Brush busting calibers myth, busted...

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BudgetBucks1

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Just thought I would post about my experience yesterday shooting a buck in a thick area yesterday. I have always said that no gun would shoot accurately through brush and evidently I was dead wrong. It was windy yesterday and I didn't hear the buck coming in until he was already through my only shooting lane on that side of the hill. I tried to shoot underneath a finger sized limb and clipped the limb off completely. I saw the limb fall to the ground and I knew that I had missed the buck. The buck trotted 40 yards and stopped, started wobbling and fell over. The entry hole in the buck was exactly where I had aimed. I was shooting a .45 caliber muzzleloader with only 90 grains of powder so it was a low velocity round that clipped that limb off. I am sure if I was shooting a .223 or .243 or something like that it would not have clipped that limb and kept a straight path. The limb was 10 yards from me and the buck was 50 yards so the bullet had 40 yards to travel after the impact of the limb. I am not saying that it would work in every time and I am not advising people to try this but I am sold on the idea that a heavy, slow bullet is definitely better for a thick hunting area than a fast moving high powered round like a264 wm or something like that.
 
You're experience is only applicable because you probably hit the limb square. Similar to hitting a bone square. Had the bullet hit on the ogive (curved part) of the bullet, it would have deflected. Heavy, slower moving projectiles are less susceptible to deflection from smaller objects like straw or very small twigs. But thy are still susceptible.

Range also has a lot to do with with the amount of deflection. If the buck is literally next to a small brush pile, I will absolutely fling one of my 45-70's 405gr bullets. But if there is any distance between the two, he either has to take a few more steps, or gets a pass.
 
No myth. Just a function of mass, bullet construction, and stability.

One of the gun rag writers about 20yrs ago (Finn Aagard, irrc) wrote an excellent article where he created a test box using 1/2" hardwood dowels and wet newspaper to creat an "obstruction ", followed by a "target" some distance behind. (Target contained wet newspaper, to catch bullet, and determine bullet performance.)

He came to some logical conclusions, some a bit surprising.
1. Large, heavy slugs (such as .416, 458, 400-500grn) did well as expected. Surprisingly,
2. Heavy for diameter, high sectional density (gyroscopically stable) bullets such as 154-160grn 6.5, and 175grn from 7mmMag did quite well.

Actual performance isn't a lot different than wind bucking abilities of modern match bullets. Also, closer to muzzle, the greater the potential deflection, and likewise, closer to target, the less the deflection.
But, too many variables to recommend shooting through cover.
Lastly, remember, you have a moral and legal obligation to verify your target and what lies beyond.
 
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Again, just sharing my experience and I am not condoning intentionally shooting through brush but the fact is that this bullet did hit a limb close to me, not close to the target, severed it completely, then proceeded through the target at my exact aiming point. I live in the mountains of NC and the woods are dense here. I don't have the luxury of hunting over cropfields. Anyone that hunts areas like I have to hunt is forced to shoot through dense woods or sit at home on the couch. I also hunt mostly public land and you can get a ticket for trimming limbs on public land. I choose to hunt and only have a small amount of time off work in which to do so. I also have limited chances at bucks in those thick woods and am simply not going to let them parade around me through those thick woods and not take a shot because I "might" hit an obstruction on accident. So, if the preachers are off the pulpit, the fact is that if your are forced to hunt in a situation like me you might do yourself a favor and choose a round that is heavy and slow as it is certainly a better choice than the light, fast bullets.
 
Meh, I'll wait until they clear the brush. I hunt a lot with a CVA Wolf now days, 385 grain minie ball over 70 grains of 777 3F. It puts up good numbers and takes no prisoners, but I wouldn't try to shoot through a thicket. For one, I gotta be able to see the deer's antlers and judge if he's got 13" of spread to be legal in this county.

Anyway, glad you got your deer. :D Good job!
 
After a bullet contacts an obstruction you have absolutely no idea what it is going to do. You might get lucky, you might get unlucky, you might never find out what happened beyond a scant blood trail and a lost critter. Obviously you want to try and avoid hitting anything that is between you and your target.

In the photo below notice the right ear out towards the tip. On that ear is the perfect outline of a perfectly sideways bullet. That is the outline of a .474 diameter 500 gr Barnes monolithic solid fired from a .470 NE double gun. SD Of about .320 velocity was about 2100 FPS. The buffalo was previously wounded and was lying in some Jesse brush which is a thin brushy wood, the limbs in this case were maybe 1 to 1/2" in diameter. We came up on him in the thick brush at about 10 to 15 yards where the first shot was fired. The bull was maybe 3 feet behind the bush. Those little vine limbs deflected that .470 NE 500gr solid completely off target got it spinning sideways poked the bull through the ear then burned him up the side of the neck causing one very pissed off cape buffalo to do one very determined charge. Verses what should have been an easily placed bullet between the eyes. When a bullet hits an obstruction and it doesn't matter how small or insignificant it seems to be, it also doesn't matter how big, how much Sd or weight or how slow the bullet is going you simply never know what is going to happen.

8f8aaec6-9c20-45b6-b0a5-2c92230e053e_zpsglcym6dm.jpg
 
H&HHunter, in this case the bullet went straight through the limb severing it completely. The bullet then entered straight, not sideways, and created a perfect entry hole. Again, just stating based on my experience that big/heavy beats light/fast in thick areas without a doubt. No way a .243 would have penetrated that limb and travelled straight entering the deer in a perfect spin(I also hunt with a .243 some). I now wish that I had taken the time to take a picture of the skinned deer and the severed limb to show on the site.
 
BudgetBucks1 said:
H&HHunter, in this case the bullet went straight through the limb severing it completely. The bullet then entered straight, not sideways, and created a perfect entry hole. Again, just stating based on my experience that big/heavy beats light/fast in thick areas without a doubt. No way a .243 would have penetrated that limb and travelled straight entering the deer in a perfect spin(I also hunt with a .243 some). I now wish that I had taken the time to take a picture of the skinned deer and the severed limb to show on the site.
Click to expand...
No argument from me. And I am simply stating that you might get chicken you might get feathers with an obstructed brush shot. You never know.
 
Once upon a time, you could depend on at least one shooting or hunting magazine to do a brush bucking test with box of dowels or real brush every season.
Few were encouraging, I am surprised Finn Aagard would test it and make any favorable reference at all.
 
I started hunting deer half a century ago. Even back then the merits of "busting brush" was a argumentative subject. Lever action 30-30s, .32 specials and 45-70s were at the top of the list for "brush guns". Could be why the 30-30, so notorious for killing deer, was also so notorious for wounding deer. As H&H said, it's the luck of the draw when shooting thru brush, or even the tall grass we have here in the swamps. As a boy of ten, I watched my dad shoot at a broadside standing buck 50 yards away in a clump of tag alders, five times and never touched him. The buck took one step out and dad dropped him with his last round. Dad got both chicken and feathers that day.

Like the OP, I too hunt deer in areas where it is illegal or just plain impossible to remove any possible barrier between you and a deer. My favorite form of deer hunting, still/sneak hunting, means I never really know exactly when and where my shots are going to be over an area of many square miles. If I waited till they completely cleared the brush, for the most part, they'd be out of sight and/or I'd never get a shot or a deer. Impossible many times to even see a twig/branch between you and the animal when looking thru a scope at high power. Comes with the territory. I'd much rather sit in a box over a food plot where every shot was completely clear of brush, but that ain't the hand I've been dealt.
 
I remember shooting a 9" steel plate at 300 yds with a .22 and a buddy of mine asked how much hold over I was using. I told him to aim at a leaf in a tree about 80 yards down range "the one with all of the holes in it" and he hit his next shot.

Nor everything will knock a bullet off course.

Take these two videos for example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6E_c7zkZXc
This one is a pellet gun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEJ6gKNZRfY
 
I have a buddy that explains away (rare) missed shots on hitting unseen obstructions including grass and briar vines. We have never found evidence of one of his shots being deflected, but that is his excuse.

I certainly prefer open shots, but like buck460VXR, I hunt in some places where you either shoot through brush or you never get a shot. If shooting through brush, I prefer that the brush that might be hit be as close to the target as possible. I don't doubt many of my shots get deflected, but I endeavor not to shot shoot through heavy limbs and whatever deflection does occur doesn't have enough distance to cause significant POI change.
 
Sorry, you didn't bust a myth, you got lucky. And the news of these one in a million shots spread and add to the mythology.

I am not saying that it would work in every time
Click to expand...

This is the truth. The most reliable way to shoot through bush is with an accurate rifle that will thread bullets through openings in brush.
 
JMR40

Intentionally shooting between limbs at a rutting buck who is moving at a quick pace through dense woods is tough, if not almost impossible, in a lot of situations. It would be as much or more luck on your part to hit your target as it is talent. Your brain simply doesn't have the time to compute all of that in a situation as I was in yesterday and I seriously doubt that you are any better of a shot than me. I picked the most open area and shot through it and accidentally hit a limb. It all happened in about two seconds from the time I first saw the deer running through. So.....the topic is whether or not speed/weight matters in this type of situation.
 
Used to be in the Dope Bag section of the American Rifleman that every several years a repetition of previous "everybody knows" ideas would be looked at. One I recall from back in the 1940s and 1950s was a test about "brush busting".

Some sort of brushy growth was between the shooter and the target. The distance behind the brush was lengthened as shooting continued.

They tested common hunting cartridges, from such as .222 on up to .45-70. The selections varied through the years.

It was always reported that all bullets' flight paths were disturbed. The amount varied with the distance behind the brush.

So, for all that I'll take luck over skill any day, I go along with H&Hhunter's comments above. You simply never know what will happen.
 
Budget,
You were in the right place, at the right time. Hunting public land, in the rut, that's luck. At least here it is. I'm guessing you think I hunt corn and wheat fields out of a tower blind. I don't. The areas I hunt here are hard to even walk through. We haven had a good wild fire here in 30 years. More saplings, undergrowth, weeds and thorns than you can imagine. Sure, we have a lot of hardwoods also. But have fun with that. The deer aren't there. They are in the "thick nasty". I know very well of the areas you speak.

You started off getting lucky as to where you chose to sit to have a rutting buck come through. Even if it was a pinch point or a fence line. Shooting through brush and hitting the limb the way you did, and still hitting the buck at the POI, luck was entirely on your side. That buck was meant to be yours. Simple as that. And I'm very glad of the outcome for you. Truly.
 
I think you were lucky. Or my son and I were unlucky. We both missed deer, about 45 years apart, due to hitting a sapling between us and the deer with our muzzle loaders. Mine was a 58 cal which I had been shooting for years, winning many matches from 25 to 100 yards, and I didn't even see the 2" dia tree. Steady rest, 55 yards, figured a dead deer. Not. Son, out of our Taj Mahal blind at 60 yards clipped a branch he didn't even see, steady rest, etc. Not a drop of blood from either.
I don't believe in 'brush busters'. I believe in clean hits.
If you shoot through a pile of brush and kill out, good for you. I won't knowingly shoot through obstructions.
Not bashing. Just sharing my experience and prejudice.
 
In my experience, particular like to Rabbit Hunting in heavy brush and willows, is that a shotgun is the best sorta firearm for use in a place where hitting a Bunnie 30 feet away is a challenge for a full power rifle, like My M-39, when I used one.

Little 1/8th+ thick willow wands can and do deflect everything from .22lr to 7.62x54r, and Im of the opinion that its no different , nomatter the stick.
What will be different is the reaction to the action of what it hits, everytime. Sometimes the deflection is not noticable, but sometimes a twig in the path of a .30 at 2900fps can have it miss a bunny head cleanly,at 30 feet..... as can .22lrs..........but a shotgun with #2 is gonna get 'em , everytime :D
 
Well, a heavier object is going to be deflected less than a lighter object if the obstruction hit is the same size and hit in the same way. It applies to Volkswagons and eighteen wheelers , meteorites and planets , and everything else. Whether it amounts to a hill of beans or not with hunting bullets I have no idea. But, it is there.
 
Myth busted!

I made a perfect neck shot on a doe once, problem is I was aiming for the heart lungs and hit a sapling and the bullet deflected into the neck.

This was also with a 50 caliber muzzleloader at only 35 yards or so. Sapling was much closer to the deer than me so the bullet made a pretty abrupt turn.

Had I been an inch or two to the right it could have plowed through the sapling straight and still been on target, but I hit the edge of the sapling deflecting it.
 
I have read quite a bit of conflicting information on brush bucking. Much of it a result of extensive testing. One author found that higher velocity bullets did better. He felt like they did better because the were more stable as a result of the faster spin. I was muzzle loader hunting near my house on the waning hours of daylight. I was using saboted 240 grain 44 bullets. I didn't take a reload with me. A doe came out about 50 yards away I took a steady aim on the point of the shoulder and squeezed off the shot. She dropped and flailed. I climbed down out of the tree to go examine her. The shot was more than a foot off my aim point. She was still alive and suffering. The shot had impacted her upper back, near the spine. I remembered that I had a 22 pistol on my 4 wheeler, so I got it and finished her off.

I was upset with myself for botching the shot and for causing the deer to suffer. I was certain I had let go of a good shot. When I went back to that stand location a few days later, I learned what had happened. A smaller than pinky size branch in a tree just in front of me was hanging by a small piece of bark. The branch was so small and so close and coupled with the fading light, I didn't see it. It moved the large slow bullet well off its intended path. I never have and never will intentionally try to buck brush. It' a bad idea with any caliber.
 
I went prone in a small grassy clearing on a wooded moutainside as some deer approached from a drive.The last one was a buck.I touched off the .243 as he was broadside less than 50 yards away.No reaction.He continued off into the woods and stopped quartering away with a shoulder exposed.I rose to one knee and dropped him at about 60 yards.I found one hit.I can only assume the grass deflected the first shot.
 
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