bullet placement

[Bezoar]

with a handgun, what is the best place to put a bullet in a deer?

If i have a 45/41/44 what does one do with:
jacketed hollow point
hardcast lead
Jacketed Soft Point


Do you simply put each type through the ribs and into the heart/lung area rougly 6 inches above the brisket and slightly behind the leg? Or is it fine with the JSP or hard cast lead to simply blow through both shoulders and drop it like a moose?

Im a muzzleloader and shotgun man. A jsp moving with 1000ft pounds at the muzzle has no concern for bone or soft tissue, it just expands. But hollowpoins ike the remington cor lokt slugs in shotguns kinda NEED to only deal with rib at most. Are handgun bullets the same way?

 

[Darkker]

I say ALWAYS hit the lungs and heart. I have killed almost everything on the north American continent, and am not a fan of the "break the shoulder" theory. It is my opinion that if you NEED to break the shoulders, you either have 1) The wrong bullet/gun choice for that animal. OR 2) A stupid facination for wanting to be able to smell that bears breath before you shoot him.
If you have the correct bullet/gun choice for the size of animal, they aren't going to run much past 50-100 yards before bleeding out. This holds true for bears as well. It is a popular story that bears are a self-sealing tire. As far as finding blood, yes. But the simple fact is with no lungs/heart, he isn't going far.

 

[koja48]

The deer that I have harvested with handguns have all been hit behind the front shoulder . . . I see no reason to place a round anywhere else.

 

[kmrcstintn]

a direct shoulder hit should not be deliberate...there is always a chance of the bullet glancing off the bone and richoceting too far forward and only maiming the animal or deflecting rearward and taking out parts of the digestive tract...a hit to the guts will most likely kill the animal, but you cause undue suffering and you also taint the meat, rendering the animal inedible...

a shoulder hit should be classified as an incidental occurrance from pulling the shot slightly off your intended point of impact...sometimes this happens when hunters are excited and activate the trigger finger before they have established good breathing control

with that said, always try to place the shot in the heart/lungs area just behind the shoulder; ideally a broadside shot is the best & slightly quartering to or slightly quartering away are acceptable; if you are having problems with open vital area shots (blocked by cover), DO NOT take the shot...the only exception would be if YOU KNOW that you have the proper skill level and you have a great rest, then you might chance a solid neck shot to fracture the spine or tear open the carotid arteries

I can tell you this...I DO NOT have the skill level and would opt to NOT TAKE such a shot...YMMV

 

[Lambo119]

I bow hunt allot. For this reason I have programmed myself to always shoot for a double lung hit and do it with my guns also. If the heart is hit its a bonus if not just lungs will do. Due to the large target area this is by far the most reliable way of dispatching any game. But don’t misunderstand me it would not be my first choice to stop a charging bear. lol

 

[Kimber1911_06238]

+1 on what Lambo said. I am also a bowhunter and have practiced for a double lung hit. It works well with both arrows and bullets. If you take out both lungs, the animal won't go far. I see no need to destroy both shoulders....lots of meat wasted!!!

 

[glockman19]

I say ALWAYS hit the lungs and heart

+1

The best most humane way to hunt.

 

[MCgunner]

Lungs are the biggest target. That said, I've busted a lot of shoulders with rifles and that always anchors the deer right there. I consider the shoulder PART of the target zone. I've never had a bullet "glance off" any bone in a deer. Of course, I don't hunt with .22s. I cannot imagine my 180 .357s boppin' along at 1450 fps having a problem with a bone in a deer nor my 300 grain .45 Colts at 1200 fps. Of the seven I've collected with handguns (5 with a .30-30 contender) all were lung shot, though, and none went far at all, 25 yards max. The spike I popped with my Contender last year dropped dead so fast I thought he'd vaporized. He'd just dropped immediately in the tall grass. It was a lung shot, but high in the chest about 3" below the spine and I reckon the pressure wave off the bullet paralysed him, my thought on it anyway. The 150 Nosler I hit him with was traveling something under 2000 fps at that range (90 yards).