Bullet Selection for Deer Sized Game for the Savage 10ML-II - By Randy Wakeman
October, 2004, brought us to 10,000 acres of whitetail hunting in coastal Carolina, near Pinetown, North Carolina?an area that Henry Ball lovingly refers to as his ballistic laboratory. With the huge number of deer taken over the last fourteen years, it is easy to understand why.
Some fifty deer were taken by our group and local friends, including harvests from such outstanding hunters and marksmen as Kyle Schearer, Shorty Sizemore, Staton Harddinson, Kevin Moore, and Bill Ball. The Savage 10ML-II was originally designed around the 300 grain Hornady XTP, which has given good field performance in this area for over the last decade. In fact, the longest muzzleloading kill in this area belongs to Shorty Sizemore, bagging his animal at an amazing 327 yards.
The long-proven field performance of the .452 Hornady XTP bullets, coupled with short MMP black sabots shined once again this year, with harvests from three feet to 225 yards. The 250 grainers generally stayed in the animal, retaining weight from approximately 220 to 235 grains, no core separation, and exhibiting excellent expansion. The 300 grain XTP bullets also gave large entrance and huge exit wounds, blowing right through the animals in all cases. The .40 / 50 260 grain PR Bullet Dead Centers showed excellent game-dropping ability, and rarely exited. In fact, the last five of six animals I?ve taken with Dead Centers have not had the bullets exit. Also pure lead, the 325 and 375 grain .45 / 50 Buffalo SSBs (that come automatically with MMP current formulation sabots) have been terrific muzzleloading game getters. The powder used by our group was Accurate Arms 5744, without exception?and of course performed consistently and beautifully. As far as I?m concerned, whatever bullet your 10ML-II prefers of the above is just a great choice for whitetail.
Always looking for something better, the Hornady SST 300 grain bullets were given a good test, and performed dark, dank, and dismally. Where the XTP impacted deer went from zero to thirty-five yards, the 300 grain SST hit animals ran 80, 90, up to 125 yards. Some are now, sadly, buzzard bait. Of the recovered deer, even those with well placed double shoulder shots, the 300 SSTs showed no significant expansion in or out of the animals. One remained inside the animal, and Staton Harddinson, in a blazing display of autopsy excellence, thoroughly covered his animal from the nose to the toes. Only a thin sliver of jacket material was recovered, the rest of the bullet apparently fragmenting beneath recoverable particle size. Not enough field testing was done with the 250 SST?s to pinpoint any trend, but the consensus was clearly that the 300 grain SST projectiles are a very poor choice on these eighty to one hundred ninety pound whitetails.
The pines are so thick in this area, that the notion of ?throw a bullet into a pie plate? on a deer is the recipe for disaster. The high shoulder anchoring shot is the bullet placement of choice, and whacking them into this ashtray-sized area proved to be the ideal shot. With briars too thick to walk through that will tear the vest off your back, thickets full of ticks, chiggers, snakes, and quicksand in some areas?a quick drop is essential. With the lousy performance of the Hornady SSTs, it was only the sterling performance of Kyle?s wonder dog, Trip, who made recovery possible for deer that managed to run into the thick stuff beyond 40 yards or so. Trip is a talented Feist, who loves finding deer. His sole personality flaw is the peculiar delight he takes in ruthlessly removing the naughty bits from every buck he finds.
In the waning minutes of the muzzleloading season, my seventy-six years young father shot a doe at a laser verified 225 yards with 45 grains of Accurate Arms 5744 pushing a 250 grain, .452 Hornady XTP. My father had never so much as shot an inline muzzleloader before this week, though he has been hunting for over sixty-five years. The doe high-tailed about twenty yards into the line of pines, then suddenly slowed to the speed of a tortoise with rigor mortis?dropping dead on the spot. A storybook finale to a terrific week of muzzleloading, with some of the finest gentlemen I?ve ever had the privilege of hunting with.
As a whitetail harvesting tool under these long-range, instant drop muzzleloading conditions, I can?t think of a better combination than a Savage 10ML-II, 5744, and an XTP or Dead Center bullet with an MMP sabot.
