Not to get off topic, but this is kind of what I meant earlier when I said no two shots are alike and there are a lot of factors that go into it. So, to tell the story that got me to post this...
A few years ago I was hunting from one of my favorite spots with one of my favorite rifles. The rifle was a 7mm Rem Mag, shooting a 140gr Sierra GameKing BTSP. A good buck steps out, but about the same time I see him and get the rifle up, he sees me and stops. He's facing me, dead still except for a little ear movement. He's good, look's like a 140-class or so, certainly not going to let him walk if I can help it. But there's a problem, the only shot I've got is the neck and up, I can't even tell where his shoulders are. I'm thinking 7mm mag, 140gr bullet, maybe 50yds (ended up being 42yds), and a neck shot on something I wanted to hang on the wall. Oh well, he's not walking. Bang, drop.
I get up to the deer a couple minutes later expecting to see a trophy animal that I'll just be doing a skull mount on. Oddly enough, I don't see anything wrong. I lift its head up and just a few trickles of blood run out a small hole centered in the front of its neck. I'm thinking... "What the heck, how did that happen?"
I pretty much perform an autopsy on a kill any time I can and I certainly try to any time something strange happens. Since I've already told a long enough story, here's the explanation, which was pretty straightforward once I discovered it. The bullet entered centered in the neck, hit vertebrae in the neck causing both the vertebrae and the bullet to essentially grenade inside the neck. Again, fast cartridge/bullet, short range, major bone, yada yada. The muscle (which was substantial) and the skin contained all this within the neck without doing any outward damage. Part of the mangled bullet jacket was found about 1/2" under the skin on the back side. Bone and lead fragments were scattered throughout the neck.
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