The most fascinating part of hunting, to me, is the terminal performance of the weapon used. As a rule, I never hunt with a gun that I've already used to take an animal because I want to test a different platform every time. This year I was either going to use a 480 Ruger revolver or a rifle I had built for my son. In this case I went with the rifle since there is a bit of interest in the terminal performance of the round. I'm not initially going to say the cartridge or the range because I want to get some other people's opinions on the performance. I'll post pics of the deer a little later in the thread but since the rifle is in the picture, I don't want to give away the likely chambering used. I will say that the deer is a young spike which I imagine played a roll in the bullet performance.
The shot was a head on shot with an ever so slight quartering angle so I held to the right side of the brisket. At the shot, the buck dropped to his knees, then jumped up and hit the brush which is when I lost sight of him. I immediately second guessed my shot placement based on the reaction. There was no blood trail, no discernible trail of any kind and no noise/thrashing to clue me in to where he went. I was already questioning the shot and performance so I assumed he ran a ways. It actually took me an hour to find the deer which had only gone 15 yards (probably 5 yards of that was rolling down the hill) because he piled up under the waist high ferns and Oregon grape on a relatively steep hill. Here's how I found him.
When I got him back to the trail I confirmed that my shot impacted exactly where I held, lower half of the right side of the brisket. The right front shoulder was broken and the bullet appeared to be just under the skin all the way back in the paunch just inside the right leg. I waited to gut him until I made the very long drag out (took just shy of 2 hours) to the closest road where I gutted him. Here's the damage I found while field dressing:
I was impressed to say the least. The bullet is a 6.5mm 130 Accubond. The recovered bullet weighs 103.3 grains and expanded perfectly.
I got home and started skinning the buck and was absolutely astonished by the damage done by the little accubond. Granted, some of the bloodied meat is the result of blood pooling from the time it hit the ground to the time I had it skinned out. If it had bled out instead of remaining in he body cavity it may have looked a bit different. The damage cause is what amazed me. Here's the point of entry.
Here's where it passed into the rib cage.
One of the big questions was how well the little 130 Accubond would hold up and perform. It penetrated in a straight line for 27" and retained 80% of it's weight! This included breaking 3 ribs and going through the paunch; I was very impressed.
I met up with my father in law while dropping the meat off at the shop to get cut and I showed him the damage done and asked him which gun he though I used and the range. Based on what he saw he guessed a high velocity hit at close range. The guys at the meat shop made a similar comment about that's what happens when you shoot small deer with big guns. When I told them that this was done by a 130 Accubond in 6.5 mm they were stunned.
At this point I feel like I may have underestimated the performance of some of the small bore rounds. I've always been a medium (.338 and up) caliber guy, but the only real advantage I can see from a larger bore in this case may have been a blood trail to follow. Feel free to guess the cartridge used and impact velocity. Also, if you have any good info on bullet performance from this year please share it.
