Exit wound on deer.

waksupi said:

They usually stretch the skin on the offside considerably, then spring back. I use wheel weight balls, and they often would fully penetrate.

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Whats a wheel weight ball?

Eterry said:

Years ago a Dr told me There are no Absolutes in Biology.
Most of the deer I've shot have ran a short distance. A few ran farther, a few fell at the shot.
I read in the early 80s a deer shot in the liver will drop and not get up. I once shot one quartering to and it collapsed. Dressing it the bullet destroyed the liver, maybe its true.

The same applies to other critters, both bigger and smaller.

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My oldest's first elk was a cow with a .50 hornady bullet. *80 yds the elk ran 80 yds and was dead when tracked but it ran...uphill 80 yds and was not spooked when shot so that theory was debunked in 5BN Hutch Mnt hunt in in about the year 2000. The liver is a very good shot though.

luebkeb said:

Whats a wheel weight ball?

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Wheel weights used to balance the wheels on the car. The weights used to be a mixture of lead. It was easy to come by in the old days and popular for making RB's

As far as differences in facts on shots here is an interesting one. I shot a nice fat cow with that same .50 few years earlier with a prb. 50 yds tree rest. Feeding slowly with a nice herd. Boom! Nobody even looked up? So I thought I missed and it never dawned on me why the boom at 50 yds and the smoke didnt scatter the herd in 4 directions. Reloading as fast as i could behind my tree I veered out for a second shot the cow, still eating, swayed to and fro and fell over dead. Herd finally scattered when I stepped out and walked to the harvest. She never knew she was shot (double lung, no ball as it was a pass thru). Knicked the liver once on a small buck at 180 yds trotting (last day stupid unhonarable decision). Tracked it 4.9 miles into a draw and had to walk a mile out of the way to get down to it and finish it off. Liver knicked just enough to bleed a bit, clot, bed down, circling stupid hunter jumper it svereal times to keep the tiny blood flow going.

DO NOT DISHONOR OUR GAME LIKE I DID. I didn't deserve that buck or the ride back to camp.

luebkeb said:

Whats a wheel weight ball?

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Made from wheel weights, slightly harder aloy.

azmntman said:

As far as differences in facts on shots here is an interesting one. I shot a nice fat cow with that same .50 few years earlier with a prb. 50 yds tree rest. Feeding slowly with a nice herd. Boom! Nobody even looked up? So I thought I missed and it never dawned on me why the boom at 50 yds and the smoke didnt scatter the herd in 4 directions. Reloading as fast as i could behind my tree I veered out for a second shot the cow, still eating, swayed to and fro and fell over dead. Herd finally scattered when I stepped out and walked to the harvest. She never knew she was shot (double lung, no ball as it was a pass thru). Knicked the liver once on a small buck at 180 yds trotting (last day stupid unhonarable decision). Tracked it 4.9 miles into a draw and had to walk a mile out of the way to get down to it and finish it off. Liver knicked just enough to bleed a bit, clot, bed down, circling stupid hunter jumper it svereal times to keep the tiny blood flow going.

DO NOT DISHONOR OUR GAME LIKE I DID. I didn't deserve that buck or the ride back to camp.

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At least you learned from that experience.

I always cast wheel weights into cartridge pistol cals. For M/L balls and maxis I use DEAD SOFT lead. If I can't nick it easily with a thumb nail , it ain't going in my Rifles.......Be Safe>>>Wally

Wonder what the exit wound looked like on this one...

Crooked Creek said:

Wonder what the exit wound looked like on this one...

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More proof the internet only post the TRUTH!! Haha.

senseisugarbear said:

I always cast wheel weights into cartridge pistol cals. For M/L balls and maxis I use DEAD SOFT lead. If I can't nick it easily with a thumb nail , it ain't going in my Rifles.......Be Safe>>>Wally

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I was given 4 five gallon buckets of WW years ago, I've been mixing WW and soft lead 50/50 starting then, but only in round ball for smoothbore and rifle. Never in a conical, minie or a revolver ball.

I've heard the arguments of shooting a rifle "slick". I don't belive an alloyed ball will do it in a modern Barrel my lifetime.

Eterry said:

I was given 4 five gallon buckets of WW years ago, I've been mixing WW and soft lead 50/50 starting then, but only in round ball for smoothbore and rifle. Never in a conical, minie or a revolver ball.

I've heard the arguments of shooting a rifle "slick". I don't belive an alloyed ball will do it in a modern Barrel my lifetime.

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I agree. The steel used today is pretty good!

Shot a few over the years with 50,54 and 62 cal. rifles some balls straight through and some on the opposite side between the hide and the body of the deer. Best I can come up with is a lot of factors go into play here such as powder charge,distance the position the deer was standing at the shot. Dead is dead and for me thats all that matters.

Eterry said:

I was given 4 five gallon buckets of WW years ago, I've been mixing WW and soft lead 50/50 starting then, but only in round ball for smoothbore and rifle. Never in a conical, minie or a revolver ball.

I've heard the arguments of shooting a rifle "slick". I don't belive an alloyed ball will do it in a modern Barrel my lifetime.

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Eterry, I think you would be just fine with your 50/50 mix. the Antimony & Tin would be a small percentage of 50% of your over all mix. as far as shooting a Rifle Slick,, With the barrels available in the last 100 yrs.Steel has Changed .Now Blacksmiths and Knife makers have dozens of different steels to choose from...I've heard the old stories of old timers shooting a barrel and changing patching material clear up to buckskin..Then carving a new mold out of soap stone,,couldn't have been much rifling left..But if that's all you got you do it. I could see it happening..... Be Safe >>>>>wally

We had a member here for a long time who killed an elk every year with his 50 and RB.

The three things that always stood out to me were; 1. He was a good shot. 2. He was a good hunter who knew elk well. 3. His autopsy photos always showed a heart with a hole through it.

So one can take that FWIW.

Nobody85 said:

I was wondering… Has anyone experienced the lack of penetration with rb? I took a deer today at 106 yds with a 50 cal with 80 grains of goex ffg pushing a patched rb. The ball slipped right through the rib cage smashing the heart before stopping against the back wall of the ribs. Granite, it was a bit far of a shot with traditional iron sights, for me at least, but I felt comfortable enough to take it so I did. It’s not just farther shots though. Most deer I shoot are less than 30 yards and I’ve yet to see one of my rb’s exit the animal. Anyone experiencing the same? I know a rb doesn’t weigh much.

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Worst case scenario...you hit the chest cavity but no serious damage done to vitals or major vessels. Two holes help to ensure a rapid pneumothorax or collapsed lungs and rapid suffocation. I always use Lee REAL conicals and have never recovered one. As a matter of fact, I shot two deer with one slug several years back.

Nobody85 said:

I was wondering… Has anyone experienced the lack of penetration with rb? I took a deer today at 106 yds with a 50 cal with 80 grains of goex ffg pushing a patched rb. The ball slipped right through the rib cage smashing the heart before stopping against the back wall of the ribs. Granite, it was a bit far of a shot with traditional iron sights, for me at least, but I felt comfortable enough to take it so I did. It’s not just farther shots though. Most deer I shoot are less than 30 yards and I’ve yet to see one of my rb’s exit the animal. Anyone experiencing the same? I know a rb doesn’t weigh much.

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That's actually a pretty ideal situation for the distance you were shooting. Your lead ball expended ALL of its energy inside your quarry. And it killed him pretty efficiently didn't it. If your round ball goes through and through, then it didn't dump most of its energy inside the quarry and wasted the remnants of its energy outside the quarry where it has no effect on him. Best efficiency is when your round ball (usually flattened pretty well) is found just under the skin opposite the entry wound. A load like the one you are using killed many thousands of deer during the ~200+ years it was the norm.

senseisugarbear said:

Eterry, I think you would be just fine with your 50/50 mix. the Antimony & Tin would be a small percentage of 50% of your over all mix. as far as shooting a Rifle Slick,, With the barrels available in the last 100 yrs.Steel has Changed .Now Blacksmiths and Knife makers have dozens of different steels to choose from...I've heard the old stories of old timers shooting a barrel and changing patching material clear up to buckskin..Then carving a new mold out of soap stone,,couldn't have been much rifling left..But if that's all you got you do it. I could see it happening..... Be Safe >>>>>wally

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I'm still learning, I assembled my first kit in 1980 and started casting the same time.
In 1981 A friend of my dad's gave me 100 lbs of Babbitt from a garage. I melted and shot all of it.
Now I own a 1930 Model A and wish I had kept it. It's very popular on the A forums.
Now I have a roofing contractor as a neighbor and get lead from him and a friendly plumber.

It may be just my opinion but energy from a muzzleloader doesn't kill, it only does lethal damage to internal organs. There are two situations in which a ball (usually) will not exit. If the shot is pretty close, say maybe 50 yards or less, the velocity is still high enough that the ball turns into a pancake; a pancake makes a lousy projectile. A long shot on a deer at a distance, or a low velocity ball, will often not exit. It has nothing to do with energy! If you stabbed a deer in the vitals with a Bowie knife or shot it with a razor sharp arrow it will still kill the deer. But they would also have pellet rifle energy and likely much less. Energy doesn't kill, it the damage to the organs that kills. Forget so called "wasted energy" myth; if it kills the deer why was the energy "wasted"?

To me it's irrelevant whether or not the ball exits or stays put. The most massive (and gory) blood trail was a buck I shot with my .45. It ran a few yards and crashed loudly. The ball didn't exit and there were plenty of corpuscles lost in the few yards it ran. I've killed very few deer from 75 yds to 100 yds and beyond. Results were a mixture of exits and no exists. Try not to compare 17th century technology with 21st century technology; it's like comparing apples with bananas.

If I have to shoot at a deer at long range (100-125 yds or so ) it means I have failed as a woodsman.

One of the reasons lead round ball is so effective is that it flattens out in the animal and dumps all its energy plus creating more damage. This is why we have "mushrooming" soft point rifle bullets. they expand and do more damage. If all animals dropped in thier tracks at the shot, we could just use pointed, non expanding bullets and get better ballistics.