Bullets and Meat Loss

This year is my first with a new-to-me gun. Not having shot it enough to accumulate adequate brass to start reloading, I shot Hornady American Whitetail rounds. I took my buck through the left shoulder and the bullet was recovered under the hide behind the opposite shoulder. I was disappointed to find that only the mushroomed copper jacket was left. Not one speck of lead remained. All the lead obviously fragmented and dispersed through the shoulders – making a lot of meat not safe for the table, IMO. I don’t wanna risk that lead ingestion for my family.

Looks like Barnes TSX copper will be on the list for next season.

First of all were you aiming for the Left Shoulder? I know lots of hunters who were taught to aim direct for the shoulder ( Me included when I was real young ) If the deer is broadside and you aim directly for the shoulder you are most likely going to damage a lot if not all the meat in both front shoulders. This is with almost any round you are shooting. It took me a few years before a party member discussed shot placement with me and I realized that my shoulder placement was far from the best location. If you tuck that shot a few inches behind the front shoulder you will damage far less meat. The shoulder blade is a rather hard bone and will often cause lots of bullet fragmentation.

As far as the American Whitetail rounds I know nothing about them. The Barnes TSX copper is a excellent choice though.

Double lung or neck wastes less meat. Heart too. Sometime you clip one of the front shoulders but loss is minimal. The only reason to shoot one directly in the shoulder is if you are more concerned about anchoring it right there and less concerned about losing meat. Possibly a giant antlered buck in an area with other hunters, etc. Double lungers almost always run a ways. JMHO

Yes – aimed at front shoulder. He stopped in an opening, and another step would have made it a no-shot deal. The two targets available were the shoulder and part of the neck. At 150 yds, the shoulder was my biggest choice. Bloodshot meat is expected, but the intent of the post was to illustrate the fragmented lead risk. Having 100% fragmentation of the lead portion of the bullet was very surprising to me.

I’m not opposed to head shots if they are a sure thing. Antlers aren’t edible. The last ten of my bucks have either dropped on the spot from a neck shot or gone less than 20 yards from a broadside right off the point of the elbow an inch or so. Quartering shots will almost always have some bad meat and lots of times that bullet ends up in the paunch, so I’ll pass on a deer if its approaching me head-on or a quartering head on shot unless I can be certain of a bean shot. I’ll even wait until the deer offers a going away quartering shot and hope the damage is minimal.

I shoot Barnes XPBs in my muzzies….that’s all I hunt is muzzies. I’ve been pretty happy with fairly clean wound channels, meaning not a tom of peripheral damage. So far I am seeing exit wounds about the size of a 50 cent piece without a ton of blood shock in the surrounding tissues.

Timmy wrote:

Yes – aimed at front shoulder. He stopped in an opening, and another step would have made it a no-shot deal. The two targets available were the shoulder and part of the neck. At 150 yds, the shoulder was my biggest choice. Bloodshot meat is expected, but the intent of the post was to illustrate the fragmented lead risk. Having 100% fragmentation of the lead portion of the bullet was very surprising to me.

Sounds like a nice shot. I always remove the pieces of lead I find and dont worry about the meat. Wrong? Maybe.
BTW-is it bad I still clamp lead sinkers on the line with my teeth?

Hornady Interlocks (the projectile used in the American Whitetail line) don’t have a great reputation for being “bone-busters” and tend to break up quite a bit. Same can be said for most cup and core bullets, which is why I don’t like to shoot them. In my opinion, modern bonded bullets are a big improvement over cup and core projectiles, but even more so are the monolithic (copper) bullets. You will see 95-100% weight retention, and any metal that is lost in the meat isn’t lead. With a two year old and a wife (with another on the way) who love venison I made the decision to start handloading Barnes and couldn’t be happier. Great results on game. That being said, I don’t generally like to aim for the shoulder, but this year I killed a bear in Oregon and that was my only shot. Full pass through, and maybe a golf ball sized chunk of bad meat on either shoulder but that was it.

suzuki wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Timmy wrote:</div>
Yes – aimed at front shoulder. He stopped in an opening, and another step would have made it a no-shot deal. The two targets available were the shoulder and part of the neck. At 150 yds, the shoulder was my biggest choice. Bloodshot meat is expected, but the intent of the post was to illustrate the fragmented lead risk. Having 100% fragmentation of the lead portion of the bullet was very surprising to me.

Sounds like a nice shot. I always remove the pieces of lead I find and dont worry about the meat. Wrong? Maybe.
BTW-is it bad I still clamp lead sinkers on the line with my teeth?

Biting lead sinkers….that explains a lot. I heard it also works better if you warm them up in you mouth for a couple hours before you use them, please try that out and let me know if it works. Lol

Jk Mike.

onestout wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>suzuki wrote:</div>

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Timmy wrote:</div>
Yes – aimed at front shoulder. He stopped in an opening, and another step would have made it a no-shot deal. The two targets available were the shoulder and part of the neck. At 150 yds, the shoulder was my biggest choice. Bloodshot meat is expected, but the intent of the post was to illustrate the fragmented lead risk. Having 100% fragmentation of the lead portion of the bullet was very surprising to me.

Sounds like a nice shot. I always remove the pieces of lead I find and dont worry about the meat. Wrong? Maybe.
BTW-is it bad I still clamp lead sinkers on the line with my teeth?

Biting lead sinkers….that explains a lot. I heard it also works better if you warm them up in you mouth for a couple hours before you use them, please try that out and let me know if it works. Lol

Jk Mike.

PS-Timmy I would highly recommend discarding the front half of each backstrap to avoid any lead exposure. What time can I pick them up?

With close neighbors all around me here, I prefer the high shoulder, anchor them in their spot shot. All the deer I have taken from my property, have dropped with no tracking required. Yes, there is a little meat lost, but in my mind that is the trade of instead of the deer potentially crossing 2-3 property lines in its 150 yard double-lung death run.

When I head to the farm, I do prefer the less wasteful boiler room shot, since there is more space to track a deer.

FWIW, I shoot handloaded 130 gr Sierra Gamekings out of my 270. It is a beautiful round and has maintained good integrity upon mushrooming on several deer.

.270 CALIBER 130 GR. SBT

No heart shots for me. It tastes too good. I like a double lung shot with good pass through. Lots of blood to track the short distance the deer goes, usually under 75 yards. I shoot nosler partitions loaded to max velocity out of my 6.5 Swede Tikka.

castle-rock-clown wrote:

No heart shots for me. It tastes too good. I like a double lung shot with good pass through. Lots of blood to track the short distance the deer goes, usually under 75 yards. I shoot nosler partitions loaded to max velocity out of my 6.5 Swede Tikka.

I love those Partitions out of my 30-06. Hit this one a little low but was still a double lung pass through and ran about 70 yards.

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For those of you that shoot copper, how is their performance when you don’t whack something solid to facilitate mushrooming? A double lung hit, if you miss a rib upon entering, does that still produce any decent expansion? I have almost enough brass for this rifle to start reloading and plan on trying solid coppers out of it next.

I don’t reload, but I shoot exclusively Barnes VOR-TX solid copper with excellent results.

Timmy wrote:

For those of you that shoot copper, how is their performance when you don’t whack something solid to facilitate mushrooming? A double lung hit, if you miss a rib upon entering, does that still produce any decent expansion? I have almost enough brass for this rifle to start reloading and plan on trying solid coppers out of it next.

Never had it happen, but that being said I’ve never recovered one. Step down a weight class, push ’em fast, and go kill stuff

Timmy wrote:

For those of you that shoot copper, how is their performance when you don’t whack something solid to facilitate mushrooming? A double lung hit, if you miss a rib upon entering, does that still produce any decent expansion? I have almost enough brass for this rifle to start reloading and plan on trying solid coppers out of it next.

Been shooting Barnes Tsx and TTsx for quite a few years now. Obviously on a blow through (no bone impact) you won’t recover a bullet. But in every case, the exit hole was clearly fully expanded.

I’m in the same thought process about lead and fragmented Bullets – strongly dislike them. Ya, I know a well placed bullet kills-no kidding. But From elk to antelope, Bullets that retain their weight do so much shock damage to the organs. Fragmenting Bullets lose energy so fast upon entry. I’ll continue with Barnes for as long as I can draw the arm down on my press

In pic is a recovered .270 140gr Barnes tsx that double lunged an elk and lodged into a tree. Dug it out and cleaned it up a bit. When I got home, dropped it in the scale. Weighs 138.8 that’s about as close to 100% weight retention as you can get

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I’m a fan of a head or neck shot myself inside of 100 yards. No tracking required.
Don’t try it if you are not comfortable with you gun though.

waldo9190 wrote:

…. and a wife (with another on the way) who love venison….

2 wives that love venison? Lucky guy! Shoot straight!

Randy Wieland wrote:

Been shooting Barnes Tsx and TTsx for quite a few years now. Obviously on a blow through (no bone impact) you won’t recover a bullet. But in every case, the exit hole was clearly fully expanded.

Randy, do you have a preference between the Tsx or TTsx for whitetail in .270? I was unaware that these are solid copper and your bullet in the picture stayed together much better than the last Sierra that I shot a deer with.

Just a quick follow up. This is a pic of the recovered bullet from my buck. Lower left is the main copper fragment recovered from underneath the far hide, upper is a smaller copper piece, and lower right up is the lead core portion which both were recovered from the far shoulder bone. I haven’t put them on the reloading scale yet, but it is obvious there is a bunch of material missing.

Tim

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