The Buck Never Moved Again

[Singing Bridge]

Why?? Spine shot with a bow?? A 200 yard or more shot with a high powered rifle?? What was the circumstance??

I've spine shot bucks with a bow and finished them off with another arrow... and I've dropped BEAST bucks at 200 yards with a 7 Mag and a 160 grain Nosler Partition.

What else are we looking at?? What else is out there??

[KRONIIK]

I've shot a lot of them with a .30-06 handloaded with 130 grain Barnes TTSX, 150 gr. Hornady Spire Points and 165 gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips from 20 yards to 300 plus yards, that have run hard and crashed within 50-75 yards with broadside hits in the heart/lung area.
But about one in four have dropped so hard they bounced, with the same shot placement and those same bullets.
You just never know.
I have found that smashing them a bit more forward through the heavy shoulder bones near/at the neck juncture ALWAYS dumps them in their tracks.
But it just wrecks too much meat.

[Singing Bridge]

I've shot a lot of them with a .30-06 handloaded with 130 grain Barnes TTSX, 150 gr. Hornady Spire Points and 165 gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips from 20 yards to 300 plus yards, that have run hard and crashed within 50-75 yards with broadside hits in the heart/lung area.
But about one in four have dropped so hard they bounced, with the same shot placement and those same bullets.
You just never know.
I have found that smashing them a bit more forward through the heavy shoulder bones near/at the neck juncture ALWAYS dumps them in their tracks.
But it just wrecks too much meat.

Great info.

[Singing Bridge]

I’ve dumped quite a few in their tracks with a neck shot from a high powered rifle... a lot of guys are against it.

[matt1336]

I’m all for a neck shot with the rifle. I shoot a 7mm too. The neck is a pain to clean too so I don’t mind blowing the neck up. Lol

[seazofcheeze]

My buddy's girlfriend used my rifle during a mule deer hunt this fall. 26 Nosler, 140gr Berger VLD Hunting Bullet. Quartering away shot at 386yds. Hit behind the shoulder towards the top of the lungs. Never moved.

[KRONIIK]

I’ve dumped quite a few in their tracks with a neck shot from a high powered rifle... a lot of guys are against it.

I think the conventional thinking used to be that if you were using a low-velocity (.30-30-class) cartridge with fairly tough bullets that it was easy to hit below the vertebrae and damage the windpipe or the esophagus leading to a slow death with little chance of recovery.
I'm not sure it's as much of a factor with any more, at least with modern high-velocity expanding centerfire ammo.
Shotgun slugs or muzzleloader stuff probably should still be aimed at the ribcage...

[KRONIIK]

My buddy's girlfriend used my rifle during a mule deer hunt this fall. 26 Nosler, 140gr Berger VLD Hunting Bullet. Quartering away shot at 386yds. Hit behind the shoulder towards the top of the lungs. Never moved.

That is a wicked cartridge for long-range work on medium game, and no mistake about it.

[lyndon57]

I've shot a lot of them with a .30-06 handloaded with 130 grain Barnes TTSX, 150 gr. Hornady Spire Points and 165 gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips from 20 yards to 300 plus yards, that have run hard and crashed within 50-75 yards with broadside hits in the heart/lung area.
But about one in four have dropped so hard they bounced, with the same shot placement and those same bullets.
You just never know.
I have found that smashing them a bit more forward through the heavy shoulder bones near/at the neck juncture ALWAYS dumps them in their tracks.
But it just wrecks too much meat.

Shoulder/neck juncture, have made that shot several times over the decades. I agree ALWAYS dumps them.

1st deer I dropped was when I was 14 yrs old. Quartering away @ 25 yds with the 30-30. Blew the heart. Dropped in the marsh. I knew it had to be down, but I was still to spooked to get down & check.
About 20 minutes earlier ( 1st light ), a hunter about 300yds away spined a buck. At that point I had never heard a death bellow from a deer. It was one of those dead calm mornings that you could hear a mouse
fart @ 100yds. The sun was up high before I got down from my stand to check on my buck.

[Horizontal Hunter]

The Brachial Plexus is the key to dropping them in their tracks with a rifle or shotgun. Deer & Deer Hunting had a great article on it and some good videos as well.

For me the Brachial Plexus is the ideal shot, with a firearm, but I will take the first good shot I get.

Bob

How to Drop a Deer in Its Tracks

In this week’s Whitetail Wisdom blog: Perfect shot placement of a shot is what all hunters should seek. If you want to know how drop a deer in its tracks, you should familiarize yourself with the physiological term brachial plexus. Once you know what this is, you might look at deer and deer hunting (and shot placement) in a completely different fashion.

To drop that deer in its tracks, know that brachial plexus is the scientific name for the network of veins, nerves, tendons and muscles that encompass the shoulder and scapula (or “shoulder blade”). Seasoned deer hunters know that a bullet that’s shot through the scapula damages the brachial plexus, which is part of the central nervous system, and renders the animal almost instantaneously immobile.

That is why the high-shoulder shot has always been a recommended aiming target among gun-hunters. The shoulder blade, at its widest section, is about a 3-inch circle — a large target for a gun-hunter — that offers a wide room for error. Bullets kill deer via trauma. A shot that misses high will hit the spinal column; a shot that misses low will take out the heart; and a rearward shot will take out the lungs.

The Shot That Will Drop a Deer

What about bowhunting? Is the brachial plexus shot an option for compound or crossbow hunters? No. Not intentionally, anyway. I urge all hunters to never purposefully aim for the shoulder blade on a deer while doing any type of bowhunting. The margin of error, in this case, is too high that something could go wrong. Even with high-performance bows and crossbows, deflections can and will happen if the broadhead does not encounter the “soft” (relative term here) portion of the scapula. When I say soft, I mean the thinner outer rim of the scapula. The scapula’s inner construction consists of a very thick bone ridge that will stop almost any broadhead.

Of course, there are always exceptions, as seen in the bowhunting video shown here:


In this case, the bowhunter’s arrow hits the scapula’s outer rim and also severes enough of the nerve bundle within the brachial plexus to drop this deer in its tracks. Congratulations to this hunter on a quick, clean kill. The shot did not go completely as planned, but he certainly go the job done. However, in my opinion, the hunter and his buddy shouldn’t have been celebrating so quickly. But I know how that goes — the mere sight of that deer going down in its tracks is almost relief (“I got him!”). It has happened to me, too.


Read More:
https://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/content/blogs/drop-a-deer-in-its-tracks

[may21581]

It's all about shot placement. However this year when I shot a brute a 45 yards with my 45-70 325 grain ftx round in the lungs he went down fast and very ethical. What amazed me the most is that there was only one entry hole no exit hole and the round had delivered all the energy to its target. I was totally amazed.

[KRONIIK]

It's all about shot placement. However this year when I shot a brute a 45 yards with my 45-70 325 grain ftx round in the lungs he went down fast and very ethical. What amazed me the most is that there was only one entry hole no exit hole and the round had delivered all the energy to its target. I was totally amazed.

That illustrates how drastically bullet choice affects animal phsiology and mortality.
A single 500 grain hardcast bullet from that same rifle probably would have completely penetrated five deer standing in a row side by side, but it also probably wouldn't have dumped any of them in their tracks.
( With broadside lung shots.)

Jack O'Connor wrote way back in the '50s how he had noticed how much more quickly deer died once he switched to 150 grain bullets in his .30-06 compared to the tougher slower 180 grain bullets he had previously used.
Same thing in his revered .270 when shooting 130 grain bullets rather than the heavier bullets in that cartridge as well.
(Keep in mind he was talking deer and other light-medium game. He still preferred heavy bullets for bears and such.)
I have seen the same thing.

[may21581]

It's all about shot placement. However this year when I shot a brute a 45 yards with my 45-70 325 grain ftx round in the lungs he went down fast and very ethical. What amazed me the most is that there was only one entry hole no exit hole and the round had delivered all the energy to its target. I was totally amazed.

That illustrates how drastically bullet choice affects animal phsiology and mortality.
A single 500 grain hardcast bullet from that same rifle probably would have completely penetrated five deer standing in a row side by side, but it also probably wouldn't have dumped any of them in their tracks.
( With broadside lung shots.)

Jack O'Connor wrote way back in the '50s how he had noticed how much more quickly deer died once he switched to 150 grain bullets in his .30-06 compared to the tougher slower 180 grain bullets he had previously used.
Same thing in his revered .270 when shooting 130 grain bullets rather than the heavier bullets in that cartridge as well.
(Keep in mind he was talking deer and other light-medium game. He still preferred heavy bullets for bears and such.)
I have seen the same thing.

Couldn't agree more. Making the proper choice for bullets or broadheads is a wise decision. Not only does it save you greef and heartache from a poor shot but it is our duty as hunters to make the sport as ethical as we can. We owe it to the game we cherish, to others, and ourselves.

[seazofcheeze]

It's all about shot placement. However this year when I shot a brute a 45 yards with my 45-70 325 grain ftx round in the lungs he went down fast and very ethical. What amazed me the most is that there was only one entry hole no exit hole and the round had delivered all the energy to its target. I was totally amazed.

The 325 gr FTX is a great bullet. That's what I reload my 45-70 rounds with as well. Beats the crap out of the 405gr core lokt.

[stash59]

I think another thing to consider is practice and knowing your own limits. I never felt confident I could make a neck shot. And with all of the wounded deer I saw during gun seasons. Alot of them were misplaced attempts at head and neck shots. So plenty of other hunters aren't capable of those either. Not saying you should never take neck shots. You just better know what your doing. My dad killed alot of his deer with neck shots, using a .303 British! So I knew it could be done. Just not for me!