Strange path of a round ball

[cayugad]

I have shot many deer with round ball. What I learned over the years is, there is no telling where a round ball will go once it enters a deer or other animal.

What is the strangest path you have ever seen a round ball take, once it entered the deer?

Last year was a real puzzle. Shooting a .54 caliber round ball with a wonder wad on 85 grains of Triple Se7en powder, I shot a deer at 45 yards away. It was a slight angle shot, so I figured to tuck the ball right behind the first shoulder, angle it through the heart and lungs and take out the shoulder on the other side as it exited the deer.

After I took careful aim, I touched the rifle off. The deer did one of those duck and take off kind of runs. I thought, how could that be? It should have been planted right there. The deer ran 40 maybe 45 yards through the most nasty brush you ever saw and dropped over dead.

When I gutted that deer out, the first rib behind the shoulder was broken clean, and pushed through the vitals. The ball on the other hand I could not find as it got no pass through.

As I was getting the hide off, I pulled the deer into two pieces. That round ball had followed that broken rib up, through the spine (how that deer ran with a broken back... oh well) and from there I have no idea where it went. No hole in the hide near the spine, so I figure it must have headed south again through the vitals....

Can you explain that one??? :: Got one better?

 

[Liver eatin’ Johnson]

Strange indeed... perhaps we could let the Warren Commission look into it - they seem to be able to trace the paths of bullets quite well /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

A friend had a .62 ball hit too far back, behind the diaphram & low on a cow moose, follow around the gut, just inside the hide, without breaking the gut sack. It ended up on the other side of the moose, just below the spine.
: The first shot was made by my brother with a .75 Bess with 110gr. 2F, at a range of apporximately 100 yds. At the shot, the cow sagged, almost went down, then straightened her legs and just stood there. The ball from the Bess, went through ribs on both sides and was expanded to 1 1/4" in dia. under the hide behind the off shoulder. At the shot of the friend's .62, she dropped, but of course, was dropping due to the first shot, as the second did nothing in the way of damage to her vitals.
: I presume due to the angle of the ball entering the belly, it was easier for it to follow between the hide and the gut, rather than puncture the gut. Rather strange, though, as it acted more like a maxiball(on moose) than a round ball.