Author Topic: shot placement (Read 1282 times)

rickyp · « **on:** December 12, 2003, 03:06:51 PM »

Where is your favorite place to aim on the deer when hunting with a handgun?
I Tend to prefer to shoot right behind the front leg in the line where the leg meats the deer's body. If I pull the shot I have a good size margin of error. I will pass up most other shots, as for me they offer too a small a target if / when I pull the shot.
(pull the shot = flinch) I dont do it often but it does happen from time to time.

crawfish · « **Reply #1 on:** December 12, 2003, 04:59:23 PM »

Broadside, center line of shoulder low to break the joint between the leg bone and the shoulder blade, use bullets that will do that time after time after...... I purposely shoot to hit bone

44 Man · « **Reply #2 on:** December 14, 2003, 10:20:43 PM »

Amen on breaking bone. I always aimed right behind the shoulder, 1/3 of the way up, to take the heart/lungs. Of course they always run about 75 yards before dropping. Lost one a few years back as I was next to a swamp and the deer managed to get to a pile of brush in deep water with no way to get to it. Only the second deer I have lost in 40 years of hunting but it still made me sick. Now I try to break the shoulder bone with my shot.

Duffy · « **Reply #3 on:** December 14, 2003, 11:13:34 PM »

Generally right behind the shoulder though the heart & lungs. This year I yanked the shot some and it hit a bit low, still sliced the bottom of the heart and the deer just walked about 15 feet and dropped. Two years ago I was slightly above a doe as she was looking at me slightly quartering. Behind the shoulder shot would have went down through the guts so I placed it in front of the shoulder on the neck. It went through severing a large mass of arteries in the neck and came out behind the off shoulder.
She took two jumps and was done.
So far my hunting parters and I have been pretty lucky with the heart lung shots as far as them not going far. I have seen deer running on 3 legs after someone shot one off and just kept shooting but we wont go there.......

jamie · « **Reply #4 on:** December 15, 2003, 07:22:28 AM »

I shoot for the off side shoulder so that the bullett will always cross heart/lungs or where the neck meets the chest or back. I shot one at the base of the neck/between shoulder blades and it look like some one dropped a Volkswagon on him. Facing me with head down eating at about 75 yrds.

willis5 · « **Reply #5 on:** December 15, 2003, 08:54:19 AM »

I aim where I can hit as much of the vitals as possible (two lungs and heart if possiple). if quartering away, that means I aim farther back on the deer; quartering towards, through the near shoulder and exiting out on the other sidefar back on the rib cage. Once in a while I will attempt a BASE of the neck shot at the shoulder.

rimfire · « **Reply #6 on:** December 17, 2003, 03:05:44 PM »

I always shoot halfway up the body [midpoint of bottom of chest to top of back] straight up the leg. 90% of the time I catch shoulder or spine, partly because my guns are sighted to hit high at the distance I shoot most deer.

Last 8 deer have travelled less than 50 yards combined. One went around 35, one around 15 yards. The other 6 dropped right now.

I hate trailing, and I don't worry about bullet performance. Hit structure with any non-explosive bullet and nothing suffers...the deer...or your psyche on a long trail.

LAREDOBOB · « **Reply #7 on:** December 18, 2003, 04:45:18 AM »

Neck shot. They go down in their tracks. Never wounded one. I believe you have to be able to shoot a lot closer than the 5" PIE PLATE that everyone sets as their standard.

willis5 · « **Reply #8 on:** December 18, 2003, 05:55:34 AM »

some bank on an 11" pie plate :eek: when it is stationary. :eek:

HoCoMDHunter · « **Reply #9 on:** December 18, 2003, 04:26:50 PM »

I keep telling myself I'll try a neck or even a head shot if the opportunity presents itself. When the moment of truth comes I always find myself going back to when I did a lot of bowhunting and go for the lungs. I never lost one, but when they run, they always seem to run away from where I have to drag them. I am trying to break that habit and at least go for the front shoulder so that they don't run.
A friend of mine claims that the deer may run around like a chicken if you hit one in the head. I am often tempted to prove him wrong.

Bullseye · « **Reply #10 on:** December 18, 2003, 04:37:33 PM »

Right behind the leg joint to take out the lungs and hopefully heart. I hit one last weekend right in the shoulder joint (by accident) and it still went about 100 yards and on top of that it had a bunch of mangled meat in the front shoulder. I like holes in the ribs, not the shoulder.

WD45 · « **Reply #11 on:** December 19, 2003, 08:20:20 AM »

Handgun or rifle.... always try to break bone if I can. It usually puts em down quicker, although I have seen deer run pretty well on 3 legs before piling up

tipiguy · « **Reply #12 on:** December 19, 2003, 10:05:24 AM »

I tray and stay behind the shoulder or at least above the bone. Hitting the shoulder results in almost no recovery of any meat from either of the front shoulders. There isn't that much meat on a deer to be wasting it.

I just did my first neck shot on Saturday. I was having a scope problem on my 30-30 so I used a .223 with a 40 grain nosler BT. The der stuck its head out and I shot it in the neck. It dropped so fast I thought it completely disappeared... again minimal meat loss...

tipiguy

tripper · « **Reply #13 on:** December 23, 2003, 07:10:21 AM »

I go for the heart and lungs. Where I place the shot depends on the angle of the deer. If I had to worry about swaps as GB does then I would break down the front shoulders.

Pie-bald · « **Reply #14 on:** December 23, 2003, 01:11:53 PM »

I try to always take out the heart!! The neck and head shots mean no tracking but one thing you MUST do with these shots if you want the best table-fare you can get is to stick-em' ASAP. If you don't the meat stays saturated with blood and meat gets a strong taste to it. Thats why when you butcher anything on the farm the instant it hits the dirt someones kniving it asap while the heart is still pumping . A good blood heavy blood trail means that the critter sucumbed to lake of blood and died resulting in the best eating possible.

rimfire · « **Reply #15 on:** August 02, 2004, 05:41:50 PM »

Shot three more last year...

One just behind the shoulder because her leg and above was blocked by an apple tree. She ran 40 yards and dies quick...course she was about 75 pounds of doe.

The other two were shot straight up the front leg just above the halfway point on the body. I aim halfway, but most deer shot close with a gun sighted high at close range I continue to catch the edge of the shoulder blade, bottom of spine, or ribs where they are closer together. Trailing typically not required and quite seriously I lose very little meat.

Of course I am not using hypervelocity rifle rounds.

I hate trailing during gun season. I expect to trail a little with a bow...but I don't want to be stumbling around in the woods looking for deer in the gun season. I might lose one to another hunter and I know they would, of course, run downhill!

Lloyd Smale · « **Reply #16 on:** August 02, 2004, 11:51:33 PM »

with a handgun i try to break bone it puts them down a lot quicker like 44 man said losing one is a heart breaker!!

The deerslayer · « **Reply #17 on:** August 03, 2004, 07:27:54 AM »

I never did yet but here is what I would do. With a hard cast bullet shoulder shot if not the shoulder a back bone shot. I would try my best not to aim for the heart/lung aria with these. Hollow points I would try the heart/lung aria first. If not the back bone. I would try my best not to hit the shoulder with those bullets. And if I had to I would shoot for the head with both.

cbagman · « **Reply #18 on:** August 03, 2004, 05:26:19 PM »

:-D Well I am a confirmed meat hunter. I wait for a broadside shot or a slightly quartering away shot and aim behind the near shoulder about halfway down the body as I am usually at least 20 feet or more up a tree.. It generally catches both lungs and major vessels, and if I get the off shoulder that is ok too.. On the ones taken with .44 mag or .45 colt revolver the bullet exits about a third of the time. I always use a jacketed bullet. On Contender loads of all kinds it generally always exits. You get a run off most times but you can slip and slide down the blood trail, never over 60 yards.. By the way, I don't particularly like to discuss these terminal details as a rule. My thoughts are to be as effective as possible in shot placement so the quarry doesn't suffer long...It is a fact that if you shoot an animal with a drop dead neck, spine or head shot, they don't bleed out at all and the meat is not as tasty as the ones which have bled out well..I've been at this 45 years now and have been noting this to be true on a couple hundred cases. cbagman

rickyp · « **Reply #19 on:** August 04, 2004, 02:56:45 AM »

cbagman,
For tasty meat I normaly soak it is a very large cooler for about 4 days. I always fill it with ice and water and change the water at least twice a day.
I judge the time by the color of the water running out. when it no longer comes out red then it has been soaking long enough. Now doing it this way doesnt get all the blood out but it does get most.