Shoot placement – Rifle

With Rifle Deer season right around the corner. I thought a discussion on best shot placement would be good. I have always tried to place my shot just behind the front shoulder and just slightly low if at all possible. On a past post other said given a broadside shot they favor what the call a High hump shot over the more traditional shot. Others have said they prefer a neck shot. What is your choice and why? Maybe someone who is better on this new site than me can post a few picture with various shot placements.

Heart.

Depending on the deer’s orientation…I want the projectile to find its way to the heart.

A neck or shoulder shot will typically drop them where they stand. The neck is a small target and you lose some meat straight on the shoulder. I would consider these more if you are hunting a heavily pressured area and you don’t want your deer running to another hunter risking possible conflict of possession.
Anything behind the shoulder and your deer will run. Normally about 30 yards give or take. Sometimes quite a bit further. Enough to go out of site and make a guy nervous in the woods.
This is the shot I normally take to avoid hurting any meat.

I also see it as situational.

A lot of people, especially in the hunting media, like to talk up the neck shot. Almost to the point where there’s the implication that any other shot placement is bordering on the unethical.

The neck shot is a great option if you’re hunting corn fed deer on a 10,000 acre private ranch in the Texas scrub where you have wide open shots at deer that are standing nearly stationary on a sight lane for extended periods of time.

But change the conversation to heavy pressure of the upper Midwest, smaller parcels, more hunters, and much warier deer and I can honestly say that in over 30 years of hunting I’ve taken two deer with neck shots. This was NOT for lack of trying, it was because the deer in my area are almost always moving to get AWAY from something. So wide open shots at a deer that will stand stationary, perfectly broadside, AND at a range I’m comfortable with, have been few and far between.

As Suzuki says, the heart/lung shot is the mainstay and for good reason. Yes the deer can, and often do run, but the balance is it’s often the highest percentage shot you can take if you have to shoot quickly and if the angle is anything other than perfectly broadside. In the real world, sometimes a quartering shot is all you can get in the time that’s available.

Grouse

Now that I think about it very few deer I have shot were stationary and I always hunt thick woods. Have only neck shot one and it was stationary!!

If I can shoot them front/quartered with bullet entering off center of the sturum out an angle behind the shoulder taking heart/lungs – Deer is usually knocked over backwards, dropped in it’s tracks or maybe stagger 220 to 30 yrds and done. Very little meat wasted and vitals are blown up and quick death.

My favorite shots are when deer are quartering away.
Broadside my 2nd favorite.
Quartering towards me, or facing away are shots i don’t take.

If i don’t have a meat free way of hitting the heart, i don’t shoot anymore.

Disclaimer…In my 20 years of hunting i’ve tagged a single deer each year and filled several others tags through party hunting. Taken deer via Bow, Muzzleloader, and SHotgun. Most through shotgun, but as i evolved to the muzzleloader shot placement became much more critical. Now, i absolutely pass on deer that do not offer excellent kill shots. So, i have shot deer and seen deer shot in almost every way possible over the years.

The most odd kill shot i’ve ever seen yet to this date was last year.
8pt buck killed by a shot to the foot.
Hunter followed up the deer roughly 10 minutes after the shot and finished it; but the deer was obviously drained from bleeding out through the foot…
That was with my old muzzleloader that i gifted to my hunting party in SE MN. My buddies dad had never used a peep sight; and apparently never listened to my instruction…lol. Sure am glad that deer was harvested though. It was his first muzzleloader deer – and an odd kill at that.

Aim small and you’ll miss small. Keep it close to the vitals and all will be well.