Is it possible to shoot two deer with one bullet?

DEER STALKING
George Wallace
If you can guarantee that your bullet will travel in a straight line through one, two or more deer, you can certainly help your cull by shooting several animals with one bullet.

But – and it is a very big ‘but’ – in the real world there is no such guarantee.

The late, great John ‘Pondoro’ Taylor several times shot two African Buffalo and once or twice three, with one bullet from his .375.

He also tells the tale of shooting an Eland – an antelope weighing the best part of a ton – across a small clearing and, on going to inspect his kill, finding five more Eland dead in the Bush beyond and another still alive but with its back broken.

Seven at one blow?

The bullet then penetrated completely through a 5in diameter tree and vanished into the wilderness.

But that’s Africa and that was John Taylor – before trying to emulate his feats we need to bear a couple of things in mind.

First, ‘Pondoro’ was not using expanding bullets but 300 grain solids designed for straight penetration; and second, that he was Irish, more than a bit of a scamp, and a story teller of international renown.

I have three of his wonderful books and will buy more when funds permit.

My own experience is much more mundane and very different.

Many years ago I killed a fallow pricket at about 40 yards with a side-on neck shot from a 7×57 and on reaching the carcass found that the 140-grain Nosler Partition bullet had turned 90 degrees off the neck bone and exited beside the anus.

With that in mind, you cannot be sure in achieving a humane kill on a second or third animal, no matter how nearly in line they may seem to be.