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Muzzleloader - No exit wound/little blood

jonkytron

jonkytron

Active Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2022
Messages
135
Location
Rhode Island
Hey All, for all the muzzleloader hunters out there.. I just killed a buck yesterday.. He was quartered away, so I shot a bit back on the deer. When I got down from the tree I saw a lot of blood where he was shot.. but not much after. Ended up finding him by walking to where I saw him run, and smelling him. He was piled up not far away. The devastation inside his body was pretty crazy.. it looked like that bullet bounced around inside of him and tore up everything. However, there was no exit wound on the deer, and not a lot of blood. This is the second deer with a muzzleloader Ive shot without an exit wound.. The first one just dropped where I shot him.

My question is.. is it normal not to have an exit wound with a muzzleloader bullet? Ive read some place where people say that it does more damage if it doesnt exit, since the body absorbs most of the energy of the bullet.. Is this in fact true? Curious to hear what peoples thoughts are, as I’m looking to make sure my gun is doing the most damage possible, but id also love to have an exit wound and heavy blood trail in the future.

I’m shooting a CVA Accura MRX with 100 Grains of triple 7 and a powerbelt aero tip 50 cal - 245 grains
 
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My muzzle loader is my favorite hunting gun so much that she has a name lol if I gave it a statistic I’d say I’ve shot 2/3 of my gun deer with it and I’ve almost never had blood trails but I’ve watched 90% of the deer pile up in sight. Only bad experience I have was during the Covid hype I ran out of sabots and had to switch to powerbelts. And that season I lost the biggest deer of my life. I know I didn’t miss he was 90yards broadside standing in a scrape and he dug hard when I shot tail down. Idk where he went never found him but again not a drop of blood
 
Welcome to ML hunting, I’ve played around with different loads & setups. I usually get little blood & rarely exit. I haven’t used my elk setup on whitetail yet but will let you know if it turns out differently. Btw this is going on 20 yrs now since I switched to an in-line with a similar load to what you described. My elk setup is 110gr of blackhorn with a325gr fury bonded bullet. I’ll be kinda surprised if it doesn’t exit but we’ll see.
Btw you mentioned 100gr is that 2 pellets or loose powder? Also just noticed powerbelt, I’ve never had any luck with those on performance…..
 
Bigterp said:
Welcome to ML hunting, I’ve played around with different loads & setups. I usually get little blood & rarely exit. I haven’t used my elk setup on whitetail yet but will let you know if it turns out differently. Btw this is going on 20 yrs now since I switched to an in-line with a similar load to what you described. My elk setup is 110gr of blackhorn with a325gr fury bonded bullet. I’ll be kinda surprised if it doesn’t exit but we’ll see.
Btw you mentioned 100gr is that 2 pellets or loose powder? Also just noticed powerbelt, I’ve never had any luck with those on performance…..
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I’m using loose powder.. measured with a scale. I’m hearing lots of bad things about the powerbelts.. maybe next season ill switch out..
 
I like hornady xtp 245gr they group nice out of both of t/c s, I could never group powerbelts or get any damage with them. All in all glad you found your buck. Whenever you shoot one with a ML study & try to note every detail. You’ll likely need it to find them
 
Like @Tim0712, I have killed 2/3 of my deer with an inline ML. I also use Powerbelts, the 295 gr and 100gr of Triple 7 pellets. I usually find the bullet has mushroomed well and rarely exits. I have lost one deer and found another one 2 days later only after watching for birds circling--both due to poor blood trails. They seem to fall in sight, but if they don't--yeah the blood trails suck.
 
jonkytron said:
Hey All, for all the muzzleloader hunters out there.. I just killed a buck yesterday.. He was quartered away, so I shot a bit back on the deer. When I got down from the tree I saw a lot of blood where he was shot.. but not much after. Ended up finding him by walking to where I saw him run, and smelling him. He was piled up not far away. The devastation inside his was pretty crazy.. it looked like that bullet bounced around inside of him and tore up everything. However, there was no exit wound on the deer, and not a lot of blood. This is the second deer with a muzzleloader Ive shot without an exit wound.. The first one just dropped where I shot him.

My question is.. is it normal not to have an exit wound with a muzzleloader bullet? Ive read some place where people say that it does more damage if it doesnt exit, since the body absorbs most of the energy of the bullet.. Is this in fact true? Curious to hear what peoples thoughts are, as I’m looking to make sure my gun is doing the most damage possible, but id also love to have an exit wound and heavy blood trail in the future.

I’m shooting a CVA Accura MRX with 100 Grains of triple 7 and a powerbelt aero tip 50 cal - 245 grains
Click to expand...
In this situation I bet you hit the off shoulder. I had the exact same situation happen on my buck last week. It broke the shoulder but I don't think the bullet ever exited. In the past if I hit them broadside I usually have an exit hole with more blood at least.
 
Last year I shot a deer broadside in the shoulder from about 40 yds. The deer ran off in a full speed wobble and piled up in the brush at about 100 yds. I pulled the deer out of the brush and unzipped the body cavity and to my surprise out poured a brown/green liquid mess. The bullet hit the shoulder and banged a hard right through all the internals. I found what was left of the bullet lodged in the opposite side abdomen. All that was left of the bullet was a pinch of copper gravel and what appeared to be part of a copper jacket which was weird as I thought I was shooting a solid copper bullet. I have a feeling that Hornady is fusing copper powder into the bullet shape and not fusing it very well. I was shooting 150 grains of triple 7 and a Hornady MonoFlex ML. Normally I shoot the Hornady low drag SST sabots and have not had a problem with them. I like the way they low drag sabots reload in my Thompson Omega. I only bought the MonFlex bullets becasue the SST's were not available.
 
Bigterp said:
Welcome to ML hunting, I’ve played around with different loads & setups. I usually get little blood & rarely exit. I haven’t used my elk setup on whitetail yet but will let you know if it turns out differently. Btw this is going on 20 yrs now since I switched to an in-line with a similar load to what you described. My elk setup is 110gr of blackhorn with a325gr fury bonded bullet. I’ll be kinda surprised if it doesn’t exit but we’ll see.
Btw you mentioned 100gr is that 2 pellets or loose powder? Also just noticed powerbelt, I’ve never had any luck with those on performance…..
Click to expand...
110gr of blackhorn is smmmmokin. That gun got a little kick to it i bet.
 
jonkytron said:
Hey All, for all the muzzleloader hunters out there.. I just killed a buck yesterday.. He was quartered away, so I shot a bit back on the deer. When I got down from the tree I saw a lot of blood where he was shot.. but not much after. Ended up finding him by walking to where I saw him run, and smelling him. He was piled up not far away. The devastation inside his was pretty crazy.. it looked like that bullet bounced around inside of him and tore up everything. However, there was no exit wound on the deer, and not a lot of blood. This is the second deer with a muzzleloader Ive shot without an exit wound.. The first one just dropped where I shot him.

My question is.. is it normal not to have an exit wound with a muzzleloader bullet? Ive read some place where people say that it does more damage if it doesnt exit, since the body absorbs most of the energy of the bullet.. Is this in fact true? Curious to hear what peoples thoughts are, as I’m looking to make sure my gun is doing the most damage possible, but id also love to have an exit wound and heavy blood trail in the future.

I’m shooting a CVA Accura MRX with 100 Grains of triple 7 and a powerbelt aero tip 50 cal - 245 grains
Click to expand...
Powerbelts are not the greatest. Thats what i started with. They kill deer but theres better sabots to try.

My favorite ive tried is Barnes Spitfire TMZ's in 250gr. with 82gr (weighed) of blackhorn. My accura v2 seems to like that the best. wish the mrx was an option when i was looking. Honestly... i wish i just listened to bigterp and waited for a used TC Omega. Those guns shoot awesome groups with anything i threw in it. Still might scoop one up if i find one in good shape.

All my hunting bullets are barnes now actually. i shoot the barnes Vort-x out of my 350LGD now too. its a horror show on the exit wounds.
 
I’ve heard a lot of people have issues with PowerBelts. It’s all I’ve ever shot in my ML and only once did it not succeed. Ended up hitting a doe’s leg (non-lethal) which I chalk up to very steep shot angle at very close distance from the saddle. I should’ve let her walk past the tree a little more. Every other time I shot them at a deer within muzzleloader range it caused massive damage and a big blood trail… not that it was necessary, they never went more than 40 yards if at all.
 
Marmuzz said:
I’ve heard a lot of people have issues with PowerBelts. It’s all I’ve ever shot in my ML and only once did it not succeed. Ended up hitting a doe’s leg (non-lethal) which I chalk up to very steep shot angle at very close distance from the saddle. I should’ve let her walk past the tree a little more. Every other time I shot them at a deer within muzzleloader range it caused massive damage and a big blood trail… not that it was necessary, they never went more than 40 yards if at al
Click to expand...
what grain powder and what weight bullet? aerotips?
 
PEEJAY said:
Powerbelts are not the greatest. Thats what i started with. They kill deer but theres better sabots to try.

My favorite ive tried is Barnes Spitfire TMZ's in 250gr. with 82gr (weighed) of blackhorn. My accura v2 seems to like that the best. wish the mrx was an option when i was looking. Honestly... i wish i just listened to bigterp and waited for a used TC Omega. Those guns shoot awesome groups with anything i threw in it. Still might scoop one up if i find one in good shape.

All my hunting bullets are barnes now actually. i shoot the barnes Vort-x out of my 350LGD now too. its a horror show on the exit wounds.
Click to expand...
I tried the Barnes bullets this year however I could not reload with out a hammer. The barnes sabots were about 0.010" thicker than the Hornadys at the base /petal interface. I want to check the remington/barnes combos next year to see if the sabots are thinner.
 
Nosaj said:
I tried the Barnes bullets this year however I could not reload with out a hammer. The barnes sabots were about 0.010" thicker than the Hornadys at the base /petal interface. I want to check the remington/barnes combos next year to see if the sabots are thinner.
Click to expand...
You can buy harvester crush rib sabots loose & play with the fit they’re cheap
 
I think I've shot about 8 deer with a muzzleloader, plus one hog. Light loads, heavy loads, sabots, lead conicals...all of them had rather lackluster blood trails. The critter was either dead in site or a pain to track, even when hit what I'd consider pretty well.

I think it comes down to slow bullets. I've had similar experiences with shotgun slugs and pistol bullets.
 
Haven't killed a deer with a muzzleoader in years, but the last one did not have a pass through with power belts. 45 cal T/C, 100gr pellet powder and a TC branded sabot w/ polymer tip. Acted like it hit a rib and fragmented.

I've been wanting to build a 45/70 smokeless muzzleloader conversion for years but haven't done it as I rarely muzzleloader hunt anymore.
 
Nosaj said:
I tried the Barnes bullets this year however I could not reload with out a hammer. The barnes sabots were about 0.010" thicker than the Hornadys at the base /petal interface. I want to check the remington/barnes combos next year to see if the sabots are thinner.
Click to expand...
Get the T-EZs
 
I've had the best results as far as blood trails go with Hornady SST Sabots and Slugs for both my Muzzleloader and shot gun. I tried a bunch of different ones before and had similar results to what you described..
 
Hornady sst has given us the best results... Powerbelts sucked for us.They either didn't get enough penetration or they just poked a hole a hole on both sides with no expansion.
 
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