Kansas deer success with 280AI and 168 VLD

[The Oregonian]

I posted this inside another thread in the deer hunting section but putting here so it can be seen - mainly so the second post about the bullet performance can be seen.

Took this guy the afternoon of opening day. Shot him right before dark at 200 yds and he was with maybe 40 other deer in the field, so when I shot all I saw were tails running everywhere. I got back on the rifle, chambered another round, and got back on the scope. About 20 seconds after I shot I saw antlers slightly moving, then lost them as movement stopped. I thought he was standing up but wasn't sure.

After about 10 minutes I walked to where I thought he was when I'm shot him and found no blood in the snow...I walked the fence line looking for blood, and after coming up empty I looked in the small windbreak with trees and snow. I didn't see him so we backed out and decided to come back in the morning.

It was below freezing that night so any blood trail would be fine In the morning but would be tough to pick up as some of the snow started to melt later in the day, and we were worried about coyotes. We went out first thing and looked again for blood but couldn't find anything but three small drops. We walked the fence line again and could see a blood trail. We look just into the trees and saw him piled up maybe 30 yds from where I shot him...the antlers I saw was probably his head wobbling as he died. He was on a slightly elevated mound so that is probably why i thought he had been standing up.

Many thanks to Jordan Christensen at The Draw for putting me on this outfitter, and to Bob Beck and MOA rifles for the tack driver.

 

[The Oregonian]

It would be easy to say the bullet failed to produce a blood trail, but I think he died very quickly and his chest cavity filled with blood and he died before it could pump out either side - it was a pass through. This was a good sized white tail of 200 lbs...my guess is he was 230 lbs before the rut...he had very little fat on him and the secondary rut has some deer still chasing some does pretty well.

But the bullet did the job and killed him quickly...I'm sure if he went any further there would be a big blood trail as there was massive damage from the 280AI and the 168 hunting VLD, which had muzzle velocity of 3010. The velocity at impact was right near 2700 FPS and energy was was about 2730.

I hit him right in the bread basket and it caused massive (!!) damage. His entry had massive trauma and the exit from the ribs was something you could wiggle your fist through. The exit in the hide was very small.

With the damage below I was very happy with the bullet performance as this guy wasn't going anywhere.

Here is the entrance...

The exit

When we caped him out we found this on his neck on the entry side....the bullet must have fragged and sent something at 90 degrees into his neck...massive neck trauma.

 

[snox801]

Congrats nice buck. Just because it didn't bleed doesn't mean the bullet didn't work. I'm not a fan of Berger at all. I don't shoot any of them. I was always using hornady or nosler. I didn't like the way the Berger exploded instead of staying together.
Then I switched to cutting edge and got kinda the best of both worlds. Now I'm a huge fan of the hammers.
I've shot deer with a .458 socom at 40 yards and destroyed the deer but he took off no blood till it dropped. To many factors involved with deer to say no blood is a failure. That is impressive damage.

 

[GSP814]

Super buck, congrats! This year I had a bud shoot a nice 8 pointer in NC with a 30-06 and 150 grain Sierra Game King. Hit in the same spot as yours, jumped at the shot and very little blood. The deer made it 80 yards. Complete pass thru with similar damage, when we gutted the deer there was a massive amount of blood in the chest cavity, I guess the shot was a tad high for a good blood trail. Lungs were jellied. What powder are you using?

 

[Slick8]

That's why I'm in the fence regarding bergers. I'll admit I've shot the 168 but a lot of deer with smaller in the 25 and 6mm range. All seem to deliver devastating internal damage matched by incredible accuracy.

The lack of a complete pass through is what's disturbing. If you have a deer run any distance at all you likely won't have a blood trail and will as you experienced have a difficult recovery.

Having said that, I'm planning a 300wm build with intentions of running the 215.

Congrats on the deer.

 

[The Oregonian]

Congrats nice buck. Just because it didn't bleed doesn't mean the bullet didn't work. I'm not a fan of Berger at all. I don't shoot any of them. I was always using hornady or nosler. I didn't like the way the Berger exploded instead of staying together.
Then I switched to cutting edge and got kinda the best of both worlds. Now I'm a huge fan of the hammers.
I've shot deer with a .458 socom at 40 yards and destroyed the deer but he took off no blood till it dropped. To many factors involved with deer to say no blood is a failure. That is impressive damage.

I didn't mean at all to imply it was a bullet failure...it did what it was supposed to do. I am staying with these bullets.

 

[The Oregonian]

Super buck, congrats! This year I had a bud shoot a nice 8 pointer in NC with a 30-06 and 150 grain Sierra Game King. Hit in the same spot as yours, jumped at the shot and very little blood. The deer made it 80 yards. Complete pass thru with similar damage, when we gutted the deer there was a massive amount of blood in the chest cavity, I guess the shot was a tad high for a good blood trail. Lungs were jellied. What powder are you using?

I am using N560 with 210 primers...no pressure signs at all and getting good velocity out of the 25" barrel.

 

[MudRunner2005]

That's why I'm in the fence regarding bergers. I'll admit I've shot the 168 but a lot of deer with smaller in the 25 and 6mm range. All seem to deliver devastating internal damage matched by incredible accuracy.

The lack of a complete pass through is what's disturbing. If you have a deer run any distance at all you likely won't have a blood trail and will as you experienced have a difficult recovery.

Having said that, I'm planning a 300wm build with intentions of running the 215.

Congrats on the deer.

All the deer i've shot with Bergers were complete pass-throughs. One didn't expand, but she still dropped where she stood, and the rest all had anywhere from golfball to softball sized exits.