Thom28 wrote:. 1st deer's heart was mush and deer still traveled over 120 yards. Had to use my dog to find that deer.
i'm going to qualify this out front that i have NOTHING against engineered solid copper bullets.
but your experience here had nothing to do with the bullets performance. you could have put the same shot into a deer with *ANY* bullet - copper included - and gotten the same experience. and then you'd hate copper bullets too.
people think deer are wimpy animals - they're not. they're tougher than most hunters give them credit for. way tougher.
i had a similar experience years ago - with my 30-06. shot a standing buck, broadside - right thru the 10 ring. 180gr RN core-lokt. those things hit like a sledgehammer - especially at 65 yds. probably mid 2500 to low 2600 fps impact velocity and damn close to 2700-2800 ft/lbs of impact energy. i watched the deer crumple. *bang* *flop* type of thing. just like the last 3-4 deer i had heart shot with that same load. so i set my gun down, lit a smoke and poured a cup of coffee.
finished my smoke - got up to go gut my prize - wtf? where the hell is my deer? turns out while i had my head turned focusing on that smoke and coffee he hopped up and ran off.
we tracked that deer >300 yds with only bb sized drops of blood every 15 yds or so. found him with his antlers wrapped around a small sapling (3" trunk ish) laying in a bloody mudpuddle.
damn deer had the top 1/3 of his heart missing, the arteries were just hanging there attached too nothing. perfect entrance and exit. bled almost completely internal until he fell over and it all leaked out.
my point is - depending on the animal sometimes pure adrenaline takes over. and then they dont even act like they're hit. and can do some damn amazing things when that occures.
so unless you get a perfect CNS hit (Spine/brain) there's no guarantee that *ANY* bullet in the vitals area is going to be a DRT performance, or guarantee a blood trail thats easily trackable . sometimes mother nature doesnt care what paper statistics say, or gelatin tests show.