Thread: What is a "miss"

Sadly a lot out there think that a big boomer with a huge hunk of lead is the only way to go. And the second sad one is they intend to go for the big area somewhere between the front leg and the back leg.
I had it drilled into me from birth...''get close enough till yi can smell him and put one anywhere in the eye boy''.
I have been fortunate enough to have seen 100,s of animals fall over after missing them with the shot lol.

doinit....I can think of 3 occasions in my hunting lifetime Ive come across sleeping pigs....managing to shoot one in the head while it was asleep after getting within 10 yards of it made me feel rather chuffed with my dog...the 2nd one didnt get hit right as I didnt have time,it was going out of view in a hurry...thats the third time Ive taken a running shot in last 3 years and called it too far back straight away...didnt loose any of the animals as I tend to shoot high at same time so take out hips or spine.....now if Im using my .223 which Ive shot hundreds of wallabies with...running shots seem easy....I dont gut shoot on purpose,but sometimes it just happens when Im in a hurry.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

doinit....I can think of 3 occasions in my hunting lifetime Ive come across sleeping pigs....managing to shoot one in the head while it was asleep after getting within 10 yards of it made me feel rather chuffed with my dog...the 2nd one didnt get hit right as I didnt have time,it was going out of view in a hurry...thats the third time Ive taken a running shot in last 3 years and called it too far back straight away...didnt loose any of the animals as I tend to shoot high at same time so take out hips or spine.....now if Im using my .223 which Ive shot hundreds of wallabies with...running shots seem easy....I dont gut shoot on purpose,but sometimes it just happens when Im in a hurry.

Gidday there M-Duck
Ha'ha..I wasn't actually lookin at you bud when I said the above.
Running shots on Roos eh, ha I spent a few years on the Wallaby Board aways back, chompin through 3'000 rounds of ammo per case didn't take long at all and yeah, you lost count of gut shot roos lol. You were allowed 3 shots per kill or you were down the road,one got quite nifty pretty quick lol.

I know of 3 deer shot front on that have not been recovered and believe the same thing happened as stated in the OP (going front to rear without hitting any vitals. A mate shot a sika stag front on at 30m. He said it did a back flip and hit the ground stone dead, or so he thought.. He and his son went over to it, put their rifles down and got out the knives to process it and as he bent down toward it, it jumped up, ran off never to be seen again (they looked for it for 2 hours). I have had the same with a sika stag hit front on at less than 5m. Hit centre of the chest, it turned around, ran off and that was the last I saw of it despite looking for over 3 hours on two separate days.

One of my first deer had the same with the 243. Not more than 50yrds away and walking up a little rise. I've never been good enough at head shots so aimed centre of back so it would pass through things. Yeah well it didn't. dropped like a stone at the shot but as I started to get my shit together my mate said its up!! it started trotting to the left, panic stations, missed with the second shot, 3rd into the shoulder.
When cutting it up with my more experienced friend back home we worked out that the first shot missed basically everything.
Just missed the spine and that's why it dropped but the first shot went centre through everything missing heart lungs etc.
Inch or so to one side and thru the spine-all over. couple of inches other way clipped a lung or such.

Bullets ending up in unexpected places is not that unusual. Last one for me was in November, shot a dry hind at 225m or so quartering away, the usual .243 Win and 100gr ProHunter, placed the shot in behind the last rib, it flew through the top of the heart and rear of lungs and then straight upwards and out through the spine at the very front end of the backstrap. The trajectory meant it did a roughly 80° upward turn, considering there was no damage to the brisket, humerus or scapula I don’t really know how the bullet managed it. Didn’t much care though, the animal dropped on the spot.

The front on shot that ends up traversing most or all of the body without killing the animal quickly is also quite common. The bullet can easily run down the side of the animal without hitting anything that will cause it to collapse or even bleed out anytime soon.

Saw that first hand on a very large sambar stag in the Vic high country in 2015, perhaps the worst “miss / hit” that I’ve seen, what a bloody mission. Stag was standing motionless front on at about 80m or so, dogs pointing perfectly... Shooter used a heavily suppressed .308 single shot with a Barnes monolithic, crystal clear thwop of the bullet striking home and a surprised looking stag, but off he trotted down a gully and gone. Shooter was convinced he’d missed and was cursing and freakin out but I was damn sure he’d hit. Sent the dogs in to track the animal, took friggin’ hours, eventually the dogs show some real interest and there he was, still very alive in the bottom of a steep blackberry gully, worst place, right on dark. I head shot him, marked the GPS and went back in the next morning to try and recover, dragged him out with several strops shacked together with a hand winch, far enough out of the thicket to cut him up... fark he was heavy.

Bullet had hit too far to the left and too high in the chest and run down the inside of the scapula and into the rib cage about half way down, then along the inside of the ribs, down the outside of the gut bag doing some minor damage, and straight out through the rump, bouncing off the pelvis on the way. Only thing it had taken out along the way to slow him up with internal bleeding was most of a kidney. It was a terrible outcome that came down to bad shot placement due to over excitement, the shooter was very very unhappy with himself as the rifle was a proven sub-MOA gun with lots of history.

Anyway regarding the comments above about energy, weight, calibre etc, there’s a lot of myth and speculation I think in what’s better or worse. Fast and light, slow and heavy, or somewhere in the middle? I mostly use .243 Win loaded quite modestly [2800fps] with a frangible bullet (aforementioned ProHunter), and I shoot a lot of reds, fallow, goats and small-medium pigs with it from less than 50m to well over 300m. It is a highly effective combination. I also use a .223 with 60gr BTs, a 6.5 Creedmoor with 143gr ELD-X, a .270 Win with 130gr ProHunter, a .308 Win with various bullets (150gr Nosler BTs, 155gr A-MAX, 178gr ELD-X, 150gr GameKings), a .338 Federal Savage Hog Hunter shooting 250gr round noses, a .44 Mag single shot pigger shooting 240gr cast bullets... and over the years a bunch of others.

All the above will drop a large red or large pig on the spot assuming I place my bullet right. The point of aim with vary according to the specifics of the rifle / cartridge combination, the range, wind etc, the position of the animal, the gradient, whether I need to recover it or not.

Whether small bore / high velocity is better than large bore / slow or vice versa is missing the point, shot placement trumps everything, doesn’t matter what you use. Pretty much all the fails I’ve witnessed have been down to poor shot placement, missing vitals or spine / CNS, from a range of rifles from .22 cal to .45 cal. I’ve seen deer run flat out and far after being rocked hard by .30 cal magnums shot too far back, but I’ve never seen one run at all after being shot in the front lungs / nerve plexus with a frangible .223.

I think we get hung up on calibres and cartridges and maybe don’t spend quite enough time on anatomy and how to target specific vital organs or the CNS from certain angles. When you’ve put weeks of effort into developing a half-MOA load then you should be able to DRT every deer you shoot assuming patience and good shot selection. Unlike my mate and his sambar-of-a-lifetime which turned into an experience he’ll never forget for other reasons.

(sorry... much longer than I meant, just such SHIT weather out there why does it always come on the bloody weekend)

@Flyblown - thanks for an excellent post

Yeah thanks really enjoyed that

Had it happen to me as well did what I thought was a really good shot and watched a nice fallow just walk off into the bush waited for a bit then spent a couple of hours looking for it with no luck then the next weekend

Once lined up on a sambar hind with a 7mm mag at about a range of about 60 metres....Fired two shots at the animal, it didn't flinch...It just walked away. I put a target up at the same distance and further and fired...nearly spot on for accuracy. I meant to go back and look / smell for that deer later on but never did. Some times these things happen.

I shot a whitetail hind on the island last week hit the thing in the chest good blood trail for 10 meters until it ran into high fern couldn't see anything under that , 2 of us searching but after 45 mins gave up

Today with @Cupcake and @Shootm, I watched a fallow hit in the chest with a 7/375 (168gn pill doing 3250) run like a clean miss... I called it as a miss but we went to have a look anyway. Found blood, tracked with dog for a good half hour before finding her nearly dead from blood loss. Shot was a bit low and managed to smash a big hole in the offside leg without hitting vitals. Lucky we had the dog and perseverance to follow up.

Originally Posted by Dorkus

Today with @Cupcake and @Shootm, I watched a fallow hit in the chest with a 7/375 (168gn pill doing 3250) run like a clean miss... I called it as a miss but we went to have a look anyway. Found blood, tracked with dog for a good half hour before finding her nearly dead from blood loss. Shot was a bit low and managed to smash a big hole in the offside leg without hitting vitals. Lucky we had the dog and perseverance to follow up.

those wee deer can take a good hit & keep running I shot a buck a couple of years ago in a swede paddock it took off at the shot like it had never been hit jumped 2 fences , covered around 350M before it gave a couple of big leaps in the air & dropped dead on inspection the shot was mint straight through the heart if the deer hadn't of been in an open paddock we likely never would have found it

""So somehow, the deer was shot more or less front on, "right above his front leg". the bullet traversed the whole body, missing all bone (there was some bruising in one shoulder, and a little bit to the fillets) missing all organs and the gut, and finished up deep in its hind leg.""

As the deer was moving toward you when it was shot the second time Im not supprised it went from front to back. What calibre where your shooting with anyway?

Hmmm - I didn't make it clear in the OP, the first shot from my mates 308 was the one that hit high and traversed the length of the body, it dropped on my followup shot with the 6.5x47, which was a clean close to side on shot.