have you ever had a double kill, I have , but it was absolutely UN-intended and I had zero idea that it was about to happen.
I happened back in about 1970-76 or so in Florida ,I had THREE witnesses,as three of us were walking back to the truck in a group for lunch break, Id been hunting several days for deer in the local wild life management area and I was carrying my 45/70 marlin loaded with 420 grain weight, hard cast gas check bullets over 45 grains of reloader 7 with a 215 fed primer which would consistently produce groups under 1.2" at 100 yard off the bench.
I was walking down a short 300 yard power line right of way access road out in the area, (these finger roads were about 400 yards long, and only about 20 feet wide just enough to allow truck access to power poles, spaced about every 1/8th mile off of a main levy road spaced like teeth on a comb,) when I saw a decent buck slowly walk out, from behind a clump of saw grass and cat tails up on the slightly raised road surface,at the dead end of the road, I dropped to a seated position wrapped the sling around my arm and looked thru the 4x scope and verified the deer was a legal buck,(not that it mattered as any deer was legal at that particular date and time) I placed the cross hairs mid way up on the shoulder and squeezed off the shot, the deer dropped after a 90 degree spin and I walked over, to find , the buck stone dead, and a nice doe with a broken neck about 20 feet behind the buck.
I was very fortunate that florida had a two deer a day of either sex limit, on that particular management area. not one of us had seen the doe before the buck was shot.
the 45/70 hard cast had zipped thru both the bucks shoulder and does neck.
now an interesting thing was that unknown to me at the time the local fish and game warden officer was watching with binoculars from the next finger access road,as we shot the deer and he came over, he had seen what had happened but even he from a totally different angle had not seen the doe.
Ive known this to happen several times with hogs as they tend to collect in packs but Ive rarely seen or heard about this with deer.
yes I knew that aspect of not seeing what was beyond the intended target impact point and the resulting potential safety issues would come up very quickly in this thread, but id also point out that its extremely unlikely that a deer would be standing calmly next to a hunter and if that doe or anyone else had not been directly behind and in very close proximity to the intended target it would not have been hit, or remained undetected , and the area was patches of scrub timber and marsh and even at the low angles the trajectory in a strait line would have the bullet impact the dirt beyond the deer within 20-30 yards. a Florida deers back line to ground surface measurement rarely exceeds 36" , a low shoulder shot impact is more likely to be at about 25" off the ground, and the bore line, of a sitting rifleman is going to be only slightly higher than 25"
http://www.handloads.com/loaddata/defau ... fle&Source
btw
http://www.neihandtools.com/catalog/index.html
after decades of deer and elk hunting with several different cast bullets, the best 45/70 hand load I found was this NEI bullet cast from 95% wheel weights and 5% pure tin, sized .459 , hornady gas checks over 45 grains of imr 4198 , or the same bullet can be used in a 450 marlin over 45 grains of imr 3031 as a good hunting load thats very consistently accurate.
On paper the power and velocity might not look impressive , but at under 200 yards it been a consistent and dependable load I've used for decades in my lever actions to drop game, I found the slightly lighter 360 grain weight reduced recoil flattened trajectory and had no measurable reduction in penetration on game
I happened back in about 1970-76 or so in Florida ,I had THREE witnesses,as three of us were walking back to the truck in a group for lunch break, Id been hunting several days for deer in the local wild life management area and I was carrying my 45/70 marlin loaded with 420 grain weight, hard cast gas check bullets over 45 grains of reloader 7 with a 215 fed primer which would consistently produce groups under 1.2" at 100 yard off the bench.
I was walking down a short 300 yard power line right of way access road out in the area, (these finger roads were about 400 yards long, and only about 20 feet wide just enough to allow truck access to power poles, spaced about every 1/8th mile off of a main levy road spaced like teeth on a comb,) when I saw a decent buck slowly walk out, from behind a clump of saw grass and cat tails up on the slightly raised road surface,at the dead end of the road, I dropped to a seated position wrapped the sling around my arm and looked thru the 4x scope and verified the deer was a legal buck,(not that it mattered as any deer was legal at that particular date and time) I placed the cross hairs mid way up on the shoulder and squeezed off the shot, the deer dropped after a 90 degree spin and I walked over, to find , the buck stone dead, and a nice doe with a broken neck about 20 feet behind the buck.
I was very fortunate that florida had a two deer a day of either sex limit, on that particular management area. not one of us had seen the doe before the buck was shot.
the 45/70 hard cast had zipped thru both the bucks shoulder and does neck.
now an interesting thing was that unknown to me at the time the local fish and game warden officer was watching with binoculars from the next finger access road,as we shot the deer and he came over, he had seen what had happened but even he from a totally different angle had not seen the doe.
Ive known this to happen several times with hogs as they tend to collect in packs but Ive rarely seen or heard about this with deer.
yes I knew that aspect of not seeing what was beyond the intended target impact point and the resulting potential safety issues would come up very quickly in this thread, but id also point out that its extremely unlikely that a deer would be standing calmly next to a hunter and if that doe or anyone else had not been directly behind and in very close proximity to the intended target it would not have been hit, or remained undetected , and the area was patches of scrub timber and marsh and even at the low angles the trajectory in a strait line would have the bullet impact the dirt beyond the deer within 20-30 yards. a Florida deers back line to ground surface measurement rarely exceeds 36" , a low shoulder shot impact is more likely to be at about 25" off the ground, and the bore line, of a sitting rifleman is going to be only slightly higher than 25"
http://www.handloads.com/loaddata/defau ... fle&Source
btw
http://www.neihandtools.com/catalog/index.html
after decades of deer and elk hunting with several different cast bullets, the best 45/70 hand load I found was this NEI bullet cast from 95% wheel weights and 5% pure tin, sized .459 , hornady gas checks over 45 grains of imr 4198 , or the same bullet can be used in a 450 marlin over 45 grains of imr 3031 as a good hunting load thats very consistently accurate.
On paper the power and velocity might not look impressive , but at under 200 yards it been a consistent and dependable load I've used for decades in my lever actions to drop game, I found the slightly lighter 360 grain weight reduced recoil flattened trajectory and had no measurable reduction in penetration on game
