Shooting Through Brush–What May Happen
Question:
Back in the ’70s, I was working a big game check station back in the hills of Va on opening day. Around mid-day, one nimrod came into the country store where we were sitting around the potbellied coal stove, and asked for a box of .30-.30s and another bottle. He said he had not seen any deer all morning, but he had so many "SOUND SHOTS" that he had run out of ammo. I haven’t hunted during opening day on public lands since that day. If I had to hunt public lands, I wait until after opening day, and most of the "sound" hunters get discouraged and go home, or are too hung over to get drunk in the morning. That experience was one of the most convincing arguments for joining a hunting club that had strict safety rules.
Response:
: Although any sized hunting bullet will be deflected when striking an : obstacle, heavy bullets are more likely to produce a good result than : lighter bullets. I would prefer that you rephrased the wording to that it said that a heavier bullet would be less likely to cause bad results. I don’t think there are many good results when shooting through brush. samg Hewlett Packard/Colorado Springs
Response:
> As a follow up to the discussion on "brush busting" I think I’ll tell the > group about a real-life example of possible consequences of this ill-advised > practice.<snip> > Moral: don’t shoot through brush, and if you have any doubts, pass up the > shot. You never HAVE to take a shot, and it’s your responsibility not to if > there’s any chance you may end up doing something like this. > The ElitistWell said…..here’s another example of "brush busting" tactics
that some coyote hunters use in our area: Surround a section of timber, brushy draws or whatever with hunters and vehicles. Send a vehicle or two into the middle of the section to drive coyotes out of hiding, while perimeter shooters "shoot into the brush". This winter, during one of these outings, someones "brush shot" deflected and went through the passenger side open window of one of their trucks. The bullet struck the passenger in the cheek or ear (can’t recall), injuring the passenger, then passed through the cheek or ear and killed the driver of the truck. So much for brush busting. Mark Nelsen
Response:
I agree. I have never understood why an ethical hunter would shoot through bush. It’s unethical to the sport and dangerous to others. And just plain dumb. If you don’t have a clear shot, wait until you do or pass it by. Jim
Response:
Let me tell you a story of what happens when a fellow shoots through the bush. Last novembers deer hunt my brother-in-law Melvin and his gang departed from the hunt camp to take their respective stands for the evening hunt. Melvin deviated slightly from the group to check out a buck scrape. As he did, a deer bolted in between himself and the rest of the group which were by now approx. 40 yds. away. Melvin yelled out "THERE’S A DEER COMING YOUR WAY" One of the hunters in the party, 15 years old and inexpereinced wheeled around and even though Melvin was still out of sight, opened up with a three shot salvo from his semi-auto 12 gauge shotgun loaded with 3 inch shells and 00 buck. Yes, you guessed it. Melvin fell to the ground having taken only 1 pellet from all the lead flying through the air. He got lucky in that he is still alive today but he did lose 1 kidney and a length of his large intestines. Moral of the story is don’t shoot through the brush. Someone could be standing on the other side. Claude Carp, Ont. Canada 1
Response:
This business of shooting through brush is pretty risky. We hunt deer with drives here in Ontario and the rule is that no one shoots a rifle in the wooded parts ( mostly maple bush with undergrowth and cedar swamps with lots of branches) even if the deer appears to be in the clear because you just unecessarily endanger the other drivers and potentially the standers or wound the deer with a poorly placed shot. Only one or two of our group will use a ..243 and then only on open stands at distances up to 150 yds. Here in Ontario the deer are relatively large bodied animals and the 270,308,30-06, 303 Brit, seem to be much more reliable calibers for this type of hunting and a well hit deer seldom goes more than 20 yds. From personal observation both the 300 Savage and 250 Savage are also pretty reliable at closer ranges.
Response:
= Moral: don’t shoot through brush, and if you have any doubts, pass up the = shot. You never HAVE to take a shot, and it’s your responsibility not to if = there’s any chance you may end up doing something like this. AMEN! — Best, Charlie "Older than dirt" Sorsby "I’m the NRA!"
Response:
>As a follow up to the discussion on "brush busting" I think I’ll tell the >group about a real-life example of possible consequences of this ill-advised >practice. >A few days ago …..(snip)…. >Moral: don’t shoot through brush, and if you have any doubts, pass up the >shot. You never HAVE to take a shot, and it’s your responsibility not to if >there’s any chance you may end up doing something like this. >The Elitist
Mr. Elitist; Thank you for sharing this little tale. Obviously, since we have seen posts from, (serious?), uninformed people who wonder if 12 gauge fletchette rounds would make pefect brush busting loads, there is substantial misunderstanding regarding bullet deflection in brush. The simple truth is, no load or caliber is relatively unaffected by brush. You get away with it, if your target is standing amongst the deflecting brush, usually. If your target is 25 yards or more downrange, usually a clean miss results. And of course keyholing can greatly reduce the bullet performance after a hit, as happened here. There is also the matter of being undergunned for your quarry, which will lead to this sort of disaster whenever things don’t go perfectly during the shot. All in all, a sad situation, that should never have occurred to a knowledgeable hunter. I am sure it will offend some, but i have personally witnessed similar disasters, and consider the .243 a "toy" gun for big game in North America. I have never seen it used on a bear, but many large deer have carried off .243 slugs, some never to be recovered, that i have been witness to. Just last season, a friend lost the biggest buck he had seen in over a decade, after hitting it with a .243. I don’t advocate using larger calibers, and taking risky shots. But it seems the .243 adds alot more risk to any shot on large deer, and the like. If you are going to get maybe 1-3 chances per decade at that dream animal; and those chances last only a few seconds or less; WHY would you want to use a rifle that requires perfect conditions to complete the job? I have no idea. As always IMHO, joe
Response:
I would like to agree with The Elitist’s points in his story of the wounded bear. In addition I would like to add … Although any sized hunting bullet will be deflected when striking an obstacle, heavy bullets are more likely to produce a good result than lighter bullets. This true for bullets that are not deflected and smash into bone. I’m not saying that bigger bullets are brush-busters, just that bigger is better when a bullet encounters resistance, whether before or after it strikes the target. In other words, a key-holed wound from a 170 gr 30-30 is more likely to be deadly than a key-holed wound from an 80 or 100 gr 243 Win. I had a 220 gr bullet from an 8mm Rem Mag deflected by a chance hit on a limb about six feet in front of a bull elk. The bullet hit the elk tipped 90′ on its axis. This was caused by a tiny, whippy limb that I could not even see, and I was surprised that such a heavy bullet could be so severely tipped in such a short distance. Even heavy bullets should not be fired through brush, but heavier bullets will perform better on game than light bullets when deflected by whatever medium (brush, bones, teeth, antlers). The success of the old European 6.5 and 7mm cartridges was due to the use of heavy 160-170 gr bullets. All I’m saying is the old hack, use enough gun, which to me is a minimum of a 140 gr bullet going 2,800 fps or the equivalent energy on a larger bullet going slower. It is not my intention to insult the users of the 243 Win, who probably out number the users of any other hunting cartridge. But as in The Elitist’s story, I, too, have found an unexpanded 243 bullet in a game animal, and although the cause of the failed expansion was shooting too far rather than shooting through brush, I consider it one more argument against hunting big game (even small deer) with that cartridge. That the 243 bullets will work is proven by many hunters every year taking all types of game. I have acquaintances that have taken mule deer over 300 yards away, and killed elk and moose with careful heart shots. But the hunter cannot predict for certain how his bullet will perform and has an obligation to not only shoot carefully, but to shoot a bullet large enough to over come unforeseen circumstance–like hitting the tiny limb that cannot be seen, or hitting heavy bone because the animal moved. Probably the most attractive feature of the 243 Win is its light recoil. I would argue that other lightly recoiling cartridges like the classic 30-30 or 35 Remington are superior brush guns to the 243 Win–not because they are brush busters, they’re not–but because they trade high velocity for more bullet mass. Bullet mass is more useful than velocity in the brush and timber where shot placement requires skill, and the perfect standing broadside shot may never present itself–and the bullet might strike a limb or heavy bone. The Elitist said: >Moral: don’t shoot through brush, and if you have any doubts, pass up the >shot. You never HAVE to take a shot, and it’s your responsibility not to if >there’s any chance you may end up doing something like this.
I would add: Any experienced hunter will agree that even when the shooter is sure of his shot, things don’t always turn out as expected. Shoot a more powerful cartridge and heavier bullet than you think you need. This MIGHT help overcome an unforseen problem from a shot that turns out to be less than perfect. author of CD-ROM "Tim Calvin’s Hunting the West" <http://www.quiknet.com/hunting> is under repair, an on-line recoil calculator is coming soon.
Response:
As a follow up to the discussion on "brush busting" I think I’ll tell the group about a real-life example of possible consequences of this ill-advised practice. A few days ago our local game authorities brought in a black bear they had trapped. The bear had been making a nusiance of himself by raiding beehives. Now, normally a trapped nuisance bear would have been transported far out into the National Forest and released, but this one was obviously in terrible shape: his right front leg was seriously infected and pretty much dead, completely useless; and the bear was using only three legs. He was seriously emaciated, perhaps 75 pounds total, despite being a full-grown adult animal, and the cause of his condition was the bad leg. Had he been healthy he’d have weighed at least twice that much, probably more. The bear was euthanized and a post-mortem performed. The clinician who did the post brought me a bullet and asked what kind it was: I identified it as a 6 mm of some kind, probably fired from a .243 caliber rifle. The bullet was deformed, but it had NOT mushroomed on impact. It was, instead, depressed in the center, as if it had hit something sideways. The bullet had hit the bear in the leg and radiographs showed that it had shattered the bone of the upper arm, and then worked its way down into the foot, where it lodged in one of the footpads. According to the clinician this had happened some time ago: the injury was "several months old" and he speculated that it might have been done during the firearms deer season, which ended in this area in late November. If he’s right (and he probably is, he’s someone whose professional judgement can be trusted) that bear was like that for several months. No wonder he was emaciated! Here’s what I think happened. This was one damned unlucky bear: like most of them that get shot, he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and ran across some deer hunter. It’s fairly common to use .243’s on deer around here, and clearly the hunter took the shot; and likely enough, given the habitat in this area in which you find bears, it was in brush. The bullet was deflected and tumbled, and impacted the bear’s arm while keyholing, accounting for the lack of penetration, the deflection, and the severe damage to the humerus. Unfortunately for the bear, the injury wasn’t great enough to sever any major arteries, and he didn’t bleed to death. Instead, he spent 4 or 5 months in what must have been constant agony, probably because some dip-wit couldn’t resist the shot. We have been talking about the possibility that a bullet fired through brush may miss its target. It’s important to understand, as this case illustrates, that it may HIT its target, and it may do so with greatly diminished power and it may do so in such a way as not to inflict a killing wound. The bear suffered because of the hunter’s lack of judgement. I suspect that even today the hunter is telling people about that shot, and about how "…the bullet was defelected and I missed, and he ran off." Moral: don’t shoot through brush, and if you have any doubts, pass up the shot. You never HAVE to take a shot, and it’s your responsibility not to if there’s any chance you may end up doing something like this. The Elitist
Response:
[SNIP] >We have been talking about the possibility that a bullet fired through brush >may miss its target. It’s important to understand, as this case illustrates, >that it may HIT its target, and it may do so with greatly diminished power and >it may do so in such a way as not to inflict a killing wound. The bear >suffered because of the hunter’s lack of judgement. I suspect that even today >the hunter is telling people about that shot, and about how "…the bullet was >defelected and I missed, and he ran off."
It is always amazing to me that folks are so naive about the impact of seemingly "weak" twigs and branches on the trajectory and speed of their rounds. I am also greatly disturbed at the number of injuries and deaths of humans caused by this insanity as well. Hunter education seems to have greatly reduced the injuries and deaths that occur each year but I just don’t understand how even one of these types of shots is taken. >Moral: don’t shoot through brush, and if you have any doubts, pass up the >shot. You never HAVE to take a shot, and it’s your responsibility not to if >there’s any chance you may end up doing something like this.
Exactly. No quarry is worth the guilt you will have to live with and the needless pain you will have inflicted on others. THINK. Be sure of your target. Be sure your lane is clear. This is the biggest challenge in hunting as far as I’m concerned; making a clean, clear kill. >The Elitist
Christopher Renna
