A double lung/heart shot is and always will be the standard for a quickly taken animal (of suitable cartridge/bullet).

That said, I face, yet hope few of you do, a bit of a different scenario for what I REALLY NEED a shot on a deer to do.

New here, I'm not new to seeing the results of shots so let me give you all a bit of background on where I come from here.

I've taken 63 (not any kind of attempt at bragging, believe me) whitetail and a couple muleys with archery equipment (mostly traditional), a LOT of black powder ones, 8 of which were with a handgun, and 2 with a shotgun.

On top of that, I have personally butchered over 3000 whitetail taken with anything legal. About half were slug gun/black powder rifle kills, lots of bow kills, and a SWAG of 200-300 of them were handgun kills.

Some of you have seen more, granted but.....I've seen a lot, heard even more of "stories" on recovery jobs, and have partaken in more trailing jobs for others than I EVER want to do again.

I have made a lot of detailed observations on what it takes for a deer sized animal to drop right there OR if you prefer, to get the other DRT accronym, "dead right there" upon bullet impact when considering firearm hunting.

The REASON this has been necessary here is because due to some unscrupulous people (some of which label themselves as "hunters" but I for one will argue that in the ground till I'm IN the ground.)

More than a few landowners WILL NOT let you recover a deer that makes it to their property. Those that lease hunting grounds often hate the fact that someone else is hunting "their" deer on adjacent properties and will also refuse you the opportunity to recover game that jumped the fence into their lease.

Still others, and I am ashamed to say that this group is within our folds, WILL tag (or just take) a deer THEY DID NOT SHOOT if they can get to it before you do.

No discussion needed here on "calling the conservation officer". That road has been run many times. If not able to hunt that land...you cant go in to get the deer without permission EVEN IF it is plainly visible!! If someone has a tagged deer in their possession you will play "H" convincing the CO to even SHOW UP, and if he does it's DAYS later.

Enough of that, but in a nut shell, that is the reason I have found in the last decade I MUCH prefer a hit (when hunting with firearms when there is LOTS of "hunters" around) taking out one if not both shoulders, preferably near the spine for a DRT animal.

With only a few handgun kills myself, my only DRT ones were such hits with a Smith 44 mag (furthest 108 yards). Broadside double lungers with 357 mag, 44 mag and 35 rem gave me 30-80 yard blood trails on PERFECT shots which is acceptable but a slight misjudgment on my part could have turned those into something longer, possibly a lost animal.

What I have seen, both online and in my shop, was that on an UNspooked deer, double lung/heart shots put em down in a hurry. On does/bucks running during the rut, or pushed by other hunters, such was not NORMALLY the case. I kid you not. I saw a buck run 500 yards with a 12 gauge hole through both lungs!!

My take on that is if the adrenaline was flowing and they just kept on going 100 (or more) yards (it does NOT take long a deer to cover a couple hundred yards as you all well know). Depending on direction of their exit.....that simply is not acceptable in my stomping grounds. Pretty hard for you western hunters to comprehend, I know.

I also realize, no offense to anyone, that many of you are recalling DRT double lung hits with your particular gun and load, MY question I make to you is "was the animal already spooked?" My own experiences have shown me, as well as many other's experiences, that shooting one calmly feeding is a whole different ball game from shooting one that has been running a doe up and down the field for 10 minutes, at least when it comes to have fast they will go down without bone structure damage.

Also a result of my above mentioned deer processing, I'VE been a WHOLE LOT more impressed with "big bore" efficiency even on whitetail.

I'm sure this is "way out in left field" for a LOT of you but keep in mind my "normal" bores hunted with were 12 gauge slugs, (.729); 20 gauge slugs (.660) and my .54 cal Renegade (540 grain maxi hunters..not a misprint).

When I first hunted with a handgun in 44mag Contender and Smith 29.....DONT LAUGH, lol, I really hesitated due to such a "small bore and bullet weight". The 35 Rem and the 44mag both "worked" with again, only the 44 shoulder shots, giving me the DRT I wanted with a 240 gr hard cast over a gas check. Thinking back now, I never gave the 35 Rem a fair shake since I always double lunged the deer I shot.

This was in a time where I had my "own" place to hunt with lots of cover and NO HUNTERS. Only a few were shot over 125 yards. That place is now off limits due to "family members wanting to hunt their now".

I am NOW faced with areas to hunt (happily sans other hunters) where a less than 100 yard shot is possible but.....200-250 are pretty common. (Finding places to hunt here without other hunters is ....uhhh....difficult to say the least. Picture 6-8 people in a 30 acre woodlot......not kidding)

While the 7mm hunting stories on LONG range always provided some interest in their abilities to really hang onto energy and trajectory........now that I am looking for my OWN "long range" handgun.......I hesitate.

TRUE, the 7mms, the 6.5s and 30s in handgun cartridges are MORE than capable of LONG range deer kills BUT.... I would like to hear some examples of 200 plus yard, successful SHOULDER hit results with chosen bullet weights, velocities and trajectories as well???

I'm fully aware of the heavier bullet weights more than likely having the desired bone crushing capabilites but then I give thought to how they will perform since much slower, should the shot "stray" back a bit into mostly soft tissue. I simply have NO CLUE how or IF they slower heavy weights in these calibers WILL open up on soft tissue. This also brings up ANOTHER reason I prefer a "shoulder shot". THINGS CAN GO WRONG......I don't care how GREAT you shoot on the range. The shoulder is just simply further from the guts. I've never had a "gut shot" but have butchered WAY more of them than I care to share and have helped track way too many as well. I plan to keep that record going if at all possible.

While we can SAY... "someone needs to learn to shoot better" when we hear of such. That flat doesnt cover (again ONLY in MY opinion) reasons why I shouldn't just "cover all the possibilities" and just flat aim further forward, break down the skeleton in some way AND take out lungs. I consider it "cheap insurance" knowing I am NOT perfect and CAN make mistakes, the deer can move, etc, etc.

Keeping in mind that I've had a "bigger bullet" mindset for my 40 plus years of hunting.....you'll understand where I'm coming from should I just say "phooey on this" and buy a barrel in 358 Winchester and learn to live with the recoil

Bases covered!!

Bullet placement is THE most important aspect of successful hunting. WHERE that preferred placement IS for each of us can vary a bit as you can see.

YEP! Shoulder shots "ruin more meat". Sorry, IMHO that is WAY down the list compared to my own desire to take them out NOW.

I'm about sold (for my own use here) on bigger bore guns, 180-225 grain bullets of high rep around 2400 fps. Not as flat a trajectory for out to 250 or so, but a learnable one.

As always, even if I don't rememeber to say it...no offense...ever is meant by my rambling, to anyone.

Probably gonna go my own path here but ......comments are obviously encouraged and examples of successful "shoulder shots"
would be great!

(HEY ERNIE........does this qualify for "thinking outside of the box"?)

SKR,
I've killed a few whitetail with a handgun and from my experience, a semi-high shoulder shot will ALWAYS put them DRT. This is my prefered shot placement, when presented (broadside). As you stated, sometime the double lung or heart/lung shot will drop'em and sometimes they'll run 100 yards of further. I've killed way more deer with a T/C Contender/Encore than I have with revolver. Every one I've shot with the T/C's have been DRT, regardless of caliber or bullet weight. That being said, all have been under 250 yards. So, If you don't want the deer to run at all, my vote is the high/semi-high shoulder shot.

SKR,

Having put down a fair share of deer over the years, I tend to agree with you. Just started handgun hunting last season. Took my first opening day,see my hunt story, with big bore shoulder shot at close range. Yes you do lose some meat, but not that much. My wife and I do our own butchering so we make up for that in closer deboning. I've never had to track a gun kill more than 50 yards. The older I get the less I like the thought of having to drag a nice deer very far through the woods. DRT is the way to go.

I second Kral's experiences. 90 percent of my deer kills have been w/ single shot pistols. The deer were taken from deer stands and were unalerted. A "high" shoulder shot does seem to put them right down. All of these deer were taken with expanding bullets. I have found from my own experiences that a fast expanding bullet seems to do better on deer size game to put them right down. Now before I get a nasty reply, I'm talking about deer size game. 100-250 pounds. The longest tracking job I had to do on a deer was about 13 years ago. I double lunged a small buck at approx. 45 yards with a Freedom Arms model 555 in 50 AE using a 325 gr. speer gold dot HP. The deer bolted at the shot and ran off through the woods. I tracked him through the woods for approx. 90 yards to find him dead. The bullet made a complete pass through, but failed to expand. The wound didn't bleed very well and tracking wasn't the easiest. Lung shots work well on deer if unalerted , but in my experience a shoulder shot does put them down quicker.
In my experience, deer that are being chased by hounds are the hardest to put down. A spine shot is about the only way to make them drop on the spot, that is unless you want to try for a head shot. In my neck of the woods most folks run deer dogs and after the first week of gun season the deer are quite spooky.

 Originally Posted By: KRal

SKR,
I've killed a few whitetail with a handgun and from my experience, a semi-high shoulder shot will ALWAYS put them DRT. This is my prefered shot placement, when presented (broadside). As you stated, sometime the double lung or heart/lung shot will drop'em and sometimes they'll run 100 yards of further. I've killed way more deer with a T/C Contender/Encore than I have with revolver. Every one I've shot with the T/C's have been DRT, regardless of caliber or bullet weight. That being said, all have been under 250 yards. So, If you don't want the deer to run at all, my vote is the high/semi-high shoulder shot.

+ 1

I too really like the high shoulder shot and not just on deer (as do all of you so far). Break the shoulder(s), and they aren't going anywhere. Yes, you lose some meat, but I would rather lose some meat than lose a deer........ Oddly enough, the two I shot this last season (with my .475) I shot in the neck -- because of the angles presented to me, but normally I will seek a high shoulder shot if possible.

If a deer has to be dropped without taking a step you have to disrupt the central nervous system. A spine or brain shot will do this and that's the only shot that will do this with 100% reliability. For deer sized game I personally believe an expanding bullet is best because from my experiences, it will disrupt the central nervous system on shots that are relatively close to the spine whereas I have seen hard bullets travel right beneath the spine have little to no immediate effect other than the animal running off. Often this high shot with a hard bullet makes animals very difficult to collect. The next best is to break both front shoulders. A deer with 2 broken shoulders can still travel 30-40 yards sometimes if the spine isn't impacted. I can not say that I've noticed a significant difference in the distance traveled between a spooked animal and one that wasn't prior to being shot. I do believe that there are situations where an unspooked deer doesn't know its been shot and will run less far (bow hunting is a good example). I shot a spike one year with a 7mm handgun and a hard bullet through both lungs and he stood there looking around till he fell over. He couldn't see me and I don't think he knew he had been shot. The bullet was a straight pass-through. If I had to drop a deer every time in its tracks I would use a single shot in 30 caliber with a ballistic tip and like others here, shoot a little high on the shoulder.

Good stuff, fellas!

thanks!

High shoulder....I've done this with a .243 rifle to nearly a 1/4 mile w/ 75gr VM's. They are truely DRT!!

This year I squeezed the trigger or witnessed the shot on nine game animals classified as "big game" w/ an average range of over 200+yds using XP-100's (I'm not counting the LONGEST shot into the average). Six were w/ a version of the 7mm WSM (162gr AM's at 2825fps), two with a .300 Savage (handloaded 150gr Rem--no chrony data) and one w/ a .222RMI (50gr VM at 3100fps--turkey). All of the game animals except the 301yd deer were calm. The 301 was aware of our location but assumed it was safe.

The longest recovery was 40yds (190yd shot), second longest was 30yds (180yd shot)...both with the .300 Savage and the bullet was placed tight behind the shoulder but did not actually brake it. The third longest was an antelope doe at 400yds w/ the 7mm...she hopped about fifteen feet and tipped over. Other than that, all the others were DRT using the high shoulder shot.......meaning they were the defintion of BANG-FLOP. Two were deer w/ the 7mm (250 and 301yds), three were antelope (200, 236 and 1,037yds) and the other was a turkey (181yds--between the wings, broke spine).

I really like the high shoulder!!

Went to my files and pulled an article by Jeff Copper from Oct 1987 Guns & Ammo. His friend took the following results from a hunters checkpoint in Kentucky during the 1986 deer season. These are just the recorded handgun & shotgun kills:
1)41mag 210jsp & swc: 4 deer- 100% instant stop- 3 complete penetration- 1" average exit hole.
2)44mag 240jhp: 13 deer- 11 instant stop- 2 adequate- 11 complete
penetration- 1.3" average exit hole.
3)44mag 250swc: 3 deer- 100% instant stop- 3 complete penetration
- .45" average exit hole.
4)12ga slug: 9 deer- 7 instant stop- 1 adequate- 1 failure to stop
- 7 complete penetration- 1" average exit hole.

As Mr. Copper said "its clearly to brief to be conclusive, but nonetheless interesting".

SKR: And if you watch my video, you will witness over a dozen kills on deer and antelope; about 3/4 of them are "high shoulder/spine/neck" shots that drop them like rocks (DRT) and other heart/lung shots that does not DRT but they run a 100 yards or less and then die humanely.

AS ALWAYS: for the conditions (caliber, shot angle, range, animal type, bullet type, etc) make the shot that you feel will kill the animal in the most clean and ethical way within your means and ability.

No arguments here; never have been. Rest easy.