Do you want a exit wound????

[lerch]

THis is a constant argument around my families gun store. We get in a lot of hunters who think they need to shoot a heavy bonded or solid copper bullet on 140lb whitetails that are paper thin, and then they get ****ed off at us when the deer they shot runs off. My question is would you rather have a bullet completley pass through a animal or would you want it to stop inside the animal and dump all of its energy inside it??? I personnally like the idea of a bullet expending 3500lbs of force in the chest cavity of a game animal or at least dumping most of its enrgy inside.

 

[Pete Lincoln]

Lerch, i want an exit wound 100% of the time if i can get one. Shot placement is the key, you destroy the animals vitals its dead. it may run, but with an exit, it will leave a blood trail that you can follow. no exit wound and you can search and search.
I shoot a lot of wild boar, and they are tough, some of them stop bullets pretty well and have no exit, the fat on the hogs closes the entry quickly and there is no blood trail, when they run, they are a bitch to find,
A good tracking dog is a must (and indeed access to one is required by law)..
i want an exit every time..
Pete

 

[lerch]

I understand the benefit of having a exit wound as far as blood trailing goes and I would also like to have a exit wound in this case, preferably one the size of a soft ball /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif. But what I guess i am really wondering about is that if a bullet stops in the chest cavity of a animal doesn't it transfer of its inertia energy into the tissue and bone of that animal. And if this is true then wouldn't this massive concussion drop an animal with a high shoulder or regular shoulder shot or flatten its vitals. I don't know if this is true it just seems to me that it probably would be. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Kenster-Boy]

I would have to say that it sounds like six one way a half dozen the other. If the bullet goes off like a bomb in the chest cavity of an animal it has a much better chance of just dropping and not running at all. But if it does then there is less chance of finding it.
On the other hand with a pass through shot the animal will most likely run but will be easier to find most of the time. Although I have seen pass throughs that leave little or no blood trail. So it seems to me that an exploding shot will have an animal run off about as often as a pass through shot will leave no blood trail.

So do you like walking up to a dead animal or do you like trailing blood? It sounds like 50/50 to me.

 

[davewilson]

if i could have a bullet exit an animal at the same speed it went in,that would be my first choice.obviously this won't happen,but my point is, the faster a bullet goes through an animal,the more shock it imparts upon it. killing power is more a function of kinetic energy, not foot pounds.this theory of stopping a bullet so all of it's energy is transfered to the animal is a measure of foot pounds and not a good measure of killing power.disregarding the variables of exploding vs. stay together bullets, i'll take an exit hole every time.

 

[Freebore]

I'll take a large on that exit wound if you would please!

 

[jsali]

In an ideal world all animals would be compliant and drop instantly with a well placed shot.

Up until last year that was the case with my hunting experiences. Then I managed to draw a moose tag and there he was. Three 200 grain sierra game kings from a .300 win mag at 340 yards and he was down. The first shot took out both lungs and a piece of his heart, the last two were both lung hits.

The moose (not a big moose) managed to stay upright for a full three minutes before he laid down ( of his own accord) and went to sleep. When we tried to find him in the brush we discovered that there was no blood trail whatsoever, luckily we were still able to track him to his final resting place. Two of the bullets were pass throughs, one was resting against the skin on the other side. The exit holes were finger sized and extremely difficult to find as the thick hide, hair and fat had sealed the wound.

IMHO a large exit wound will give an adequate blood trail to follow because as nothing in this world is perfect, odds are eventually you will be tracking an animal (good hit or not).

Here's a pic of the little moose that could! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

If you can see there is zero blood outside the aniumal even with two (small) exit wounds.

 

[Coyboy]

lerch, With the size of deer you experience, I would agree that you don't need to waste money on an expensive premium bonded bullet. Moose and boar are a whole different story.

The majority of the 60+ whitetail I shot fell to gamekings and ballistic tips. I would say that about 80+% of those bullets also left exit holes. Just last season I had a 180gr BT break the on side shoulder pass and exit through the chest cavity of a 180# buck at 423yards. Seemed like preaty good performance to me. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif To answer your guestion I like pass throughs, but you can get them with cheap bullets on whitetails.

 

[Guest]

I don't need the bullet to exit. Mant exit wounds don't bleed out anyway so I would rather have the bullet dump all its energy in the animal. I don't agree with Dave Wilsion on having a bullet zip right through the animal leaving with the same speed it came in. I think a bullet that stops inside the animal will have more shock than a bullet that leaves the animal still going 1/2 the speed it went in. I tried the barnes X and failsafe bullets on deer and lost 2 of 5 deer shot. I have only lost 2 other deer in 20 years of hunting using bullets that usually stop inside the deer.

 

[LB]

You may like the idea of expending all the foot pounds inside an animal but it does not work that way in the real world.

You have so many presentations, at so many different ranges that it is impossible to shoot the same size animal in exactly the same place at the same distance.

Better to "waste" some of those foot pounds on an exit. That, you can do. It's repeatable, within reason.

The stay inside crowd always forgets that they get a surface splash when their animal is too close. The margin for error, between "getting" inside, and "staying" inside is only exceeded by the ultra light, super fast bullet that blows up "before" it gets inside.

It is hard to demonstrate on large game animals, like moose, for instance, because you don't have enough data to compare. However, since I have killed a lot of large predators, over the years, I can tell you that the complete pass-through is the most reliable. Less runners, and a better blood trail when the occasional runner does occur.

Short answer: of course I want an exit, and so should everybody else.

Good hunting. LB

 

[bailey1474]

[ QUOTE ]
I would also like to have a exit wound in this case, preferably one the size of a soft ball

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is the key. You want a decent sized exit wound. As a bullet passes through and mushrooms out, it transfers much of its energy to the surrounding tissue resulting a large wound channel.

A bullet that just zips through will cause much less tissue damage. It will have a much narrower wound channel.

The bigger the wound channel will cause more damage to a larger area. Common sense tells me that this is a much better situation.

There is a happy medium between the two. Obviously, the larger the game, the more penetration and less mushrooming you want.

To back Lerch up on this one, with the size of our deer around here, the only way I would use a partition or similar bullet if using a 22 cal.

I would guess almost all of your BT type bullets in the 95+ grain weight will give you an exit wound. Unless of course they were shot at extreme velocity at close range. I would still say that 99% of the time, with a well placed shot, game recovery would not be a problem though.

 

[Eaglet]

Just a matter of time before you realize that you've gotta
have a pass through. Dumping all the energy sounds very logical and tempting, but soon one finds out that a pass throght is the way to go!

 

[duckinalaska]

I've killed alot of big deer down in Arkansas. I have alot of experience in the feild all over the world. I've seen deer and large game taken down with all kinds of shots. The main point is, I want a bullet that does maximum damage and goes all of the way through. With whitetails, you can use fast expanding bullets and good shooting. So yes, go all of the way through and leave a BIG hole.

 

[Okiehunter]

The age old debate continues, I have argued for and against each side of the ques. I have killed 72 whitetails in my life time with a gun. I have ended up on the no exit hole side. I have only lost 3(that I can remember) deer that I knew that I had wounded and had used bonded or similar bullets on all 3. I can never remember loosing a deer with the Nosler BT. Of course this argument will never be setteled because of the reasons that have been memtioned. Too many variables, shooter, angles, distances, and repeating shot placement. So to me, it comes down to what shooters and our kind are all about... personal choice and what works for you.