Bang/flop

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bhunts

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SW Ontario
I've killed many deer during the past 20 years and have never lost an animal. I always put the bullet just behind the shoulder into the heart/lungs. The deer seldom make it past 100 yards, which is fine by me.

However, I am curious about all the bang/flops I see on TV hunting shows. There are many instances when big game simply crumples on the spot. A few questions come to mind. Where are these guys hitting the animal to make it drop like that? Through both shoulders? Through the spine? Are they deliberately going for a bang/flop? Or is the bang/flop just a byproduct of magnum calibers?

Enlighten me.
 
I have had bang flops from boiler room shots, IMO it is the energy remaining in the animal that does this most of the time and how the bullet reacts.Not with magnums either.

The other answer is central nervous system shots.That being said I have had bullet fragments hit the spine from a lung shot.

The other thing they aren't showing you is the footage of the misses or the animal running after a shot.
 
If I shoot a deer and it drops to the shot, I think "uk,oh. I hit something I should'nt have!"
I'm a freezer hunter first, and I want to hit the heart/lungs and nothing else. To make a deer drop to the shot you have to hit a
big bone, which causes bruising and secondary projectiles(bone).
I think I've had one or two deer inexplicably drop to the shot, maybe by the shot being close enough to the shoulder or spine.
I find a lot of newer hunters have unrealistic expectations, which may come from having cable!
 
I have had 2 "honest to god" bang / flop / DRT in 20 years. Both muzzleloader. Hunting shows only broadcast the hero's and never the zeros. You will never see Remington Country's greatest wounds compilation
 
You got me before my edit.

The mule deer was both shoulders, and the moose was under the left eye and exited the back of her noggin. Here comes the flaming for high risk shots. LOL.
 
Lets just stay on topic rather than talk about your particular moose hunt.

hakx said:
You got me before my edit.

The mule deer was both shoulders, and the moose was under the left eye and exited the back of her noggin. Here comes the flaming for high risk shots. LOL.
Click to expand...
 
I have only had one ever drop where it stood. I hit a doe just behind the L shoulder at 30 feet. She reared up on her hind legs, fell over on her back, kicked her legs in the air a few times and died. Nosler partion 165 gr. 30-06. Bullet went straight through both lungs. The only thing I can think off to get that reaction was just the high terminal shock from being hit at that close a range. Or she just had very little tolerance to getting shot, can't say I wouldn't have reacted any different if some fella shot me a 30 ft with a 30-06.
Like you have observed usually when hit behind the shoulder they go a little ways then pile up.
 
A lot of hunters go for shoulder shots. Apparently, if you hit both shoulders, they bang flop. Sounds like a heck of a lot of wasted meat to me, but that's the way a lot of guys do it.
 
from damaging the spine or brain, only.

I've had deer with NO harts left at all still run.

I've also seen guys shoot for the front shoulder and have the deer run.
 
Half the deer on shows if you look at slow motion are shot in the shoulders. They don't hunt for meat, also would rather have them filmed where they drop. Neck, head, spine and front shoulders are all bang flops most of the time.
 
bhunts said:
I've killed many deer during the past 20 years and have never lost an animal. I always put the bullet just behind the shoulder into the heart/lungs. The deer seldom make it past 100 yards, which is fine by me..
Click to expand...

I have had bang/flops, but most run a little bit, which is also fine by me....Have taken deer with everything from 22Mag to 444, including some belted magnums...Lost 3 deer in total, one with buckshot two with rifle....

What I have found is there is no real difference in effectiveness of various calibers producing bang/flops...There is a significant difference between bullet types. I find that rapidly expanding cup/core bullets put deer down quicker, and run less often and less distance and when they do run they leave a better blood trail than I have found with the X-type bullets. Two deer I lost with rife was both X-bullets..One the fault of the bullet not expanding(recovered by neighbouring hunter)...The other mine, because I took a shot I wouldn't have usually taken..Took the shot because I was more confident using this bullet...I have since reverted back to taking my normal type shots, no matter what bullet I am using...
 
I too have been hunting for quite a while and have had my share of bang/flop. When I have seen this occur, it is on unwounded, unsuspecting game, or a hit to the central nervous system. If you can manage a lethal heart/lung shot on an animal that is unaware of your prescence your odds of bang/flop go up. Shot placement on my deer is normally behind the shoulder double lung, high heart.

The last one to go flop was quartering away from me at about 75yds head down casually cropping alfalfa from an open field with 40 or so of her freinds. The bullet entered behind the right shoulder, destroyed the spinal column just forward of the shoulders and exited behind her left ear. Easy to see why the flop happened once I opened her up. The head down feeding posture was responsidle for the CNS hit.

I have had clean broadside shots with only a rib hit and both lungs gone reslut in flop 3 times. All were strict broadside on browsing, unaware animals. One was busy licking a branch over his scrape when the lead hit hide. That one was a muzzle loader shooting a 240 gr .44 cal hornady XTP at about 1750fps. He dropped at the shot, went still, with his legs in the air and then relaxed and drooped. I kept expecting him to get up so I stayed put with my reloaded MZ trained on him and waited. He stayed put!


I rolled one like a rabbit one time with a 30/06. He was definitely aware of me and running broadside quartering awayto get some distance between us when I put a bullet into the spine just behind the shoulder. Quick shot in a "holy crap" situation. Big deer coming out of nowhere now running,BOOM, now rolling, totally back end over front end. A finisher in the neck was required.

It goes on and on, but I can say if there is any theme for me it is in the state of arousal or lack of it that will play a part in how far a deer may run when hit. Most often a deer will react like it was struck on the hind end with lightning when the bullet lands. A high bronco kick from the back end sometimes accompanies a heart shot.

The deer that went the farthest for me was a buck I had been persuing for a couple of months throught archery and muzzleloader seasons into rifle season. When I finally got a shot at him in the clear he was well aware of me having come out from behind a bush and spotted me before I noticed him. He was frozen in place broadside at about 100 yards, waiting to see what I was up to back in his bushy hideout. In the dim light of the overcast snowy morning his antlers blended completely with the scrub he stood in front of. At first I was unsure if it was him or not but after a few minutes of standoff, he began to move forward with a halting step and I instantly made out his headgear ahd readied the shot. At my slow movement he again froze and turned his head slightly towards me. At the shot he put his head down and ran for all he was worth. I mean RAN!!! I hit him perfect. Double lung with the top of the heart completely cut off and the major vessels disconnected.

If not for the snow I would have likely never found him. He dove into the rabbit bush and I gave him a couple of minutes then followed up. He went through stuff so thick I was amazed he could ever get through let alone at the terrific pace he was going. I had to crawl under branches so low it defies explanation how he got under but he did. Blood sprayed in a fine mist out both sides of his trail in the fresh snow so I had little difficulty following. What I was unprepared for was how tough the going would be. A rabbit would have been very safe in this thorn twisted hell! After a few dozen yards on this trail he left the trail at a right angle and went through some uncharted bush to where I found him a total of about 140 yards into the thick tangle. With the wound he was packing I was gob smacked to think how far he went and what effort he went through to get somewhere that I could not get to him. If the snow had not been there to show me the truth, I would have had a much harder time recovering that buck, if I ever found him in there.

So, bang flop happens someitmes but never count on it and remember that when a Whitetail knows he is dead, he will sometimes be capable of burying himself in the nearest thicket to an amazing extent before the lights go out. IF you know you hit him, don't give up looking easily!
 
On a broadside if you take out both front shoulders and everything in between with a low shot to the knuckle area of the shoulder it is always bang/flop. My absolute favorite shot on game, bar none, it's better to waste a little front shoulder meat than all of it when you don't find your animal.
The absolute most impressive bang/flop I've ever seen was my elephant.........frontal brain shot!!!!!
 
I have gotten a couple bang flops ,one to the head one to the spine all close shots. l generally take heart lung shots,l can generally see them drop from my treestand.Even seeing them drop l still sit for awile don't want to keep them running.
 
The buck I killed last year, at about 50 yards, took a couple of steps and went down hard - like a face plant in the dirt hard. Perfect broadside shot as it was walking at a good clip, the bullet right through the heart.

The buck I shot this fall, at about 30 yards reared up on his hind legs, did a 180 and came down hard, kicked the ground a few times, took one last breath and was dead. It was also walking by at a good pace, stopped to browse and was at a slight angle, broadside, to my position. The bullet went right through the heart.

Both bullets were 30-30 handloads, Hornady 170 grain round nose interlocks that exited both deer.
 
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