The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - smashed head syndrome (300magitis) Very Graphic

Foxman · December 30, 2005, 05:47 PM

+ with Longpath. the deer can move its head easily in the time it takes to make the shot ,close or far and then it will run like the wind long before you can take a second shot. Then it goes off to die in agony and/ or from starvation. I only ever use it as a cdg on an animal that is still just alive and needs a rapid despatch. I have hunting buddy who is a very good shot and he would say "Ive shot 30 + deer this way and never had a problem", my reply was it can and will happen you make a mess of it. sure enough a couple of trips later, he met me at the agreed place and said I have alost deer can you help look for it, Ive been looking for couple of hours now. I agreed and on the way he told me he had head shot it and it had gone down poleaxed, but a few seconds later it had jumped up and gone hell for leather into thick brush. we looked for nearly three hours and I was along way from where we started out from. I saw a deer in a bit of clear fell about 200yds away looked through the glasses and could see blood all down the head , neck and flank, so I got comfy on a tree stump and heart shot it with my 270. it ran a few yards and rolled over. I fired three quick shots ( inthe air so to speak) and about twenty minutes after my buddy showed up. We walked down to the deer and when we came up to it it had no bottom jaw just a mess of flesh and bone. It had obviously spent the last four hours in terrible agony and had we not found it gone on to die in about five days or so from starvation, maybe longer. No hunter worth his salt can want that and my buddy said as he looked at it, " you were right when you said it would happen one day, it was only fifty yards away and I was sure of it, but it must have lifted its head. Thats the last of head shots for me! " and five years on he hasn't made another.
The other thing which is perhaps less important is that, a head shot doesnt bleed out the carcase properly so the meat is nowhere near as good any way, unless you can hang it in a tree immediately and cut the jugular etc.
there is no meat in the mid chest anyway other than the heart, so you dont lose anything. Its very easy to get carried away with tricky shots and long range, whilst forgetting that we are shooting at a live animal which deserves a humane death and that the meat is used for eating. IMHO

December 30, 2005, 05:47 PM	#12
Foxman Senior Member Join Date: August 13, 2005 Posts: 466	+ with Longpath. the deer can move its head easily in the time it takes to make the shot ,close or far and then it will run like the wind long before you can take a second shot. Then it goes off to die in agony and/ or from starvation. I only ever use it as a cdg on an animal that is still just alive and needs a rapid despatch. I have hunting buddy who is a very good shot and he would say "Ive shot 30 + deer this way and never had a problem", my reply was it can and will happen you make a mess of it. sure enough a couple of trips later, he met me at the agreed place and said I have alost deer can you help look for it, Ive been looking for couple of hours now. I agreed and on the way he told me he had head shot it and it had gone down poleaxed, but a few seconds later it had jumped up and gone hell for leather into thick brush. we looked for nearly three hours and I was along way from where we started out from. I saw a deer in a bit of clear fell about 200yds away looked through the glasses and could see blood all down the head , neck and flank, so I got comfy on a tree stump and heart shot it with my 270. it ran a few yards and rolled over. I fired three quick shots ( inthe air so to speak) and about twenty minutes after my buddy showed up. We walked down to the deer and when we came up to it it had no bottom jaw just a mess of flesh and bone. It had obviously spent the last four hours in terrible agony and had we not found it gone on to die in about five days or so from starvation, maybe longer. No hunter worth his salt can want that and my buddy said as he looked at it, " you were right when you said it would happen one day, it was only fifty yards away and I was sure of it, but it must have lifted its head. Thats the last of head shots for me! " and five years on he hasn't made another. The other thing which is perhaps less important is that, a head shot doesnt bleed out the carcase properly so the meat is nowhere near as good any way, unless you can hang it in a tree immediately and cut the jugular etc. there is no meat in the mid chest anyway other than the heart, so you dont lose anything. Its very easy to get carried away with tricky shots and long range, whilst forgetting that we are shooting at a live animal which deserves a humane death and that the meat is used for eating. IMHO __________________ Better the man suspected of being a fool keep his mouth shut, than to open it and remove all doubt.