Have you ever found your projectile outside of an animal?

[S13tsilvia]

Weird topic I know but has anyone ever found their projectile after shooting an animal and it passing right through?

I had an experience of this a little while ago, I shot a smallish sambar hind with my 338 and the deer went down. As I was hound hunting the dogs turned up a short while later and I grabbed them and tied one of them to a tree.the deer was resting against and I noticed that my bullet had gone through the deer, through a small tree about 4 inches in diameter and then the freaky part I saw a glimmer on the ground and here was my perfectly mushroomed 250Gr woodleigh sitting at the base of the tree, it must have just had enough energy to fall out after going through the tree.
Something I have never heard of or seen before but thought I would throw out the question of other strange things you have had happen with projectiles

 

[Coyotes-R-Us]

Never on the ground. I have found many just under the hide on the off side

 

[beagle001]

Not from an animal I shot, but one I shot AT. Back when we were shotgun-only, I was shooting these Fiocchi slugs (young and impressionable, these were NOT good deer slugs) and shot at a doe, and gave her two more shots as she was running away. The shots were downhill into a stand of white pine and wouldn’t t you know while tracking her, I found not one, but two of my slugs.

 

[S13tsilvia]

Had they hit trees or were just on the ground from running out of steam

 

[beagle001]

Had they hit trees or were just on the ground from running out of steam

I’m not sure. A bit of both I suppose, but they were just sitting on the ground

 

[Brittany Chukarman]

My only whitetail. Idaho panhandle in 2004. I spotted him crossing a clearcut and he stopped in front of a greyback stump. At the shot he kicked like a bareback horse and took off like a racehorse. When I got down there it took a while to find the stump but there was the bullet hole and blood splatter on it. He was piled up 40 yards away. I wanted to dig the bullet out but still had an uphill back out of a brushy hole and didn't bother.

 

[Kaitum]

Didn't involve an animal I shot at, but I once found a bullet out of dumb blind luck. I was doing stream habitat surveys in the middle of Western SD. On some random stream reach a long way from any residence. While blindly reaching into a muddy stream to pick up substrate for pebble counts, I picked up a .30 cal bullet. Of the millions of pebbles in that stream, I found one made of copper and lead.

 

[beagle001]

Didn't involve an animal I shot at, but I once found a bullet out of dumb blind luck. I was doing stream habitat surveys in the middle of Western SD. On some random stream reach a long way from any residence. While blindly reaching into a muddy stream to pick up substrate for pebble counts, I picked up a .30 cal bullet. Of the millions of pebbles in that stream, I found one maybe of copper and lead.

Crazy!

 

[Muskeez]

Daughter shot a sleeping Mule deer buck last fall. He was curled up like a lab with his chin on the dirt and left side of his head laying against his left front shoulder. We snuck in from the back side and she shoot him through the ribs on near side, bullet comes out front shoulder and we found it lodged in the side of his head. He ran about 10 yards and fell into a creekbed, dead in 5 seconds. Another inch of penetration and he likely wouldn't have even moved. I wish I had a pic of her euro mount that she has in her living room at college, but you can see the cracked skull from the bullet. Here's the pics I do have. the bullet was a .30 cal 165 grn Partition. The lead portion was found just under the skin near the exit hole in shoulder , it was a rolled up ball of lead the size of a piece of BB or so.

 

[F250]

I have recovered dozens of "pass throughs" while investigating wildlife crime scenes.

 

[Gut Shot]

I shot a whitetail with a 12ga slug (Remington copper solid sabot). I wasn't going to shoot, as it had a small rack, but it was limping. I'd heard a couple of shots 15 minutes earlier from the neighbor's place and assumed that they had wounded this deer. He was standing in a creek and, even though I was above him on a hill, I couldn't see his legs over the creek bank. I had to make a quick decision and decided I'd kill him.

He fell over on the spot. When I rolled him over there was a hole in the wet sand underneath him. I scooped up some sand and there was my slug.

On a side note the deer hadn't been shot previously, but his knee was injured. When I skinned him one knee was twice the size of the other.

 

[406LIFE]

...besides my arrrows?

 

[dirtclod Az.]

I have had many of arrow pass thrus,almost as many as my misses!

 

[nhn2a]

This doesn't qualify as completely outside the body but the first deer I ever shot was with a 30-06 180gr CoreLok. I later found my projectile sticking out of the hide partially. I couldnt figure out why with that bullet I didnt have an exit wound but the deer locked up and fell over exactly where it stood. There was an entry would right behind its left shoulder which seemed like a perfect shot. While field dressing it, we followed the path and the bullet passed through both lungs, hit the far shoulder, ricocheted off the shoulder bone and traveled the full length of its body and stuck in the hide coming out of a hind quarter. I still have the bullet sitting in the house somewhere.

 

[dirtclod Az.]

nhn2a-I'd fall down exactly where you shot me to if a bullet went thru my body like that!

 

[JDH]

Off topic but one time I found a previously fired FMJ bullet about 9MM size laying on my covered front porch. A few days earlier some kids at been shooting around a pond across the road from me so I assume it was a ricochet from them shooting at the water.