At risk of hijacking the thread, would be curious to hear from guys.......when it comes hunting deer, my goal is DRT. No wounded animals, no tracking. I'm in the camp that says that is no accident.

Of those with DRT experience, what caliber, bullet, distance and where did you hit em?

Those that had to follow a blood trail, same thing?

All depends the game you're after. You know that.

DRT???

Drt. Dead right there
High shoulder shot any caliber powerful to go through both shoulders at the given range and bullet tough enough to hold together.
243 will do that safely out to 200 yds with Rem core loks

a lot less about what bullet and more about where

example I shot a buck broadside double lung hit on a little logging road at 50-60 yards with a 12ga so 72cal slug

I got up to where I shot it and there was fur and lung tissue all over the road

it ran through a stand of birch it was spaying blood so bad the east side of every tree on the trail was painted red

then the blood trail after about 30 yards went to almost nothing followed that through some cedars into the hardwoods where we saw freshly disturbed leaves followed the leaves about another hundred yards total track was about 150-170 yards bloodless for more than half

that was what many would consider a perfect shot no meat lost but if it had been thicker might have had a lost deer.

heart and lungs makes them dead , a broken spine makes them stop

went to point of the shoulder the intersection of the spine and the shoulders if shot there I never had one take more than a few steps and that was because they were already moving most just tip over miss high low left right you still shouldn't track very far and if you hit that spot without taking a shoulder you damage very little meat.

this is what I mean by point of shoulder
this is a diagram of the spine
if you want to also see the organs and arteries at the web sight I borrowed the pic from
https://www.the-whitetail-deer.com/Anatomy-of-a-Whitetail-Deer.html

CNS central nervous system is the only sure lights out with anything.

for me this is the most forgiving place to get a CNS hit where if I miss my mark a little there are a lot of arteries and organs near by.

Top of Front Leg... Upper Scapula where it thins out
they Will Drop or "Fold up"

A cup and core works just fine. A pointed CoreLokt is as good as a premium bullet for whitetail deer.

Best bullet for me is winchester silver tip.180gr.
Killed lots of Blk Bear with those.mostly one shot.
Great penetration and hold together well and mushrooms nicely
Got no use for the pointy bullets especially the psps no penetration often fragment on bear-3 or 4 shots to drop bear.

I shoot for structure IE high shoulder. With the foot taken out they don't go anywhere and are done in under a minute after that. Yes, depending on what I use, there is a little more meat loss. But there is no tracking and you don't loose all of the venison in the thicket. Walk to where you shot it and look down ... there it is.

Sierra game kings kill critters as dead as ya can get em

For Elk, Moose, bear, and Buffalo I have taken with my 8mm Rem mag I have used a 200 gn Swift A-Frame and it performed very well.
For deer I replicate the 185 gn Core Lokt factory load for the last 30 years. I have also used the 200 grain Accubond which has performed very well on Caribou.
I really want to work with the Barnes TSX as I really like the controlled expansion, weight retention, and penetration.

Cast lead in the 45/70 either 350 or 405.

Sierra game kings kill critters as dead as ya can get em

Shoot primarily my 30-06 for whitetail's. Have about 6 boxes of 165 gr. Nosler Ballistic tip handloads left. Have an assortment of other bullets that were mentioned above that I will be handloading in the future for the -06, my .308 and .243. Some say the Nosler Ballistic tips can be problematic on big game but I have not had a properly placed bullet ever fail to anchor a deer.

Chris

Accubond now was the winchester silvertip both basically the same

Shooting Remington Core Lokt Tipped 165gr bullets in 2 different Ruger .308’s and they have performed flawlessly from 35-275yds for deer and hogs.
Apparently my son put on a shooting clinic in front of his manger and owner and they went out and purchased 3 Rugers and 10 boxes of that ammo. Seeing how he was shooting my gun and bullets at the time, I get a free box of bullets out of the deal, lol.

For me That red spot is Two inches straight back....SAME HIGHT just in line with the leg Top of scapula Still a Spinal Fold the Deer straight down.

for deer 50 grain blitz 222, for elk 160 game king 7 mag a friend of mine used my rifle and handload for an Oryx broke both front shoulders

that works also I don't sit and wait around for the perfect maybe this is a better diagram when the sight lands in that blue I start squeezing especially close and running.