It’s a sad story I hear every year from some hunter. “I shot at a nice buck with my muzzleloader this year. I was sure I hit it, but we couldn’t find a blood trail. It was getting dark and I let my buddies talk me into thinking I missed. A few days later I saw a lot of birds landing about 150 yards from my stand. You guessed it, my buck was lying there dead. I was just sick. Usually when I shoot deer with my .300 WSM they don’t get out of my sight. Any idea what went wrong with my muzzleloader buck?”

One huge disservice that television and videos about hunting have done is to create the illusion that big game animals usually do a dramatic “bang-flop” when the gun goes off. That’s not true. Most big game animals will run after being hit. There are exceptions, but the majority will run. Some only make it a few feet, but even vitally hit game can go several hundred yards. This is true with any hunting firearm, but probably even more so with muzzleloaders. With the velocity limitations of muzzleloaders there is not a lot of secondary wound channel caused by hydrostatic shock. The new generation of highly engineered expanding muzzleloader bullets on the market has changed the dynamics of this somewhat, but muzzleloaders are still low velocity hunting firearms and dramatic kills are not the norm.

Too often I see hunters make a half-hearted attempt after the shot to find some blood and then give up, assuming they missed. When hunting with muzzleloaders we often do not witness the deer’s reaction to the bullet impact due to recoil and smoke so we don’t see the deer react. Often the shot is close and we don’t hear the bullet impact. Often too, blood trails are skimpy. It easy to assume we missed.

I am a big fan of the new polymer tipped bullets from Hornady, Knight and Barnes, to name a few. They provide outstanding external and terminal ballistics and bring many advances to muzzleloader hunting. However, their one fault (if you can call it that) compounds this problem. The sharp pointed tip creates a very small entry hole. These bullets tend to pierce the skin and then stretch it over the ogive of the bullet as it enters. This results in a very small entry hole. If the bullet does not exit there might not be much of a blood trail.

Most 50-caliber shooters like the 250-grain bullet because it’s a bit faster and they think it extends their effective shooting range. I’ll take a 300-grain bullet every time as it will exit more often and the actual difference in effective range when hunting with muzzleloaders is so minuscule as to not even show up on the radar.

The second, and perhaps more important point is don’t give up too soon when looking for a deer you shot at. Even mortally wounded deer can run away and they don’t always leave a blood trail. Too many hunters give it a quick once-over and quit. Be persistent, be determined and if you know in your heart you hit that deer don’t let anybody talk you into thinking otherwise. Look until you are physically and emotionally drained and you know without a doubt that you really did miss.