Buck with 44 mag. rifle

[Yooper003]

Today was opening day here in Michigan, about 3:00 this afternoon nice buck came through behind a doe. I was shooting my 44 mag, cva hunter with 240 gr. cast & pc,ed. Pushed with moderate load of H110. Boolit went through both shoulders & is still going I guess. He went about 100 yd. & piled up dead. But not 1 drop of blood, we have over a foot of snow on the ground so would have seen blood if there was any. Sure did not think I was casting too hard a boolit but maybe so.

[megasupermagnum]

You guys have seasons that open on a Friday?

[Yooper003]

Nov 15 they tried sat. opener a couple years but people wanted to go back to Nov 15 th opener.

[richhodg66]

Congrats!

Got a picture of the buck? It's been my experience that cast bullets generally don't leave much blood on the ground, but jacketed ones don't really either. Usually, mine have dropped fast, never had one go 100 yards, most times I see them fall down.

I bet hunting those north woods with a rifle like that is a great experience. Kind of envious here.

[bmortell]

nice work, could you mention the bullet design and lead alloy

[Yooper003]

I did take pic's but could not get them to post with my I-pad. It was a nice 8 point with 14" spread. Boolit was Lee 240 round nose. Alloy was just adding some Roto metals hig antimony & tin nuggets to some plumbers lead I had to where I thought I was getting 14-17 hardness. Boolit exit hole was hardly larger than enterance.

[CastingFool]

Congrats, Yooper! I, too, went out yesterday morning, at a friend's farm. Looking for a doe, saw 8 but all too far away for my Henry 45 colt. Be going out shortly, behind my house.

[bmortell]

oh that makes sense then. a round nose around 15-16 hardness probably acts like a FMJ. obviously you can still take something with it, but you would get better damage and bleeding with flatpoints soft or hard. for expansion with flatpoints id go roughly 10 hardness or a pretty wide flatpoint still gives people good results if hard.

[Screwbolts]

What bmortell said! I agree completely. You could file a flat nose on them RNs and that would help a great deal IMHO!

[dnepr]

Congrats on the deer . Going to a flat point and/or a softer alloy would help , I am wondering around the woods of northwestern Ontario with the same rifle loaded with a lee 310 gr flatpoint , if Lady Luck smiles on me I will let you know how it performs.

[Tripplebeards]

Sounds like me last year! I shot three in a group and two ran over 100 yards before dropping with little to no blood...

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...my-devastators!!!



I am going to shoot an extremely soft 7.5 BH at about 1600 ft./s this year in the same hollow point to see if I get different results during our antlerless only season. A 100 yards will put my deer on someone else’s property and I’ll lose my deer to someone else. If soft alloy doesn’t work i’ll still cast and use my boolits for practice and plinking but I won’t hunt with cast anymore unless I go out west so I can watch my shot animal run across the open plains until it drops. I’d rather blow a deer in half and lose all the meat than watch it run out of sight after the shot and be able to eat in the hole once I find the animal with no blood trail any day of the week. At least with the softer alloy I’m using I’m hoping I at least put a very large exit hole on my animal so I have a blood trail(if needed) this year.

[kycrawler]

The Lee 310 cast soft anchors them

[Tripplebeards]

The Lee 310 cast soft anchors them

How soft and at what muzzle velocities?

[murf205]

How soft, what speeds?

clip on wheel weight or there abouts and 1500 to 1600 fps in a rifle is plenty. The 310 Lee or a Keith SWC kills quicker than any RN. That is pretty tough to have a property that close. Set up on the property line with your back to the other property.

[Tripplebeards]

clip on wheel weight or there abouts and 1500 to 1600 fps in a rifle is plenty. The 310 Lee or a Keith SWC kills quicker than any RN. That is pretty tough to have a property that close. Set up on the property line with your back to the other property.

That’s what new my neighbor did after they bought the property next to me a few years back. They are about 15 yards off of it and have their tree stand sideways and stare down into my woods. I finally had enough of it and posted my land. My new neighbors saw the signs and called and yelled at me for posting my land! Lol... and I know why is because they’re shooting deer on my property. They told me they didn’t like the signs and I should turn them around towards my way because they found them offensive,OMG! I have found blood trails and huge blood spots 100 yards into my woods the last couple of years and know they’ve been launching shots into my woods. On the conversation we had I explained to them at least we know where the lines are now and it will make us both honest. I said I wouldn’t expect to shoot a deer on their property as I expect them not to shoot one on mine. But if they do shoot a deer on their property and it runs onto mine they know as long as they call me they have permission to come on and track it as I do theirs. And they’re pretty bad shots because every year they call me at least 2 times and never find their deer. I realize you got to keep the peace with your neighbors so I can’t Jerry Springer them too bad. The first year they shot a couple deer and one ran down and stood right in front of me for 20 minutes. One of the owners walked down to my tree stand it ran away and asked me if I saw the deer! I said yes there’s nothing wrong with it politely. He then saw the deer 30 yards in back of me walk away and said yup it’s fine. He then walked back up to his property line got in the truck drove it up To the deer about 40 yards above the property line loaded it and drove away. As they were driving away a 20 inch 10 pointer walked within 10 yards of my stand staring at them driving across the field! Nice beautiful easy shot I wish it would happen like that every year! Dropped it right off it’s feet. I sit about 80 yards off my property line watching up to it. I’ve use my 30 out six and 180 grain core locks since the 80s and most deer drop where they stand. I have had some go 20 or 30 yards with a heart shot. I’m using my 35 Whelen with super performance ammo this year. I hear lifts deer up and off the ground most the time.lol I own 33 acres and of course where the deer run is on the ridge of my property line. That’s why I try and get in there early for Bow hunting and try and get a monster every year so gun season seems less relevant to me. I finally think I’ve got the neighbor thing taken care of the other neighbors decided they were going to go coon hunting on my land and finally got caught on trail camera along with the other neighbors dogs twice which I called the cops on because they were chasing deer on camera but the cops won’t give them tickets for their dogs. Last Sunday at two new dogs come right underneath my stand! There is dog poop all over in my woods. I have no issues with shooting a cat but a dog is only as smart as his owner. I can’t blame the dogs but the idiots that let their dogs run loose in the country. I did get a kick out of the neighbor who yelled at me about posting my land. When they bought the property there was an overlap between mine and there’s We went back-and-forth for over a year and all met a half a dozen times out in the woods with the surveyor. We both came to an agreement where our properties met and the surveyor put stakes in the ground. That’s where I put my signs if not a couple feet down onto my land so I wouldn’t be marking their property as trees don’t grow perfectly parallel with each other. I was told by the neighbor that they didn’t think that was right and they might have to get it surveyed again.lol i’m sure if they called the surveyor or the County record deeds they laughed at them as it’s all been written, signed. a note or a doctrine stamped...and we both received copies of what we did with our agreement. They did text me a few weeks later very nice and asked me if I shot a deer because they found a huge buck on the other neighbors property bordering both of ours so I think they realized they were in the wrong calling and yelling at me for posting MY property. I really couldn’t care less during muzzleloader, antlerless only! or archery season, during gun season they’re out there in full force. Archery they’ll sit in front of me every once in a while but I don’t think they are diehards when it comes to that. I know they do hunt early youth season so in respect for the kids I stay out of the woods that weekend hoping they can do their best.

[bmortell]

my deer season is in about 15 days, I got a 44 lever action set up with 300gr .360" flatpoint at 1500fps, I need hard bullets for accuracy so I got the front 100gr's 20-1 lead and the rear 200gr heat treated 50-50 WW. there also PC'd so its quite a bit of work per bullet but I got it shooting accurate and it should hammer deer pretty good and lots of penetration.

[catkiller45]

so would a 255 grain hollow point have been a better choice? Asking because I have some I might use in my revolver 44 mag..

[444ttd]

although i use 444 marlin(tc encore, 23" barrel) i use a 300gr fn gc(saeco) going at 1624fps. its 10 lead : 1 tin or 12ish bhn. i had one run about 25-30 yards and the other two were drt or close to it.

63+/-(or was 53?) yards to the spike, ran
25ish yards to two doe, drt

they all were behind the shoulder shots. they also were thru n thru. the boolits did expand but not by much. the spike had a blood trail, but the spike didn't go far.

i used a 275gr ranch dog, 280gr wfn and lfn gc that were around 12ish bhn(10 coww: about .25 tin) going roughly 2000fps and did it ever expand!!! bloodshot meat was the rule. i don't like bloodshot meat, so i downloaded the 300gr boolit.

[jaydub in wi]

The Lee 310 cast soft anchors them

The one deer I killed with cast was with a 44 280 LBT WFN. I was shooting them in a ruger super blackhawk over 21 grains of H110 IIRC. Anyway, the deer was at 25 or 30 yds. I shot him through the top of the heart..right through the plumbing. He managed a weak 25 yard trot. Those boolits were cast by beartooth. I have bought that mold from Veral. There was a good size exit and lots of blood to trail. I didn't need it as I saw him fall. Good luck everyone...I'm going hunting in Michigan's UP now

[gunseller]

I have no idea how many deer I have shot and killed with my 44. Bullet is a 240 SWC cast of WW over 18 grains of 2400. They usually only move about 30 inches. Straight down. Big flat on the front is, to me, as good as a hollow point.
Steve