


Like it was stated above, each animal is a rule unto its own.


Duane

And of course the laws of physics dictate if the animal has time to run it will run in what ever direction makes dragging it out as big of a pain as possible

thanx zack, Guess I missed that law in physics class, but it sure enough is true.

HA ha! Yup, sometimes you can't even get a horse right to where they expire. You have to pack 'em out to where you can get a horse to pack 'em out!

Lol, yep. Last year I shot a doe at 45 yards with my 45 bisley hunter. 335gr gc cast performance bullet. Blew the onside shoulder to pieces. Lots of blood where it stood, good blood trail for the first 50 yards then nothing. I shot that thing at 0900 and recovered it at 1700 about 30 mins after dark. That deer went close to mile and then turned back and died 400 yards from where I first shot it. Onside shoulder was blown out, but from the angel of the exit in the brisket it made a turn after going threw bone, a slight turn but enough to miss the vitals.

I shot a doe with a 45 cal 240 grain XTP last year. Well three actually but one in particular had a small hole going in and a small hole coming out. I am not impressed with the xtp bullet at all. If you hit bone they are good but if not they do not expand. I was using a muzzleloader but still was pushing about 1700 or so with it. I am going to try to use barnes bullets in my pistol loads. I have had good luck with them in the past but the XTP's are alot cheaper. I found the deer about 100 yards away but no blood at all until right where she was. Pretty dissppointed really.

Few of us shoot enough animals to really get a good test on the performance of any projectile. In any one situation many things can cause poor performance. Therefore, most of us should listen closely to the advice of others who have much broader experience testing the performance of bullets and loads.

On this forum "the expert" is wvhitman. I have been reading his experiences for years in the Sixgunner. I rely on persons like him & J D Jones when I am in doubt on the performance of a particular projectile. They have much more experience than I will ever accumulate.

WT, Good and sound advice and I am in agreement. I have corresponded with Doc Larry several times and he has set me straight on several Q's on loads. He could take all his SIXGUNNER stories (I have them all) and put them together into a book and it would be THE BOOK of Handgun Hunting Loads for Game; large game as well as small game.

Oh... and I bet he is pretty quick at field dressing a deer...

JD's experience is also very vast; and I have learned a lot from him. Years ago he organized some "varmint" hunts to Australia where you could legally kill several hundred large animals (feral donkeys and horses, etc) plus smaller stuff in just a few days. Those days are sadly gone. Probably forever.

On one of these hunts you would get more experience in a day or two than in a "normal lifetime" of hunting here in the US.

They're not. I have friends who regularly go to Australia for cull hunts and they tend to kill large animals in the hundreds. You can still go and partake.

But can you do it with a handgun? That is what I was referring to.

You can, but the outfitter has to supply it. You can't "import" your own.