• Help Support TNDeer:

Good buck shot!!

cruff10

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2004
Messages
3,024
Location
Wartburg, TN (Morgan Co)
BUT NOT FOUND

I'm so agrovated, I can't explain it!!! My brother in law was going down a 4 wheeler road at 11:30 yesterday. It was so foggy you could only see 40 - 50 yards out in front of you. Ehen there he was a great buck looking straight at us in the fog like a statue. antlers way up in the air!!!! Cory didn't have his gun ready, so I pulled up got a rest and shot. Smoke flyes and cory yells u got him he is going down. We wait 45 minutes and go look for him he ran behind a bluff. We looked there no deer no blood. We did dind out 50 yard where he crashed but no blood and no deer. We followed his fresh tracks for 1 mile no blood no blood. I know my gun was not off, so i I shot it just to check at a power aid bottle at 50 yards hit it perfect. Centered it!!!!

I was shootint 295g hollow point powerbelt. With 100g powerdex loose powder. Crv staghorn in line.

Anyone else have trouble with powerbelts?????
 
If you hit bottle then I think you might have just messed up on the deer.
It sounds like you might want a bigger bullet, I used the 368gr. ( I think) and it shoots better than the 295 gr. out of my CVA Optima. Go Figure.
 
Perhaps you just got excited and missed....Ya know, stuff like
that does happen...Especially on bucks...Tend to fail to focus
on the breadbasket cause ya got one eyeball on the rack....
I've done it...And, if it's a clean miss then he'll still be
around there for rifle season, if'n ya'll didn't chase him out
of the county....I don't recall ever hitting a deer without
finding some blood....I think you missed and hopefully you'll
see him again............................................BH51
 
I have used the 295 gr powerbelts for a number of years now. Although I plan on moving up to the heavier bullets, I would say that if you hit him even reasonably well then he would be down somewhere fairly nearby. In my experience, the problem with the powerbelts is not terminal performance, but lack of pass thru and thus little or no blood trail. I've had a couple of pass thrus with them, but usually I can recover the bullet in the off hide and get 8-14 inches of penetration. It sounds like he was facing you when you shot. If that was the case and you followed his tracks for a mile or so with no blood at all, I would guess that you either missed or nicked a leg.
 
Power belts dont suck. I've killed a nine point on campbell with one at 200 hundred yards and many other deer over the years with power belt 295 hollow points and just killed one tonight at 190 yards dropped in his tracks.
 
Power belts dont suck. I've killed a nine point on campbell with one at 200 hundred yards and many other deer over the years with power belt 295 hollow points and just killed one tonight at 190 yards dropped in his tracks. If the bullet doesnt pass through that just means the deer absorbed all the energy.
 
What is sooo puzzling is we found where he fell down kicked up dirt rolled around he got back up went down the hill alittle further and did this again got back up and keep going....... I could of missed, would of been the first time...I'm in denial that I missed...but it could of happened....
 
I use powerbelts and so far haven't had any troubles. I even use the lighter loads in my 45 that most guys say are worthless. Shot a nice doe the other day 143 yards through the neck with a 223 platinum pb and she fell where she was standing. Sorry you lost your buck, but hard to say where your shot placement was, but it sounded like it might have been off a little. Most of the guys who I know use powerbelts and have very good luck. Talking just on my exsperiences, the deer I've taken have all been shots to a vital area and the deer didn't go far with powerbelts, that's why I'm sticking with them.
 
defintely sounds like a miss, especially if it was an off hand shot sounds weird that you could see where he kept falling and getting back up w/o any blood whatsoever...course we all know if it was an off shot and the deer knows we're following its trail, ive heard they can run for miles...sorry you didnt find him tho i liked to never found my doe saturday, the rain washed away any blood trail (oh and i was using the powerbelt 295gr too!)
 
I love the way they go down the barrel but i have mixed results with them. Sticking with them for now since i dont like forcing the other sabots down the barrel!
 
powerbelts suck I shot a coyote last year with the 245 grain 50cal and two 50 grain triple 7 pellets at 30 yards and it didnt pass through. no bones hit right through the ribs that is pretty pitiful. switch to the 250 bonded shockwaves and they have been knocking some serious holes through critters.
 
Did it kill the coyote? Shot a buck during late ML season with Platnums and the deer fell in his tracks. Didn't go completly through but was found under the hide on the other side. Broke ribs on the way in and another on the other side. It was hard to tell what was the heart or lungs due to the damage the bullet did. The bullet stayed in tact was about the size of a quarter. I think he would have left a nice blood trail considering the pool of blood he was laying in. I've shot about 10 deer with powerbelts and the furtherest any of them went was 15 to 20 yards and he was spraying blood all over the place.
 
Back
Top