Thread: Opinion on the 7mm WSM please

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

flyblown......how many were shot with fmj over the years...... I believe what Thar is trying to say is dont get all hung up and over think it. if its not at either end of spectrum eg silly hard or a varmint type it will be fine...and with either of those if you picked your shot it would go down fine...eg super hard..break both shoulders/super soft head-neck or crease ONLY....
your "shot it too far back" statement carries more weight than the projectile used.

I see what you're saying, its a fair point for sure. When I put "too far back" afterwards I thought "that'll get some attention!" To me that means a maybe 2-4" behind the rear line of the leg, and a couple of inches or more over the top of the heart... a very common point of impact, somehow blokes seem to manage shooting deer there when they swear blind they aimed at the shoulder... Oftentimes they'll be a fair bit higher than that, especially if they're using a powerful cartridge off a bipod.

You'll all know this of course I'm just having a bit of a cold wet rant after a shite day in the worst of it, and I've just discovered we've run out of beer. Gggrrrr. Anyway, with a hard bullet on our deer it'll go straight through the rear lungs or worse between the lungs and the liver if it somehow ends up way too far back... and the animal will run, often very far. With a fragmenting hunting bullet there'll likely be a lot more radial damage and in my experience at least they'll bleed out way faster, might make 30-40yds tops before they topple over.

I accept its one of those take it or leave it kind of statements I suppose. I'll own up to having a bit of a chip on my shoulder about blokes using hard "big game" bullets on fallow and meat reds, and causing untold bloody dramas, once they run 70-80+ yards down our way they're gone and they're helluva hard to find. Happened last month here, some supposedly top gun bloke (friend of an acquaintance grrr) insisted on using a Swift A Frame in .30-06.... anyway he shot at a very very fine fallow buck from a range he probably wasn't competent at , and it took off straight down into the worst of it, way below. He insisted it was a clean miss but his mate clearly heard the strike. We eventually found it by chance some several days later with the dogs about half a click from where it was shot, bullet passed right through directly above the heart by about 4". Exit wound wasn't much more that 1.5". Too rank by that time to have a look inside but at least we got the head. So yeah, horses for courses is the way I look at it, and you're right @mickeyduck its the bullets at the extreme end of the spectrum that you need to avoid....