7mag vs.coyote

This belongs in Hunting, not GD, but.........

Bullets don't always behave predictably. I shot a wild hog, a ~180 lb sow, at just 20 yards with a .350 Rem Mag using 200 gr. Core lok'd handloads. The bullet was trapped under the skin on the off side. She was DRT, but I was shocked to find no exit with a round that powerful at such close range.

Meanwhile, a similarly sized mulie hit by a 117 gr. Sierra Gameking out of my .25-06 at about 90 yards had an exit wound the size of a softball.

Pretty common actually. At point blank range, the bullet is moving much faster and expands much faster. The added rqnge allows the bullet to slow down to the point that it expands much less and is more likely to penetrate.

Stevenvalleyky said:

Pretty common actually. At point blank range, the bullet is moving much faster and expands much faster. The added rqnge allows the bullet to slow down to the point that it expands much less and is more likely to penetrate.

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If you were talking to me, I'd point out that my handloads have a 117 grainer still doing over 3,000 FPS at 90 yards, and the Gameking is a violently expanding bullet even at .257 bob velocities.

The point is that there are a lot of variables, and bullets do unpredictable things in living organisms. The year before that hog shoot with the .350 mag, I used a .308 with 165 gr. Ballistic tips, and it did exit a slightly larger hog shot at just 30 yards.

MachIV, yes I was. A good example is my experience shooting whitetails with a 243. Shooting 100 grain corelocts behind the shoulder into soft tissue, makes a great exit hole at 80 yards but hitting the same spot at 20 yards results in a violently expanding bullet that goes thru the lungs as it comes apart and you end up with no exit and fragments scattered everywhere.
I agree that bullets sometimes do stuff we dont expect. That is evident by the hog shot with a ballistic tip that produced an exit. But I imagine if the range was further, the .35 bullet would have been more likely to exit the hog. At that range and speed, not much except a solid and some bonded bullets are going to stay together and penetrate. Most will come apart hitting a target that fast.

How do you know it did not exit? Did you find the bullet? Not much meat on a coyote to stop anything. Pistol rounds go through them. I shot one at 200 yds with a 7 mag and the hole in the neck was 4 in in diameter i.e. the head was hanging by the hide only.

I'll add in the skepticism on a non exit, at 100 yds I glanced a .243 100 powershok mv 2900 off his shoulder blade broadside and it pinholed out his far side ham. At that distance, your 7mm 165 shouldn't have opened sans heavy bone strikes. You wanna rip em at distance? 100 gr HP.

I'm surprised the sgk didnt go thru. Ive used them much closer and expansion wasn't really that violent.

A hog is not a coyote and the seven mag is moving faster and will punch through much easier than the larger caliber bullets.

I'd expect the 7 mag to have small exit at that D.

49willys said:

Casefull,I know it did not penetrate completely because I walked out and inspected the dog.one hole.I was expecting a big mess of innards turned outards,was surprised to see one hole.I hit it right behind the front shoulder and low,perfect heart shot.

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Did you skin 'er out? I am not picking any fights or calling you a liar, I am simply quite shocked that at 2000fps with 1600 ft-lbs of energy, you didn't get an exit, I'm a diehard Sierra fan and would guess (with great confidence) that the bullet barely started to open (if at all if no real bones were hit) before it was already on the other side in the dirt. Speaking from experience from 20 years of coyote killing, they are not tough enough to cause a real splosion on a big game bullet unless you find that heavy bone (run a .300wm 180 through their ribs, same situation you describe exactly) and the exit holes are sometimes impossible to find without skinning them (especially this time of year). A friend wants to get some hide money with his .30-06 (all he has) and I told him to start heavy for that exact reason. If the impact velocity would have been above 2200 or you'd been using a lighter bullet or lighter constructed, your exit would have been MUCH more obvious.

Did it fragment?

JohnhenrySTL said:

Did it fragment?

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Even fragmented id expect something to have gone thru. Even 110s HPVs from my .300 win would punch thru (and mostly explode) 60-80lb goats which should offer about the same amount of tissue and bone as a yote.

Id agree with the other posters, the bullet most likely didnt open up and punches a 1/4" or smaller hold thru the pelt on the far side. Ive seen that happen with some of the bullets ive used at much higher impact velocities than the yote was hit at.

If it killed the coyote, then problem solved. An autopsy would provide with definition what happened to the bullet. But if its dead, problem solved.

H&Hhunter said:

I've occasional seen bullets do strange things on game over the years. Not much surprises me anymore.

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Yeppers. And over the years I've seen game do strange things even when hit by well placed, good bullets.

Probably not enough remaining energy at 450(1744 ft-lbs. with 2182 fps at 400, according to Federal) to exit. A bullet exiting isn't critical anyway. Means that all remaining energy was released inside Wiley.
Shot a ground hog long ago with a 90 grain FMJ .243 at about 50. No exit on it either. Shot one with a 220 grain Silvertip(a real one with the Al cap on a semi-jacketed) out of an M1 Rifle(yes and there was no damage to the rifle.) at less than that. The entire bottom of the head just disappeared. Put another in at 10ish yards. Blew the entire offside from shoulder to ham into the next week. Bullets is weird.

I have shot Desert Dogs with a .45-110-500 Sharps. The Big .459" 500 grs bullet does not need to expand. It is larger than a .284" bullet going in and coming out.

I also had a similar situation with a 7mm mag., I hit a coyote at 500 yards, heard the smack and found blood, but no coyote.