30-06 scenario/bullet question not cast

[justinhip]

Last season i took a chest shot on a doe with a 30-06 loaded with a 165 hornady sst and 58 grains of 4350. It was taken 20 -30 yards from a kneeling position. Im not proud to say that we never recovered the doe. I got a very small blood trail that was sporadic at best that eventually disappeared. This has had me thinking all year about what happened. Did it hop as i pulled the trigger and only grazed the underside? Is the chest a tough shot ( which i didnt think it was) ? Or is the sst a **** bullet? I having a confidence issue with them for this season. Any thoughts?

[w5pv]

A chest shot or one from the rear with a 165 grain bullet will go from end to end on most deer.I have shot them coming and going.My thought is that maybe a little buck fever hit you.I have lost two deer that I shot with my 3006 a doe that was gutted put on a ceder bush and another 6 point buck that I shot through the neck (we ere running deer with dogs back then) the dogs stopped barking for a minute or so and then brought out 3 or 4 more deer.Instead of going and checking if I had hit the deer I let the buzzards do the checking and found the deer a couple of days later.Made me sick because I hated then and now to leave anything I kill unused.The doe on the ceder bush was probably stolen by wet backs or maybe a big cat we had both on the lease.

[GabbyM]

Won't comment on your shot as it would just be a guess.
I can say Hornady doesn't call the bullet SST (super shock tip) for nothing. They are very explosive. My daughter shot an antelope last year at about 154 yards with a 270 win loaded with 140gr SST. Turned one entire rib cage to mush and failed to exit a little antelope. They aren't going to use those anymore as they like to cook the animal. Goat did drop right in it's own tracks though. Any deer hit in the chest with a 165gr SST isn't going far if anywhere. I could see it blowing an entire leg off allowing the critter to run off on three legs. I highly prefer a far more solid bullet. Used the old fashioned Hornady 270 caliber 150 grain I.L. soft point for four decade's and still have quite a few. Bought myself a 30-06 last year. Mostly a cast boolit gun but I did buy some J bullets to test with . Speer 180 grain Deep Curls are what I bought for hunting. I like a flat base because they fly more straight on instead of yawing tail down. Which causes the bullet tumbling. I want a mushroom then a straight at P.O.A. penetration. I still own the 270 with plenty of 150 grain ammo loaded up so didn't see any use going lighter than a 180 grain with the 30-06. For any deer hunting under 200 yards I'd definitely use one of my cast bullets. An answer you could expect on this site. If you use the SST again I'd aim behind the shoulder for a rib. Or other body shot. Neck shots will work too.

[rfd]

at that distance, and with that load, it sure sounds as if yer boolit missed the boiler zone and the problem was with you, not the gun or ammo.

[runfiverun]

or... the sst is a soft bullet and the high impact velocity made a shallow wound.

[justinhip]

Im not discounting the fact that it coulda/propably was me. The other thing i was thinking about is that it was trotting towards me, it may have closed distance quicker than i thought, maybe my aim was a bit low coupled by a possible hop or even at close range the height over bore of the scope would throw it off a bit......so in short everyone seems to agree that the bullet was propably not the issue?

[turmech]

As you said the shot could have not hit correctly, but what you describe is the very reason that lead me to pursuing cast. I may be unlucky, but I have shot and/or tracked many deer hit good with little or no blood trail. Personally I think a lot of bullet manufactures care more about aerodynamics than terminal performance. When you push those bullets to the extreme velocities and hit an animal a close range I have experienced exploding bullets rather than expanding. This leaves a mortally wounded animal with extensive internal bleeding and little or no blood trail. Even well hit animal can surprise you with how far they can go before dropping. I have no experience with your bullet, but I would try something else this year if it happened to me.

[rfd]

As you said the shot could have not hit correctly, but what you describe is the very reason that lead me to pursuing cast. I may be unlucky, but I have shot and/or tracked many deer hit good with little or no blood trail. Personally I think a lot of bullet manufactures care more about aerodynamics than terminal performance. When you push those bullets to the extreme velocities and hit an animal a close range I have experienced exploding bullets rather than expanding. This leaves a mortally wounded animal with extensive internal bleeding and little or no blood trail. Even well hit animal can surprise you with how far they can go before dropping. I have no experience with your bullet, but I would try something else this year if it happened to me.

i agree - at all distances, big lead moving slower than "normal" just kills faster/better, imho. nothing like a 500 grain cast lead boolit out of a 45-70 ;) and why i'm starting to cast 200 grain slow moving lead for my winch m70 30-06. as always, ymmv. :smile:

[reloader28]

Sounds to me like you made a bad shot.
I've shot MANY deer with SST's from 243's and 30-06 without a single failure. 99% of the time when you lose an animal, its the shooters fault.
If you put even a bad, junk bullet thru a vital organ, it will go down.

[jonk]

Can't say; but the first deer I shot was with a Hornady XTP 200 gr hollow point in a sabot out of a muzzleloader. These are made as defensive hollow points for shooting at .40 pistol velocity, I was shooting them 30% faster yet in a .45 muzzleloader. Shoots well out to 100 yards. I hit the deer at 35 yards on the chest, perfect broadside shot. The deer jumped, went about 40 yards and crumpled, as I had put the bullet through both lungs.

Damndest thing, it didn't expand at all, and the exit hole was no larger than the entrance hole. Clean through the rib cage (didn't hit bone). I tested the same bullet on some wet phone books and it mushroomed perfectly. Lesson learned is that sometimes odd things happen. As my shot was a good one and left a .40 caliber hole through the deer's lungs, it still did it's job of course, but it was a stumper. I will have to see what the same bullet does this year, but knowing its, ah, track record, I'm only taking the shot if I'm sure I can hit the lungs or heart.

[waksupi]

My X shot an elk at about 40 yards with jacketed bullets. Four shots, good grouping. They didn't open up. The elk just stood there. After a few minutes, I went ahead and killed it with my pistol. It was sick, but far from dead. The bullets just slid through the lungs, and didn't open at all. Never had that happen with a cast boolit.

[justinhip]

I completely agree about shooter error an buck fever. What's bothering me is that it was a good stable and clear shot. I took it relatively fast in that I didn't give the time for buck fever to set in. Once it was clear and on target I fired. That still doesn't mean I didn't screw up......

[pmer]

It might be a good idea to try and recreate the shot. Take few quick shots with the same stance and distance and see were they land on target. If you were aiming for when its front feet were on the ground but fired with off timing you could've shot low.

When I saw a big charge of powder and short distance with an SST my first thought was bad bullet though. IMO I would save the SSTs for 100 yd plus broadside shooting and or just use plain old flat base designs. Better yet a good shot with a flatnosed cast Boolit will make your hands red too!