Odd incident.

[Kreller1]

I have never heard of this before, maybe you folks have an idea what happened. My bro and I were headed up to go elk hunting when we spot Wile E. out in a cut wheat field along with some crows. Some kind of carcass out there they were eating on. Well, we decided that I would get out, walk a ways off the road and sit down and introduce Mr. Coyote to the .270 Winchester Short Magnum with a 130 grain ballistic tip. I guess he was really hungry because he paid no attention to us at all, he was more concerned with keeping the crows off his dinner plate. I level on him and touch it off as he is perfect broadside to me. He drops like a rock and just lays there, with his head up, so I am thinking I shot him in the spine and he is more or less done. I crank another round in to finish him off, and when I go to put the scope on him, he has put the hammer down running full bore. At this point I get a little excited and my aim is not so good and he ends up getting away from me after three more rounds kick up dirt around him. :OUCH: Walk over to where he was when I first "hit" him, and all I could find were some hairs, which I am not sure were his or from the carcass of what he was eating on. The theory we came up with is that my first shot nicked him in the back, which stunned him, sending him to the dirt, but did not draw blood. (That we could find.) When he took off to get out of Dodge, he did not appear to be injured in the slightest. Maybe I gut shot him? But usually they jump and yip when that happens, which he didn't. Any ideas?

[kirsch]

My guess is as well you went over his back. A coyote is almost all fur. They look a lot bigger than they really are once they are skinned out. Low of course is always an option but if you shot him low, there should have been blood scattered everywhere unless you missed him clean low but as you said they usually jump up when the shot is low. The last option and maybe a very likely one is you could have passed through him clean but hit no vitals. A 130 grain bullet may not have even begun to open up on a 30lb coyote. I still would have guessed you would see some blood but if there was no snow on the ground, it may not have been that evident.

My nephew shot a coyote while deer hunting with almost the exact same round you are using and he said he couldn't believe it when he went to pick up the coyote. He said it was a tiny hole going in and a tiny hole going out. The bullet never even began to open up. This means lot of shock but not much devestation on the inside.

[Kreller1]

Hmm, so maybe it passed under the spine but didn't cause serious damage to anything.

[salthunter]

Could have skun the skull