Those Darn Hornady Bullets!

[Sharps Shooter]

My wife fixed chicken fried venison steak sandwiches for dinner this afternoon. They were absolutely delicious. But she bit down on a piece of bullet jacket about the size of a BB. She didn't break a tooth, but it hurt like heck and made her mad. I told her it must have come from one of those Hornady bullets she uses because the Speer bullets I use hold together and don't shed their jackets. The truth is, I don't know which of us shot that deer, much less have any idea what brand of bullet it was shot with. But after 34 years marriage, I know when and how to slip blame and shirk responsibility.

 

[P95Carry]

Gives new meaning to ''biting the bullet'' - glad no dental damage!!

 

[Lennyjoe]

I know the feeling. But my story was my daughter, turkey breast and shot pellet.

I sliced up some turkey breast from a nice size jake I took the week earlier. Breaded and fried it up for dinner. Served it to the kids and they loved it. Enjoyed it so much my then 12 yr old daughter wanted another piece. So a second helping hit her plate and she was half way thru it when I heard a crunch. Uh oh. Next thing I heard was "daddy, what is this?" "A piece of grizzle honey" and quickly removed it from her hand. It was in fact a #5 copper plated shot pellet that didn't get out of the breast. No sooner did I think I was in the clear when she asked if the turkey meat we were eating was the bird that I brought home last week from the field. Not wanting to lie I said yes. She pushed away from the table and said she didnt want anymore and stomped away mad. The other two kids shrugged their shoulders and kept on eating.

 

[Matt G]

Sharps Shooter, did you butcher it yourself? Most meat processing plants pool meat, and just give you back your percentage of the weight. This is one reason I REALLY dislike paying to have my meat processed. I go to a lot of trouble to keep my meat clean in the field, and cool the meat quickly after field dressing. Why do I want the meat from some guy who gutshot a deer, tossed it into his trunk after finding it two hours later, then take it to the processor's the next morning??

At any rate, it's possible that both your bullets held up, and you were crunching on some Norinco softpoint from someone's SKS'd deer.

 

[KriegHund]

Matt G, that is pretty messed up! You work hard for your meat and probably get someone elses...

You could always use a metal detector on the animal to make sure there are no peices left?

 

[Sharps Shooter]

Naw, we cut up our own deer. Elk are bigger than we want to tackle though, so we take them to a local butcher. He cuts wild meat after store hours - I guess there are some kind of regulations about having wild meat around domestic USDA inspected meat.
Years back, we took a venison to one of those large, meat processing places to have salami and summer sausage made out of it. We didn't know it wouldn't be our deer we got back and we haven't done it since.

 

[Matt G]

There are some butchers out that'll keep your meat separate, but they're in the minority.

I was eating some green chile pork stew this winter when I chomped on a piece of jacket and lead. The piece was about half the size of a BB. Now, here comes the weird part: This was a wild hog sow that I had shot in the neck with a .22 Hornet (NOT ADVISED-- target of opportunity), but the meat for this particular stew had come from the haunch. I had never found any other bits of bullet in the hog. That Winchester 45g bullet really blew pieces a long way!

Actually, what had happened, was my partner and I were walking along and saw the pigs at the end of a lane cut through the mesquite brush, and we entered the brush. From the brush screen, we moved up I shot at what I thought was a shoat (the distance was unknown, and I mis-estimated the range by a factor of 2 or 3X)). I heard a slight squeal, and it ran off into the tall grass, unhurt. I hurried up to the location it had been, and had to climb over a 5-strand barbed wire fence. Well, it used to be a 5-strander! My bullet had struck and broken the top steel barbed wire. I looked over the tall grass across another intersecting fence, and saw my pig had stopped about 80 yards out in a small clearing. I shot her, and she rolled over and did her impression of a pork chop.

Apparently, that first shot, that hit the strand of barbed wire, sent a fragment into her butt, which I ended up chomping down on most of a year later after pulling it out of the freezer. I had no idea any of it had hit her; she was about 20 yards behind the barbed wire fence.