How big is the kill zone? ***Poll added for extra excitment!!***

How big are th evitals of a DEER

  • 6"

    Votes: 13 14.9%

  • 8"

    Votes: 40 46.0%

  • 10" or more

    Votes: 34 39.1%
  • Total voters
    87
I'm just amazed the arrow actually broke the spine. That's impressive. Too bad about the shot, but sounds like you made your best effort and hit what you were shooting for. Sometimes the animals are just a little tougher than we think, and there's only so much you can do with a bow.
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Within(0-40 meters) Archery range its very deadly, 6 inches lower and it would have been over real quick, I made a poor snap shot , in a situation I put myself into , which I should not have. Archery gear is as deadly as any firearm and caliber. Just gotta know how to shoot , and not get rattled as I did on that occasion.:(
 
Every moose I've ever downed had lungs bigger than 8" across. Maybe our moose up here have bigger lungs cuz the air is so clean.

Once on a double lung shot on a caribou, I held the lung up to show a buddy the hole. My 300WM left about a 5" hole clean through the center. Still plenty of lung left around the hole too.
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It might very well be bigger than 8 inches, but a sensible hunter always has room for error. And nicking the edge of the lung is obviously less desirable than shooting nearer to the center, where more damage will occur. Plus - if you think about a moose that isn't perfectly broadside, or is slightly higher or lower, in order to get a DOUBLE lung shot you have less room to play with. the lung profile "visible" so to speak depends on the angle - not ALL moose are going to stand perfectly broadside for you :)

As i said - for calculating max point blank it's probably a pretty good working number.
 
Within(0-40 meters) Archery range its very deadly, 6 inches lower and it would have been over real quick, I made a poor snap shot , in a situation I put myself into , which I should not have. Archery gear is as deadly as any firearm and caliber. Just gotta know how to shoot , and not get rattled as I did on that occasion.
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Sure. I just meant you can't exactly just 'work the bolt' and throw in another round while watching the bear and finish him off quick :) i'm sure some guys are real lightning bolts at 'reloading' a bow for a quick second shot, but it's obviously not going to be as fast as a lever gun or something.
 
Foxer said:
It might very well be bigger than 8 inches, but a sensible hunter always has room for error. And nicking the edge of the lung is obviously less desirable than shooting nearer to the center, where more damage will occur. Plus - if you think about a moose that isn't perfectly broadside, or is slightly higher or lower, in order to get a DOUBLE lung shot you have less room to play with. the lung profile "visible" so to speak depends on the angle - not ALL moose are going to stand perfectly broadside for you :)

As i said - for calculating max point blank it's probably a pretty good working number.
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My room for error is the heart, which is also included in the kill zone. Heart lung area combined is much closer to 12" in my opinion. OK, maybe not a Queen Charolette moose.....
 
Levi Garrett said:
I was amazed and disgusted at the same time , so did not sleep well, and got on him right away in the morning. :(
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A friend of mine is part owner of an archery shop & range, and one day when I was there a guy brought in a vertebra, with the arrowhead still in it, from a Moose he'd recently shot with bow. As I recall, it was a fixed broadhead and had almost penetrated completely through. The range was 30 M's and he said the reason the shot went a little higher than what he would've liked is the Moose stepped into a bit of a hole as he let the shot off. Anyway, it dropped right in it's tracks.
 
Seriously.

2006 Vermont Moose hunter's guide

For those that hate reading, here's a pic from that site:

vitals.jpg


My personal 12" vital zone leaves plenty of room for error.

Even gatehouse could hit that vital zone.;)

With a handgun.:D
 
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They do business , no question. Had a butcher ask me what the heck I used on a deer one time, shattered the large rear hip/leg bone up high , he said all the years at it , he never saw damage like that . Broadhead was a 145 gr Modoc.
Had jumped the deer that was shot by a buddy , he had clipped the front leg with his 308 from a fair ways away , and it was track it down or let the coyotes have at it. So I took the going away shot 18 meters in heavy brush, not Ideal but it sure took 'em down.:)
Thats a big target all right, anyone see the fella on TV last night in a stand off with a bull? using a canoe paddle as a rack of horns to scare the moose off.:cool: like 10 ft from it:eek:
 
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joe-nwt said:
Seriously.

2006 Vermont Moose hunter's guide

For those that hate reading, here's a pic from that site:

vitals.jpg


My personal 12" vital zone leaves plenty of room for error.

Even gatehouse could hit that vital zone.;)

With a handgun.:D
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This diagram and the one in post # 5 seem to fit in fairly well with what I mentioned the instruction were that 'Dear Old Dad' gave me as/post # 9, when I started hunting.:)
 
personnaly, I aim just above the elbow of the front leg. That's smack center of the lung area (rib cage) on any animal.

If you look at most anatomical target pics, you'll also notice the heart is about 1 third up from the chest line.

It's always worked for me.
 
Although I can't find a pic similar to the one for moose, it seems like 8-12" is acceptable for deer.

"An 8-inch paper plate is the standard target for establishing deer hunting shooting accuracy. An 8-inch target is about the same size as the vital area of a deer. "


For animals like white tail deer, the vertical dimension of the vital zone is about 10 inches, from a point on the shoulder of the animal down to the level of its heart. For the larger mule deer, the height of the vital zone might be 11 or 12 inches and about 14 inches for elk.

while for deer sized game the vital zone may measure 10 inches (+/- 5 inches) or more. Fig. 1 shows the vital area of deer sized game.



There was one site I found that claimed 14-16" for deer, but I think that's quite optimistic. Or one heck of a big deer!
 
Levi Garrett said:
I was amazed and disgusted at the same time , so did not sleep well, and got on him right away in the morning. :(
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Here's a site my daughter brought to my attention,
http://www.huntingfootage.com. A video clip you might find interesting, on the 1st page, 3rd row down, 'The King Is Dead'. At first I thought she was pulling my leg and that it was about 'Elvis', ;) but it wasn't. Along the line of what you've said, she was trying to impress upon me just how lethal those 'sharp pointy things' are.:)
 
Levi Garrett said:
Elvis :D , I can't find it, is it on the main page, or by catagory , title is King is dead?
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Sorry, I've got a little shorter route I've been using. Try this;
- on that first web page, scrool down under the heading Category to a small pic titled Moose/Caribou.
(Oh, if you go down to Other/Misc. Clips, 361 Erika's Black Buck, the pic is my Daughter.:) )
- Click on the Moose/Caribou pic
- Then the 3rd row down is the 'King Is Dead'.:)
If that doesn't work, give me a shout and I'll send the shortcut.
 
I shot a big doe this year and aimed just behind the elbow, split the heart in half, through one lung, damaged the other, exited behind the elbow on the opposite side, she went about 60 yards. I would say you would be safe within a 6x6 area immediately behind the front leg, starting 5 or 6 inches up from the belly
 
Levi Garrett said:
Got it, :) , I also checked out the next row down 12 yard shot, that was funny :D Did I get 'em :D LMAO
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I realize that by virtue of the fact the video clip is understandably amateur, what we're seeing may not be the view the shooter had. At least I hope not as 'things' look a little thick for taking the shot.
Actually I haven't got around to checking many of the available clips on that site, and the 12 yard shot was one. I'll have to do that. Next row up I think is one with a handgun, Alaska Boo.
 
I liked when the moose clears the brush and starts a gum boot'en it down the road , he's just a laying the lead to it. :D I would not have taken that last shot, it may have died on the road.
Talking of heavy cover, my hunting buddy shot a whitetail in the alders , and it took off. I caught up with him in the afternoon, and we tracked it together, put it up once, and I was in the lead with my bow , in heavy alder , :rolleyes: Anyhoo, we decided to let it overnight, It snowed, and the only way to see which of the many old tracks everywhere , was the left rear was dragging a pencil line mark in the snow, under the new snow. And to confirm I would dig around till I found a bit of blood, then I knew I was on him.
Well turns out , he shot the nuts off the poor bugger , it was dead on a ridge line. Shows how much a bullet can go off track at close range (was 30 meter shot):rolleyes: :D
 
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There was one site I found that claimed 14-16" for deer, but I think that's quite optimistic. Or one heck of a big deer!
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Or a typo :)

6 inches seems to be recommended most often, but it really depends on how you look at it. Sure - the lungs/heart may be a 6 inch zone - but as mentioned some people consider the shoulder / spine a viable kill zone too. In which case you extend the size of the zone vertically considerably (tho not horizontally.)

Depends a little on the gun too i think. 2 years ago, my dad shot a moose and struck between the shoulder and the spine. The spine was intact, the shoulder was intact. However, he was using a 300 wthby with 200 grain tbbc's at a range of 100 yards +/- . The animal dropped in it's tracks. The damage to the spine from the shockwave of the bullet was considerable, even tho it was not struck. For a full TWO FEET along the spine there was severe bruising and indications the spine had been displaced by the shockwave of the bullet - the wound was NOT immediately fatal but it was instantly crippling. The moose was quickly dispatched with a second shot.

Clearly, the power of the gun is such that even a near miss on the spinal column will produce instant paralysis and severe CNS damage.

Would the results have been the same with a 30-30 using 170 grain bullets? Maybe. there's no doubt the damage to the spinal column would have been less severe. Now i haven't used a 30-30 on moose or even seen one shot with a 30-30, so i don't know, but possibly that shot would be a little more 'risky' with that gun than a 'traditional' bread-basket shot.

So - if we were to assume a 30-30 shooter would be 'playing it safe' by only targeting heart and lungs, he'd have a smaller 'target' than a guy shooting a bigger gun who could afford to consider breaking both shoulders or for whom a 'cns' shot is more practical as a 'sure shot'.

And of course, it depends on the angle as mentioned. the 'kill zones' mentioned assume a near-perfect broadside. The moment the animal begins quartering to or away, things change.

That's where i think some of these 'kill zone' sizes come from - on average on a moose you probably have at least 8 inches to play with, so if you know you can drop it into that size a zone, you're covered for a wide variety of angles/shots/guns, etc. Nicking the top of one lung will still likely result in a dead animal, but it could get a lot farther than if you get the ole' double lung and destroy most of the lung tissue.
 
6" gives you a hell of a lot of room for error. I've held deer hearts in my hand that easily go four inches. Note, that that is the heart alone, does not include, the lungs, the arteries, or, and I note that you guys have forgotten the spine.
Even the heart from a fawn (in November) will go two and a half to three inches.
Moose hearts in general run five to six inches. They make a nice roast!

12" is kill zone for deer as far as I'm concerned, and you could extend that to 15 for moose.
i've not shot enough bear to put an oar in on that one, But I'm thinking, for black bear it's similar to deer, if a tad lower to the ground.
 
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