Several good points, and ideas on the original question. I pay close attention to the animals I shoot and clean as well as the ones I clean for others which there have been more than a few. Internals can give a good idea of what happened. If you get what looks like a caliber size or very small exit on a lung shot but the lungs are a puddle of blood and chunks when you open the chest cavity I will bet it was a piece of the core that exited. Now if the lungs have a small hole through them chances are no expansion. Have seen both with various bullets bullets but the ones that it was just a small hole through them the critter was not DRT but ran a ways, sometimes short ways other times hundreds of yards.

I also think Dstroud bas a good point about twist rate, RPM does effect expansion

The last deer I shot with a Berger 140gr VLD Hunting started at 2900fps went in the opening in the front of the chest, very small hole through top of left lung then on exit hit next to last rib where it appeared to come apart as the hole was big enough for a foot ball to pass through from there to the hind leg. She went about 150 yards with guts hanging out and was still alive when found.

My guess is like others have said in the OP case though that it is bullet fragment exiting from the 308 unless there is very little damage to the lungs, then who knows.

Might have missed a comma or 4.

Had another eye surgery today and still medicated, if that is all I missed I feel pretty good. Hard to see the screen let alone punctuation even with enlarged 200%. Still legally blind in the left eye and that seems to be screwing up the right eye vision as well.

Pretty sure the punctuation statement was directed at my post. I reread it and my punctuation was terrible. I was responding to the post prior to yours.

I try to read everything before posting, been doing that since I got back able to post after last years mess.

I had to read it three times. Just ribbing you.

Yes, could be. 300 blk out is 1:7" twist where the 308 is 1:10" twist.

Exit holes are a perfect .308" hole. No fragmenting.

I learned the twist rate factor from shooting predators with slower twist .223's then switching to fast twist .223's and the DRT factor was noticeably better with faster 1/8 twist than 1/12 or 1/10

SST is a soft bullet. Expansion is excellent with it killing animals at long range after it has slowed down or is launched at blackout velocity. My guess is you are getting expansion and the soft mushroomed portion of the bullet is shearing off at 308 velocity, leaving the shank to exit. The associated energy transfer would explain the quick kills you describe. When I was experimenting with the SST and shooting does long distance with a 300wm, I also pegged a few up close. What I experienced was explosive expansion up close. 308 velocity being firmly between those two extremes is what leads me to the assumption that bullet performance would also fall somewhere in between.

I believe on another forum I saw reference to Ed Sanow and Wiley Clapp with some observations regarding a similar experience in handguns. Specifically the 10MM and some of the magnums when pushed too hard fail to expand. Seems backwards but its been experienced in several LEO shootings. Recollection is 1100 FPS with a 180 gr JHP in a 10MM expanded well, but when pushed to 1200 to 1300 FPS ( Yeah that's pushing it!) they saw complete pass through with no expansion, same gun, bullet, and twist rate. I do not recall what the conclusion was for this anomaly.

[quote=Cleric
1) time in animal. The bullet moves through the animal before it can expand

THIS is most definitely NOT the answer...

bad shots have mostly bad results and well place have mostly good results some bullets are better than others but I think most times the results are on the shooter

Ok, I'll jump in this. Just this week I had the same thing happen to me. I am shooting a 257 Weatherby with Nosler 115 grain Ballistic tips. Shot an axis doe thru the shoulders at 100 yards. 1/4 inch entrance wound, 1/2 inch exit wound thru the off shoulder. Heart was blown into little bitty pieces. Shot a white tail doe about the same yardage right behind the shoulder. Exited behind the off shoulder. 1/4 inch entrance and golf ball sized exit with both lungs destroyed.
I would have thought it would have been the other way around. Specially with shooting thru the shoulder.

I would say it's due to animal size. Bullet was still expanding and moving faster as it exited the white tail. It had already fully expand and slowed down more on the exit of the axis. Same wound channel just exited at different points.

Entrance and exit wound size is only part of the story. Skin is pretty elastic. You need to know what happened inside the chest cavity. Most likely in this case it will look like a bomb exploded. Ay least that's what every deer I have shot with a soft point bullet looked like. Some small exits, some baseball sized, depending on what they ran into on the way through.


One deer shot with a 140 gr nosler partition 7 mag. had all the skin loose on the exit side of the ribcage. Quarter sized exit, nothing but shot up lungs inside, no heart damage, lots of blood. Deer jumped and hit the ground 8 - 10 feet away and never twitched.