38 special on whitetail any exeriences out their!

[redneckdan]

Well I might as well add my two cents to this gong show.

In college I aquired a combat masterpiece at a very nice price. I carried that thing everywhere. Woods load out was one 150gr Keith over a max load of 2400 followed by five normal 38 wad cutters. Figured for personal defense my best shot would be the first one, the rest were for small game. Grouse would usually sit still long enough to cycle the second round under the hammer then pop 'em. Any way...


I was hiking back to my dirt bike during deer season after scouting some fur territory. I came right from campus and had stashed the 38 in my saddle bags, rifle was not an option that trip. I stumbled across a spike horn, must have been the dumbest deer in the whole county. I stood still and he came with about seven yards. I waited until he turned his head to check his back trail then let him have it right behind the left ear. He dropped like a sack of taters. It was a lot of work getting his butt out of that swamp but at that time I really couldn't afford to pass up such an opportunity.

Looked a little odd riding into town with deer quarters stacked on the back of a KLR.

[Char-Gar]

If this is a troll post, he played the board members for fools. I hope this isn't true as we don't need that kind of stuff on this boards and I would hope the Mods would take note.

[jumbeaux]

Well if it turns out to be a troll (which it sure looks like) then I certainly took the bait. My only experience with a handgun kill of a whitetail was using a 45 Colt SAA 250 grain cast flat nose and IIRC 9 grains of Unique. Hit him square thru the lungs at about 25 yards and had to put another round into him (heart) before he died. He was a NE Texas buck that field dressed about 125#...

rick

[35remington]

Quite frankly at this point I'd rather hear your hunting stories anyway. You've heard mine.

[marlinman80]

Well time for me to eat a little crow! I was wrong about shimming the scope base. You do have to shim the rear base higher to get max elevation. I pulled my old 1903-a4 out of the gun cabinet and looked at it. the rear of the receiver is about 3/8" higher than the front.I had to shim up the front base to get it on paper with the knob bottomed out. I am not a troll fellas. I just don't use a scope that much only own 3 anyhow. My apology to all I called out on that remark. Especialy dk17hmr

[TXGunNut]

Quite frankly at this point I'd rather hear your hunting stories anyway. You've heard mine.

One early hunting trip I was in a low tree stand. First morning, I had my trusty 30-06 across my lap, a 2" S&W Model 60 in my pocket. (60 was my off-duty/everywhere gun) A fat button buck wandered by and took an interest in the toe of my right boot. His nose was less than an inch from my boot, I damn near hurt myself trying not to laugh. 60 was loaded with 110 gr Silvertips but putting one thru the top of his head from less than 36" away would have been quite doable.
Yes, I could have. Maybe should have. Just didn't feel right. I don't remember if I killed a deer that trip but I'll never forget that silly little button buck.
And yes, I've been smelling a troll since early on but I feel this thread was a good experience for the lurkers and newbies. Discussing ethics is seldom a waste of bandwidth.

[kenyerian]

Well this has been an interesting thread so I might as well add my two cents worth. A long long time ago a friend of mine (passed on back in the 90's) was fishing on a lake when he spotted a really nice buck swiming to the other side. Being some what of an outlaw he decided to harvest it and did so successfully with a croquet mallet he kept in his boat to dispatch pike.( It was an epic struggle that almost sunk his boat and involved several blows and a fillet knife.) Now in no way do I recomend hunting deer with a croquet mallet but it can be done. Most people shouldn't hunt with a 38 either although it can be effective at close range.

[M-Tecs]

One of the gentlemen I work with is a non-hunter but he like venison. One day he is driving home and the car in front of him hits a 3x3 buck. He stops to help. Drive is ok and she leaves. He is drive a pickup truck and decides he is going to take the deer. When he goes to pick the deer up it is still very alive. Only thing he has is a bumper in the truck box. He used said bumper to finish the deer. He loads it into the back of the truck. When he gets home he calls the Highway Patrol to get a road kill tag and the nice lady on the other end says no problem but she needs some details. He tells her the location. After a very long pause she asks if he was the “gentlemen” with the bumper that was beating a deer to death on the side of the Highway. She stated they had seven calls about a crazed man beating a deer to death on the road side. They did give him a road kill (possession) tag.

[35remington]

kenyerian, I liked that one as the tale of a slightly off kilter friend. M-Tec.....too funny.

One place a .38 has served well has been on coup de grace shots to the brain for deer that are down but not out with my inexpensive Rossi snubbie doing the duties. All the penetration needed to reach spine or brain with certainty. This has happened on a few road injured deer and a couple times on a hunt for me. Cast wadcutters work just fine loaded to full power.

[M-Tecs]

Well time for me to eat a little crow! I was wrong about shimming the scope base. You do have to shim the rear base higher to get max elevation. I pulled my old 1903-a4 out of the gun cabinet and looked at it. the rear of the receiver is about 3/8" higher than the front.I had to shim up the front base to get it on paper with the knob bottomed out. I am not a troll fellas. I just don't use a scope that much only own 3 anyhow. My apology to all I called out on that remark. Especialy dk17hmr

Really?????????

Best of marlinman80
If you raise the rear of the scope your line of sight goes below line of bore. Thats why extreme long range guns have a taller front mount and shorter rear mount.

No sir old 8x redfeild target scope shimmed under the front mount to give me every click of + elevation.

head shot and the .300 ackley at 4100fps and a 180 A-frame wan't much left

I could take my old 1903-a4 and go anywhere in Ga and shoot a deer within 1100yards

I am no slouch with a gun,one has taken me all over the world. I joined Team USA in 1994 as a junior olympian in uit 10 meter and 50 meter free pistol.

I have a Degree in Firearms Technology from the NRA gunsmithing school in Troy, North Carolina.
I've built almost every gun I own Except a few.

I have amazing skill in the woods. The 9 point buck I killed last year was at 6' with a 30-30 on the ground.

I have physically touched 3 deer in the woods that were in perfect health!

The OBG that taught me to shoot got 1/2" groups out of wadcutters at 50 yards from a ransom rest. He held a 1" group offhand at 50 yards easy. The 38 special is one of the most accurate pistol cartridges ever desinged. A good one should group at 2" at 100 yards (at least)

How is a 1.25" group at 50 yards a record with a 38 special? Any NRA master shooter can do this consistentley on a bullseye course at 50 yards. They call them Grand master shooters.

Well sir if you could take that old model 14 masterpeice and shoot something in the eye at 50 yards like I can it probably wouldn't seem that dumb

[Bullshop Junior]

One of the gentlemen I work with is a non-hunter but he like venison. One day he is driving home and the car in front of him hits a 3x3 buck. He stops to help. Drive is ok and she leaves. He is drive a pickup truck and decides he is going to take the deer. When he goes to pick the deer up it is still very alive. Only thing he has is a bumper in the truck box. He used said bumper to finish the deer. He loads it into the back of the truck. When he gets home he calls the Highway Patrol to get a road kill tag and the nice lady on the other end says no problem but she need some detail. He tells her the location. After a very long pause she asks if he was the “gentlemen” with the bumper that was beating a deer to death on the side of the Highway. She stated they had seven calls about a crazed man beating a deer to death on the road side. They did give him a road kill (possession) tag.

That story made me laugh and I had to share it with Amanda.

[BruceB]

One fine day back in the '60s. I was carrying a Super Blackhawk while working a wilderness exploration project in the NWT.

I jumped a nice bull moose bedded-down at very close range, maybe ten yards, and tracked him with the cocked revolver until he disappeared at about fifty yards. I could have shot him very easily, but didn't.

Why? Because I KNEW he was a resident, and I'd be around the area for a few weeks yet. And, because i KNEW I had a more-effective tool at camp.... a .303 rifle. And, because I KNEW I was more effective myself with the rifle than I was with the revolver. I killed that very same bull a few days later..... with the rifle.

The ammunition was not in question. It was factory-loaded 240-grain jacketed softpoints by CIL, which I had already used to kill a couple black bears in camp, with complete penetration.


It was a simple case of knowing my options. Even fifty years later and looking back, I am very comfortable with that decision.

Incidentally, I agree that even if this thread WAS trolling, which MarlinMan says it isn't, it did indeed generate very interesting comments from many quarters.

[357maximum]

One of these Novembers I am going to dedicate a thread in the hunting with cast area titled....A cast K38 kill for 35Remington, just need to find the right tool/money first.

I have ever only administered but one coup de grace shot from my own 1st doings not so right...real early on in MY kodiak/zwickey era, darn deer had an arrow driven the wrong direction UP through the spine missing the lungs entirely, he just laid there spinning and I had to run up the hill and give him another arrow.......hey I am used to shooting down into them...not up into them...it happens I guess....... this thread has clarified one thing for me.........it is now very obvious to me now that Michigan/Ohio/Indiana deer are not as tough as them there Nebraskan deers Must be the deer round here have not been totally Monsanto'ed yet.

[goofyoldfart]

Best deer hunt that I will never forget was when I had just rreturned from Viet-Nam. I had stalked a BIG doe and then lost it. climbed up a tree and was looking for it (this was around 10:30am)and saw it in the middle of a large winter wheat field in the hunting preserve. It was bedded down with about 4 other deer. Climbed out of the tree and proceeded to stalk that doe took about 2 1/2 hours to cross into the wheat field and up to the doe. It was primative weapon season and I was toting a CVA .45 cal Kentucky long rifle in cap and ball. the hardest part of the stalk was due to the other animals. some how I managed to get into about 3 ft. of the doe ( the distance of holding the percussion lock to the end of the muzzle/ramrod?). Instead of shooting the doe, I had a momentary lapse of sanity and decieded that I would GOOSE her. That's what I did. I was not aware of a few things, 1) I didn't know that deer had the ability to hover in air with a totally stupid "where in the Lords good name did you materialize from?" she had cr##ped all over my front site and the rifle was a $h**ty mess. 2) Marty Roesenbaum(sp?), the GAME WARDEN had been watching for over an hour. I was laughing like a hyena while backing up from the doe, while she just looked at me for what seemed like many minutes. Next thing she took off with all the others. Marty had been blowing his whistle to get my attention, but I wasn't taking my eyes off that deer until I knew that she was gone, they have very sharp hooves--not good to be hit with. Marty and I met in the middle of the field and he wanted to know if I had a license, was the rifle loaded, did it have a cap on it and what was the reason I didn't shoot that dam doe. I had to show license and fired the rifle in to a ditch and explained that I had changed my mind and just wanted to goose her. I knew Marty for 15 years before he moved to KY and any time he saw me he always called me that crazy dam fool deer hunter. we became good friends. I had spent 4 tours in Nam and stalked many humans with deadly results to them and I just felt I wanted to see if I could do it to an animal--that doe. for some reason I just didn't want to kill her after counting coup. Got my buck 3 days later. God Bless to all and to theirs.

Goofy aka Godfrey



ETA. This is not a Troll Lie. Back then 40+ years ago I could do this stuff. Now at almost 70 I am having trouble just walking. But this was the VERY BEST DEER HUNT that I have EVER had. No meat---just fantastice memories and I still feel glad that I didn't shoot. to me that would have been wrong on that day. God Bless.

[300savage]

^great story thanks.
technically i have never killed a deer , or two with a 38 special.
but i have killed two with downloaded 357mag loads that were only traveling at warm 38 velocities.
i could not stand shooting full blown 357 loads, still cant, i absolutely detest the dam things in fact in the field.
i digress.. sorry.
where was i? oh yes a silly question of something about shooting deer with a 38..
well heck yes it will work.
not as good as many others things but they really are not that ineffective, nor are deer that hard to kill.
first one i took with a solid hard cast SWC through the lungs and almost lost that one.
and it queered me on hardcast semi wadcutters for a long time.
i dont know how long that deer would have lived, but in all honesty i think he might have recovered completely and gotten over it.
i was lucky there were very few other fresh deer tracks in the area so i could track him fairly easily.
and my lord i tracked, and tracked, i tracked so long i went back and started over cuz i just knew any deer shot through the lungs could not live that long and i must have got on the wrong track somewhere, but nope it was him.
i finally said to myself, self if you keep pushing this deer he is never going to stop travelin.
so i backed out, went back home and came back several hours later. i was then able to get close enough to jump him up and killed him that time as came up out of a draw at about thirty yards running with a shot that hit him straight between the shoulder blades and broke his back.
and yes he had a small little hole through both lungs from my first shot when i gutted him out.
a small area of bruising and damaged lung tissue around the bullet hole and it was a complete passthrough.
impossible you might say, well i did do..
but i also was standing over a double lunged buck that i had shot many hours before, tracked for over a mile, and still had to shoot on the run.
i dunno, you guys do the math on that one.
but i got rid of those dam bullets believe me and went to the biggest hollowpoint i could get my hands on.
and low and behold,, the only other deer i shot with that pistol and those big soft hollowpoints , shot through the lungs just the same way made it about 100 yards and expired.
no pass through on that one, but massive lung tissue damage.
but after that i quit shooting deer with that pistol altogether.
shoot plumb thru one and he runs a mile,, shoot another broadside at 40 yards and it wont get out the other side..
i started packing a bigger pistol that didnt hurt my dam ears so ever lovin terrible.
and did a much better job on critters of all sizes.

[whelenshooter]

I suppose as with anything else in life you have to draw a line somewhere but it's best to be careful. Some cartridges aren't up to the task of humanely killing a deer size animal that's for sure. But if humanely means quickly (whatever the definition of that is) then archery kills become suspect. You can argue whether archery will kill better than a 38 in a given situation but you can't argue that archery kills as quickly as often as high intensity center fire cartridges. Many times good archery hits will still let a deer run for many seconds/minutes before they bleed out. A high intensity center fire cartridge would add tissue and systemic shock to the equation equaling 'usually' a quicker kill. It also takes, in my opinion, more skill, more discernment, and more self control to kill cleanly with archery than with high intensity center fire cartridges. Not all hunters, or maybe most, have those traits. Several of those who've spoken against the op's 38 query have defended archery. We walk a fine and dangerous line when we condemn other's methods and tools needlessly. There has to be a line but where is it for that 'quick clean kill'? Who defines quick and clean? Should we all have to shoot 30/06's with jacketed bullets and higher capacity rifles at 50 yards max range?

This can become ridiculous at both ends of the spectrum.

david

[357maximum]

We walk a fine and dangerous line when we condemn other's methods and tools needlessly. There has to be a line but where is it for that 'quick clean kill'? Who defines quick and clean? david

David


Thank you.......I spend 3/4 of my "gun deer" time in Southern Michigan....I know very few here who would not jump at the chance to use a 357/44 carbine instead of a shotgun/muzzleloader especially the youth hunters that are basically forced by law to endure a shotgun because their old man is too busy/cheap to buy/learn the use of a muzzleloader that will not kick their kids ****...you see a 30-06 is not legal here, likely never will be. I live right near "THE LINE" I have to go 3/4 of a mile north to use a 30/06....makes sense right?

[robertbank]

Shot a large buck in Alberta with my 30-06. Bullet hit just back of the shoulders taking his spine out. He dropped like a rock but was still very much alive and would have been for quite some time. The rifle shot was under 100 yards. He jumped as I pulled the trigger.
A bullet in the ear from a model 27 ended it in an instant.

Take Care

Bob

[Beerd]

goofy,

That story was worth the price of admission right there!
..

[Petrol & Powder]

200 posts !!! Yeah we made it !

Can we put this one to sleep now ?