[JcashMan]

Hunting light whitetail deer in north GA with my dad a couple years back with an sks. The first shot hit what i thought was a vital area and the animal went down. on approaching the deer however i discovered the round went low and an unfortunate "finishing shot" was called for. the sks was out do to malfunctioning of cheap ammo the only other weapon i carried was a six-shot .38 special caliber taurus revolver with a four inch barrel. It took all six to the head to finish the buck. All shots were to the head and were stopped by the skull. This is not something i enjoyed at all
i had a previous bias toward the .38 special after hearing about FBI and police officers losing thier life because of its lack of power. Ok so if theres any die hard wheelgun fans that can sell me on the .38 special have at it.
i do conceed that the new handguns and ammo selections like +p and +p+
can be much better. But i think that using an older but well made colt or
smith in standard .38 special in defense of your life would be a mistake
whatcha got revolver folks?

thanks for input y'all

[CA357]

That's why the .357 became so successful.

[dunerunner]

You can send the .38 to me!! I'll take good care of it! I need a back-up gun.

[diggsbakes]

The .38 special is great to practice with in my .357s.

As far as the buck experience. Sorry that happened, but you could never expect a .38 to take down a large animal, this also goes for any of the popular handgun cartridges. (9mm, .40, .45 ACP) There's just not enough velocity to penetrate through hide, fat, bone, etc.

The typical .38 special round is usually 158 grains, 800 fps, ~225 ft-lbs of energy. All slightly less than a 9mm (but very close) and less than HALF of the ft-lbs of energy of the .357 with similar bullet.

Would I trust my life to a .38 special? Yes. Many people do with the .380 and it's much weaker.

Now with out coming off like an @ss. Two things here. . . Shooting an animal with an SKS is (borderline) suitable, but only if you are using a proper hunting cartridge and are a good shot with the gun. The SKS is not regarded as a standard hunting rifle, because of it's accuracy (lack of) and the 7.62 X 39 is most closely related to our 30-30, definitely good enough, but not the typical characteristics that come to mind when choosing a hunting cartridge.
Second. . . I wouldn't dream of carrying 9mm in the woods as a side arm for a bear encounter or what you had to deal with. So why would you carry a .38 special?

No offense at all brother, but it kinda sounds like ya'll either weren't fully prepared to take an animal or you just weren't experienced with the firearms you were using and had limited knowledge of their capabilities.

When I go camping. (Bear country around here) I take a .44 mag loaded with Hornady's 255 grain Leverevolution hunting cartridges and a .357 for a backup.

So my friend. . . you can't blame the .38 special for not doing a job it wasn't designed to do. You should have had a more suitable side arm or just shot the poor buck with the SKS again. Either way I'm sorry that happened.

[IGETEVEN]

Well, IMHO sir it sounds like to me you got close enough to the buck, I am thinking shot placement would have helped greatly, like maybe a round to the eye, which leads straight to the brain. A shot to the ear canal would have worked as well.

Size of the bullet does not matter as much, as it does as where you put it.

Personally, I would have had no less than a .357 caliber for a BUG for hunting and a nice, sharp, fixed blade knife, oh...and that would have been another option.

Jack

[Gatekeeper]

I saw my buddy have a 40 S&W deflect off a does skull attempting a coup de grace after it got hit by a car.
Probably a freak occurrence, maybe he shot at too shallow of an angle.
230gr 45acp brought a quick end to her suffering.

[Franciscomv]

Originally Posted by IGETEVEN

Personally, I would have had no less than a .357 caliber for a BUG for hunting and a nice, sharp, fixed blade knife, oh...and that would have been another option.

Jack

If needed, I prefer a knife to finish off a wounded animal (yeah, I know, big surprise).

While I'm a huge fan of the .357, I wouldn't dismiss the .38 special so easily. There are lots of different loads, some are good and some suck for SD. In my country, we're limited to round nose lead bullets in our .38s (for self defense use) and those are quite bad (just read some of the Cirillo horror stories about them), but modern .38 +p ammo with good hollow points is a very decent choice for personal protection.

[canebrake]

Well I do carry a .38 spl during the summer and I have no concerns of it being not enough gun. But then I don't plan on shooting the BG in the skull.

So let me get this straight, your first mistake was entering the woods with questionable ammo. Mistake #2 was shot placement, followed by an inop rifle. Then mistake #4 was reaching for a hunting BUG chambered in .38 spl. Then using this poor choice to end a crippled dear by aiming at the head, firing with no results, but emptied the gun? Does that put you in the woods sans weapon? Oops!

I think your final mistake was to come to us with this complaint.

I'd stay out of the woods until you upgrade your arsenal!

[skullcrusher]

Originally Posted by canebrake

Well I do carry a .38 spl during the summer and I have no concerns of it being not enough gun. But then I don't plan on shooting the BG in the skull.

So let me get this straight, your first mistake was entering the woods with questionable ammo. Mistake #2 was shot placement, followed by an inop rifle. Then mistake #4 was reaching for a hunting BUG chambered in .38 spl. Then using this poor choice to end a crippled dear by aiming at the head, firing with no results, but emptied the gun? Does that put you in the woods sans weapon? Oops!

I think your final mistake was to come to us with this complaint.

I'd stay out of the woods until you upgrade your arsenal!

Very well said, Cane. Not even sure of shooting a buck in the head unless I know (no matter the round) is gonna kill it and not harm the rattlers...

[diggsbakes]

Originally Posted by canebrake

I think your final mistake was to come to us with this complaint.

I'd stay out of the woods until you upgrade your arsenal!

Well, since we're going that route. . . I'd have to agree that just about every decision you made that day was terrible and it sounds like you and your Dad weren't raised around guns like most of us.

If you had an interest in hunting, you should have researched how/where to shoot a deer in a humane manner, practiced your @ss off before hand and taken reliable ammo in powerful weapons.