This deer was shot with a .308 150 grain Nosler partition at 145 yards or so. The picture of the deer is exactly where and how he was standing right before the shot. He was slightly quartering too, head lifted, looking away, giving a good angle for a shot in the right shoulder. The bullet entered midway up the shoulder, slightly behind it, and at current trajectory, should have continued into the body cavity obliterating the lungs and liver. Instead, as soon as it entered it hit ONE rib, took a nearly 90 degree hard right and exited in the brisket almost dead center. I can’t make sense of this anyway I look at it. It’s almost an impossibility. I videoed the hunt and was so confident he would be dead within 50 yards that we went to retrieve him after 15-20 min. We jumped him up within 100 yards and we recovered him today, 41 hours after being shot. We had a dog on him several hours later Sunday night, but for some reason the dog left the track after a close encounter with the deer. Today, after being bedded up almost two days he didn’t put up much of a fight at all. He was not in good shape to be running. I’m very thankful for these guys who maintain and train dogs for these types of recoveries. We wouldn’t have gotten the deer otherwise. He was bedded in some awful nasty stuff that we never would have went into. My son was very thankful he got the deer, and I’m glad I stuck with my instinct this deer was recoverable.

You shouda borried one of little foots cannons

Dang that’s crazy.

Spoiling that young man putting him on deer like that. I have a few shots over the years I would have put a dog on back then if it was as common as today. I know I found one in some thick young pines one time a week later. 300 Weatherby magnum shooting 180 grains at 60 yards. Did a grid search in a 50 -75 yard radius that morning for two hours. Came back a week later found it were I swear I searched twice. Still think it circled and came back later or someone dragged it back there. Way to stay after it until the end and congrats to the young man.

Just a guess
The rib deflection changed the trajectory of the bullet and instead of mushrooming it took on an extreme yaw that caused it to tumble much like a fmj will do and this is what caused the path of the bullet to change so drastically

Weird, glad y’all got him

I’m not criticizing the shot placement, but with a deer quartering, I was told one time to aim for the opposite shoulder. So you shoot that one in front of shoulder facing you and it should exit in off side shoulder

As far as what the bullet did, definitely sounds like it bounced off rib and changed path

Shooting a deer quartering to in front of the shoulder would be a neck shot and way to risky for a kid. Opposite shoulder would miss everything vital except the spine. We were aiming for the highest probability for lungs. Opposite shoulder is for quartering away. This one is slightly quartering to.

I’ve killed more deer than most folks ever will and I’ve not once had a bone deflect a 150+ grain projectile traveling at 2600+ fps. I’ve heard of ppl having it happen, but I’ve never personally seen it. They usually push right right through with great expansion. I guess that’s why I’m so confused. It’s not something I’ve seen in all my years of hunting.

Glad yall found him

A similar situation happened to me once over 30 years ago.

This is the best guesstimation I can think of for this
The only thing that anyone can do besides guess is to chalk it up as one of those weird things that happens occasionally
Ive had two strange things to happen like this
One was on a deer and the other was on a black bear
Both shots were broadside and 50yds +-
On both animals the opposite shoulder looked to be disconnected and the leg flopping
Found very little blood and never found either animal and I did have a dog on the deer later that day but unfortunately the bear was way up in the mountains and I quit after 3 days of searching

Glad you found him. There are a lot of components that go into the manufacturing of a cartridge, could it be mis measured powder, a compromised primer, bad casing, or a bad bullet, I would think the bullet would be the suspect. I don't think any manufacturer could ever QC every cartridge.

I've been belittled on here before for what I'm about to say, but I've had issue after issue with bullet performance out of a 308. Shot one two years ago with a Barnes tssx factory load. Perfect placement, went between two ribs never touching either. Didn't even bruise the rib cage on the other side, nothing, it's just like bullet stopped as soon as it went through skin. I believe there's some kind of issue with modern ammo, and what ever they've done effects a 308 more than other calibers.

Was there a second gunman?

I’ve heard of more issues with ammo the last couple years more than ever, I think with the rising cost of everything ammo manufacturers are just not making as good of a product they once did, just my theory

I had a friend shoot one in the chest quartering in hard. It was almost a full frontal shot. Bullet impacted a little to the left of center. Deer dropped in it's tracks. He drives down to get it and it's gone. They find a little blood but not a lot. Another hunter killed the deer about a week or two weeks later. The first hunter's bullet had deflected and had gone around the deer's rib cage under the skin. The processor found the bullet under the skin by the deer's back hip. Never hit anything vital. Crazy things happen. I don't know what caliber he was shooting.

Again, I wasn’t criticizing your choice of shot placement. And I understand wanting as big a margin of error for a kid. I guess this would be considered a neck shot, but here is where I was talking of aiming. Guess if you pull right, you got problems, but if you pull left, still good to go

Definitely should not have lived as long as it did had the bullet gone on the original path and not busted a hard right turn

Yeah it’s just weird.