QuietTexan
Well-Known Member
The Load:
Shot two with it this weekend in Central Texas. First was a small cull buck, I made a bad shot and I put it right at the back of the lungs up high.... and a petal punched directly into the stomach. The gut bag actually retained the mess for the most part, but always fun times dealing with that. When he got hit he took three kind of drunken lunging sideways steps and flopped on his side. Absolutely ZERO blood came out of him, it was one of the the most bizarre thing I've seen while hunting. Literally not a drop on him, on the ground after I moved him, nothing sprayed on the foliage, not a single speck of blood anywhere. The deer could have just had a heart attack for the appearance of it, especially because he fell on the exit wound side and the entrance was almost invisible, just a dime pucker. There was basically one giant blood clot around his intact heart and mostly missing lungs when I cut the diaphragm away while field dressing him. I had to actually hunt for the in-hole on the hide - hit a rib on the way in and exit was about the size of a golf ball. Regardless of bullet placement (poor) or performance (excellent IMO), he died in seconds less than 10 feet from where he was shot.
Second was a mature buck, weighed 130# on the scale after being field dressed. Was slightly quartering away and browsing so his neck was low and straight-ish. The bullet hit about an inch above the bowhunter dream shot spot. Exited at the bottom of the neck on the opposite side, took out a rib on the way in and the tops of three ribs plus something smashed a vertebrae on the way out. Again, no sign of the entrance wound until I caped him, and the exit was a blown out golf ball with minor blood signature. Also again, he dropped straight down, a leg kicked once, and he was done.
An anecdotal comparison - my hunting buddy put a .270 WIN Winchester Deer Season XP (the HUGE polymer tipped bullet) into a similar sized mature buck. Shot directly into the scapula, shattered the shoulder, bone fragments everywhere, ribs were a mess, exit hole in the opposite chest wall was gaping, blood was all over everywhere. The deer still ran almost 40 yards before piling up. I'll chalk that up to the toughness of deer, but I'll also keep loading Hammers because they just went two-for-two on DRT.
30-06, 24" barrel, 1-10" twist, nothing special about it.
Suppressed
Brand Model Weight Brass Primer Powder Charge COL FPS Proj FPS Act Notes Hammer Hunter 180 Peterson New 210M W760 58.0 3.443 2975 2960 Maybe faint ejector
Shot two with it this weekend in Central Texas. First was a small cull buck, I made a bad shot and I put it right at the back of the lungs up high.... and a petal punched directly into the stomach. The gut bag actually retained the mess for the most part, but always fun times dealing with that. When he got hit he took three kind of drunken lunging sideways steps and flopped on his side. Absolutely ZERO blood came out of him, it was one of the the most bizarre thing I've seen while hunting. Literally not a drop on him, on the ground after I moved him, nothing sprayed on the foliage, not a single speck of blood anywhere. The deer could have just had a heart attack for the appearance of it, especially because he fell on the exit wound side and the entrance was almost invisible, just a dime pucker. There was basically one giant blood clot around his intact heart and mostly missing lungs when I cut the diaphragm away while field dressing him. I had to actually hunt for the in-hole on the hide - hit a rib on the way in and exit was about the size of a golf ball. Regardless of bullet placement (poor) or performance (excellent IMO), he died in seconds less than 10 feet from where he was shot.
Second was a mature buck, weighed 130# on the scale after being field dressed. Was slightly quartering away and browsing so his neck was low and straight-ish. The bullet hit about an inch above the bowhunter dream shot spot. Exited at the bottom of the neck on the opposite side, took out a rib on the way in and the tops of three ribs plus something smashed a vertebrae on the way out. Again, no sign of the entrance wound until I caped him, and the exit was a blown out golf ball with minor blood signature. Also again, he dropped straight down, a leg kicked once, and he was done.
An anecdotal comparison - my hunting buddy put a .270 WIN Winchester Deer Season XP (the HUGE polymer tipped bullet) into a similar sized mature buck. Shot directly into the scapula, shattered the shoulder, bone fragments everywhere, ribs were a mess, exit hole in the opposite chest wall was gaping, blood was all over everywhere. The deer still ran almost 40 yards before piling up. I'll chalk that up to the toughness of deer, but I'll also keep loading Hammers because they just went two-for-two on DRT.
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