re: My bullet saved me from the worst shot I've made on a deer in 30 years yesterda

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Penetration is over rated. Kill it. Don't knock holes in it.

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Penetration and an effective exit wound don't seen overrated when you spend hours on your hands and knees looking for a barely existent blood trail after a deer has run into a pine thicket.......

At least you are honest.

Don't stretch it too damn far now. That's like ear-holing a deer with a .243 and saying it's as effective a round as a .300.

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I thought everyone that shot the .243 earholed

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Bout the highest percentage shot with that round.

I quit shooting the exact bullet you are talking about because of your story. The deer I shot with it never had an exit. I shot 3 bucks broadside with a perfect angle and had the bullet take a right turn through the guts and end up in pieces in the hindquarter. All 3 not a drop of blood and happened to stumble upon them in the woods. Also all 3 were blood clotted and bruised on the whole side I lost alot of meat. I quit shooting them after the 3rd one. I did shoot a doe and coyote with them in the neck and it was almost total decapitation. I would never shoot those bullets at a deer again. I carry them in my bad for coyotes and bobcats.
All I shoot now is federal premium in BTSP through my .270.

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I'm going with killing his arse on the spot instead of knocking a hole in it so that I can have the apparently really popular pleasure of a blood trail to follow for miles.

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I'm sure you're exaggerating, but I've never blood trailed for miles a deer that's been shot well w/ an appropriate deer caliber/deer bullet. And yes, I plead guilty to ascribing to the "I like a good blood trail" group. OTOH, I don't think that just because a hunter likes to have an entrance wound, reasonable exit wound and a blood trail that can be followed, it means the deer is going to run off quite some distance before being found; I still expect the deer to go down pretty quickly. Case in point this past weekend. Someone in our hunting party shot a deer at 150 yards just before dark using a 308 and Sierra spire point bullet. Shot was low in chest, just behind the shoulder. Deer was found in the woods 30 yards later at the end of a very good blood trail.

I'm glad you found your deer. I suspect that had you been using a different bullet, the results would've been the same. The main thing is you were wise enough to let the deer lay down undisturbed and bleed out. Very mature move on your part and a good lesson for others. I also do appreciate your honesty. Personally, I've never made a bad shot on a deer......well, except for the one I gut shot w/ a 35 Remington.....and the one I gut shot w/ my 270......and the one I got a little too far back w/ my 308......But, almost ALL my bad shots had to have been because the deer MUST have moved right after I pulled the trigger.

Tiger that's entirely too reasonable for a thread such as this.

Here's the thing though, I've never, until Saturday afternoon and that's after shooting probably around a hundred deer with it, stopped this round from exiting. Not a single time. Till Saturday.

The only time I've ever stopped a 125gr bullet in a whitetail other than this was a PSP. And it was the almost exact same shot. And the result was almost identical. So people saying they wouldn't use one because 1 in a hundred don't exit, are nuts. That's a non issue. If the deer doesn't drop dead I want a blood trail too. But it's really hard to fault the performance of this round when you're me because I don't have any stories of deer that got hit and got away. I've got a whole lot of stories of being amazed by how much damage this thing did both inside, and leaving the animal. And now I've got this one where the bullet saved the day.

I almost didn't post this simply because I knew how many people were gonna go, "AHA!!!! I TOLD YOU THEY DON'T LEAVE EXIT WOUNDS!!" But I know better... So far, it's like 1/100 and that just because it was such a horribly placed shot. But even so... she was dead as hell.

And yes, I have helped people trail deer that were shot in this same spot that had nice exit wounds that we trailed all day and never found. Thus my hatred for bullets that are too heavy for their intended target or too slow to cause the bullet to perform.

TEAM HIGH VELOCITY > TEAM FAT AND SLOW

Hahah! Sounds like my dad. As long as you're neck shooting them it will be a hammer.

I have absolutely zero familiarity with that round at all.