Big 6 ~ 92 357 Mag & XTP

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Big 6 ~ 92 357 Mag & XTP

Post by Moon Tree »

Four seasons ago I decided to hunt rogue, not hunting our normal stands, but find a new hot spot. My friend's farm is 200 acres divide by a county road. Half is river bottom with trees along the fence row and drainage creeks and a swampy area. The other half is wooded, steep, hillsides. The river bottom is soy bean fields. I decided to hang a climbing stand near the county road but on the wooded side. The plan was to catch deer in a staging area before they crossed to the road to the soy beans.

I connected with a fat doe. But, I was hearing deer and sometimes seeing deer legs on the ridge above me. The next year I put up a ladder stand higher up the ridge. I took the biggest bodied buck of my life. A 180 pound, small 8 pointer. The following year we moved the stand to the top of the ridge. Unfortunately, it was right on the deer trail. I deferred this stand to my friends for the first part of our hunt. One friend did take a fat 120 pound doe, but it was a tough shot because the deer was right under him and require zero movement.

This year we backed the stand down hill about 20 yards. This is a thick patch of second growth timber. Shots beyond 50 yards are highly unlikely--a perfect setup for a Rossi .357 magnum.

Saturday, the wind direction was perfect from the NE. Looking uphill to the ridge the light wind would be blowing in right eye. While I think this is an evening stand, I wanted to hunt it a morning and an evening hunt because of the wind.

Saturday morning, I saw nothing. I thought I heard a deer walking below me, but it was also down wind.

I'm in the stand for 30 minutes Saturday evening when a noise to my right causes me to take a look. It was a wide racked buck (for me) about 50 yards out. I can only see 1/2 his neck and head when he raises it to smack around an over hanging limb and chew on the limb. His body was obscured by a fallen limb and under growth. But something looked funny about the way the shadows of his body looked through the tangles. I'll admit that I was tempted for a moment to take the head shot, but better judgement prevailed. Unless he dropped over the ridge away from me, he would either go below the tangle or walk out the ridge. Either one would give me an open shot. I watch him for 10 minutes. He seemed really ticked off when the limb he was chewing on broke off. haha The shadows in the tangles had me confused. Sometimes I could see outlines of legs that made no sense with his bode position.

From his profile, I thought him to be a wide racked 6 pointer. The G2's look to be 9 inches.

Satisfied he had marked his territory, he turned way from the tangles to wall up the ridge. I was looking at a small bowl 4 pointer. NO WAY THAT'S THE DEER I'VE BEEN WATCHING! The big 6 stepped around his little brother to take the lead. I could see his spread was well beyond his ears.

He's the biggest 6 pointer I've ever seen. I'm going to take him and call my buck tag filled. This deer will be a good test for my new 180 XTP, 357 load.

At 35 yards he presented an open, slightly quartering to me shot. I found the green fiber optic front sight in my Marble peep sight with a Merit aperture peep. I touched off the load. The deer flinched then shock like a Lab just coming out of the water then paused and shook again. I've never seen a deer do that in the 40-plus years I've been hunting. I have heard poachers say that's what deer will do when shot with a 22mag.

The buck trotted up the ridge, stopping 25 yards in front of me. He was wobbling slightly. I could see a red dot of blood in the crease of it's shoulder. This deer is dead, but I didn't want him to go over the ridge (harder retrieving) and I didn't want him to suffer. I fired again. He goes 3 yard and stops. Now, he's barely able to stay on his feed. I need to end this. I have 2 double lung shots, I need to take out his heart. I aim a little lower, under his elbow. He drops.

His outside spread is 18 inches. It widest rack 6 pointer I've ever taken. But, I'm a meat hunter, not a trophy hunters. Field dressed weight was 140 pounds.

Ballistic/forensic Report:
The first shot was a pass through. It struck one rib entering and existed behind the ribs on the far side. It went through both lungs and through the liver. The lungs were mush do to the 3 shots going through them.The third shot cut his heart There was a good blood trail from the first shot. The other 2 shots broke ribs on both sides. One must have bounce back into the body cavity. The other embedded just under the skin.

The mushroom of the retrieved bullet was .6325. My test shots through wet, compressed sawdust gave expansion of .66. Also the retrieved bullet didn't peal back down the base as much as sawdust test bullet did. This lead me to believe that the sawdust is a denser medium than deer tissue is.

I'm happy with the results of my .357 as a close range (minus 50 yards) deer rifle. But, could I tweak it a little more?

RD AND OTHERS--A QUESTION:
Should I slow the bullet down a little to get the pass through, exist wound and a better blood trail? Or, should a push the load (15.3 grains of Lil'Gun) to get more mushroom and hopefully more penetration. My thoughts are if I push it more, I'll get more expansion, but I might not get more penetration?

Pictures:
I thought I had taken pics of the big 6 with my Nikon or at least MY cell phone, but I didn't. So here's a pic from my bud's cell phone. I did take pics of the bullet. The red tint is blood soaked lead.

OK, my friend's cell phone, text image will not post. grrrr! I'll try to get him to email the pic to me. Maybe that will work better than the text image. Anyhow, here's the bullet pics
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Last edited by Moon Tree on 04 Jan 2017 18:18, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Big 6 ~ 92 357 Mag & XTP

Post by akuser47 »

Nice well written tale as always sounds like a good hunt as well. I cannot help on the bullet +corn
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Re: Big 6 ~ 92 357 Mag & XTP

Post by Ranch Dog »

Don't really know what to tell other than good job. Keep shooting them if they are on their feet. A deer is going to do what a deer does especially a buck that has a plan during the rut. The bullet is making a big enough hole and the first shot went through the deer, I wouldn't read a lot into the performance vs. the deer not flopping on the ground at the shot. A .6" hole through a critter is a heck of a hole.

Sum it up like this. I had a deer that didn't want to die so I ventilated it three times with a 375 Win bullet. At the first shot I could tell it wasn't convinced so the followup shots were as quick as I could work the lever. I could physical see the force of those 235-grain bullets striking that deer. That did it. My dad asked me why I had shot it three time and I answered "because I only had three rounds in the rifle."
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Re: Big 6 ~ 92 357 Mag & XTP

Post by GasGuzzler »

Strong willed buck. I would say your load is fine. A doe might go right down.
Last edited by GasGuzzler on 17 Nov 2016 07:31, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Big 6 ~ 92 357 Mag & XTP

Post by Moon Tree »

Thanks guys for all your input. I don't expect a deer to flop over at the hit. I've rarely had this to happen unless it was a spine hit. Usually, there's a 20 to 60 yard death run no matter what firearm I'm shooting. I'd just prefer an exit wound. Two hole leak more than one. I'm pretty darn happy with this load, but if I could get that exit hole, I'd be jumping up and down.

One thing confused me a bit when I walked up to the buck, I only saw 2 entrance wounds. I knew I had hit the deer 3 times. One hole was slight bigger, so I surmised that I put 2 bullets in the same hole. When I made that statement to my buddies, there was no comment from them. When I did the autopsy, they laughed and agreed.
That picture is the entrance wound on the shoulder.

Here's more pics.
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Re: Big 6 ~ 92 357 Mag & XTP

Post by Ranch Dog »

Nice deer and big hole!
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Re: Big 6 ~ 92 357 Mag & XTP

Post by ksmoose »

Good job
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Re: Big 6 ~ 92 357 Mag & XTP

Post by yukondog »

Nice deer, where the 180's xtp hp or flat tip, if you can find them the xtp flat might give you the penetration your looking for.
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Re: Big 6 ~ 92 357 Mag & XTP

Post by Moon Tree »

yukondog, I was shooting 180 grain XTP hollow points. I"m trying to walk the tightrope of having the bullet expend most of it's energy within the animal while still getting an exit wound (2nd hole).

Two season ago, I took 2 deer with this Rossi .357 firing 168 grain SWC. Penetration was no problem at all with that bullet. But, there was nearly zero blood trail on the deer I didn't hit in the spine. I found the doe 150 yards away. Doing the autopsy, there was nearly a one inch wound channel. Killing a deer with this bullet was easy. Finding the deer was the problem. I lost one. With the 180 XTP HP, half the lungs were mush, I had a smallish blood trail (but trackable) and neither deer went 20 yards after the shot. I'm quite happy with the results, BUT if I could get that kind of tissue destruction and an exit hole after the bullet had smashed through ribs on both sides, I'd be jumping up and down.

I"m betting if I increased my charge .2 grains that the bullet will get more expansion but probably not much more penetration, UNLESS the bullet fragments more allowing the base to exit.

I've have year to play around with this load. Now, that I have a real life, hunting baseline to compare to my redneck, wet sawdust in feed bag, medium to compare it to, I feel more confident in my research. Before, it was just speculation.
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Re: Big 6 ~ 92 357 Mag & XTP

Post by Ranch Dog »

Moon, I took the liberty of renaming this topic to reflect what you used for rifle and bullet on this hunt as there is interest here on the forum with the XTP as a hunting bullet in all the 92 cartridge offerings.

Going to go look to see if you have a topic concerning your loading...
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