Bullets for deer

[torpex24]

What bullet works best for deer? I am using 50 cal. maxi-balls with 80-90 grains of blackpowder in a Traditions Hawken(1 in 48 twist)because I was not happy with round balls for hunting.
I've made close shots that would seem impossible to miss, yet never find a blood trail.
I recently took a buck and found my bullet. It was wedged up against the spine and had it not hit the heavy bones, I believe it would have passed through with simply a small hole similar to a wad-cutter as the tip showed absolutely no signs of deforming/expanding. The only deformity was to the base of the bullet where it was up against the bone.
What would perform better in terms of creating a blood trail and bullet expansion?

 

[BrownBear]

If you want a conical rather than RB, it's hard to beat the Hornady Great Plains or the nearly identical Lyman if you homecast.

Your load combo sounds plenty sufficient to me though, so I'm not sure what's going on for you. I'm turning into a large caliber nut, and have been a lot happier with 54 and 58 caliber. The 50 was okay, but the bigger RBs have proven even more okay. Understand, I'm only trying to give you excuses for more guns!!!! :thumbsup:

 

[Little Wattsy]

If you want a conical rather than RB, it's hard to beat the Hornady Great Plains or the nearly identical Lyman if you homecast.

Your load combo sounds plenty sufficient to me though, so I'm not sure what's going on for you. I'm turning into a large caliber nut, and have been a lot happier with 54 and 58 caliber. The 50 was okay, but the bigger RBs have proven even more okay. Understand, I'm only trying to give you excuses for more guns!!!! :thumbsup:

I agree!

 

[Stumpkiller]

For the last five years I've used nothing but patched round balls in my rifles (the last two deer I shot dropped without taking a step - both with .50 cal round balls). And in my .66 smoothbore for 15 years or so. :wink: When I first assembled my New Englander (1988) I had very good results on whitetail with the T/C Maxi-Hunters in .50 cal.

Locally Maxi-Balls have a bad reputation for all penetration and no expansion on deer - they poke a small hole and just keep going if a large bone doesn't interfere. I know two m/lers nearby who swear by them for hog hunting in .54, however.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If you used an 80 grain load of FFg and a PRB in your fifty, and didn't find a blood trail, then you missed the deer. That load will drive a ball completely through a deer's chest, shot broadside, at any range under 100 yards. You should see TWO blood trails- one on each side of the deer's tracks. A pure lead ball will expand to about 65 caliber on hitting flesh, and the exit hole will be that size, too.

The reason we use PRBs for hunting deer is that a deer's body is much thinner than most people think, giving not much depth on those broadside shots. The PRB will expand immediately on hitting either flesh or bone, ( the bones are soft, too) and do leave a much larger primary wound channel than will a conical.

Killing deer is all about accurate placement of your ball- not more powder, or more lead. I don't know any conicals being sold today that can be depended on to expand on a deer sized animal. Shooting RBs usually involve much less recoil, and that means your ability to place your ball ACCURATELY on the deer goes way up!

Chances are also good that the deep grooved rifling in your barrel is not going to seal any conical very well. That means hot gases are cutting through the grooves and cutting or melting the lead of your bullet. Its very rare to find any Traditional Rifle barrel, with deep grooves that will shoot a smaller group with conicals than it does with a PRB.

If you are going to shoot conicals, then I recommend that you use an OP wad, or filler to help seal the gases behind your bullet. Roundball reports success using a soft, Wool, Felt wad, one caliber larger( ie., .54 caliber wad for his .50 caliber rifles) than your barrel to seal the gases and protect the base of the bullet. The conicals still don't expand, however, so you end up with a .50 caliber hole through the deer. If a .50 cal. RB( which does expand) is not leaving you a blood trail, don't expect the .50 caliber conical( which doesn't expand) to do so either.

Now, a .50 caliber hole in a deer is still a lot larger hole than you get with a .30 caliber modern rifle bullet, so that is nothing to ignor, either.

My first deer with my .50, shooting 75 grains of FFg powder, at about 35 yards, broke a rib behind her right elbow, penetrated the back of both lungs, and severed an aorta, and then broke another rib on her left side, behind that elbow, before exiting. The exit hole was close to .70 caliber. I had blood spurting out of both wounds, landing on the leaves on brush, and on the dead leaves on the ground as she stumbled down the side of the ravine to the bottom where she died. A first grader could have followed the footprints, much less the bloodtrail.

 

[PreglerD]

I use a Traditions Deerhunter .50 capgun also with the universal 1 in 48''. I harvested 10 roedeeer until now, 8 with PRB, 1 with maxi and 1 with a s...! My load is always 90 grs of WANO PP. Except in two cases I had no bloodtrail with the PRB. With the maxi I had a very big blood trail and pieces of lounge pushed outside.
All roes didn't go far with the shots, the farest was 80 meters the rest about 30-40 or died in their tracks.


Regards


Kirrmeister

 

[Dave K]

My meager experience on the use with roundballs and those of others around me that use them is very good. It appears as almost all of the roundballs used on deer expanded virtually 50% over their orginal size. Another words, a .50 ball became almost a .75 slug or a .45 ball became almost a .67 slug. I personally think you would have a hard time improving on that with a modern jacketed bullet. Of course the roundball sure doesn't have the ballistics of a jacketed type of bullet. I have never used a lead conical bullet. The one time I tried them, they just were not accurate for me. I probably needed much more range time to get a load that would work for them. But again, those locally that used them were not impressed with their expansion and on paper many were having trouble with them key holing. Your mileage may vary. I have found the roundball to be an awesome projectile for the guns we use.

 

even if you dont find blood there will be a lot of hair if you hit your target.

 

[PreglerD]

Right! My 80 m escaping roe buck didn't loose any blood, but many hair. So many to snuff for my colleges dog (Terrier). And he find it in a thicket at once, dead with a clean lounge-liver hit.

Regards

Kirrmeister

 

[Stumpkiller]

It appears as almost all of the roundballs used on deer expanded virtually 50% over their orginal size. Another words, a .50 ball became almost a .75 slug or a .45 ball became almost a .67 slug.

Not always. This is the only round ball I have ever recovered from inside a deer. This was a 12 yard +/- frontal with a 0.490 ball and 85 gr FFg powder (I was kneeling at deer level). I recovered the ball from under the skin behind the femur (I think it was the left, not that it matters). Expanded from 0.490 to 0.520, or just slightly out of round. Deer reared up on his hind legs and then went down in a heap. Never moved out of his hind hoof tracks at all. Gotta love that.

Did it's job, though. Took out the aorta, tore the liver wide open and also tore the diaphram (not just a hole), didn't seem to hit any bones but tunnelled around the femur). I think the liver & diaphram absorbed most of the energy. Somehos that ball got around the stomachs and intestines without much damage there - just a 1/2" hole in & out. Thankfully.

Part of the lack of expansion is that I use scrap plumbing lead that has solder (harder than lead).

Note that the weave of the patch is pressed into the lead. Proving cotton is harder than lead!

Or, that lubes, like water, do not compress. :wink:

 

[texcl]

I shot a deer this year with my .62 fusil with 90gr. of powder and the ball broke the shoulder left rib punched through both lungs and the heart hitting a rib on the way out never to be seen again, the deer lived 1-2 seconds, and there was blood everywhere around the deer close to where it fell but none within 10 yards of where it was when hit by the ball, think it takes a little time for the blood to well up. The best blood trails have more to do with the location of the hit than how hard it was hit. I've shot deer with a .300 mag through the shoulders missing the lungs that had a little blood trail, but died within 50 yards, and I've shot others with a bow that spurted blood everywhere due to a good lung hit. I'm a round ball beleiver, but I also like larger calibers.

 

[pchwcf50110]

personally i've never been a fan of PRB's out of a .50 cal for deer. others report great results and i don't doubt their experience but that was never the case for me. out of the 10 deer i shot with a .50 and PRB only two were what i would call easy recovery. they were both shot at less than 20 yards. the others seemed to have little or no reaction to the shot and left very faint bloodtrails. next i tried the T/C maxi ball and unless bones were hit or the deer was shot long ways the bullet didn't upset at all and it was more of the same. the T/C maxi hunter gave the best results for me hands down. they would open up on broadside rib only hits and leave vivid blood trails. i really wanted to shoot PRB's though and in the mid 90's i aquired a .58 cal T/C. every deer that has been shot with a PRB from that rifle falls in sight. PRB's thrive on diameter and can be the greatest slayers of game when you don't send a boy to do a man's job. :grin:

 

[paulvallandigham]

If you are not using Pure lead, you cannot expect the same level of ball expansion that Kirrmeister reports, and I found in my experience. That is why I noted that hard alloys will penetrate further. Your example is proof of that statement, as that lead ball certainly traveled the whole length of that deer!

Long before I fired my first ML rifle, I was a deer checker, and examined several hundreds of deer shot with mostly shotgun slugs, but also with MLers, and at the time, almost everyone was shooting the PRB. I was very curious to see what kind of expansion, if any happened with the PRB, as I had no other personal experience with the guns. ABout 10% of the approx. 300 deer we checked in the first year, and about 15% of the approx. 450 deer we checked in the second year had been killed with MLers. I became very impressed with the performance of these " small"-- compared to a 12 gauge slug-- projectiles, and the wounds they created in deer. :hatsoff:

 

[10 gauge]

MaxiBall and 100grs of powder! There,now your problem is solved, now go out and nail a big one! :thumbsup: My TC 50cal Hawken with a 370gr Maxi Ball and 100grs of Triple Seven powder will make 3 shot clovers all day at 100yds off a sand bag rest.

 

[Idaho Ron]

What bullet works best for deer? I am using 50 cal. maxi-balls with 80-90 grains of blackpowder in a Traditions Hawken(1 in 48 twist)because I was not happy with round balls for hunting.
I've made close shots that would seem impossible to miss, yet never find a blood trail.
I recently took a buck and found my bullet. It was wedged up against the spine and had it not hit the heavy bones, I believe it would have passed through with simply a small hole similar to a wad-cutter as the tip showed absolutely no signs of deforming/expanding. The only deformity was to the base of the bullet where it was up against the bone.
What would perform better in terms of creating a blood trail and bullet expansion?

Since your question is only about what BULLET others use I will tell you my opinion. I don't use PRB's. I like Hornady great plains bullets and the 50 cal 410's are what I use. These are no longer made, and I have never used the 385's. The 410's will plow deep and open up. Sorry for the poor quality of pictures. The deer was a mature mule deer, and the shot was long range. Both bullets went into the flank and were found under the skin at the shoulder. In my opinion they worked flawless.

The Deer I shot this year was the same shot same bullet, but at 93 yards. That bullet entered the flank and exited through the shoulder and the bullet blew out and was gone. The buck ran about 30 yards and was dead, again flawless.
Some guys like PRB's, I like conicals. If you are serious about using conicals, you should think about getting a faster twist barrel. My 50's are 1-28 twist. Ron

 

[roundball]

What bullet works best for deer?

Based on my personal experience, T/C Maxi-HUNTERS are devastating on deer.

 

[longcruise]

The only deformity was to the base of the bullet where it was up against the bone.
What would perform better in terms of creating a blood trail and bullet expansion?

The problem we have with our ml projectiles is that even pure lead is not going to expand much at impact velocities below around 1100 to 1200 fps. Balls expand because most of them are impacting above that velocity but conicals usually are not, depending on the distance to the shot.

My own chronographing of .50 maxi balls showed 80 grains of ff getting it to about 1312 fps. Upping it to 100 grains did not increase velocity enough to make a difference, but it sure did make a difference in recoil! :shocked2: :haha:

The configuration of the tip of the conical will have some bearing as well. The pointy tip of the maxi is less prone to expansion than a broader flat point. The other problem with the maxi is also related to that pointy tip in that it will tend to change direction during impact. This effect is notabley observed in modern guns shooting "solids" for penetration on large tough animals such as buffalo and elephant. The true straight penetrators are the ones with an abrupt round nose or a round nose flatpoint. The pointy solids don't maintain their direction of travel. I'm not saying they aren't deadly, just that they are not as instantaneous as one would like!

Note what round ball says about the Maxi Hunter. It has a more flat point and will be a straighter penetrator and the flat nose will do more damge even if it is not moving fast enough to expand much. This points up (no pun intended ) the advantage of the flat nose ml bullet.

If you consider my own maxi ball exp at 1300 fps, you can see that by the time it reaches 50 yards it is under 1200 fps and at 100 yards it is under 1100 fps. I killed an elk with that same set up but with 70 grains of ff. 130 yard shot, double lung, stopped under the skin on the far side. That bullet started out at about 1200 fps and was going under 1000 at impact. It centered a rib going in and that barely smeared the lead on the point of it (cast from pure lead).

You might say that it worked just fine, but the fact is, the elk stayed alert and on it's feet for better than 30 seconds. Elk are funny in that they are often reluctant to flee wothout knowing what the danger is. This elk was alone and had no idea what had happened. If he had made an all out run it would have been tough finding him in the thick black timber that surrounded the small meadow he stood in. That elk did not bleed externally at all!

My suggestion is that if you are going to use conicals that you select one like the Lyman Great Plains mold with its broad flat nose.

Personally, I have found that blood trails are not present often enough to make them a reliable tracking method. I have hit deer and elk with pass through shots with round balls, conicals. modern bullets, and very sharp broadheads. The ones that did not go down on the spot rarely left a blood trail. I had one elk hit double lung across the top of the heart that ran for 100 yards and did not spill a single drop of blood in that entire distance :shocked2: Another, a large mule deer doe was hit double lung with a very sharp broadhead pass through (the arrow continued out of sight and was never recoverd). That doe went about 75 yards without spilling a single drop either and in fact there was very little blood on the ground where she piled up!

 

[Idaho Ron]

The problem we have with our ml projectiles is that even pure lead is not going to expand much at impact velocities below around 1100 to 1200 fps. Balls expand because most of them are impacting above that velocity but conicals usually are not, depending on the distance to the shot.

That is not quite true. The bullets I posted before are 410 gr 100 gr of pyrodex select at 1500 fps. This load still carries over 1100 FPS out to 180 yards. A PRB leaving the barrel at 1998 is bleow 1100 at about 110 yards. It all depends on the load.

The configuration of the tip of the conical will have some bearing as well. The pointy tip of the maxi is less prone to expansion than a broader flat point.

I would agree. :thumbsup:

If you consider my own maxi ball exp at 1300 fps, you can see that by the time it reaches 50 yards it is under 1200 fps and at 100 yards it is under 1100 fps. I killed an elk with that same set up but with 70 grains of ff. 130 yard shot, double lung, stopped under the skin on the far side. That bullet started out at about 1200 fps and was going under 1000 at impact. It centered a rib going in and that barely smeared the lead on the point of it (cast from pure lead).

The problem with this statement is "pure lead"
A lot of people think lead is pure if you can scratch it with a thumb nail. Other people have other way to try to determin the hardness of lead. Lead that is between 5 and 8 BHN will open up just fine at 1000 FPS. Most guys that say "pure lead" won't expand are the same guys that made their own bullets. FWIW, I think most guys are shooting lead that is a LOT harder than they think. :2 Ron

 

[Kentuckywindage]

If you want a conical that expands at really low velocity, Powerbelt bullet is excellent.
This was pulled from a buck that was shot with 80gr triple 7 and from 40-50 yards away.

Now this was my doe i shot @ 80 yards with 80gr T7 3 f.

 

[paulvallandigham]

A pure lead ( or soft lead) ball of 5 BHn to 8 BHn, will flow on impact, while harder alloys crack and spit off bits of the edges. Compare the ball that Zonie has pictured that only expanded a little because of lower velocity, to the conicals that you picture. Notice the round shape of Zonie's ball. then notice the ragged edge of the conical. If you look close, you can see the cracks and tears.

I have looked at hundreds of pure lead balls recovered from all kinds of medium, and have been digging harder alloy pistol and rifle bullets out of backstops to " scrounge Lead" for my father since I was a kid.

I have a very good friend who has a collection of spent balls and bullets, because he is both a parttime bullet caster and reloader, and he designed his own shotgun slugs. He has several boxes of bullets, and balls of all kinds.

Its the antimony in lead alloys that make them brittle, and results in the cracks and tears you see at the edge of the expansion.


Pure lead will expand at velocities lower than 1,000 fps, but just not as dramatically. I have seen enough pistol balls recovered from various backstops to know this. Back in the early 1960s, my brother fired his first pistol at Friendship. The 20 gauge RB hit the upright wood post that held the target, and we were able to recover it. It had also flattened a bit, although with 40 grains of powder out of a 10 inch barrel, it was not going fast enough to destroy its original shape over the backside.


The secret to round balls working so well on thin skinned animals like the Whitetail deer is that pure lead ball. When you cast balls of something other than pure lead, you give up the key ingredient to why they kill so well.

When someone reports that a deer shot managed to travel 25-50yds, what they are seeing is the amount of distance the animal can run on pure adrenalin, until the brain is deprived of enough oxygen that it shuts down and the animal becomes unconscious.


Normally, unless the brain is destroyed, even with a heart shot, there will be enough oxygen in the blood stream that an animal can remain animated for about 15 seconds at most.

Sometimes a double lung hit will collapse both lungs, and if the shot hits the deer as its exhaling, it may drop right there.

Most deer that drop have been hit in the central nervous system, either the spine, or the brain.

If a deer is shot through the lungs After it just took a breathe, it may be able to travel a bit further before it collapses, as the blood has been oxygenated, and the brain will remain active even when the lungs can no longer breath in air.