Peripheral Plueral Tracking! (AKA Bullet Did Funny Thing)

[kenbro]

Re: the fox. Had this happen a couple of times with my 5-35SMC (bullet doing North of 4600fps). Hard to imagine a projectile travelling at that speed can disintegrate on impact without penetrating.

Had this several times with the 17 Rem and fox ribs.
Ken.

 

[ShootyBang]

. I do think that some of the lighter ballistic tip bullets in .224 are designed more for prairie dog sized critters,

It's just this. Being a Canadian expat with lots of gopher shooting under my belt (and I mean lots... thousands and thousands) getting a .222 bullet to have ballistic effect means it needs to frange instantly. I imagine a lot of US manufactured bullets in the lighter calibres are designed with this (and similar small) quarry in mind.

 

[Stalker62]

... it needs to frange instantly.

 

[ShootyBang]

View attachment 294844

LOL quite right. Fragment! Ha ha ha

 

[Border]

Had this several times with the 17 Rem and fox ribs.
Ken.

With 25 grain bullets or lighter?

 

[bogtrotter]

Bullets can and will do strange things I think most of us will have seen that at sometime or another.
Saw a client kill two hinds with one shot no not one behind the other but walking in a line
Six or seven yards apart bullet exited the first hind at ninety degrees unfortunately both were only fit for the stink pit.

 

[kenbro]

With 25 grain bullets or lighter?

Factory Remington 25 grain HP.
Usually hit a rib. Sub 100 metres.
Ken.

 

[nic531]

I was helping a friend who was culling fallow. He headshot a pricket side-on at 100yds with a 6.5x55, and when we went over to gralloch, there was a doe laid out next to him. The pricket had an entry in the side of the head, an exit in between his eyes at 90 degrees to the entry, and the doe had a clean hole right in the back of her head.

Friend had a very similar situation with a 6.5 x 55 at 200 + yards on Roe. Shot one and saw another drop 20 yards to right as well as the one he was aiming at!
on looking bullet had entered through heart and then hit bone, off and took second one in head, both dead on the spot.

 

[alberta boy]

An extraordinary one, that I've recounted on here before:
Shot a fallow doe broadside at sensible range with 270, and watched in horror as all of her guts fell out on the side nearest me. Literally everything out, a clean gralloch more or less. As with all disasters, it seemed to unfold in front of me in slow motion, and it was just as though she'd been unzipped all the way along her side. And then she ran off, tripping over her own innards that were getting wrapped around her feet. Tried to jump a fence into forest about 300 yards away, but thank God the trailing guts prevented her from getting over. Then headed off in the direction of a road. I daredn't set off in pursuit as I'd probably have pushed her onto the road and lost all chance of a second shot. Just watched her through my bins until eventually she lay down and slowly expired, probably 500 yards away by this time.
When I eventually recovered her, it became apparent that my bullet had deflected off a rib on the entry side, turned through 90 degrees, and travelled the full length of her body just within the skin layer, effectively slicing her open as it went. It had exited far back on the flank, and then grazed a line across her haunch before carrying on to goodness knows where. There was absolutely no green contamination of the carcass - it was absolutely clean inside.

I witnessed something similiar once , and I believe I mentioned it on here as well . I was with my late father when he shot a nice White-Tail Buck at about 100 yards using a 30/06 and a hornady 190 gr BTSP . I was behind him watching through binoculars at the shot , which was just behind the front shoulder , broadside . At the shot , it looked like a cloud of smoke erupted behind the deer , which dropped instantly . When we got up to the animal , we found that it was the hair from the offside of the deer . The bullet had crossed the chest cavity and hit the far shoulder blade . It then did a right turn and went the full length of the deer , just under the skin , before stopping in the haunch . There was a strip about four inches wide that was basically without any hair from the shoulder to the haunch . The strangest reaction to a shot I've ever seen to be honest . I shot a smallish doe once with a similiar result . The bullet deflected downwards after hitting the upper front leg and blew off it's offside lower leg just below the elbow . It went down instantly , but it does raise a few concerns when it happens . Shoot enough game and you will get some strange ones .

AB

 

[NP435]

The vast majority of .224 projectiles are intended for varminting, thus very frangible, those intended for deer sized game are either heavier, monolithic or a partition type and marked for larger creatures and a description of intent is in the vast majority of the published load manuals from these makers. Even the lighter 85grn intended for 243 has two types, one for vermin , one for deer/pronghorn. I am sure that other calibers are affected in the same way. You have to know what to buy.