DRT: The Rounds that Do It

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Shot placement is the primary consideration. A .223 55 grain soft point bullet in the heart/lung area of a deer trumps a 180 grain bullet in the guts from a .300 Win Mag.

Since 2000 the vast majority of my deer (and wild hogs) were taken with muzzleloaders. About 40 percent of those deer bang flopped. A couple bang flops were shots in the heart/lung area. Heart/lung shots usually result in deer running up to 200 yards.

In about 2012 Fort Sill changed the first week of their muzzleloader season to conventional iron sighted muzzleloaders only firing conical bullets or patched round balls. Since then i've taken 12-15 deer on and off Fort Sill using .50 and .54 caliber muzzleloaders firing patched round balls. Those balls are as effective as 150-180 grain bullets fired from a .30-06 rifle

Last fall i killed eight deer; one with a .308 Winchester: The remainder with muzzleloaders, including three using patched round balls. The deer shot with the .308 bang flopped. One deer shot with an inline .50 caliber muzzleloader using the 250 grain SST bullet bang flopped: High just behind the shoulder shot. Two deer shot high in the shoulder with patched round balls also bang flopped.

Unlike high velocity bullets, round balls don't spoil meat on high shoulder shots.

This buck never kicked:

View attachment 848954



Looks like you got a T/C New Englander, Great shooting guns ; )
Y/D
 
This is a largely academic query and HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE I know. Just curious about anecdotal experiences and not scientific explanations where the hunter made a double lung hit (not spine, neck, or head shot). If the double lung hit got both shoulders it. An give the impression of a DRT but usually there will be flopping if death is not quick. I’m talking about a single shot, a crumpled animal, and no more movement.

No way to be assured of "no movement." With death will often/usually come disinihibition of the motor neurons of the spinal column. In short, the brain inhibits signals, controlling them. Shut off the brain and inhibition control is ceased and the animal may move quite a bit for a while. You can shoot the in the brain, actually causing a cephalectomy and the animal is 100% dead, not ever going to feed and breed again, but disinhibition occurs and you get movement.

It is a very common occurrence in hogs. I have seen it in deer and numerous other quadrupeds. It does not seem common in humans. Personally, I have brain shot 2 juvenile hogs that resulted a rupturing of the brain case with total or near total loss of the brain (encephalectomy) where the hogs flopped around after being shot.
 
My last drt involved a bullet failure, too much velocity, lightweight bullet construction.

(7mm Mauser, 2850 fps, 140 gr, old varmint type Nosler ballistic tip, at ~ 9 yards, shot from behind.)

Only penetrated 3" , and blew a softball sized hole on the back of the neck, destroying the spine.

As long as it totally interrupts the cns it will be drt, but that does not mean it is a wonder cartridge, in my case it was a failure of the bullet to penetrate that lead to its lethality, but bullet placement was everything, a couple inches different and it would have been a terrible wound that was not instantly lethal.
 
I put much more faith in shot placement than I do in any particular caliber or bullet design, within the distance (100 yards and less) that almost all deer are taken. A 223 heart/lung shot will generally produce better results overall than a 30-30 (best deer round ever made, according to the internet) in the guts.
 
Also, the bullet should expend all of it's energy inside the animal and not make an exit hole. The perfect situation is for the bullet to end up under the skin on the far side of the animal.
You aren't the first hunter I have heard this statement from. Personally, I like an exit wound for 2 reasons: 1- I think the more damage the better, and besides there is no reliable way to predict the bullet just stopping under the skin on the far side. 2- if the critter doesn't just fall over like I want it to, LOTS of blood will come out of that big exit hole, which makes following that trail much easier.
 
I have been using a remington 700 in 30-06 for the last 15 years, besides a year or 2 i tried something else. 6 out of 6 deer with that 30-06 has pretty much dropped where i shot them. only one ran 15 or so feet. Using winchester ballistic silver tips in the 185 or 168 grain. All shot in both lungs broadside. Even when i used a 5.56. vital shot and he went maybe 50 feet and dropped.
 
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