Third Category - Failure of the hunter - Bullet Placement.
I personally have not experienced a "failure" of a copper bullet while hunting in the above scenarios, but I have in this one.
Let me explain it via specific hunting situations. Of all the elk I have shot, I have had three that didn't drop after a couple steps. In two of these situations, I didn't recognize that the elk was slightly quartering towards me when I took the shot resulting in only one lung being hit when shot behind the shoulder. An elk can run pretty far with one good or partially damaged lung. Tracking and a follow-up shot were required.
In the third situation, as I rushed to set-up for the shot, I asked the guide for the range which he passed as 350 yards. I missed (or so we thought). The next morning, I shot an elk running a ridgeline the next valley over. When we approached to field dress it, the guide said the elk looked like the one I missed the day before. Then we noticed there was a second wound where a bullet had passed through the sternum. I then asked how he had determined the range the day before. Instead of using his range finder, he had estimated (guessed). Using a map, I determined the range was 450 yards or more. I should have taken another couple of seconds to use my range finder. Correct distance is critical when taking a long-range shot. Thus, in this situation, the bullet did not hit the vitals and the elk ran off. It was pure luck that I shot the same elk the next day on a 500,000-acre ranch.
How many hunters might blame their bullet in situations like these?
In closing, the majority of today's copper bullets are designed and function effectively. I have found monolithic bullets from Barnes, CavityBack, and Hornady reliably expand. They expand quickly and have fully mushroomed by the time they penetrate the near-side ribcage of an elk. They are so consistent in their expansion that their diameter directly correlates to the kinetic energy on impact.
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I personally have not experienced a "failure" of a copper bullet while hunting in the above scenarios, but I have in this one.
Let me explain it via specific hunting situations. Of all the elk I have shot, I have had three that didn't drop after a couple steps. In two of these situations, I didn't recognize that the elk was slightly quartering towards me when I took the shot resulting in only one lung being hit when shot behind the shoulder. An elk can run pretty far with one good or partially damaged lung. Tracking and a follow-up shot were required.
In the third situation, as I rushed to set-up for the shot, I asked the guide for the range which he passed as 350 yards. I missed (or so we thought). The next morning, I shot an elk running a ridgeline the next valley over. When we approached to field dress it, the guide said the elk looked like the one I missed the day before. Then we noticed there was a second wound where a bullet had passed through the sternum. I then asked how he had determined the range the day before. Instead of using his range finder, he had estimated (guessed). Using a map, I determined the range was 450 yards or more. I should have taken another couple of seconds to use my range finder. Correct distance is critical when taking a long-range shot. Thus, in this situation, the bullet did not hit the vitals and the elk ran off. It was pure luck that I shot the same elk the next day on a 500,000-acre ranch.
How many hunters might blame their bullet in situations like these?
In closing, the majority of today's copper bullets are designed and function effectively. I have found monolithic bullets from Barnes, CavityBack, and Hornady reliably expand. They expand quickly and have fully mushroomed by the time they penetrate the near-side ribcage of an elk. They are so consistent in their expansion that their diameter directly correlates to the kinetic energy on impact.
