Head shots

[rudyc]

In my opinion, yeah, I know what it's worth:

If you don't have a decent shot at the heart/lungs, don't take the shot.  You probably won't starve to death if you don't make meat and the chance of a terrible wound on the critter is not worth it. To you or the animal.

rudyc

[bob in the woods]

If already wounded, and the only shot available to follow up is head or neck, which is better ?

[lakehopper]

If he is down and wounded when you approach him I would suggest a quick dispatch, another more direct shot to the boiler room or neck area would end the suffering, in my opinion. I don't have an answer for a running deer, but I would not push a wounded running deer, let him bed and die peacefully even if it means going back the next day to claim your harvest.

Glenn

[Majorjoel]

I have a brother who I consider to be the reincarnation of Nimrod himself! He is the most ultimate game getter I have ever known. A sportsman of all the shooting disciplines. Just this past week after opening day firearms deer season here in Michigan he put down a nice 8 point buck and the next morning he completed his license with a fine 10 pointer. Now he awaits December for a trip to S. Dakota for another white tail hunt. He does this every year as far back as I can remember. A few years back he was hunting the black powder season when he spotted a nice buck laying down across a big field. He took aim and waited for the animal to raise it's head. I saw the deer later, a 54 cal hole between it's eyes clean through to the other side. Nothing he does surprises me.

[t.caster]

Joel, he sounds like my older brother. A crack shot with anything! Incredible eyesight!
I remember him getting two pheasants on one outing back in the early 60s...with the longbow we grew up with. Fishing was the same way. we could stand ise by side on the riverbank or farm pond using the same bait and delivery....he would haul em in, and I wouldn't get a bite!

Glad this post caused a lot of thought on shooting game responsibly!

Tom

[Dphariss]

The most sickening thing I've ever seen hunting was the finding of teeth at the site of a head shot deer. The shot was taken by an excellent shot with lots of experience at more than resonable range. We finally found the deer after the yotes had eaten most of it!!!!!!!
I don't understand the idea that a person will lose meat with  a lung shot. With a lung shot your shooting thru ribs with virtually no meat on them. Very very little lost meat. A neck shot on the other hand may very well destroy a whole roast. I hunt and shoot with a longbow almost all the time and I found it disturbing how many of the members of my archery club had no idea of where kill shots were on the different animals that we hunt in the N.W.   Frank

I agree there is no significant meat loss with a lung shot that does not involve the shoulders
A shot low through the brisket can result in the same result as a failed headshot. Or a shot off front leg. There are less than desirable possibilities with any shot taken at game.
The lung shot high will spine the deer.
But the shot low is not good.
The shot placement choice is entirely situational. The heart/lung is usually the best choice.
If the range is short head shots are OK but with a flint gun they can duck the shot at 40 yards or so if the hunter is "made" by the deer before the shot.
I can't recall making more than 4-5 head/neck shots over the years on unwounded game. Its a great shot if the situation is right.

Dan

[roundball]

Watch a deer when it is in normal behavior...the head moves constantly and in many unpredictable ways. It is easy to mess up a head shot. 

Amen.

AND.....if you have a deer that's already on alert, worst case possibly looking your way, I'm not convinced that some of them don't start a reaction at the hammer falling / pan flash...similar to a deer's reaction to the sound of a bow/arrow release when they can recoil several inches down getting ready to leap away.
But whether they do that or not, their heads are almost in constant motion and the movements are quick snaps, jerks and twitches of course.

Neck shots are a LITTLE more predictable, if you use the location where the neck joins the body, it almost can't move without the chest wall moving...I've only shot one that way...right at dusk and light almost gone a Buck was walking across through thick trees in front of me only 25-30yds away, I whistled and he stopped with his head/neck/brisket sticking out past a big tree...in that case it was a chip shot on a relaxed deer at close range, and he dropped in his tracks.

But other than the rare situation, its heart/lungs for me...and the good news about using large calibers, it almost doesn't matter what angle you need to take to get there...a big .58/.62cal ball will plough right on through

[omark]

2 cousins and i sat around the campfire discussing this subject one hunting season. one cousin swore by head shots. "drops em in their tracks, no waste of meat". next night they were late coming in. when they did, the one that swore by headshots was saying " me and my g** da** head shots. i shot the face off of a nice buck and we couldnt find it, looked for hours". sure felt sorry for him and the buck, but sometimes life just sucks.    mark

[t.caster]

Well, after all this discussion....I, with .62 cal Jaeger in hand,  scored a big DOE with a lung shot on Thanksgiving morning!

Good luck to you all!

[rudyc]

It was a Happy Thanksgiving for you Tom!!

rudyc

[Daryl]

Way to go Tom!

[JB2]

I've been wondering how many 'head-shots' are accidents, present company not included.  About 10 yrs ago I was at a local check-in station when a huge 16 pointer was brought in.  It had been spotted and shot at many times, and was becoming legendary that season.  Should have been 16 points (eastern count) but one tine was gone completely, one tine had a huge chip out of it, and each main beam had a nice round hole in it, each a different caliber.  This deer had been shot at many times, and it seemed like most shots were at the rack.  I've never had a shot at such a big deer, so can't guarantee I wouldn't get a bad case of buck-fever too! 

I'm trying to find out if the rumored 22-pt, taken just 300yds from my house on Friday, has holes in the antlers too.

[Dphariss]

I was guiding a guy once and he gut shot a MD buck with his 7MM mag.
In approaching for a finish the deer ran out about 80 yards or so and stopped broadside. He neck shot it. But thats not where he was holding since he was complaining bitterly about lost meat as we walked to the now dead deer.
Accidental neck shot.

Dan

[Dave K]

The worst wasted meat shots are the ones that run away to die a very probable painful and slow, wasted death. I would rather lose some meat and not lose the animal. Boiler room shots are my choice. YMMV.

[Daryl]

I wasn't going to bring this up, but - I neck shot a deer once, dropping it on the spot with a .45 round ball from my deep groove Bauska. The deer was facing us, Tracy and I as we walked along a trail.

Immediately upon hitting the ground, it started thrashing around to get up. I could see the hole, just off to the left side of centre. I'd missed the spine and there was hardly any blood, just a spot.  I dropped my rifle and attempted to use Tracy's .36, (loaded with a 228gr.maxiball) to head shoot it in order to finish it off.  I rushed up within 20' of the deer and snapped off the shot at it's head, just as it swung it's head to one side. The bullet entered the neck, hit the spine then ran down alongside the spine to stop between the shoulders - about 11" or 12" penetration. It had no effect, except to hasten it's attempts to gain it's feet.  She handed me my rifle wherein I dumped in a 'bunch'/'some'/'enough' powder straight out of the horn into the muzzle, set a ball on top and pushed it down bare with the rod, capped and then finished it off with a side head shot from point blank. As the ball was .009" larger than the bore, there was no chance it would roll out. This whole disaster took about 1 minute, maybe. At least the deer wasn't lost.

For those who think you never need a second shot, I don't believe it. All you need to do is make a poor shot, as I did and a second or third is needed. If it goes bad, it sometimes goes very badly.

Yeah - mistakes were made - I should have reloaded my own rifle and shot the deer in the body, or I should have shot it in the body with Tracy's rifle.  Not wanting to "spoil" the shoulder, is false economy.

Of course, had I shot a bit lower on the chest, not the neck and centred for the lungs, I'd have probably dumped that little buck right there as well and hurt no amount of meat and guaranteed the kill with the first shot.

[hanshi]

I've had to deliver the coup de grace shot on a few deer that were down for the count but still breathing, including one that was neck shot (accidentally).  Once I shot a nice doe in the boiler room and she went down in her footie prints.  She kept throwing her head up and could rise just a bit but her legs weren't working.  I reloaded as quickly as I could but fired at the lungs as usual as I don't do head shots.  When I went up to her the two shots were almost in the same hole and exited only a couple inches apart.

Normally if they are still breathing I go up to them and put a handgun ball into the base of the brain from 6" away.

[jamesthomas]

 I personally will NEVER take a head or neck shot no matter how close how close the the deer is. it's the lung or double lung - heart shot for me. And don't EVEN start any talk talk about the " Texas heart shot " with me.

[t.caster]

 ???Texas heart shot dunno...I'm from the North!

[Collector]

I read someplace (can't remember, exactly) that a deer is capable of moving, shifting, ducking, etc. at a documented 1,500 fps, if they hear something out of the ordinary, like an arrow being released.    What's that comparable to... about 2X the speed of an arrow and nearly the same as a decent RB??  I think they had it on slow-motion photography too.

I've taken my share of bucks, still-hunting and on late afternoon to dusk ground stands, but I count myself fortunate that those bucks finally made a mistake and I was there when they did.

 

[Daryl]

The most sickening thing I've ever seen hunting was the finding of teeth at the site of a head shot deer. The shot was taken by an excellent shot with lots of experience at more than resonable range. We finally found the deer after the yotes had eaten most of it!!!!!!!
I don't understand the idea that a person will lose meat with  a lung shot. With a lung shot your shooting thru ribs with virtually no meat on them. Very very little lost meat. A neck shot on the other hand may very well destroy a whole roast. I hunt and shoot with a longbow almost all the time and I found it disturbing how many of the members of my archery club had no idea of where kill shots were on the different animals that we hunt in the N.W.   Frank

I agree there is no significant meat loss with a lung shot that does not involve the shoulders
A shot low through the brisket can result in the same result as a failed headshot. Or a shot off front leg. There are less than desirable possibilities with any shot taken at game.
The lung shot high will spine the deer.
But the shot low is not good.
The shot placement choice is entirely situational. The heart/lung is usually the best choice.
If the range is short head shots are OK but with a flint gun they can duck the shot at 40 yards or so if the hunter is "made" by the deer before the shot.I can't recall making more than 4-5 head/neck shots over the years on unwounded game. Its a great shot if the situation is right.

Dan

Quite easily, I'd think.

[blunderbuss]

 

I took my .577 Enfield two band rifle hunting once to see the difference between a Mini (shallow base) ball hole and a RB hole 60 gr ffg . I was sitting on the ground and in the early morning and had to lean out of the old truck cab stand I was in (no bottom in the cab) which was some awkward .The buck was quartering toward me and I went for a neck shot .The shot missed the neck instead traveled down the deer and struck it about half way down the spine piercing the back strap. The deer went down like a sack of rocks in high grass.I re loaded and waited a while and began my approach to the deer until I could see an ear, which was still moving. I waited again and started toward the deer now only a few yards away. As I approached  he tried to get up his hind quarters not functioning.At which point I did a neck shot with my pistol.That ended it.
What's interesting is the mini ball went in mid way back hit the spine, the angle being slight
, and deflected back out the same side it had entered.

[Daryl]

Blunderbuss - that was common up here with maxiballs on moose- similar to the one I shot into that buck with the little .36 - in they go, turning, dodging, any-which-way they seem to desire - bounce along the spine then back out to the hide.  You could not trust one to make a clean, straight hole. They always turned and went as the Surgeon General at the Corean War stated, "shirking the bones while coursing throught he soft parts of the body making neat wounds", whereas the "common round ball smashed the bones asunder, making such grevious wounds".  He was talking about the minnies compared to the round ball loads. We found the same to happen with moose and maxi's vs. round balls. The shape and instability (twists too slow) of the bullets is what defeats them.

[blunderbuss]

Sounds like a hard wound to clean,I never tried a minnie again on deer.I was just supprised it went in and came out the same side. It was accurate I could hit a ram silhouette at 500 yards with it,maybe not every time but regularly.The Minnie was slow could almost have the rifle re- loaded before the ball got to the target. We shot out to 800 yards with it I figured I could land one in a company size element.

[Candle Snuffer]

I've never attempted a head shot on deer or antelope.  I go for the lung / heart area myself.  With this said, I have noticed in video's (no matter if they are muzzle loading or modern firearm) these "T.V." junky trophy hunters go for it looks like to me and the reaction of the game they are hunting when hit, - "gut shot's" - as it appears they simply do not want to risk hitting the rack on a trophy buck.  This really irks me to no end.

Years ago (at least 15) I bought a TC Hawken .54 Kit Rifle.  This kit came with a hunting video promoting TC Muzzle Loading Firearms.  In that video I don't believe there was one clean kill shot.  All the deer taken appeard to be,,, yes you guessed it,,, gut shot.  If you've ever seen this video you know what I'm talking about.  My neighbor (who I hunt with) watched his TC video that came with his .54 Hawken kit and said the same exact thing I just relayed above.

I've just always preferred the heart / lung area myself on big game.