Animal reaction to being shot...

[Clark]

A week ago, this whitetail doe I shot took a 120 gr Nosler Ballistic tip 6.5-06 through both lungs and managed to stagger 50 yards.

I have shot big mule bucks through both lungs with ballistic tips, and they sometimes bang flop, and sometimes stagger 50 yards. I never know what is going to happen.

I had an antelope doe stagger 50 yards when hit in both lungs. The size of the animal does not seem to matter.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Love the 6.5-06!! Great round!

 

[Clark]

Shooting prone I hit that doe in the front leg at 629 yards, it staggered for 200 yards.
I walked 600 yards and shot it through the lungs at 200 while leaning on a barbed wire fence. It staggered another 50 yards.

My two hunting buddies watching were not impressed. I was impressed. That is the furthest I have ever got an animal.

I got the Shilen Select match ratchet 8" twist rifling #3 stainless through barrelman a year ahead. I got the 6.5-06 a square reamer through brownells. I got Forster to double hone out a 25-06 full length die neck and a got Lee to triple turn down a 270 collet neck die mandrel. I tried to get 142 gr long range accubonds to shoot, but would up using 120 gr Nos Bal tip and getting 1" 5 shot groups at 100y, and sighted it in all the way to 600 yards making sharpie marks on white tape on the elevation turret.

All I have to do is neck down Win 30-06 brass, which is easy to find. I think a lot of the 6.5-06 round after shooting two does with it in 2015

This mule doe took it in the lungs at 250 yards and staggered backwards, while the herd went forward, for 15~ 50 yards. She was a heavy mule doe to drag 250 yards by myself with only a rope.

 

[d2wing]

My favorite shot, if it is presented is a heart lung shot. Generally they jump once or twice and fall or take a few steps and they are down usually 25-40 yards. But there are several exceptions. Once I shot a young buck about 160 lbs with a 30-06. He spun around and took off headed off the field and into some woods. The bullet went all the way through and left a huge wide blood trail. He went about 100 yards and was piled up dead. Turns out the shot separated the heart from from the vessels and also mushed up both lungs. One of the most recent deer I shot was a doe about 20 yards away walking. Hit her in the same place with a sabot slug. Dropped like a rock right there dead. I am a believer in the bigger and faster is better, but you just never know how a particular deer will react. My son shot a doe end to end through the chest with a 7MM mag and had to call me to track it. It went about 200 yards but it was in thick cover with no snow. I have had the worst results with slugs but I have had DRT's too. I like that it is not cut and dried. Bullets and critters do strange things sometimes.