Sometimes indeed, balls do strange things as Don noted. This is not restricted to round balls, indeed, elongated bullets are also culprits depending on what they hit.
My first moose with the 14 bore rifle was 95 yards distance. I shot through what looked like a sea of willow bush tips - first shot a pure lead ball - into his left side - sounded like "ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddWHOK". "The d's" emulating the ball hittting willows all the way to the moose. At the WHOK, the moose's butt hit the ground, his back legs buckling, holding his head up and shaking his antlers back and forth - looked sick - very sick, but not down! By the time I had the rifle loaded again, (under 10 seconds - I practised with the ctgs.) this time with a WW ball from a paper ctg., but by then, he'd gained his feet and turned his right side to me. BOOMdddddddWHOK- only hit a 1/2 dozen or so willows with that shot & down he went.
The first shot - 165gr. 2F GOEX and 482gr. pure lead round ball hit not where I'd aimed, but 6" further forward, on the leg- about heart height - the ball smashed that leg into small chunks but then stopped in the leg and did not penetrate into the chest cavity - it was mangled.
The second shot, also with 165gr. 2F GOEX, but with a WW ball of 466gr., hit right behind the right front leg where where aimed. The ball hit a rib going in, broke off a 6" piece and that drove across the lower lung lobes, slicing them like a knife and then stuck through the muscle between 2 ribs on the other side, the end poking against the hide there, the other end in the lung tissue.
The ball went straight across the upper 1/2 of the lungs, making a 3" diameter permanent hole through the lungs, above the heart, smashing into the off side shoulder shattering it into little bits - about 6" above the first ball's flight path(which had entered form the other side). Even though that leg was already shattered by the first ball, he was not only standing on that leg and even took a couple steps when turning around to present his other side for the second shot.
Over the years and after reading some of the 50 to 80gr. charge theories, I've wondered 2 things about charges. 1/. what would that moose hunt's results have been with a 3 dram load instead of the 6 drams used, considering the willows and bone encountered. 2/.- I've wondered if the powder charges used on bit game in the tropics, India and Africa, were due to experience, or perhaps inexperience but a lot of theory on what it takes to kill large & sometimes dangerous game.
I know you can kill a moose with a .45 or .50 round ball and 80gr. 2F - I've seen both happen - but I'm quite sure neither of those would have made much of an impression on the moose above, considering the willows and bone involved.
That leg bone is just over 3" in diameter at the point of impact of the first shot - behind about 4" of muscle & only it went another 6 or 8inches before stopping altogether - yet it made that moose VERY sick - shocked to his core. The second one actually smashed more bone, but on the off-side after going through a 1/2" thick rib & across the lungs, than the first one did on the impact side. The first, of course, hit more wood and was of pure lead - and flattened more.
That this moose needed 2 shots is evident from the postmortem inspection. I would have probably lost that wounded moose if I had to wipe the @!*% bore before loading again. Yeah - sometimes you need 2 shots (well, I sure did). When that first ball hit all those willows - I was surprised - I did not even see them in the sights - only the moose.
