For those that use the .243 85 gr Sierra on deer.

I used to use this bullet & as above, it always exited as it's more of a heart & lungs sort of bullet. The only exception to this being a 180m shot when the bullet punched through the shoulder blade then deviated & travelled along the far side of the rib cage breaking all of them. Made quite a mess & the remains of the bullet were there but it looked like just the copper jacket left.
 
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I use 85 hpbt sierra exit tie every time exit reds 50% of the time heart& lung any retained bullet ive found has generally been just jacket they kill& kill very well so ive never worried about them
 
I've used Hornady 87gn for several years, very similar weight to 85gn, and have found they also exit on every Deer I've shot at 'Deer Stalking' distances.
 
Interesting reading Harry Mac this month using 85grain hpbt with 35.5 grains of Varget behind them ive shot five red stags all h&l shots & not one has gone more than 20 yards even one that had just seen his mate drop in the spot & ran a good two hundred yards so was well aware of my presence I will say out of the five only one exited the rest were just below the skin on the opposite side maybe ive been lucky so far as ive only been using this combo for a few month but 20 plus reds and a dozen roe later and im quite happy to carry on using them
 
I found that the Sierra 85 gr GameKing to be rather damaging when used for chest shots on muntjac and roe. For the last six years I've been using Speer's 85 grain btsp (no. 1213), they kill just as well but with less meat damage. A pass through is normal for the smaller deer species and usual for fallow. Recovered bullets usually have formed a nice mushroom.
 
Interesting reading Harry Mac this month using 85grain hpbt with 35.5 grains of Varget behind them ive shot five red stags all h&l shots & not one has gone more than 20 yards even one that had just seen his mate drop in the spot & ran a good two hundred yards so was well aware of my presence I will say out of the five only one exited the rest were just below the skin on the opposite side maybe ive been lucky so far as ive only been using this combo for a few month but 20 plus reds and a dozen roe later and im quite happy to carry on using them
Swatty, I'm not disputing that they kill. They do, and the wound tract(s) are catastrophic. I never lost a single deer while using them, and I'd say at least 50% of the box I bought were used on deer (majority of which were muntjac). With an animal as big as a red there's enough space in the chest cavity to collect all the fragments and avoid the multiple exit wounds I experienced on the smaller species. Have you come accross the scenario yet where a fragment pierces the gut and you end up with a contaminated carcass? On roe and muntjac I found that it happened often enogh to become an annoyance.
 
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