Classic Heart Lung Shot or through the shoulder

[45 2.1]

My preference.

Works most of the time, but not always. I've had three deer cover from 300 to 425 yards on me.... all shot with shotgun slugs (back when that was the ONLY option in my state) with their hearts completely destroyed (the part below your boolit hole would be about all that was left solid). Cast hollow points in handgun rounds do much better.

[Larry Gibson]

I don't do Texas heart shots so let's not go there on that one.........

For frontal, broadside or raking shots I prefer to envision a soccor ball low against the brisket and but the bullet through that soccor ball regardless of the angle. This shot takes out one or both legs on broadside shots and puts the bullet through the heart and thick part of the lungs. Additionally the shot is low enough that blood will exit the one or both holes instead of just filling up in the lungs. Since using that shot with appropriate cartridge/bullet/velocity combinations I have not lost and animal nor had one travel more that 30 - 40 yards before piling up.

I found, much to my chagrin, many years ago that the "classic" behind the shoulder shot does not anchor game. May damage less meat but when you lose a whole animal it kind of makes that a moot point......best to anchor the animal as quickly as possible.

Larry Gibson

[RugerFan]

Concerning livers shots, I once shot a whitetail buck in TX through the liver with an arrow. A scant blood tail petered out pretty quick. I was fortunate to find the deer by zig zagging through the woods after the dang thing had ran a good 300 yds. Conversely, my brother shot a bull caribou through the liver with an arrow and it stumbled a few steps and dropped dead.

[300savage]

I haven't had the chance to read all the posts so if I am repeating someone please forgive me. I truly feel though that it largely depends upon the terrain you are hunting in. Out west where I can watch a lung shot deer until he falls that is always my shot. In brush country I will sacrifice some shoulder meat for a dropped deer.

[dale2242]

I am a certified Hunter Ed instructor. We are certified by the Oregon Department or Fish and Game.
Hunter Ed used to be all about hunter safety.
Now we are teaching Safety as well as Hunter Ethics and Responsibility.
We recommend that ethical, responsible hunters take only broadside or direct frontal shots to the vitals area with a rifle and only broadside shots with a bow. The vitals area lies under and behind the shoulder of deer and elk. The vitals area on a deer is approximately 9" diameter on a deer and 12' on an elk. Not that tough a shot for a decent shooter with a rifle.
The vitals area has massive amounts of blood. A decent shot to this area will either knock the animal down right there or leave a good blood trail to follow. A decent shot to the vitals rarely ends in a long track.
Some will argue that a head or neck shot is the best shot. Remember this, the vitals area of a deer is as big as a paper plate. The brain of a deer isn`t much bigger than a tennis ball. If you have seen a deer's jaw shot off from a poorly placed head or neck shot you probably will not try one again. They will either die from infection or starve to death. When one shows up in a non hunters yard, it puts us in a pretty bad light.
Ask yourself which you can hit EVERY time. That is the shot every ethical and responsible hunter will take. Long story short, take the broadside shot to the vitals, that means heart and lung area....dale

[429421Cowboy]

I am a certified Hunter Ed instructor. We are certified by the Oregon Department or Fish and Game.
Hunter Ed used to be all about hunter safety.
Now we are teaching Safety as well as Hunter Ethics and Responsibility.
We recommend that ethical, responsible hunters take only broadside or direct frontal shots to the vitals area with a rifle and only broadside shots with a bow. The vitals area lies under and behind the shoulder of deer and elk. The vitals area on a deer is approximately 9" diameter on a deer and 12' on an elk. Not that tough a shot for a decent shooter with a rifle.
The vitals area has massive amounts of blood. A decent shot to this area will either knock the animal down right there or leave a good blood trail to follow. A decent shot to the vitals rarely ends in a long track.
Some will argue that a head or neck shot is the best shot. Remember this, the vitals area of a deer is as big as a paper plate. The brain of a deer isn`t much bigger than a tennis ball. If you have seen a deer's jaw shot off from a poorly placed head or neck shot you probably will not try one again. They will either die from infection or starve to death. When one shows up in a non hunters yard, it puts us in a pretty bad light.
Ask yourself which you can hit EVERY time. That is the shot every ethical and responsible hunter will take. Long story short, take the broadside shot to the vitals, that means heart and lung area....dale

I teach the same thing to kids in my Hunter Ed classes, usually there is a dad in the room that always claims he takes no other shot, but an explaination including the fact that it doesn't take much to turn a perfect brain shot into a jaw shot and a starving deer leaves no room to argue. I don't and won't take a head shot on game unless it is a finisher.
I just had to argue with my best friend and hunting partner when he said he was planning on getting good enough to fill his doe tag with a head shot at 500+ yards. I reasoned that a bullet drop estimation of less than even .5 MOA error at 500 yards would drop a brain shot into a jaw shot in a hurry, and that ended things quite quickly!

[Adam10mm]

No one told that to the large corn fed Michigan whitetail doe I shot, thru the liver, with RCBS 240 SWCGC, that piled up after 65 paces. That boolet took out two one inch diameter sapplings before hitting the deer.

Winelover

First I've heard of a quick kill from a liver shot.

[BruceB]

First I've heard of a quick kill from a liver shot.

Yeah.... and YOU are the one who posted, just last night "I have no interest in a humane kill."

[Gibbs44]

I have yet to take a deer with a boolit. I'm looking forward to it, just haven't done it. I'd say either option you've listed should work fine. I've read about some boolits fracturing instead of mushrooming, I'm sure some of the guys here can tell you about that. I can tell you when I do line up with my pistol it will be behind the shoulder, I'll take the little bit of wiggle room it affords. When using my .30-30 or .35, I'll be shooting for the shoulder.

Gibbs

[DougGuy]

If you shoot a well made cast boolit, and your weapon starts with a 4, it's doubtful you will need the boolit to expand, as it will cut a nasty golfball sized wound channel. Doubtful you will have to worry about fragmenting with a hard cast/wide maplat/flat nose boolit. All the deer I have lung shot with a .44 have gone down in less than 20yds. Several I took at less than 10yds dropped where they stood, when they are that close, I would be shooting from my treestand I will take high in the neck or head shot. I have yet to recover a boolit from one shot with the .44 magnum.

This year I am switching over to a .45 Colt for all my handgun hunting, with cast boolits. Although I may choose between a GC or PB boolit, my recipe for shot placement will stay the same. If I am in a stand, and it walks out so close I can count the ticks on it's ears, I will take a head/high neck shot. Other than that, lung shot, in one side out the other, it won't go far.

[TXGunNut]

Quickest kills I've seen take out the "top" of the heart, where all the major blood vessels are attached. A CNS shot is the only thing that may work better but critters with a good CNS hit sometimes lay there and twitch for some time. I like a broadside shot just behind the point of the shoulder on a deer, if facing will take a shot just to one side of the breastbone; I'll shoot a bit to the right if it's angled to my left, and vice versa. On a hog it's thru the shoulders, base of the skull (@ spine) or in the ear, never gotten a chest shot on a hog and the between-the-eyes shot is something I haven't had much luck with.

[Idaho Mule]

I think little girl just don't like liver. JW

[Adam10mm]

Yeah.... and YOU are the one who posted, just last night "I have no interest in a humane kill."

Excuse me if I don't get all spiritually involved like Ted Nugent with his stupid 10 minute deep thoughts and reflections about killing an animal. Most hunters on this and other forums want a quick, clean kill out of "respect" for the animal, so that's where I put my focus in answering the OP. I answered with my personal experiences with liver shot animals that they don't die quickly. If the OP wants it to die quickly, then a heart/lung is better than the liver in my experiences. My personal preference is for a lung shot as I like to eat the heart and liver and want to conserve as much meat as possible including those two organs. I don't shoot the lungs for a humane kill. That's the last thing on my mind. I don't have respect for the animal I'm killing and don't respect its life. If I have to eat, something has to die. When I slaughter and butcher animals on the farm, the headshot I make isn't for a humane kill, it's for selfish reasons because I have other things in life to do and a limited time to butcher animals for food. Quicker it dies, quicker I can get my butchering done and move onto the next job. Maybe I'm not wired like the rest of you. I can't make an emotional attachment toward an animal. It's an animal, not a human. They are not equals and are not to be treated as equals.

[Von Gruff]

I have liver shot one animal on one of my goat hunts and it did take another shot to finish it off. It wasn't a planed shot but the result of rifle or animal movment. The animal did not react to the hit like those who are shot forward of the diaphram where I prefer to have the shot land.

[runfiverun]

she don't like it.
I do like it, she would rather I make heart hash.
she has a thing against eating the tongue too.
shrug.

the link provided is pretty good showing how things are laid out inside animals.
the elk one is a little off [low] on the placement inside the animal but pretty close.

like everybody I have shots I prefer and shots I will take if that is what is presented.
deer are pretty amazing at how far they will travel with nervous system damage.
I remember my brother shooting a deer head on and tracking it by following the internal organs that were falling out the bottom of the open cavity.
then finally finding pin points of blood and finally tracking the foot prints.
it even backtracked it's own trail before it died.
there was nothing inside it except part of one lung and the heart in the front
and some intestine barely touching the ground in the back.
it took us almost 3 hours of tracking it across open ground and into a small wash..

[btroj]

I prefer a shot thru the heart-lung area. Pretty quick kill. Big target too.

I would never, by choice, take a head shot.

[DCM]

Around here the window the window of opportunity during firearms season has become very much like what R5R described early on in this thread, with wolves in the northern part of the state and CWD kill em all zones in the south.
Being that I am usually on public land I need a down right there shot whenever possible to prevent them from running off to private land or someone else claiming my deer on the public side.
I like neck shot when possible as I have never had a good neck roast and this destroys very little good meat.
Down right there does not always mean dead right there though so "more lead may be required" to humanely finish the job.
Your mileage and situation will likely vary.

[John L]

runfiverun: what link are you referring to?

[runfiverun]

the one in post #12

[Rattus58]

This coming year is my first deer hunt with CB with my 30-06 and 180gr GC boolit and was just wondering what the best placement would be using CB the classic heart lung shot or through the shoulder shot to pin em down?

In my opinion, especially with lead bullets... right through the lungs does it every time.