I think you will find you will like the Bergers. Everyone I have talked to and has used them with confidence. I am sure this was a once off.. 9 times out of 10 I am sure that same shot opens up and does exactly what it was designed for. However, I am more comfortable switching back to a bullet that I have a positive personal experience with.
Berger Elite Hunter Performance
- Thread starter Black Elk
- Start date
ImBillT
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2018
- Messages
- 3,836
Then you had plenty of twist, so that’s not the issue.
I shot a deer with it’s butt facing me, but it’s front shoulders quartering away, and his head pointed backward and to the right. Hopefully you can envision that body position. Bang flop. Upon skinning I found the BASE of the bullet protruding from the neck meat against the skin on the ENTRY side of the animal. Further inspection revealed that the bullet had entered in such a way that the bullet ogive was ALMOST parallel to a rib. Striking the rib at such an angle caused a deflection, and bent the bullet to being somewhat banana shaped. The bullet then traveled up and right until it hit the spine and followed the spine for some distance before then turning farther right and tried to exit the neck over 90 degrees from the direction it had been fired from, and had been traveling base forward for an unknown distance.
The deer probably only died from shock to the spine. It never penetrated anything vital, nor did it cause substantial blood loss. Had the bullet not deflected, then it would have penetrated both lungs and either exited in front of the off-side shoulder, or broken the off-side shoulder.
Striking an animal at weird angles causes weird stuff. Hitting tiny twigs along the way can cause weird stuff too.
Attachments
Last edited:
