the deer went 30 yds and died but yet the bullet failed ?
sigh.........
shakes his head and walks away.....

it was sarcasm, guess you didnt catch that, if you knew anything you would know why the x was replaced with the tsx
instead of bashing me for google, maybe you should try it, the information highway is at yer fingertips, make sure brain is in gear before engaging mouth

Sure is nice to follow a blood trail for 30 yards, not just walk in increasing circles till you trip on it! I posted a pic of a hog I shot with the same combo, no exit no blood. I found it with the use of my beagle, she tracked straight to him,probably about 80-90 yards, zero blood and nasty brush. That is why it is still a failure to me. It is like bow fishing without the string on the arrow... dont really work do it?

matt

But hogs are iffy when it comes to bleeding...i shot a hog few weeks ago with a .40 cal carbine at 18 yards with hollow points and passed clean through with no blood...i thought i had missed but we looked to where we seen him run off to and there the hog was dead about 50 yards from where i shot it at with not one sign of blood anywhere....

ya my buddy took a big sow wit a 139 gr gmx went in front shoulder and out in front of hind leg, did a pretty good number on it, guess what, no blood trail hog went 50 and piled, sometimes you get a trail sometimes ya dont, has very little to do wit boolit construction.

One thing people forget on hogs is that if you hit them high they will just fill up with blood and don't leave much of a trail. You have to shoot hogs lower than deer and they will leave a trail my 9 year old can follow then.

.243 with 80 - 85 gr. bullets and replace the recoil pad with one of those limb saver pads. Not much difference from a .223 in recoil. Won't be long till he's old enough to outgrow a .223.

He can always step up to 100 gr. bullets in a few years. That's good for deer up to about 200 yds. IMO.