For what it's worth...

Shot a small deer last night with the bow. Double lunger.

Figured I'd test some of my 45 carry ammo.

Propped it up against a tree and fired a single shot from my fnx45t with octane 45k (I also wanted to play with the whole gun/rmr/x300/can hehe). 10 paces. Entrance right behind the leg, about sliced the heart in half, completely destroyed. Powered through and exited the opposite elbow, absolutely shattering the bone and leaving a near 3/4" exit, with chunks of bone coming out. Jellied a tiny bit of lung, not much at all. Of course a 230gr 45 isn't causing any hydrostatic damage.

Not sure how much of a blood trail it would have left if used on a live deer, since the shot was damn near perfect and already dead. It wouldn't be for lack of holes, but grenading the heart means no blood pumping. Definitely wouldn't have gone far. Might not have been so spectacular on a monster deer, but a good shot would still reach the heart through shoulder bone.

Bullet is buried in a tree, not included to go dig it out. Judging by the heart and exit, it expanded immediately and violently.

Later when we butcher it (field dressed and hanging for now), I'll see if the entrance went between ribs or smashed one.

Hopefully someone can appreciate this anecdotal information. I find it more confidence inspiring to get a chance to test the ammo I might trust my life to on real flesh and bone.

Honestly not much to see. It's a typical bullet hole...

I'll try and get some later when we butcher.

Back when i culled deer at a commercial nursery i didn't have a camera phone, or really thought about taking pics of every deer i shot.

Anyways, your results mirrored my own, at least with gold dots.

Coolest thing I heard all week.
So I was testing my bullets on a dead deer... hahahahahah
Yeah, but you should post some pics when you get to butchering.

My two choices. I may still put another deer in the freezer yet this year. I should test some 380 gold dots.

So far I've had good (similar to the testing of others, consistency is key right?) results with 124gr +p HST and 9bple on deer. 9bple did well on groundhog as well.

The fnx45 is going to be my deer gun for 2020, so hopefully I can get a shot on a live one come december. I'll still be rocking the 230gr +p HST. Hopefully, I get a big one though.

It is just me, and I am all for testing....

WTF - you shot a dead deer and messed up the Shoulder?

Red

I'd test them on live deer more often if ohio didn't have a stupid 7 day gun season with straightwall/shotgun and 5" .357 or bigger restrictions. I'd happily drop a smaller one with m193 at close range. Or try out 62gr fusion, le133-00 (no buckshot allowed in ohio), whatever. I'm confident that whatever I'd carry or grab to defend myself will drop a deer.

If you don't think it would make a deer regret it's life choices, why would you trust it to work on meth heads?

Then again, I actually give a shit about a humane kill on my game animals. They deserve a clean death.

Ended up hitting the off-side elbow. Probably have to trim off a tiny bit of meat, it mostly hit bone. Maybe a half pound at worst.

ETA: deer, live or dead, don't tend to cooperate, and when you've been crawling around in the wet woods and fog through thorn thickets, to follow the blood that's half washed away, to find a deer piled up underneath an impassable to humans thorn maze, which you have to drag it out of... in the dark, the one leg being bunched up a bit to prop it against a tree isn't your biggest concern.

That's a worthy test if it was only that much meat.  To see what the bullets do on actual meat is worth it IMO.
The deer I got this gun season I had to shoot in the head, a tree was covering his body, so it dropped where it stood and he is delicious!

Sounds good to me.

Back in my early 20s I thought you needed a 06 or larger for deer.  Then a buddy called me up to help him with a deer.  I asked him what he shot it with.
Beretta 92 & a Win Silvertip off his toilet seat in deer camp.   2nd part I just found really funny

He was a bit older and imparted some wisdom to me that I hold to this day.  "Secret to killing deer is making the shot good"

I have zero intention of aiming for a meaty portion of a human should I need to. I'm not terribly concerned about roving gangs of body builders.

Just like deer, most hits [i]should[/] hit bone first, and go straight into the heart. We know that doesn't happen 99% of the time, but let's test some ideals here. Why don't gel tests include a piece of pine board to simulate the sternum? Why don't we test hunting bullets through the same, since at best you have a 50/50 chance of hitting a rib, if you miss the shoulder (scapula on deer?) An angled shot on a human, through the arm (hence 18" penetration), is liable to hit bone of the arm, as well as say 3" of meat, then have to break through bone again to get into the chest cavity...

Anyway, the bullet I shot, hit a touch of meat on the way in, rib on both sides, and elbow on the exit. The entrance rib was cracked/smashed, the exit and adjacent on either side were smashed out, and the exit elbow was destroyed (leg was limp). Pretty much half inch in, whole inch out. Bullet expanded as advertised despite the initial bone contact. The arrow that actually killed it (2 blade) managed to sneak through the ribs, for a complete pass thorough, last seen heading towards the county line.

I'm just happy that after hitting a bit of meat (maybe a half inch), plus the hide, that the HST which should have been beginning to expand, hit that rib, and still expanded to a good size, boogied straight through, and left twice the exit. This tells me that I can expect it to still expand after hitting a sternum, and have enough ass behind it still to clear through the rib/spine and exit, maybe get caught by the skin. Confidence inspired.

Also confident that when I use it for deer hunting next season, I only have to concern myself with getting a good hit. The bullet will do the rest.

Since this one was pretty small, I might go out again tonight or tomorrow. If I get the chance I'll try to repeat the test with a 124gr +p. Need meat for the freezer.

Absolutely. You don't need a whizbang supermag to hunt or defend yourself. You need to make a good hit with what you have. Poachers drop deer with 22lr and 22mag all the time. People lose deer shot with full bore centerfire rifles all the time (how they fuck that up is beyond me). Either way, "My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit..."

But hits don't count if the projectile doesn't work.