I have been practicing with a new 45 caliber HP in my OM shorty for the last week or so & yesterday I shot for a couple of hours at my Bill Fowler Steel target & thing were looking good. My load I settled on is 11 grs of Longshot with the 217 gr Maxine Mouth HP & it's running 965 fps out of my 4 5/8's 3 screw.
For sure I can run this bullet faster but with this alloy I felt like I was in the right velocity range to make things work. On one forum a guy told me I shouldn't be using that bullet & that in his opinion a solid would work much better & then he finished by saying, trust me! When I quizzed him about his knowledge about six gun bullets, HP bullets, or hunting with six guns he told me he had never killed anything with a six gun but he a lot of knowledge shooting cast bullets..... in muzzle loaders, some bullets weighing 400+ grains & running maybe 1800 fps & again I was suppose to trust "his" knowledge.
I arrived a little bit earlier than usual & started down a bumpy road on the 4 wheeler after watching another guy shoot a nice antelope with his rifle, it was a dandy although it had been fighting & it was well broomed.
After a few minutes I spotted a doe running down hill towards a little spring so I stopped & then another deer popped up in the tall brush. I yanked out my OM shorty & took a breath as I broke the shot. I hit something because I saw something fly but I didn't hit the deer, it just turned from broadside to a sharp angle away from me. Thumbing the hammer back with my left thumb (right handed shooter) I held just behind the rib cage & sent another one down range. This one knocked her flat instantly. I looked for a couple of seconds & 2 more deer came running down the hill towards her then out of sight.
I went up the rocky road & walked over & seen that I had actually hit a steel fence post with the first shot, I never even seen it because of the weeds & small sticks but I could clearly see where the bullet had hit it & that's what I saw blow up on the first shot. The bullet had entered just behind the last rib & angled up into the lungs, you can see all the damage it did to the lungs in photo 4. I drove my 4 wheeler down the old fence line & loaded her up & went back to the truck, shoved a bag of ice in the body cavity & took off to have some breakfast.
I think this bullet is going to be a dandy for deer size game in this velocity range....TRUST ME!







Dick

Awesome!!! It's hard for me to take advice from someone that has never killed a deer since I lost count of my kills. Yours worked. I would trust that. Great job.

Great, Dick. When you get to be old as us and pull the trigger as much, we either learned something or we're hopeless.
Hope you set that guy straight.

NO SPECULATION, JUST THE FACTS. FRANKLY I AM SURPRISED AT HOW WELL YOUR 217gr HP BULLET @ 965fps DID. I THINK YOU KNOW AS GOOD AS ANYONE ON HOW TO TAILOR CAST BULLETS TO THE TASK THEY ARE ASKED TO DO. CONGRAGULATIONS.

Nice!!

I have a 215 grain SWC load running at 1107fps in my Smith 69. I'm wondering how it will perform on shots 30 yards and under with deer being the primary target.

Well done, Dick! Did you recover the slug on this one?

Thanks guys, I have the deer hanging in my garage & it's full of ice, I'll let it hang for 3-4 days before I skin it so I don't know about the bullet. It didn't exit, I'll just have to see what happened when I get the hide off. Forgot, the distance was 61 yds.

Dick

Great work Dick!

That's great. That bullet seems to have performed very well for you. Good shooting!

Good shooting!

Looks like that bullet did just fine, good shooting Dick!

No reason it wont work fine with well placed shots. I lost count of 44 special kills with cast bullets.

Congratulations Dick. Nice deer and enjoyed the write up. Appreciate sharing the knowledge and info of cast bullets, and especially the HPs. I do have a few loads that I will be trying out this fall Hopefully.

Charles

I did look inside the body cavity this morning & because of the angle the bullet did clip part of the spine, that explains why she dropped so fast. I'll skin her in the next day or two, I like to leave it on if the weather is cool, that way you only have to skin them once.

Dick

Congratulations

Thanks Sawfish, looking forward to your upcoming Blacktail hunt report. After reading your past results from previous hunts I'd have no problem using my 25 TCU on one of those little beauties!

Dick

Nice work!

Nice shooting. Nice bullet. I think thatll work just fine. Ill trust ya 😀