Not happy with my grendel....

[bigbear_98]

I know where this post is going to lead, but I'm going to say it anyway...

My grandpa taught me to shoot when I was a little boy. He said hit them ~2" below the top of the back, where the neck meets the shoulder if they are broad side. If they are facing you shoot them in the white spot under their chin. Simply put spine shots. He and I killed many deer with a 22-250 with 55 gr varmint rounds. All DRT. Not even a step. Like a hammer fell.
Fast forward to my 20's. Grandpa's rifle wasn't good enough do I bought a 7 mag. Started shooting for heart/lung shots. Every single one of them ran 20-50 yards. I had one get up and run away because I got out of the stand too early. I lost that one. I decided grandpa was pretty sharp.
Fast forward to today. I have taken coyotes, hogs, and deer with a 22-250 (55gr vmax) and 223 (69&77gr smk) Mostly head shots. DRT
Shot placement is key.

[jwreck]

I know where this post is going to lead, but I'm going to say it anyway...

My grandpa taught me to shoot when I was a little boy. He said hit them ~2" below the top of the back, where the neck meets the shoulder if they are broad side. If they are facing you shoot them in the white spot under their chin. Simply put spine shots. He and I killed many deer with a 22-250 with 55 gr varmint rounds. All DRT. Not even a step. Like a hammer fell.
Fast forward to my 20's. Grandpa's rifle wasn't good enough do I bought a 7 mag. Started shooting for heart/lung shots. Every single one of them ran 20-50 yards. I had one get up and run away because I got out of the stand too early. I lost that one. I decided grandpa was pretty sharp.
Fast forward to today. I have taken coyotes, hogs, and deer with a 22-250 (55gr vmax) and 223 (69&77gr smk) Mostly head shots. DRT
Shot placement is key.

Exactly.

[Lead Chucker]

I agee with shot placement. I shot one couple days ago at 120yrds broadside to me with a 123sst. I was very disappointed with the sst, there was no pass through, no blood where he was shot. The shot was alittle low behind the fore leg, it just barly cliped the rear of the shoulder. The entrence hole looked more like a exit hole, about a inch and a half in diameter but I found only one hole in rib cage. There was no blood at the point where I shot him, but I find very little blood along his trail, he only ran about 70 yards and bleed out. But I fugured the sst would hold together better and punch through. I know my shot placement wasnt the best, I was holding the shoulder but had a bad shooting position and may have pulled alittle. I was using a 18" satern barrel that shoots very accurate with the 123sst. My velocity is 2550fps with these, my handloads.

[BluntForceTrauma]

Many years ago, while shotgun slug hunting in Minnesota farm country, I was in a stand and shot a very small doe, probably that spring's litter. Slug entered at the top of the ribcage and exited at the bottom, blowing out a softball-sized chunk of rib. The fawn ran off, and its heart FELL OUT the hole in its ribs and was bobbing along as it ran. Even so, it still ran off about 200 yards through the woods, crossed the Yellow Medicine River, and died on the far bank. After gutting it, I threw it over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, it was that small, and walked off.

Tough little sucker. Shot placement. Adrenaline. Sometimes ya just never know what to expect. . . .

John

[JohnOD]

Wow! Talk about packin lead and dying hard!

[Nukes]

...Tough little sucker. Shot placement. Adrenaline. Sometimes ya just never know what to expect. . . .

Same with Yoo-mahns ("humans," Ferengi accent). In the days of PCP popularity, there were many astonishing ER cases.

[Lead Chucker]

They are tuff suckers! I dont mind one running & me tracking it as long as there is a trail of blood to track. I just didnt like the fact that the SST didnt pass through. Iy wasnt a big deer either. Maybe 100lb white tail.

[cory]

All of these problems seem to be with projectiles that were designed for the Grendel. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm beginning to wonder that maybe in designing these projectiles for Grendel Velocities, they inadvertently don't work reliably at the upper end of Grendel velocities. If they expand reliably at a lowered velocity does it not make sense that they'd fragment at a lowered velocity?

You normally can't have your cake and eat it too.

Does anyone here have any experience in hunting with the 123 SST out of a 260, 6.5 Creedmore, etc...?

[JohnOD]

I'm sure we all agree that bullet placement is everything. A .223 in the right spot is all that's required. That said for most of us in the field shooting at game are not getting 1 MOA groups and hitting the exact hair were aiming at so a forgiving bullet that wont blow up at close range (not that the 6.5G is fast enough for that) or pencil through at long range due to inadequate velocity makes scene to me. These reports of less then stellar bullet performance in the 6.5G make the Nosler Partition sound more & more attractive to me. A soft point that will open at any reasonable velocity and guaranteed penetration due to its integral partition. They do (or used to) have a reputation for shedding lots of weight which may not be all bad when it comes to tissue destruction. I've done some load workup with the 125's and if I recall correctly every load I tried grouped under an inch at 100 yds. The only downsides I see are expense and a relatively low BC. I suppose if were shooting game at ranges were the bullets BC is a significant concern the Grendel might not be the best choice anyway.

[kegs]

I just killed a 6 point buck a few days ago with the Amax delivered by a 20" AR. It was a lung shot, pass through & caused massive internal hemoraging & took out 1 lung. I had almost no time to aim & shoot as this deer was flying through the air having been spooked by hunters on the neighboring property. He did run after being shot - maybe 60-70y, then watched his tail start to spin & dropped. Venison in the freezer. Still have a doe permit to fill, so maybe get on the PC & post a few pics. Here in Michigan, we have big tough deer. The grendel is enough for them if the bullet hits the boiler room.

[ChellieWiles]

I would have to comment that shot placement is the only prerequisite for killing any animal on this planet. I began hunting with a Red Ryder BB gun at 5 years old. Being able to shoot something so slow allowed me to understand a bullets flight since you can see the bb and it's trajectory through the air. I started out taking small critters that could succumb to this projectile birds like doves, ducks and geese and the occasional squirrel if it was close enough (birds are easy, very thin skulls). I found that squirrels would not succumb to this caliber unless within 10 feet and hit dead center of the forehead, it was the only way to take a squirrel with it as any further away the bb just bounced off leaving only a head ache for the critter in its wake. I graduated to a .22 single shot a year after learning the ins and outs of safe firearm handling procedures and the list of critters I could take grew. There was nothing I couldn't take out around my area with that single shot .22 and even killed a 185lb black bear with one shot with it by shooting it in the head at 55 yards, DRT, using the same tactic I used on the squirrels. With the .22 LR I learned just how deadly even very small 32grain bullet can be on animals but it took understanding where to put that little bullet to achieve the goal I set for it. I've taken probably over 50 deer with the .22 Long Rifle and all have been head shots, a body shot just will not kill it quick enough to be able to harvest it properly. Once I was able to start using my first high powered rifle, a .223 Remington AR, I thought I would never need another gun again. I thought I could harvest anything if it was within sight, which I could but soon found, to my dismay, that I still had to rely on shot placement or the animal was going to run. I studied the anatomy of the animals I wanted to take and learned that hitting anywhere behind the front leg, more than an inch, would mean having to look for it most of the time with this small caliber. Since I began using hi-powered rifles, I stopped taking double lung shots, with any of them, due to the nature of adrenaline and it's effect on a dying creature. If you want to bag your game and keep it within 50 yards of where you shot it, aim almost directly vertical (if the shot is broadside) on that front leg and horizontally almost centered of the animals body unless you think you can pop that heart or hit the head (eye level or above). Hitting along the front leg you can cause horrific damage to integral functions of the creatures mobility and it is forgiving to aim in this area since if you hit high you blow the shoulder and spin out, and if low, you're still taking out major vessels that lead to the brain, not the arse. If the animal is quartered away, you should want the bullet exiting through one of the shoulders, low facing front. This will normally spin the animal and drop it within a step or two. If the animal is facing away, lining up your shot to skim the spine will always drop the quarry but may destroy some of that delicious backstrap if you can't get the bullet right between the shoulder blades. These things are things to learn when hunting as you will not always have the prime shot that you want, which you really don't need to have anyway if you know how and where to put that bullet in any of the different angles an animal might be at. I'm in my 30's now and harvesting an animal is second nature to me at this point. About 5 years ago I ended a 3 year long experience walking across America and living off the land the entire way. I took my .223 AR with me as a survival gun and found game everywhere along the way, even across mostly vacant South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana (no shortage of game in any of those states, or natural wonder to lose yourself into). I couldn't always get the shot I wanted, but, because I knew where that bullet needed to go, I didn't lose but a few animals to fouled shots (which were my fault, not my weapons or my bullets as people like to say) and did not go hungry any step of the way. Shot Placement is key and learning where to put those little bullets is what's going to make you a skilled hunter. The best hunter I know is a 62 year old mountain man named Gator who still hunts for his livelihood using a break barrel single shot 30-06. I once asked why he didn't use any of the new weapons with magazines and stuff and he just says, "you only need one shot" very matter of factly.

[Lead Chucker]

Well my grendel redeemed itself Saturday. Got a 3 pointer with a 123gn SST at 370yrds. Yes 370, ranged with laser before shot. Complete pass through, broard side shot on the left shoulder, got lungs. Shot using a suppressor, heard the bullet smack him, jump ran about 20 yrds & turned looking back where he was then dropped. I was very happy at that point. 18" satern barrel, I held 1.5 mil on the shoulder & hit point of aim.