NEVER AGAIN. Colt 6920, 16"bbl, with 5.56 63 gn soft points. Two deer, two different results.
1: Doe at +- 80 yds.
Shot 1 - standing, broadside, right through the boiler room, she took off. Shot was through and through with little blood trail, and no expansion.
Second shot - quartering at me, on the run, a few inches behind the first, through the diaphragm and into the abdominal cavity. Shot didn't exit, lodged in ribs on opposite side. Minimal expansion minimal blood trail. Still running.
Third shot - standing on wobbly legs at about 25 yds, just behind the left eye. Large exit wound, dropped like a sack of hammers.
No doubt she would have expired from shot number one .... but after how long ? No indication of a good hit. Wasn't sure of placement, no visible signs of entry/exit.
2: Decent buck at walking speed at +- 50 yds. Same loadout, next day.
Shot 1 - No visible signs of a hit, no blood trail. Miss ??? I don't think so, but it happens.
Shot 2 - Through and through, decent exit splatter, bright red bubbly blood, little hair/tissue. Lung shot. Tracked for over 4 hours, and what had to be a couple miles to property line. Blood trail quickly dissipated after a few hundred yards, but kept finding spots here and there. Never did recover the animal. No doubt dead well onto the neighboring property. This was NOT from a lack of tracking skills, been hunting deer for just over 40 years.
Soooo, I drove 100 miles home to get my M77 30.06 with 155 gn. soft points, came back the next day and harvested a trophy buck, one round through the heart at about 60 yds. Saw the reaction of the deer getting hit, saw the "pink mist", and saw him crash a few yards from impact, NONE of which I saw with the 5.56.
Personally, I don't think the 5.56 has the ass to ethically harvest a deer sized animal consistently. NEVER AGAIN. For this reason, I'm in the process of putting together a 300 AAC, based on a SIG M400 pistol lower with a Advanced Armament 100884 9 inch upper and either a Saker or Omega can.
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