smashed head syndrome (300magitis) Very Graphic

[armedtotheteeth]

Doe0001_3.JPG

Doe0004_3.JPGmay be the attached photos worked. probably not. doe, and a buck . ouchie!!

[FrontSight]

Um, wow.

[armedtotheteeth]

126_2654_1.JPGThank you Armalite, for blessing me with this stick with great killing power.

[Art Eatman]

Sure doesn't waste a lot of meat...

Thing is, some folks like brains and eggs for breakfast.

Art

[molonlabe]

I came from Wisconsin and CWD was all over the Madison area. I hunted Marquette County. We avoided the brains like the plague.

[Lycanthrope]

How far did they run?

[dmon]

seems like an effective shot and will make for an interesting mount

[Ac1d0v3r1d3]

bless you for being such an humane hunter

[mfree]

How far did it run? Probably did the little "last fire" leap and fell right there. I betcha it's last footprints are in the pictures.

[Long Path]

First, congratulations on a successfull harvest! Meat on the ground is meat in your freezer!

But.

bless you for being such an humane hunter

I've said it before and I'll say it again: As a rule, I don't like head shots.

Yes, the rusults of a hit are spectacular. But.

That head moves up and down at the end of the neck like the head of a snake. Deer have some of their strongest muscles in their neck, to whip their head up from what they're browsing on, or to look around. Even if you're silent as a crypt, there may be some sound that the deer perceived, which makes him quickly move his head. If you're 100 yards away shooting a round that averages 3000 ft/sec, then it's going to take 1/10 of a second for that bullet to reach the deer, from muzzle to strike. Add in the reaction time of the hunter and you more than double that. Add in the locktime of the rifle (the least of the problems, but there nonetheless), and you've got plenty of time for a deer to whip its head a good foot or two before the shot. Such a distance isn't the problem-- 6 inches is. That's all it takes to knock the jaw off the deer, or put a bullet through the esophagous, or to just put a crease through the cranium. Such shots allow the deer to run off, to suffer a long, horrible death.

Have I shot a deer in the head? Yep. I was making a followup shot on a doe that had been shot at multiple times before, and the headshot on the retreating deer running through the dense scrub was a last-ditch method of retrieving the deer with the only shot I could see. But it wasn't my first choice.

If you want an instant "lights out" shot target, may I suggest the high shoulder shot? It almost always imparts shock to the spine by raking the underside of the spinal process if it's dead on or left or right. If it's high, it hits the middle or top of the spine. If it's low, it takes the lungs. If it's VERY low, it takes the heart. If it's forward, it takes the shoulders. Generally, the deer will drop in its tracks because of the raked spine.

I bring this up only to raise the consciousness of the other hunters here. I have many times heard hunters say that they take head shots because they want to be certain that the animal does not suffer. I believe that the highest percentage shot to guarantee that the animal doesn't suffer is to the body, and not the head.

[Lycanthrope]

Close head shots are no more difficult than a deeper body shot. It's not the type of shot, the type of gun or whether you prefer toilet paper under or over the roll......

It's knowing for certain you can make the shot pending any strange unforeseeable factors. That's the heart of good ethics.

[Foxman]

+ 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

[roy reali]

I realize that the majority of us are shooters. Many of us hunt too. Seeing the effects of bullets on game animals does not bother us.

What if a nonhunter, or a curious web surfer was viewing this website?

What if they came across one of our graphic blood and guts photo?

Many folks thing of hunters as barbarians. We don't need to give them ammo to use against us.

[FirstFreedom]

Well if they eat cows, they need to get used to it - cuz their meat meets the same fate, only probably less humanely. But point taken.

[Spanish]

are you suggesting that because pictures like this may offend somone who happens to stumble upon TFL (or how ever they get here) we should not be allowed to post such pictures here?
I just want to be clear on your position.

edit: I did not necessarily mean "be allowed to" post pictures, but rather are we using bad judgement by doing so (in your opinion)

[roy reali]

I hunt, therefore I am aware of that blood and guts are part of the picture.

There are many nonhunters that are not anti-hunters. Those are the folks that we need to keep on our side. I do not believe graphic photos help with that.

Gene Hill wrote about the image we should portray to the public. If all nonhunters voted against us and our sport, we would be in trouble. Our public image needs to be a bit sanitized. I do not agree with that morally, but politically I do.

[MeekAndMild]

Good shooting. Having said that:

Long Path + 1 Nothing like finding somebody else's jaw-shot deer to ruin your hunt for the week.

molonlabe +1 Something to think about when you eat beef from CWD or mad cow areas (They kill beef cows with a bolt to the head. ) or eat a head-shot deer. There is good evidence that once the cranium is pierced there is leakage of CSF (brain fluid) down through the veinous sinuses and a siphon effect which contaminates the meat.

I once saw a man halfway though the process of dying of the human verson of this disease. It took him about 16 months and his brain literally rotted one tiny little bit at a time.

[armedtotheteeth]

for those of you asking about range, they where both at 175 yards, those of you wondering about the mount, well, i dont need no stinking mounts. I firmly believe these where humane kills, ( obvioulsy) I spend lots and lots of time and ammo practicing, Shooting golf balls, shotgun shells, and grapes with my 300 mag. I know ( GRAPES??)uhm Look at an AR-30 from Armalite .Anyways, the animals went down immiedietly and only wiggled a little bit from nerves.I wont shoot until the shot is perfect. No running, or walking shots, and there aint no way a deer will flinch before that bullet will get there. ( Im very sneaky!!HEHEH) sound at 750 MPH, bullet at 3600 mph or there abouts, whatever 3200 FPS is. I have seen enough deer run off and wheeze and stumble over there guts enough after a vital shot with a 30-06. My father and I chased a deer 500 yards and caught him opnly after his guts or lung or something got caught in a barbed wire fence. I dislike that . Even if i did miss by a few inches ( GOD FORBID) and hit the jaw, the shock of a big fast bullet out of a 300 mag will knock a deer out cold , and he would bleed to death before he came too. The buck was shot from behind, giving me only a vital shot to the head, that is the prefered angle, or in front. Sorry about the graphic photos for any of you squemish hunters, My bad.

[roy reali]

I am not squemish at all. However, the image we present to the public is very important to the future of our sport. Hunting is a blood sport, but we should keep that part of it between us at campfires or at the local pub.

Surgery is a messy and bloody procedure. how would you feel if prior to an operation for you or a loved one the surgeon came out in bloody garments. When we speak to the surgeon before and after a procedure they are clean. Not a drop of blood on them. That is their public image. They assume that most of us can not accept the reality of their occupation.

I consider this site, like most websites, to be very public.

[Lycanthrope]

Not everyone is taking headshots. If you buy an Armalite AR30 the chances are you aren't just trying headshots without good load development. You also aren;t taking offhand shots with a rifle THAT heavy.

I've headshot a LOT of deer and never lost one. I do believe, however, that many, many hunters group their gun from the bench and never practice offhand. During season they are forced for an offhand shot and gut shoot the animal. I've seen 10x more gut shot losses from bad shots on the body than jaw shot deer (of which I've seen 2 in 25 years). So....unless we tag the caveat to practice offhand and KNOW your shot to every hunting thread as well as the dangers of wind drift and premium bullets that don't expand (which really tank you if you miss the vitals by a fraction) then I don't understand the hoo-ha about head shots.

[Foxman]

Just try and out react your dog, you are not fast enough for that or any other animal, particularly wild ones. As Longpath has already said you only have to do the math to see that misses/wounding are inevitable eventually.
As for posting the pictures, what is the purpose? to prove you can head shoot deer, to show how much mess a 300 mag causes, or to try to impress somebody?
Who knows, it certainly appears to be pointless and as some have said less than wise to do. IMHO

[Spanish]

I understand, and I do agree.
along these lines (and I dont mean to hijack) anyone catch the tred barta (sp?) hog hunt last night on OLN? He took a pig with a knife - a little grafic, i (as i bet most of you would be) was fine with it, but i can certainly understand how someone might be "offended"

[Lycanthrope]

Well, hunting is a graphic sport. After all, we do eviscerate the animals with our own two hands after shooting and I wager most of us have done it bare handed at one time. You can't avoid it and be a hunter. This is the hunting forum and the pics were linked and the warning delivered.....

It's hard to believe a gun forum/hunting forum would worry about being this PC. Although a head shot shows a lot of blood and trauma, it is rare to see offense to animals shot with arrows on TV all day long left to run and bleed out. Which pictorial shows a higher degree of sufferring to the viewer and which shows a higher degree to the prey?

I find the arguement akin to telling everyone that if I ever have to use my carry gun in self defense, I will make sure I try to shoot the gun out of my aggressor's hand before I try to shoot to "stop" (which is another little PC term than means "if he's not dead, he's folded"). Anyhow, it sounds nicer to the public and antigun folks, but it's not really the truth and hiding the truth is a lame way to defend the sport.

Wanna talk about reaction times? How many deer jump from the sound of an arrow release? A lot. At least bullets are faster than the sound of the shot in most cases and although our rection speed is not always as fast as animals our ability to process visual inputs is faster due to intelligence. Therefore, the caveat that perhaps no one should shoot a deer beyond 15-20 yards with a bow should apply? I think not. Should everyone use a rifle bigger than 30-06 and shoot for center of shoulder (to insure anchoring, but ruin meat)? Even the standard, hunting aimpoint of low and behind the front shoulder (heart shot) has a high margin of error if you pull 6 inches back and stay low. Variables happen..........

[MeekAndMild]

Armed, I don't doubt your excellent skills and markmanship.

The trouble with deer reflexes are that in the early AM and late evening they react not so much to sound but to muzzle flash, which moves at the speed of light.

[roy reali]

I am a person that does not loose sleep over being PC or not.

I hunt, therefore blood and guts do not bother me. If we met in a bar and you showed me a bunch of photos of your last hunt I would admire them. If some blood and gore were in the picture, big deal.

My wife's family is a left leaning bunch. However, she has no problem with my hunting activities. When she sees any of my harvest it ready for the frying pan. How smart would it be of me to drag a bloody carcass into my garage and ask my wife to come see it? I know it would bother her, therefore it might end up bothering my future hunting.

Showing graphic hunting images to the general public is unwise. Yes, it is political correctness. But politics does play a role in the future of our sport.

One more point. Did you note how this thread was titled? The author can use his imagination to introduce his topic. I just find it strange to have smashed head as an adjective of any hunting story.

Once again, it does not take much for some to paint us all with the same brush.