Ideal shot placement for deer

It kinda depends on what I'm hunting with it where.

High impact speeds with faster expansion or smaller calibers a heart lung is fine and tends to be quite efficient at anchoring game.

Slower expansion heavier bullets at lower speeds and or where DRT is more important due to terrain or property boundaries I will move to the shoulder for quick immobility.

IMO its far too easy to loose the entire deer when you start to get to focused on meat loss and if you haven't had a deer run on a heart lung shot then you simply haven't shot enough deer.




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If everything is ideal and the deer is less than 100 yards, I'll shoot it in the neck. I don't eat necks anymore with all the new diseases of the CNS so no meat is wasted from my standpoint. The best thing is no tracking involved.

22-250 right behind the ear

Neck if I get a clean shot, the boiler room is the 2nd fav.

I tend to aim a little lower than halfway up. Maybe 1/4 or 1/3 of the way up? I've seen deer get shot in the upper half of their body and barely bleed, and not die - at least not in any reasonable amount of time. I try to stay away from that area as best I can.

I've taken a couple of neck shots, with DRT results, but I've always been nervous about those. What is it a about a neck shot that makes this happen? Do you have to hit the spine for those results, or are most neck shots good shots? I guess I've mostly avoided them just because I don't know exactly where on the neck to aim.

This illustration shows where I aim for BANG-flop performance.

TR

I like neck shots.

I put my shot an inch or two above the mark on the diagram. Deer took a few steps then dropped. 100 yards with a Federal soft point 150 grain from a .30-06.

If it's inside 200 yards, I like the neck shot. But, depending on circumstance, the cross-body shot into the heart/lung works nicely.

I gotta admit I'd be less picky on a really big bragging buck.

break both front shoulders no tracking

It kinda depends on what I'm hunting with it where.

High impact speeds with faster expansion or smaller calibers a heart lung is fine and tends to be quite efficient at anchoring game.

Slower expansion heavier bullets at lower speeds and or where DRT is more important due to terrain or property boundaries I will move to the shoulder for quick immobility.

IMO its far too easy to loose the entire deer when you start to get to focused on meat loss and if you haven't had a deer run on a heart lung shot then you simply haven't shot enough deer.

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What he said, especially the last paragraph! I need not respond.

I don't eat necks anymore with all the new diseases of the CNS so no meat is wasted from my standpoint.

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What? I bone out the neck meat for chili. I love my chili, but that's probably a Texas thing. Heck, I bone out most of everything except the tenderloins, back straps and a couple of rump roasts for the crock pot. I stuff my own sausage, make chili meat, and do jerky with the rest. My meat grinder does get used.

OTOH, if I waste some shoulder meat to get a clean DRT, so what? I ain't gonna run out of meat, trust me. He won't be the only thing in the freezer during the year, not with all the hogs we have down here and no season or limit on 'em. I kinda like the deer I kill for jerky. Don't do that with pigs....which really do have parasites on occasion and must be cooked thoroughly.

Big bucks get it where the mark is on the diagram. Does get it in the neck.

I always imagine a rounded loaf of bread suspended in their bodies, between their shoulders. Whatever the angle (I don't always get a picture-perfect broadside shot, alas), I aim for that imaginary inner loaf of bread, rather than for any 2-dimensional spot on their hide.

R.W.Dale said:

IMO its far too easy to loose the entire deer when you start to get to focused on meat loss and if you haven't had a deer run on a heart lung shot then you simply haven't shot enough deer.

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That's a fact! Deer shot in the heard/lungs almost always run, some quite a long ways!

I shoot them in the shoulder, or take a frontal center chest shot, it drops them right there, i couldn't care less about looseing a couple pounds of shoulder meat!

Plus, most times, any deer with the one i shot, will stand around letting me make a double, like these two,



Several deer came out, dropped the first one, and the others ran a few yards and stopped, trying to figure out where the shot came from. I then dropped the second one.

They won't stand around if the one shot takes off running!

DM

Aim for the chest?

I find that deer usually don't cooperate in providing the ideal shot-angle.

I like a bullet that is heavy enough to reach the vitals from any angle, and which will make an entry AND EXIT wound from any angle.

This guarantees a quickly dead deer almost without exception.

You want a bullet that will give and entry and exit hole as stated above, no matter the angle.

Kachok said:

Is the double lung shot really that bad?!?! If so I should play the lotto because I am on a really lucky streak, never had a deer make it far at all. Every time I shot square through the shoulders I had half the meat gunshot with my 7mm Rem Mag.

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Is that question aimed at me?

If so, now you know why i don't have to put up with the recoil and muzzle blast of a 7 mag.. I'll add that, i happen to like the 7 Rem. mag., i just don't need it or any big magnum to kill a deer. And yes, long ago i hunted with a 7 mag. quite a bit.

DM

This illustration shows where I aim for BANG-flop performance.

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I don't think I have ever seen a bang-flop from a heart/lung shot. They almost always seem to run a lot further than I think they would.

One downside of a heart shot is that you destroy some good meat. Venison heart is pretty tasty.

Kachok said:

Is the double lung shot really that bad?!?! If so I should play the lotto because I am on a really lucky streak, never had a deer make it far at all. Every time I shot square through the shoulders I had half the meat gunshot with my 7mm Rem Mag.

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I wouldn't say its bad.

Its actually a pretty safe bet for a deer that will expire in a resonable time frame, offers a good margin for error and usually results in a blood trail if not too high and saves much meat. Also doesn't require much bullet to get the job done.

However all this comes at the expense of the deer still being highly mobile for long enough to possibly cover a tremendous amount of ground. I recently shot a does heart to bits with a 125g sierra pro hunter from a 30-06 and she still went 50 yards+ and crashed into the property line fence to expire. Albiet with a massive blood trail.




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I don't think I have ever seen a bang-flop from a heart/lung shot. They almost always seem to run a lot further than I think they would.

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I have, quite a few times. I did it a few years ago with a .30-30 Contender at 90 yards using a Nosler 150 BT. Hit about 3" below the spine, only ribs/lungs. Shot was behind the shoulder. That thing went down so fast into the grass he was standing in, I thought I'd missed. He was dead before he hit the ground. I have thought perhaps a chunk of rib hit the spine or something, but I'm betting not. Path of the bullet was sufficiently close to the spine that I'm betting on pressure wave affects to the spinal cord. Whatever was the cause, it was one of the fastest bang/flops I'd seen in a while, not even a twitch when he went down and nothing, but lungs.

Contrast the one I shot this year, was on the run, adrenalized after being spooked cause he was high steppin' and snortin' and ran right across in front of me and my SKs. I shot his spine twice, base of the head with the exit hole in his left ear, and he was still holding his head up when I finished him in the head with my NAA mini revolver. He was NOT going to go down. Adrenalin affects, I'm thinkin'. Oh, he was going nowhere, his back broke in two places, but he still had his head up. Zombie buck.

I mean, I never cease to be amazed. Break the shoulders, though, and they can't use their front end. Even zombie bucks won't go anywhere.

I would never take a frontal chest shot. A friend of mine was hunting a fence line where we had ran a trail of corn. The deer walked all the way down the fence line eating but would never present herself for a broadside shot, so he got tired of waiting and shot her in the chest. His shot was high and he lost a lot of back strap.

I'm like some others here. I usually just take a shoulder shot so even if they don't die right away from the heart/lung being blown up they won't be able to run on me. I have never had to track a deer, so I will stick with what works. I need to qualify that statement by saying the longest shot I have had to take is 110 yards and most are around 50 yards. With a .270, any well-placed shot on a white tail from distance is going to result in a kill.

I have, quite a few times. I did it a few years ago with a .30-30 Contender at 90 yards using a Nosler 150 BT. Hit about 3" below the spine, only ribs/lungs. Shot was behind the shoulder. That thing went down so fast into the grass he was standing in, I thought I'd missed. He was dead before he hit the ground. I have thought perhaps a chunk of rib hit the spine or something, but I'm betting not. Path of the bullet was sufficiently close to the spine that I'm betting on pressure wave affects to the spinal cord. Whatever was the cause, it was one of the fastest bang/flops I'd seen in a while, not even a twitch when he went down and nothing, but lungs.

This from McGunner.

I shot a rather large 8 pointer on opening day from a rocky perch about 100 - 125 yards from the slow moving, unsuspecting, browsing fellow using my 45-70, loaded with Hornady's (325's?). Hit him right above the left shoulder about an inch from the spine, cracking ribs. It appeared to have exited on the same side below the leg. The heart was intact. Well, this fellow was lifted about a foot or two off the ground and flipped over, lay still and after about 1 minute had a seizure, and was DRT. I waited about 15 minutes before I approached him. From my background, a seizure after trauma is pretty ominous. My post mortem had me thinking that the shockwave must have affected his spinal cord as his heart was intact. I was 4.5 miles in. Took me 6 hours to drag him out.