Henry speaks again

[CastingFool]

Went out yesterday, wanting to fill out my 2nd tag before the upcoming winter storm hit this weekend. About an hour if sitting on the blind, a lone doe came down a trail and offered a shot. I was not sure of a solid hit, and fir a second or two regretted taking the shot. I got down off the blind and found no blood, and thr tracks in the light snow were not distinctive enough. I decided to head out in the general direction the doe went. After a few minutes, I found her sprawled at the base of a tree. The area where she went down, the trees are not that thick, although it's a wet area. When I spotted her, I just thanked God for letting me find her. I did double lung her, but with the 45 colt, it doesn't seem to shock them enough. She ran somewhere between 75 and 100 yes. At any rate, that's the 2nd doe I killed using the Henry, with a cast boolit both times. 308343

[white eagle]

good thing you found her , congrats

[Smoke4320]

Congrats .. meat in the freezer cant go wrong there

[Texas by God]

Congratulations, nice doe and nice rifle/scope combo.

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

[stubshaft]

Congrats, good recovery.

[ChristopherO]

She's a big girl. Glad for your success. Always good to follow through once the trigger is pulled as they can fool us pretty quickly by running off so strong. What boolit are you shooting and velocity out of the good looking Henry?

[Winger Ed.]

Glad you found it.

[CastingFool]

ChristopherO, I'm using the Lee 452-255 RF, with 7.0 grs of Unique. I didn't write down the published speed, since it was probably for a pistol load, and my Henry has a 20" barrel.

[pworley1]

Good for you. Happy eating.

[versa-06]

Good Shoot'n, Good Story, & Great Ending!

[T-Bird]

Boy! that's a big fat "nanny". They eat good! congrat's!

[doghawg]

CastingFool. Congrats on the deer! I recently purchased the same rifle and after one range trip it looks like it's going to be a good shooter with that 255 Lee over 8.8 of Unique. My thinking was to use it for deer next year with that 255 cast soft and powder coated with the 8.8 grain load. I'm thinking your 7 gr. of Unique would probably clock at around 1000 fps. In your opinion how much difference would an extra 150 fps or so make? How soft was yours cast?

[smokeater]

Glad you scored< nice fat looking doe.

[CastingFool]

Doghawg, I cast my boolits out 50-50 cows and soww plus 2% pewter. I don't know how hard or soft they are. A thumbnail does not scratch it. I wouldn't mind having a little more speed.

[Iwsbull]

Congrats on your kills this year, glad you were able to find her.

[missionary5155]

Good morning and Congratulations !
Slow moving lead gets the job done but not so dramatically. 7 grains Unique is a slow one.
But God guided your footsteps and all that great eating to your table.

[LenH]

CastingFool - that 7.0 grains of Unique is the published load in some of the newer manuals. I started out with an old Lyman manual published back in the 70's.
The starting load then was 8.0 Grains of Unique for a 255 gr SWC.

Even with that 7.0 gr of Unique and the bullet you were using probably hit that doe like a freight train.

[TurnipEaterDown]

Casting Fool: Good job on the deer!

I would not worry about the performance that you noted. Seems reasonable to me.
I have shot enough deer with handguns (really what your load is closest to), getting lungs only, to have convinced myself that these shot scenarios will usually have the deer run off ~ 50 yds even when perfectly calm.

Getting lungs only, they will often fill up inside and not bleed a notable amount out onto the ground after they leave the point of the shot.

I used to load everything up to max performance at best available accuracy when I was younger, and once shot an old doe whitetail of about 180 lbs live weight just 12 feet in front of blind w/ a 475 Linebaugh Long pushing a 400 LBT WFN just over 1600 fps. She was absolutely calm when she stopped in front of the blind and waited for me to look down the side of the barrel to get the aiming point -- single shot was wearing a scope and all I could see through that was brown fur.
I measured the wound diameter w/ a pocket ruler when I field dressed. Due to the large flat meplat there was 1 1/2 inch holes in hide through both sides, and 2 inches through the lungs.
She still ran off about 50 yds before collapsing. Just takes a wile for the oxygen to run out, and the loss of blood pressure isn't as quick with this shot as rupturing the heart.

Looks like all is good to me in your post. Carry on! :)

[Thumbcocker]

Excellent!

[koger]

Great job., thanks for sharing.

[mnewcomb59]

That Henry can take +P and you aren't even at black powder pressures with 7.0 of Unique. I bet your brass and gun gets filthy.

I would be concerned with the lack of blood trail and increase the load. You are probably going about 1000 fps and if you go towards max standard pressure (8.5-9 gr) you could get about 1250 fps and close to twice the power. A hard bullet at 1250 would make a wider wound, and if you would get a little bit of expansion witht the higher speed it would be dramatically larger wound than your hard 1000 fps load.

Either way I would move towards softer lead and/or a more powerful load. The Lee bullet only has a .32 meplat, and if it is rock hard and only traveling at 1000 fps it will leave a narrow wound. If the bullet was rock hard and going faster it would leave a wider wound, or if it was a little softer and the meplat could grow to 40-45 cal you would have a wider, freely bleeding wound at current speeds.

I would not be using that load on deer any more and letting Jesus take the wheel on the recovery. I have got about 6 deer with my 45 Colt rifle so far and one with a 255 in a 1911. My 950 fps 255 gr deer was a cup point that had been tested to not mushroom but turn into a 45 cal wadcutter at those speeds. When I shot the deer in the butt, the wadcutter shaped 255 was found below the skin where the backstrap meets the neck meet. The deer dropped, then got up and ran about 40 yards with a very healthy blood trail. The entrance wound was thumb sized. I know that the Lee 255, if cast hard and used for that same shot, would not have made as large of a wound because the .32 meplat vs the .45 meplat at the same speed.

[rickt300]

I have yet to shoot a deer with my current 45 LC Rossi carbine but somewhere around a dozen feral hogs. The load I settled on gives me around 1300 fps with a Keith style 270 grain bullet. I could easily get more speed but the bullets I am using were cast years ago and the lube seems weak in it's duties. I tend to shoot for CNS and bone. It has worked very well for me so far. Super handy little rifle. As soon as I get around to it I will start casting some softer bullets, powder coat and up the speed to 1500 fps or a bit more. The little carbine kicks pretty hard with the heavier loads and it's steel buttplate is less than a pleasure. As others have said, lung shots will often have the animal travel a ways and yours met that standard. If I didn't have a bad cold I would be out hunting today.

[doghawg]

The Lee bullet only has a .32 meplat

My 2 cavity and six cavity 255 RF's both have .350" meplat as close as I can measure. The 300 gr. Lee has a .390" meplat. Imagine that would hit like a truck!

[chuckbuster]

Nice Deer
Suggestion;
Move your aiming point onto the shoulder, I center the vertical crosshair on the leg and go about a 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the chest, just a little above their "elbow". They don't go far with both shoulders broken and with the large diameter slow bullet you eat right up to the hole. Typically get the top of the heart/arteries coming out of it so kills like a heart lung shot without the track job.
Kevin

[CastingFool]

Chuckbuster, I like your suggestion of moving my aiming point. I had thought of that already, and you just confirmed for me. I'm also going to try what my rifle will do with a little heavier powder charge, maybe try a softer boolit, too. Thanks to all that offered suggestions

[LAH]

Using cast solids probably the shoulders are the best to shoot & break some bone.

[TScottW99]

Congratulations, glad you found her. Always a sinking feeling when you don’t find blood