Best caliber to minimize meat loss?

[davidheart]

Howdy, I was wondering what y'all's experience has been with meat loss in both cast and j-words? I understand boolit placement is everything but from what I've seen 30 caliber has really destroyed a few deer. My neighbor gave us a deer he shot with his 30-06 at 150 yards. Both front legs were COMPLETELY unusable. I shot a buck with a 22-250 a week ago and had very little meat loss.

Of all the deer I've seen shot with a 30 caliber I've thought "What a waste!". Granted I've yet to shoot a deer with my 30 caliber cast boolits but.... I don't want to waste. What of 7mm and 6.5 boolits and meat loss? 45-70? Etc? Thanks!

[44man]

All meat loss hinges on bullet/ boolit construction ONLY, never caliber. One caliber with the wrong boolit will lose animals while a Boolit change will destroy it. Does not matter how big or small it is.
You are better off finding the bullet/boolit that works for what you shoot. The 30 will do anything from lost to ruin.

[waksupi]

Stay with heavy for caliber bullets. They don't expand as much, to create the damage. When I hunted with the .338 WM, I used 250 gr. bullets, and you could eat up to the hole. One season I tried 200 gr., and I swear I saw daylight completely through the animal when the bullet struck. Never more. With cast in the .358 Win, the heavy bullets have never destroyed a lot of meat, assuming a hit in the ribs.

[DougGuy]

I shot a medium sized doe with a 405gr hp from an inline muzzle loader and I could see the WOODS through the softball sized hole in the rib cage as it took a short run before expiring!

Large meplat flat nosed, NON hollowpoints at medium velocity punch a clean hole and golfball sized wound channel that don't destroy much outside the immediate wound.

My Ruger M77 in .308 was horrendous with 150gr soft points, not much better with 165s but once I topped the cases with a 180gr plain base soft point, it got right manageable and I wasn't picking boolit fragments out of half the deer.

[seaboltm]

I too like large, non expanding bullets. I have hit deer with full power 300 grain 375H&H loads with minimal meat damage. The bullet was too tough to expand on thin skin deer and punched a .375 hole right through the vitals. Same shot with a violently expanded 243 bullet would have made a considerable mess.

[Fishman]

It also matters where you shoot them. A 30-06 through the shoulders is bad, but the same one through the ribs is just fine. Generally the higher the velocity, the more damage as well. A couple of deer my son shot with the .243 wssm were really messy inside despite perfect shots through the lungs. Hydrostatic shock is apparantly very high with that round and ruptured everything from stem to stern. I don't like wasting the tendies, so the next handloads were downloaded to .243 win velocities. Much more better.

[Blammer]

shoot them here



no meant loss, unless you count the heart of course.

this was using a 30-06 with cast bullets.

as stated earlier, bullet construction has everything to do with meat loss, not caliber.

[runfiverun]

construction is part of the equation, impact velocity is the other part.
I have a 7x57 Ackley [icl really] and can push a 139 gr bullet anywhere from 2400 fps to up over 3,000 fps.

I thought that the upper velocity would extend my range but I should cover my bets by spending $35-$40.00 for 50 bullets, imagine my surprise when I completely destroyed the front shoulder of a couple of bucks at my normal shooting distance.
I had been getting pass throughs and 50 cent exit wounds with the 20 cent bullets and 4 grains less powder on both deer and elk.
no I didn't gain any accuracy by spending the extra cash, but I did get a flatter shooting more meat destroying rifle in the bargain.
It took me a try or two to figure it out, but I now own two lifetime supply's of the 20 cent bullets just to make sure I don't try and change again.

ever since then I have been an advocate of moderate [not much over 2800 fps] velocity's and a nominal to slightly over nominal bullet weight.
even when I use my 25-06 to hunt with I back it down a couple of clicks and don't aim at the front side shoulder, and I probably have the slowest 270 in the world launching 150 gr bullets from a 21" barrel.

funny now that I think about it, I push my cast rifles as fast as they will go and back off my jacketed stuff to near minimum.

[davidheart]

Thanks guys for the feedback! So basically, no matter what caliber:

A) DO NOT HIT THE SHOULDER (if I can help it)
B) Shoot heavy for caliber boolits/bullets
C) Keep velocities under 2800fps

Of course my 22-250 was running a 65gr Gameking at about 3500.... but I guess that's about the bullet construction. Controlled expansion soft point. Plus I shot it in the low chest in front of the legs.

I don't like shooting the neck because we LOVE the neck roast in this house..... shot out the esophagus of a buck though and dropped it in it's tracks. No neck meat loss.

[seaboltm]

I could argue both ways on shoulder hits, depending on the variables. In dense cover, for example, a 300 grain 44 magnum bullet aimed at breaking the shoulders would anchor the beast and keep it from running into dense cover and maybe getting lost. There are a lot of variables, which is where experience comes in. But in general an animal hit through both lungs is short for this earth, and if tracking is not an issue, that would be my choice (behind the shoulders).

[drinks]

3 point program, big, fat and slow.

[jhalcott]

I've killed deer with slow and heavy 7mm cast bullets, fast 6mm bullets and a whole lot of other cast and jacketed stuff. I killed quite a few on a culling operation using heavy cast bullets in a 7TC/U carbine and more with a 6mm shooting 85 grain Sierra HPBT's. I wasn't trying to save the meat!!. I used a 358 Winchester and it's big brother the 35 Whelen on some deer with satisfying results, both with 200 and 245 grain cast bullets. I don't THINK the caliber is as important as WHERE you hit them. A heavy for caliber at moderate speed thru the ribs destroys less than the speedier types.

[stephen m weiss]

I am so glad somebody else posted this. I have been wanting to bring this up. After examining several deer I blew apart with 308 factory hunting ammo and a police 223 round, i was less than happy with the amount of lead unaccounted for inside the animal. I dont want to waste an ounce of the animal. Everything goes to either my family or the dog. Neither one should be injesting lead.

I have gone to 308 FMJ's at about 1800 fps for deer( works great on squirrel too). Water testing as well as recoving rounds from wet sand shows they tumble rapidly, have 26" penetration or so, and keep all the lead in the very thick jacket. I eat ALL the meat including the bullet hole. Bullet placement is key, and my woods are thick and straight up the side of a mountain. I like CNS shots since most shots are under 40 yards, and if I can hit a squirrel in the head at that range, I can certainly dump a deer in the neck. No point in taking a risk of the animal running off.

The one I shot in the neck skimmed the spine in the neck, took out the jugular, blew the top off the heart, and broke 8 ribs on the way out. Dead right there. The bullet was going sideways as it exited (having cut all those ribs) and cut down a 1.25" dia beech tree behind the deer. The bullet is 1.13" long so it was clearly going sideways. My dog even ate the head and pelt.

I use .224 fmjs going 2200fps for squirrel. Milk just testing shows they are just starting to frag at 6" deep, so still whole and going straight thru at 2" on a squirrel.

[Omega]

I am so glad somebody else posted this. I have been wanting to bring this up. After examining several deer I blew apart with 308 factory hunting ammo and a police 223 round, i was less than happy with the amount of lead unaccounted for inside the animal. I dont want to waste an ounce of the animal. Everything goes to either my family or the dog. Neither one should be injesting lead.

I have gone to 308 FMJ's at about 1800 fps for deer( works great on squirrel too). Water testing as well as recoving rounds from wet sand shows they tumble rapidly, have 26" penetration or so, and keep all the lead in the very thick jacket. I eat ALL the meat including the bullet hole. Bullet placement is key, and my woods are thick and straight up the side of a mountain. I like CNS shots since most shots are under 40 yards, and if I can hit a squirrel in the head at that range, I can certainly dump a deer in the neck. No point in taking a risk of the animal running off.

The one I shot in the neck skimmed the spine in the neck, took out the jugular, blew the top off the heart, and broke 8 ribs on the way out. Dead right there. The bullet was going sideways as it exited (having cut all those ribs) and cut down a 1.25" dia beech tree behind the deer. The bullet is 1.13" long so it was clearly going sideways. My dog even ate the head and pelt.

I use .224 fmjs going 2200fps for squirrel. Milk just testing shows they are just starting to frag at 6" deep, so still whole and going straight thru at 2" on a squirrel.

I don't know about there in NY, but here in TN you can't use FMJs for game, just varmints. I am not so concerned about lead as most of my rounds go in small come out big, and rarely stay in the deer.

[davidheart]

New York is such a bastion of freedom and gun rights and as such I'm sure FMJ is perfectly legal to use.

Thank you for your encouragement Stephen. I'm also glad to know 2200fps on a squirrel head doesn't waste anything!

[Vopie]

Keep using FMJ's on deer and the only thing you're going to be feeding is the local coyote population!!!!

[runfiverun]

fmj's are good on coyote's.
I never criticize anyone's choice in bullets, if they have done their home work.

[btroj]

Ever since I went to using cast I don't seem to have much meat damage. Heavy bullets not driven too fast.

[altheating]

Didn't I read somewhere that FMJ'S were used by the military to wound, not kill ? Their thinking was it would take two more solders to carry the one wounded solder. Since a deer is about the size of a human, wounding is wounding no mater what your shooting. It's just not ethical! And IMHO neither is "Skimming the Spine" with a FMJ 308 bullet.

[davidheart]

Didn't I read somewhere that FMJ'S were used by the military to wound, not kill ? Their thinking was it would take two more solders to carry the one wounded solder. Since a deer is about the size of a human, wounding is wounding no mater what your shooting. It's just not ethical! And IMHO neither is "Skimming the Spine" with a FMJ 308 bullet.

That's a popular belief in regards to wounding however depending on the twist of your barrel and the velocity of the FMJ there is extreme potential for much more damage than 'wounding'. Honestly bullet placement truly is everything in regards to kills.

If you're SUPER steady then FMJ's may be able to ethically get the nod. I'm just not that guy.

A thin FMJ 55-62gr 223/5.56 does a tremendous amount of damage. Never seen 7.62/308 FMJ damage in person so I couldn't say about the heavier bullet.

Guys around here take hogs with 223 FMJ. Last two hogs I saw strung up were about 175-200lbs each? A friend called and told me to come over and help process them. One of the hogs was taken with 1 shot from a 223. *Dead-Right-There*

The other hog had multiple shots because it began to charge our fellow and frantically he didn't aim but rather "kept pulling the trigger" until it would stop moving....

When it comes to FMJ's I leave the choice up to the individual hunter to determine his ability to ethically put down game and to understand the laws he needs to abide by. It's not my job to tell him otherwise. If he feels he's able to ethically put down an animal then there is nothing I can say or do to tell him otherwise. He may very well be up to the task.