kmunny19

I've been shooting 130 gr. Remington Scirrocco's out of my model 700, .270 win for 2 years. I love the flat trajectory and energy.
Last year I shot 2 does with them, both broadside, about 40 yards, lower lungs, upper heart, passed through, did MASSIVE damage and left blood trails you could see from space. (seriously, I couldsee a blood trail from one of them from 80 yards away while still in my stand, without the aid of optics).
This weekend, I shot 2 does again with them, one quartering away at about 90 yards, liver and offside lung, one quartering toward, 15 yards, shoulder, heart, lower lung. Both again had massive internal damage, but neither passed through and, more disturbingly, the only sign at the point of impact and for the first 20 yards or so was a little bit of fur. No blood, no blood trail (at all on the toward, and for 20-30 yards on the away).
Wondering if anyone else has experience with the Scirrocco's doing similar, and also if anyone has experience with the 150 gr. Nosler Partitions, (especially in .270 win).
Obvously, the Scir's did a great amount of damage and killed efficiently, but I'm concerned about not having a starting point to track from. I know 100% energy transfer is good for a quick kill, but an exit wound can be essential for recovery at times. Maybe this just happened to be two fluke shots, but from 15 yards I'd really expect an exit, even though I did hit shoulder.

SwampCollie

K;

Welcome to the forums bro. Lots of opinons, lies and even some useful information to be found here.

Here is my take on what happened with your two most recent does.

As you noted, you didn't get an exit hole with either, so what you have to look at is exactly where the only hole in the deer was located. In one instance, you have a doe quartering away, which is a decent shot to take really, but what no doubt happened is the bullet, upon hitting the deer, expanded rapidly. Swift makes a heck of a bullet, and I'm not saying it cratered (blew up), but a 270 has a flat trajectory as you mentioned; in laymen's terms that means the bullet is really dang fast. Take a light bullet and lots of speed, and you can get explosive results. Anyway, Based on where you hit that first doe, you likely experienced some intesinal coils sliding forward and clogging the bullet hole on the near side. There is not a heck of a lot of blood pressure going through parts of the liver or the upper stomach, so unless you hit a big artery near the skin, you won't get much blood. And what you will get will be sprays of muscle blood, and drops of dark liver blood. Possibly even stomach matter. I expect when you opened that deer up, it looked like some one smashed a gallon sized jar of grape jelly inside. By any chance did you recover the bullet? Did it stay together well?

Second doe is a bit easier, a shot directly through the shoulder bone on a quartering to angle will usually have the bullet lodge in the offside hindquarter. Since you hit the deer through the bone, lots of those bone fragments sort of act like leaves in a storm drain, stopping up the blood from flowing. Now, those bone fragments act like a claymore mine to the vitals, and I expect that deer didn't make it far, but as far as a blood trail goes, its usually spartan. Quartering to is a tough shot, and thats just all there is to it.

I had a very similar situation last week. I took a nice doe with a muzzleloader at 20 yards. 300gr bullet, smashed the onside shoulder right at the upper joint and lodged about an inch starboard side of the anus, right up againest the hide. Found it at the skinning pole first thing. Didn't really tear up the ham thank God, and totally missed the loins. Lungs, liver... totally destroyed. Deer made it 30 yards. I looked for two hours for that deer after dark. Found hair in the spot where i shot it... and one splash a blood right near where it went down for good. Tracked its steps in the field dirt from where I finally tripped on it back to where I'd shot it at. 30 yards total... and not a touch of blood anywhere along its path. Sometimes it happens that way.

You're issue with a lacking blood trail is, in my opinion, not a bullet issue at all. But a bullet placement issue. Thats not an attack at all, your shooting is no doubt just splended, and surely effective. But you have to hit a deer in a spot thats going to produce a blood trail. Doesn't matter what you shoot him with really. Sciroccos are as good a bullet as any, and if your gun shoots them well, don't switch. Partitions are good as well, but I doubt if your results would have been any different with any bullet short of a solid.

Best of luck, and let us know if you found those bullets when you dressed the deer. That will reveal even more about what happened.

kmunny19

pretty much right on with the wound characteristics, although I did get some good blood eventually from the Q away shot because a major liver blood vessel got opened. I feel i pulled the shot a bit left. The shoulder hit did not have the bullet travel into the abdomen, it messed up the heart and lung just fine, but like your example, no blood until just a few tiny drops a yard or two away from where it fell. Fortunately, I saw where that one fell in some grass, so all I had to do was wait it out to make sure it didn't get up and leave he grass.

eldeguello

I started using Nosler Partition bullets (in a .270 as well!) in 1964. Since that time, they are the only bullets I have used on game animals. So far, I have only found two if them inside a game animal. One was a .277 130-grain that had gone throught a mule deer from behind the lastrib on the left rear to the right front quarter, and was stopped by the big bones in the shoulder joint. Range, 40 yards.

The other one was in a 300-pound black bear shot with the 150-grain Nosler .270 bullet. Range 200 yards. Here again, the bullet struck behind the left rear rib, ranged diagonally forward, smashed the right shoulder then travelled down his right leg, breaking back and forth thru his right leg bones twice, and stopped under the skin on the inside of his right wrist! Found the bullet while skinning him out. "What's this lump here ion the inside of his wrist?" A nicely expanded Nosler Partition bullet!

ALL the other shots with Nosler Partitonbullets were complete pass thrus, from deer at over 300 yards to a bull elk at 35 yards-(175-grain 7mm NPJ in 7mm Rem. Mag.)

There are probably bullets out there that are just as good. But for me, Nosler Partition bullets have always done what they're designed to do!

driftrider

While some swear by the "use all the energy inside" no-pass through school, I, personally, subscribe to the two-hole-are-better-than-one approach. I like bullets that go through, liquifying the organs as it goes, making a big hole going out the other side. I've always gotten better blood trails with a pass thru than with no exit, and the deer go down just as fast if you shoot them in the same place. I'm going to try Barnes bullets this year in my ML. I've heard excellent things about their bullets. They open fast and still penetrate deep. I was hesitant to try them because I believed like many others that any bullet that can penetrate like the Barnes TSX/TMZ bullets must open slow. This is not true. Barnes has high-speed camera videos of TSX bullets hitting 10% ballistic gel that open completely in the first inch of penetration, but still outpenetrate most other bullets, while creating an impressive wound channel. I think that this has to do with the all-copper construction and the sharp edges created when it opens compared to the dull mushroom of lead cored bullets. So I'm very curious to see first hand how they perform on game. Although all the on-game reports I've heard on Barnes copper bullets seem to be very positive.

Mike

Lubricious

Energy matters very little, its all about expansion and creating the most possible damage to critical organs. This is easily proved by looking at bowhunting.

IMO pass throughs are optimal but you just cant count on them everytime because bullets do some crazy tricks as Eldequello pointed out.

Your starting point will always be where the animal was standing when you pulled the trigger. Make a mental note of that spot and what direction it ran off in.

Bozack66

Just as Swamp Collie said it is bullet placement. High hits on deer tend not to bleed out as soon as low hitson deer.
This was stated in an archery forum. The theory is that the animal will bleed internally until it fills with enough
blood to bleed out the holes created by the bullet. Like pail with a hole in it. I don't know if this is true but it does
have some merit behind it in my experiences. That is that deer hit high do not leave blood trails for a while. But it is also
my experience that deer hit high tend to not run as far either.