7.62x39 doe hunt. need to pick your brains

[crackerjack57]

Well hey!! another good hunt this year with my 7.62x39 norinco bolt action rifle. that is always expected. didnt go quite that way this year. however I have some questions for you experts. I know the superiority of the cast lead projectiles but this did a little better then i was expecting.
for starters im reloading my own steel cases. im loading 17.2 gn of 4227 with a cotton tuff to fill case. a regular federal 210 primer and for the boollit a powder coated NOE 314466 gas checked boolit that has a BNH of 13. over the crony it measures 1800 fps. with the powder coating i am sizing these to .314 and i can easily do 2" at 200 yards. this year I was expecting an easy hunt at 100 or less yards but it ended up being a much tougher mile and a half walk, 300 yard 2 hour stock, 210 yard shot, boning out and a 2 ish mile hike back to the truck. well, with this 7.62x39 i knew my accuracy would be there for the 210 yards however to be honest i was expecting to find my boolit on the opposite side just under the skin of the broad side double lung shot. when i shot the mulie she jumped, walked 20 yards and dropped. here's where my question comes in......... when approaching my deer i noticed no blood coming from mouth and confirming a double lung shot. when gutting the deer i noticed there was no heart. there was a mass of something that looked like jello under the lungs but no heart. and by the way, it was a pass through?? I was expecting to recover the boolit. pencil size hole in, nickel size hole out and at 210 yards. i wouldnt of expected the hydroshock at 210 yards be able to decimate the heart which was roughly 3" from the boolit passage. I believe this bollit is along the lines of a i believe ranch dog profile, a bit of a flat section on the nose. should i be expecting more from this gun?? 300 or 400 yards???

Sorry..... tried posting a pix but it didnt work.

D

[ericandelaine1975]

I don't see why you couldn't shoot and kill at 3 to 400 yards. I'd try it. I've killed coyotes at 250 yards with a 22 mag.

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[RU shooter]

Although velocity isn't the end all be all but if your starting out at 1800fps at muzzle at 3-400 yds that flat nosed bullet ain't gonna be very zippy . What will happen at that range if large bone is hit ? Not my call but if it were me I'd limit things to 250 yds on deer sized animals .

[rking22]

Think of bullet drop/wind drift as well. You would have to have precise range and be a VERY good judge of wind. I'm not a velocity hound either, but I would keep it to 200 myself. Nice shot, and Im not supprised by the pass thru. Overexpansion is the main enemy of penetration.

[Jeffrey]

Looking up your boolit and referencing the Speer #14 manual, estimating (generously) the ballistic coefficient at .35, then consulting the long range ballistic table (page 1104 of the manual), the lowest muzzle velocity in this table is 2100 fps. Using a 200 yard zero, 2100 fps muzzle velocity, at 300 yards, the boolit has dropped 16.7 inches, and at 400 yards drop is 49.1 inches. Shooting that far with that boolit / cartridge / rifle combination it will definitely kill a deer, but the last thing you want is to shoot that deer, have a blood trail that goes for hundreds of yards to be lost on crossing a road or stream. You are looking at 30-30 ballistics, and while the '... 30-30 has killed more deer than any other cartridge in north America' it has also wounded more deer, not to be recovered.
You were lucky with that shot. It was a basically a "dead right there" situation. You said there was no blood from the nose / mouth. How much was there from the wounds? If she hadn't been DRT, how good would the blood trail have been?
I'm with RKing22, limit that combination to 200 or so yards.