ah sorry fella
Lung, shoulder or head?
- Thread starter sookie_69
- Start date
ah sorry fella
Heart/lung shot behind the shoulder for me. Depending on angle of shot you can often miss the shoulder entirely and only lose a rib or two. Bruising and wasting meat is more likely a result of poor quality bullets and high velocities. Use quality like nosler partition or Barnes x. Speeds around 2400fps for bush brush, and around 2800 for plains so impact velocities are reasonable and limit the "explosive" effect that creates that mess of jelly and blood in the tissue and membranes. Neck shots are my worst. I've seen them fail so often. One shot is like the light switch and the animal is down, the next one, the animal gets a flesh wound if no bone, artery or vain is hit. Especially at rut times when males grow thick necks.
You don't "have" to wait for a broadside shot, but if you don't get overly excited like a 13 year old girl at her first slumber party, those high percentage shots will generally present themselves... of course, you wouldn't know that if you squeeze the second you see hair... but to each their own. Happy trails...
- Location
- In the shadows of the Rockies
In practice at longer ranges I generally aim center mass as shown which allows for some error margin. The bullet might be off a bit - up or down, or left or right due to range estimation error or crosswind - but as long as it hits within the circle shown, that game animal isn't long for this world (using a high speed 40 caliber 
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they you did not hunt enough ....
Bigfoot 870
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Nova Scotia
Hey BUM, I trust that you meant near leg
I think he means the front leg on the far side. Seems to be the most common way to loose meat on a lung shot, don't account for where that other front leg is and catch it otw out the other side after wrecking the lungs. Just happened to me last week in fact...
Its not that you HAVE to wait for a broadside shot, it's the fact that you often lose the least meat that way. With most premium bullets it doesn't matter what angle you shoot a deer, as long as you get to the lungs or heart it's going down, but you run the risk of losing more meat... And as a meat hunter first and foremost, that's not my thing if I can help it...
unstableryan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Beautiful Okanagan Valley
I typically only do it on a stationary 20-40 yard deer. It's come up a few times. Farther than that and there's no way.
Dumbest thing I have ever heard.
As I was taught by my father and am passing on to my kids....In the boiler room (heart / lung shot) is the most humane way to kill them. Intentionally shooting them anywhere else is pure BS and causes unnecessary suffering.
Have always had great success with good shot placement, never saw the real need for a headshot even though the opportunity was there.
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I have found that anything but a head shot is no guarantee of a bang flop. I shot a trophy mule deer from the right side, then it turned and presented the left so I shot again. Both lung shots with a 7mm mag and it went 200yds still.
I shot a cow moose three times and it never moved after the first two even through one was in the lungs, next was in the heart and finally a third in the neck took it down. 7mm mag
Another moose was a neck shot and dropped on the spot, as we were walking up to it, the moose stood back up and charged with its head almost dragging on the ground (broken neck), shot it a second time point blank at 10ft in the head while it was charging or would have run us over, dropped immediately. 30-06
Shoulder shots ruin too much meat to even consider it.
I have shot a number of big game animals in the head (deer and moose) and always the some result, dead on the spot
I shot a cow moose three times and it never moved after the first two even through one was in the lungs, next was in the heart and finally a third in the neck took it down. 7mm mag
Another moose was a neck shot and dropped on the spot, as we were walking up to it, the moose stood back up and charged with its head almost dragging on the ground (broken neck), shot it a second time point blank at 10ft in the head while it was charging or would have run us over, dropped immediately. 30-06
Shoulder shots ruin too much meat to even consider it.
I have shot a number of big game animals in the head (deer and moose) and always the some result, dead on the spot
I used to do the same thing.....BUT learned that you dont get a good bleed. Nothing worse than a whole bunch of blood in your meat.
I try fro double lung with rifle or bow.
Nothing wrong with the high shoulder shot with a big bullet. Sure beats pulling a moose out of a swamp or having a all run to the bottom of a gully.
- Location
- In the shadows of the Rockies
A shoulder shot works great (if the opportunity presents itself) to drop game on the spot. Severs the spinal chord. Anchors it DRT (using a high speed 40 caliber, don't think I would try it with my 223 ).
An example: I dropped my 6x7 Bull Elk with 1 shot broadside through the shoulders at about 150 meters using my Ruger No.1 45-70 with a 300gr X bullet at 2600 fps MV.
DRT.
).An example: I dropped my 6x7 Bull Elk with 1 shot broadside through the shoulders at about 150 meters using my Ruger No.1 45-70 with a 300gr X bullet at 2600 fps MV.
DRT.
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sounds like whoever did what you are suggesting does not know their limitations.
I forgot a deer I shot with my 9.3x62, hit it in the heart, only bits of heart were left along with a few liters of gelatinous mess. It still managed a hundred or so yards before it dropped
- Location
- Saskatoon Saskatchewan
Head shots are no good if you're planning on eating the animal. I've shot a deer and a calf moose in the head and all of the meat was full of blood clots and wasn't very appetizing. If you choose to take head shots which in my opinion is a risky, immature shot to take. You need to bleed it out by slitting its throat asap.
My oposition to a head shot has nothing to do with the meat, it has to do with the high percentage of wounding loss... even when the hunter was "dead sure" of the shot, it takes so very little for things to go badly; the angle of the skull, poor shot placement, adrenaline, peeking/yanking, an unseen branch etc... etc... most of those poor shots would have been irrelevant to the outcome if the target had been "center lungs." Most of the bad outcomes were at the hands of the better shooters... the ones "over"confident in their ability.
^^^^this.
You go for that head/brain shot and IF you pull it off it's lights out instantly and the heart stops and therefore the animal does not get a chance to bleed out properly. Even running up to it and cutting the throat will yield very little blood as it takes time to do that and the heart will not be pumping.
If you don't mind blood shot steaks and roasts and a very messy butchering experience by all means shoot it in the head. I try to aim just behind the shoulder and go through the heart lung area. If you shoot carefully both shoulders can be spared resulting in greater meat yield.
