Terminal Damage

[Accubond]

I am only in my second year of deer hunting. The first year I got a WT and a Mulie (both does). Shot were pretty straightforward, 265 yds on the WT and 150 on the Mulie. Damage was minimal, no mess. This last Saturday I shot a Mulie doe at 355 yards, slight quartering away. Anyway the shot enters just in front of the diaphram, between two ribs and exits out the far shoulder area. She goes down inside of 20yds. I was using my Savage 110 package special (rifle, sope and sling for $500) and Federal's .30-06 with 180gr Accubonds. Here is the odd bit. The exit wound was plugged with about an 8 inch extrusion of fat, no blood leaking out. The body cavity was full of blood, lungs were "gone", liver severed and a huge smattering of bone and jellied flesh. Is this a normal result? I had to throw out the entire shoulder and a portion around it before bringing it to the butcher. Luckily the heart was untouched. Yum.

[sheephunter]

Each bullet has an optimal velocity yet we expect bullets to perform well through their entire velocity range so to ask if something is typical is virtually impossible to answer. At closer ranges (higher velocities) some bullets perform well while other bullets perform better at longer ranges (lower velocites). Obviously I'm talking about shot from the same gun.

The Accubond is unquestionably one of those bullets that has a wide range at which it performs well and your deer died so I guess it did the job well. But every shot angle, every muscle, bone and such will affect performance so there is no such thing as typical.