Shot Placement or .... - Page 2

Dearhunter61 · January 1, 2009, 06:57 PM

Man that is tough! I doubt it was easy telling your story. Hope things go better this year. I have missed a few but I can not think of any that I have hit and not been able to find. I did have a couple that definately had me worried but was finally able to find them. I have been with a buddy on mine on a couple of occasions where he shot a buck and we were never able to find them. Even though they were not my bucks it still bothered me a great deal not being able to find them and it ate my buddy up!

I agree with you if you had had a flatter shooting rifle the first day you probably would have gotten your buck.

Hawg · January 1, 2009, 07:54 PM

I use a hot loaded 30-06 for the most part but do have a 7x57 truck gun for those unexpected hunts. Most drop like a rock and the ones that do manage to move don't go far.

Oneholewonder · January 1, 2009, 09:34 PM

Dearhunter,

Telling the story isn't as bad as the two days of living through it. My hope is somebody may benefit from my experience. I know I won't be taking any more femeral artery shots after what happened on this hunt. Mercifully, after this hunt I went back home and switched back to my Win Mod 70 30-06 and made a great double shoulder shot and dropped a 255 pound 7 point in his tracks. I really needed to do that ASAP to get past the debacle that occurred in New York.

I didn't mind losing the first buck to another hunter. Sure I was disappointed I didn't make a one shot kill nor get another nice rack for the wall but I was glad another hunter put down the animal I wounded.

Losing the second buck literally made me ill. I hammered that deer at close range and watched him stumble down the mountain. His entire back end was red with blood and I could have used a bucket and mop while following the blood trail. My buddies couldn't believe the bag of bone fragments I brought back to the hotel that night after I was run off my deer. But the worst part of it was being threatened and chased off the deer by a jerk who was tresspassing. The last blood I found was on the state land/private land border in a pine blow down where I believe my buck had laid down to die not 40 yards from this other jerk. The jerk was on stand at the time my buck piled into the blow down and must have heard it. Then I think he jumped the buck and it ran a bit farther into the woods because that's where the blood hounds took me the next day after tracking it to the blow down and there was a short drag mark and fresh quad tracks and the hounds wouldn't track any farther and we never found any blood beyond that area.

It was such a nice buck and it was leaving such a good blood trail I know I would have found it dead or jumped it and put it down if I hadn't been chased off by that tresspasser.

Worst hunting experience of my life!

banditt007 · January 4, 2009, 05:13 PM

one hole wonder. i'm sure everyone here, including myself appreciates you sharing the story. but IMO both your shots would have been easily avoidable. first buck you shot at a distance double of what you were comfortable with and were guessing where the bullet would go. second shot, you shot the animal in the ass! last time i checked thats a good way to wound the hell out of something and never recover it. you were shooting out of your comfort zone on both occasions. you should only take shots you KNOW you will make and keep them in the heart/lung area. or if you are really confident and KNOW you can make the shot the neck. Obviously you learned your lesson but i feel you should have known from the start not to pull the trigger. yeah it sucks seeing nice animals and not having a good shot. but thats part of hunting! anyway i mean no disrespect/put down in this... just voicing my opinion on the subject.

Dearhunter61 · January 23, 2009, 07:51 PM

I took my nephew hunting this past weekend and we spoke quite a bit about shot placement. I showed him last Friday night where to place the shot. Then Saturday morning we went hunting. We saw a couple of bucks but since he was on a doe hunt he could not shoot either one. After the hunt he said he really did not understand why anyone would ever miss. He assure me he wouldn't. I explained that there was a thing called buck fever and when it attacks hunters occasionally miss.

A little background....My nephew is in the military. He is a very good shot. He had never killed a deer before this last weekend.

Well Saturday evening we went hunting. I set him at a location where I was sure he would get a shot at a doe and I moved on to where I was hoping to get a shot at a hog. He had indicated he would rather take a doe than a hog so we split up. At about 4:45 I saw three hogs... I waited a little while and then they grouped together and I decided to try to get two for one...well I made sure I was on the first hog and fired. It fell over dead shot though the heart but the other one behind it escaped unharmed. Less than 5 minutes later I heard a shot...it sounded like a miss...Well rather than going to see what happened I decided to wait...ten minutes later I heard another shot....and then another! WOW! Ok I decided to go back to camp and pick up my cell phone to call him rather than risk getting shot walking up to him...

Well I made a call to my wife first and as I was talking to her I saw him walking my way in the distance. Well I figured we would need to get his truck and go pick up a doe. When he got about 200 yards from me I saw that he had a deer slung over his shoulder. He had carried that deer that way for over 800 yards. I was a little impressed.

But getting back on track when he got back he admitted he had missed the first two times!

Finally he hit her with the third and he was very proud he had hit her in the heart. He took the ribbing pretty good. I called my father-in-law and he gave him a little as well. I told him finally that I was glad that he missed simply because now he will approach deer hunting a little differently and that when he hears that someone made a bad shot he would have an appreciation for what they were going through.

Oh well...back to the topic...IT IS ALL ABOUT SHOT PLACEMENT!!!

sureshots · January 24, 2009, 12:32 PM

Shot Placement is the key no matter whatever caliber you are using. A Bad shot is just that if its from A 223cal. or A 300mag. I found that out for sure when I made the bad one with A 7mm mag. I saw my buck of A lifetime run off and I never saw him again. That was A lesson I have never forgotten, now I know that A well placed shot from A 243cal. is just as deadly as the same one from A larger caliber. If you can't place the shot where you want it don't take it. A wounded deer is A wounded deer regardless of the caliber.

KEN K · January 25, 2009, 04:32 AM

Shot placement is probably the most important thing but it's not the only thing. You can bring too much gun to a deer hunt as I found out last year. I loaded some 220 gr. bullets for my 8mm Mauser in anticipation of an upcoming buffalo hunt and thought that they would really knock the socks off a whitetail, but I found out different. What I didn't realize or take the time to find out is that the 220 gr. is built a lot stronger for deep penetration and goes through a deer like a FMJ not doing a lot damage along the way. I shot two deer and followed a light blood trail on each for a few hundred yds. till the blood stopped and never recovered ether one. I'm confident that the shot placement was good on both shots but without any expansion, no meat in the freezer, live and learn. Neadless to say I reloaded with a lighter softer bullet and havn't had any further problems. It turns out that a 185 gr. game king was enough for the buffalo and still works great on deer, no following blood trails this year and can stick with one shot one kill. Anyone need 1/2 a box of 220 gr. 8mm bullets?

SKULLANDCROSSBONES65 · January 25, 2009, 05:06 AM

G'day. Sounds like an example of sectional density at work.

James R. Burke · February 23, 2009, 12:33 PM

No doubt Kreyzhorse is 100% right. A wounded deer with anything is still wounded. Placement is key or dont take the shot!

Sportdog · February 23, 2009, 01:57 PM

It is a given that you do not NEED cartridges such as the various 30 caliber magnums etc.. I started out hunting with a 270 because I grew up reading the late great Jack O'Conner. Then I started hunting with a 243 and the deer still went down. The problem that I had with the 243 was that I was always feeling undergunned! Maybe it was too much Outdoor Life, Field & Stream, and Sports Afield and the various gun writers always extolling the virtures of the latest and greatest new cartridges. Whatever the reason, I switched to a 30-06 and I FELT more confident. I do believe that there is a big difference in a 130 pound southern whitetail and a western mule deer 200 pounds or more across the canyon. Will the smaller cartridges work? Yes, but I want that extra bit of insurance that the 270's, 280's, 7 Mags, 30-06's, 308's and the various 30 caliber magnums give me. Of these cartridges only the 300 mags give me any problem with recoil and I'm starting to get used to that. Maybe it is all the years of shooting potent 3" 12 gauge turkey loads. As far as I'm concerned if someone wants to shoot his venison with a 458 magnum, go for it. The same goes for bullet selection. For years I hunted with the Remington Core-Lokt factory loads and they did just fine. But after I got into handloading I became interested in the different bullets out there and I did much range "lab work". I started to appreciate the more premium bullets. Do I need them? Most likely not. But they give me that extra confidence that I like. I guess the moral of the story is: Use what you like and feel comfortable with and don't worry what the other guy is doing.

kingudaroad · February 24, 2009, 05:01 PM

Quote:

In my opinion, when you see the buck of a lifetime, like this one, at 225-250 yards, and you are presented with something less than the ideal shot, you are not going to want to have something like a .223 or a .243 in your hand.

You think a .223 and .243 have the same capabilities? Wow!

Art Eatman · February 25, 2009, 10:06 AM

Naw, kingudaroad, he just wants more Oomph! than either. Well, really, more assurance of penetration on an angling shot. I've killed a bunch of deer with a .243, but I was really picky about the shots. Heavier bullets penetrate better, most times.

James R. Burke · March 11, 2009, 06:55 PM

If it is not a good shot you just dont take it period. That is the way I was brouht up. A wounded deer with a .243, a .30-06, or a 416 rem mag is still a wounded deer.

ZeroJunk · March 11, 2009, 10:29 PM

If you shoot a deer or anything else through the lungs it's not going far. But, in the real world people shoot them all over the place. I've seen deer tails shot off and about everything else. So, if you are a patient good shot and consider what you have in your hands most anything will do the job. If you are a little suspect in that department bigger is better. Recoil should be the last thing on your mind in the excitement of a shot. If it's not then back up a notch or two.

4sixteen · March 12, 2009, 12:45 AM

Isn't there some truth to so-called "shocking power" - that some claim high velocity medium and heavy bore cartridges develop - for stopping game quickly??

Say, a shot from a 375 H&H magnum forward of the diaphragm (that doesn't hit the spine) out to medium range that should drop a big elk instantly??

fisherman66 · March 12, 2009, 12:57 AM

Quote:

I have a 6.5x20x50 on my 22-250 so with the magnification on the highest level I was able to make sure I was aiming at this bucks heart and lung area.

You cranked up the power to 20 times to make sure your were aiming at the heart lung area? I figure a 4 power scope is good to at least 300 yards.

I think the 6.5x55 is one of the finest medium game cartridges around. Congratulations of a very successful season.

Todd1700 · March 12, 2009, 06:11 AM

Quote:

Based on my experience I'm not convinced a larger bullet/rifle caliber makes up for a bad hit.

I don't think it does either. A slightly bigger hole in a deers gut is not necessarily going to make finding him more of a certainty. A lot of deer are wounded and lost every year in this country with large caliber and magnum cartridges too. I'm not saying there isn't a minimum caliber for each type of big game animal but shot placement is the once and forever king.

skydiver3346 · March 12, 2009, 06:56 AM

This is most important when shooting any caliber gun in my opinion.
The 6.5x55 caliber rifle you are now shooting is an excellent deer cartridge with very low recoil (no flinching = more accurate shots). That is my choice for deer hunting as well. I have made shots with a 7mm mag before where the deer ran for long distances (not perfect shot placement), so making proper shot placement is always best.

January 1, 2009, 06:57 PM	#26
Dearhunter61 Senior Member Join Date: May 5, 2008 Location: Texas Posts: 518	Oneholewonder Man that is tough! I doubt it was easy telling your story. Hope things go better this year. I have missed a few but I can not think of any that I have hit and not been able to find. I did have a couple that definately had me worried but was finally able to find them. I have been with a buddy on mine on a couple of occasions where he shot a buck and we were never able to find them. Even though they were not my bucks it still bothered me a great deal not being able to find them and it ate my buddy up! I agree with you if you had had a flatter shooting rifle the first day you probably would have gotten your buck.

January 1, 2009, 09:34 PM	#28
Oneholewonder Member Join Date: December 24, 2008 Posts: 78	Dearhunter, Telling the story isn't as bad as the two days of living through it. My hope is somebody may benefit from my experience. I know I won't be taking any more femeral artery shots after what happened on this hunt. Mercifully, after this hunt I went back home and switched back to my Win Mod 70 30-06 and made a great double shoulder shot and dropped a 255 pound 7 point in his tracks. I really needed to do that ASAP to get past the debacle that occurred in New York. I didn't mind losing the first buck to another hunter. Sure I was disappointed I didn't make a one shot kill nor get another nice rack for the wall but I was glad another hunter put down the animal I wounded. Losing the second buck literally made me ill. I hammered that deer at close range and watched him stumble down the mountain. His entire back end was red with blood and I could have used a bucket and mop while following the blood trail. My buddies couldn't believe the bag of bone fragments I brought back to the hotel that night after I was run off my deer. But the worst part of it was being threatened and chased off the deer by a jerk who was tresspassing. The last blood I found was on the state land/private land border in a pine blow down where I believe my buck had laid down to die not 40 yards from this other jerk. The jerk was on stand at the time my buck piled into the blow down and must have heard it. Then I think he jumped the buck and it ran a bit farther into the woods because that's where the blood hounds took me the next day after tracking it to the blow down and there was a short drag mark and fresh quad tracks and the hounds wouldn't track any farther and we never found any blood beyond that area. It was such a nice buck and it was leaving such a good blood trail I know I would have found it dead or jumped it and put it down if I hadn't been chased off by that tresspasser. Worst hunting experience of my life! Last edited by Oneholewonder; January 1, 2009 at 09:41 PM.

January 24, 2009, 12:32 PM	#31
sureshots Senior Member Join Date: March 17, 2008 Location: Piedmont,NC Posts: 464	Placement Shot Placement is the key no matter whatever caliber you are using. A Bad shot is just that if its from A 223cal. or A 300mag. I found that out for sure when I made the bad one with A 7mm mag. I saw my buck of A lifetime run off and I never saw him again. That was A lesson I have never forgotten, now I know that A well placed shot from A 243cal. is just as deadly as the same one from A larger caliber. If you can't place the shot where you want it don't take it. A wounded deer is A wounded deer regardless of the caliber.

January 25, 2009, 05:06 AM	#33
SKULLANDCROSSBONES65 Senior Member Join Date: August 19, 2008 Location: Far Nth Wst QLD Australia Posts: 992	G'day. Sounds like an example of sectional density at work. __________________ If you're not confused, you're not trying hard enough! When you're confused, I'll try to use smaller words!!!

February 23, 2009, 01:57 PM	#35
Sportdog Junior member Join Date: February 28, 2006 Location: Southwestern Michigan Posts: 369	It is a given that you do not NEED cartridges such as the various 30 caliber magnums etc.. I started out hunting with a 270 because I grew up reading the late great Jack O'Conner. Then I started hunting with a 243 and the deer still went down. The problem that I had with the 243 was that I was always feeling undergunned! Maybe it was too much Outdoor Life, Field & Stream, and Sports Afield and the various gun writers always extolling the virtures of the latest and greatest new cartridges. Whatever the reason, I switched to a 30-06 and I FELT more confident. I do believe that there is a big difference in a 130 pound southern whitetail and a western mule deer 200 pounds or more across the canyon. Will the smaller cartridges work? Yes, but I want that extra bit of insurance that the 270's, 280's, 7 Mags, 30-06's, 308's and the various 30 caliber magnums give me. Of these cartridges only the 300 mags give me any problem with recoil and I'm starting to get used to that. Maybe it is all the years of shooting potent 3" 12 gauge turkey loads. As far as I'm concerned if someone wants to shoot his venison with a 458 magnum, go for it. The same goes for bullet selection. For years I hunted with the Remington Core-Lokt factory loads and they did just fine. But after I got into handloading I became interested in the different bullets out there and I did much range "lab work". I started to appreciate the more premium bullets. Do I need them? Most likely not. But they give me that extra confidence that I like. I guess the moral of the story is: Use what you like and feel comfortable with and don't worry what the other guy is doing. Last edited by Sportdog; February 23, 2009 at 05:59 PM.

January 1, 2009, 07:54 PM	#27
Hawg Senior Member Join Date: September 8, 2007 Location: Mississippi Posts: 16,188	I use a hot loaded 30-06 for the most part but do have a 7x57 truck gun for those unexpected hunts. Most drop like a rock and the ones that do manage to move don't go far.

January 4, 2009, 05:13 PM	#29
banditt007 Senior Member Join Date: March 19, 2006 Posts: 694	one hole wonder. i'm sure everyone here, including myself appreciates you sharing the story. but IMO both your shots would have been easily avoidable. first buck you shot at a distance double of what you were comfortable with and were guessing where the bullet would go. second shot, you shot the animal in the ass! last time i checked thats a good way to wound the hell out of something and never recover it. you were shooting out of your comfort zone on both occasions. you should only take shots you KNOW you will make and keep them in the heart/lung area. or if you are really confident and KNOW you can make the shot the neck. Obviously you learned your lesson but i feel you should have known from the start not to pull the trigger. yeah it sucks seeing nice animals and not having a good shot. but thats part of hunting! anyway i mean no disrespect/put down in this... just voicing my opinion on the subject.

January 23, 2009, 07:51 PM	#30
Dearhunter61 Senior Member Join Date: May 5, 2008 Location: Texas Posts: 518	I took my nephew hunting this past weekend and we spoke quite a bit about shot placement. I showed him last Friday night where to place the shot. Then Saturday morning we went hunting. We saw a couple of bucks but since he was on a doe hunt he could not shoot either one. After the hunt he said he really did not understand why anyone would ever miss. He assure me he wouldn't. I explained that there was a thing called buck fever and when it attacks hunters occasionally miss. A little background....My nephew is in the military. He is a very good shot. He had never killed a deer before this last weekend. Well Saturday evening we went hunting. I set him at a location where I was sure he would get a shot at a doe and I moved on to where I was hoping to get a shot at a hog. He had indicated he would rather take a doe than a hog so we split up. At about 4:45 I saw three hogs... I waited a little while and then they grouped together and I decided to try to get two for one...well I made sure I was on the first hog and fired. It fell over dead shot though the heart but the other one behind it escaped unharmed. Less than 5 minutes later I heard a shot...it sounded like a miss...Well rather than going to see what happened I decided to wait...ten minutes later I heard another shot....and then another! WOW! Ok I decided to go back to camp and pick up my cell phone to call him rather than risk getting shot walking up to him... Well I made a call to my wife first and as I was talking to her I saw him walking my way in the distance. Well I figured we would need to get his truck and go pick up a doe. When he got about 200 yards from me I saw that he had a deer slung over his shoulder. He had carried that deer that way for over 800 yards. I was a little impressed. But getting back on track when he got back he admitted he had missed the first two times! Finally he hit her with the third and he was very proud he had hit her in the heart. He took the ribbing pretty good. I called my father-in-law and he gave him a little as well. I told him finally that I was glad that he missed simply because now he will approach deer hunting a little differently and that when he hears that someone made a bad shot he would have an appreciation for what they were going through. Oh well...back to the topic...IT IS ALL ABOUT SHOT PLACEMENT!!!

January 25, 2009, 04:32 AM	#32
KEN K Senior Member Join Date: October 7, 2006 Location: mid west Georgia Posts: 102	Shot placement is probably the most important thing but it's not the only thing. You can bring too much gun to a deer hunt as I found out last year. I loaded some 220 gr. bullets for my 8mm Mauser in anticipation of an upcoming buffalo hunt and thought that they would really knock the socks off a whitetail, but I found out different. What I didn't realize or take the time to find out is that the 220 gr. is built a lot stronger for deep penetration and goes through a deer like a FMJ not doing a lot damage along the way. I shot two deer and followed a light blood trail on each for a few hundred yds. till the blood stopped and never recovered ether one. I'm confident that the shot placement was good on both shots but without any expansion, no meat in the freezer, live and learn. Neadless to say I reloaded with a lighter softer bullet and havn't had any further problems. It turns out that a 185 gr. game king was enough for the buffalo and still works great on deer, no following blood trails this year and can stick with one shot one kill. Anyone need 1/2 a box of 220 gr. 8mm bullets?

February 23, 2009, 12:33 PM	#34
James R. Burke Senior Member Join Date: January 3, 2009 Location: U.P. of Mich/Quinnesec Posts: 1,897	No doubt Kreyzhorse is 100% right. A wounded deer with anything is still wounded. Placement is key or dont take the shot!

February 25, 2009, 10:06 AM	#37
Art Eatman Staff in Memoriam Join Date: November 13, 1998 Location: Terlingua, TX; Thomasville, GA Posts: 24,798	Naw, kingudaroad, he just wants more Oomph! than either. Well, really, more assurance of penetration on an angling shot. I've killed a bunch of deer with a .243, but I was really picky about the shots. Heavier bullets penetrate better, most times.

March 11, 2009, 06:55 PM	#38
James R. Burke Senior Member Join Date: January 3, 2009 Location: U.P. of Mich/Quinnesec Posts: 1,897	If it is not a good shot you just dont take it period. That is the way I was brouht up. A wounded deer with a .243, a .30-06, or a 416 rem mag is still a wounded deer.

March 11, 2009, 10:29 PM	#39
ZeroJunk Senior Member Join Date: August 14, 2006 Location: Browns Summit NC Posts: 2,589	If you shoot a deer or anything else through the lungs it's not going far. But, in the real world people shoot them all over the place. I've seen deer tails shot off and about everything else. So, if you are a patient good shot and consider what you have in your hands most anything will do the job. If you are a little suspect in that department bigger is better. Recoil should be the last thing on your mind in the excitement of a shot. If it's not then back up a notch or two.

March 12, 2009, 12:45 AM	#40
4sixteen Senior Member Join Date: March 7, 2009 Location: Up North Posts: 145	Isn't there some truth to so-called "shocking power" - that some claim high velocity medium and heavy bore cartridges develop - for stopping game quickly?? Say, a shot from a 375 H&H magnum forward of the diaphragm (that doesn't hit the spine) out to medium range that should drop a big elk instantly??

March 12, 2009, 06:56 AM	#43
skydiver3346 Senior Member Join Date: December 22, 2007 Location: Florida Posts: 1,222	Shot placement is king.... This is most important when shooting any caliber gun in my opinion. The 6.5x55 caliber rifle you are now shooting is an excellent deer cartridge with very low recoil (no flinching = more accurate shots). That is my choice for deer hunting as well. I have made shots with a 7mm mag before where the deer ran for long distances (not perfect shot placement), so making proper shot placement is always best.