Number of shots to down a deer

[megasupermagnum]

NSB nailed the essence of my question. I hear about deer being lost after taking supposedly “good” hits and I do not buy it. None of the guys at deer camp are expert marksmen, but they all get the job done and we have never lost a deer.

I do not have a lot of hunting experience so I started wondering what reality is. I cannot imagine a deer shot in the boiler room running over 100 yards as some have reported. I am a shooter, not a hunter. Every shot is taken only if I am confident it will be a kill shot. And so far I have been “lucky”.

Such a topic always goes out of control faster than a "hard hit" deer. If you put a bullet through both lungs and/or heart, it's hard for them to make it 100 yards. It's more a factor of time than distance. A buck with a running start and nothing but open field made it about 125 yards before falling over. That's the farthest I've witnessed with a gun that didn't have other factors. Most of the time the problem is the hunter bumping those deer. If you immediately after a shot go out to look at the spot of the shot, you will bump that deer, and they will keep running instead of stopping or slowing to catch their breath. It's not as big a deal with strong firearms, but especially bow hunting, a deer often goes a little while after a knife blows through their lungs. That's often where you hear of 200-300 yard tracking jobs of well hit deer is bow hunters who bump deer.

Just wait though, someone will come by with some extraordinary story yet. There's even a guy on this forum who swears up and down he shot a doe and "blew a baseball size chunk of the heart out", and found that deer a mile away. Of course in reality he made a bad shot, and some poor hunter who did make a good shot is forever wondering where his went.

[Shawlerbrook]

Anyone who has bowhunted and shot deer through the chest is familiar with the death run . Both lungs and/ or heart and they do the death run. Run full speed until they drop, usually less than 75 yards. Death with an arrow is caused strictly by blood loss, where a firearm will stop a deer by blood loss, organ, Central nervous system or severe skeletal damage( usually stops them, but my need to finish the job). I find it hard to believe that a deer shot through both lungs and/or heart will go past 100 yards no matter what gun is used.
I do believe that the situation the deer is in contributes to the reaction and distance it will go. I shot a few bucks that were actively grunting and chasing a hot doe and they didn’t even flinch on a chest shot. Continued chasing until they just dropped dead. Adrenaline !!

[gumbo333]

Geez, I hate to even speak up. I've shot quite a few deer in my lifetime with everything from 243 to 300 mag. The two that were hit the hardest with the two largest calipers ran the farthest. 100+ yards and they were using only 3 legs and bleeding profusely. Many went less than 20 but we're not dead so I shot a second shot to finish them. Seems like I've had more bang flop kills with the good ole 30/30 and low power 45/70 than anything. 170 gr and 405 gr. I think there are more two shot kills but maybe I'm just not not that great a shot. Mid January already.

[Plate plinker]

My experience is they don't go very far when hit with a Dodge! You guys and your silly firearms.

[kbstenberg]

I hunt only with my daughter and grandson. I give them 3 shells opening morning. They know that if it takes them all 3 shells to kill a deer. Next year they only get 2 shells. And they better not ask me to finish off their cripple. This year it took 2 shells because the GS spined his and had to finish it off at a distance.

[19112TAP]

My wife was a taxidermist years ago and we had a gentlemen bring us a deer he had just got and didn't know how to skin it for mounting so he asked us to do the skinning. He said that if we wanted the meat we could have it so once we got it hung up and started skinning it out I noticed what must have been 20 some holes in it and the whole carcass was destroyed upon asking him how many times he shot the deer his comment was 17 times I think, being curios I had to ask why and he said well he dropped at the first shot and was moving still and he's the biggest deer I have ever shot at well I guess I got carried away. I asked what gun he was using and he was using a 7mm mag his story was that he had checked his gun before the hunt and fired 3 shots out of a new box of ammo and when he got ready to load the deer up he was checking how many rounds he had left and that is when he notice he was out so he figured he shot 17 times, I figured he might have missed and or drop some reloading the gun but still the deer was a mess and the first round probably did him in. Still a funny story.

[toallmy]

A small hole in and out through the lungs don’t put them down for me , so I make a bigger hole now.

[dverna]

.35 Rem,
Did you use enough gun...or maybe too much gun? LOL

MSM,
You made a good point. We never go after deer immediately unless it is DRT. We wait 30-45 minutes. I suspect on public land there is a tendency to find the deer before another person tags it. We hunt private land so there is no rush.

NSB,
I am not too shabby with a rifle and shot trap competively, but I will not shoot at moving deer. I know what I do not know. I have no confidence taking a shot at a deer trotting at 100+ yards. If I cannot make the shot in practice, how the heck can I ethically do it on a hunt? I know guys who think differently, and most are not very good at stationary targets!! It figures a lot of deer get wounded that way.

[Beagle333]

While I like to shoot at targets that are far away, I never do that with deer. I'm not judging anybody's technique, I'm just fortunate enough that there are plenty of deer around here and it isn't difficult at all to wait for a close shot. I like a shot that is 40-45 yards and then I can almost pick the hair that I want to hit. (and I use a .270)
I know the gun will take one much farther, but I had rather wait for the perfect shot than to track it very far. The farthest I've had one run (actually bound), was 12 yards. The rest of them either collapsed or took one good bounce and fell. You can hunt however you like, that's just the way I do it.
We have a very long and generous season here and I only need about 4-5 deer to hold the two of us for a year.

[T-Bird]

Plate plinker that's hysterical!

[todd9.3x57]

mostly, i am a one shot guy. i have used the coup de' grace several times. back in the late '80s i shot a 4 pt five times with the '06 and 180gr remington psp at about 25 yards. 4 or 5 were lung shots and one split a sapling and went on to the deer's liver. i didn't know it at time (16 or 17yo), but the 180gr psp was not the 180gr rem rn(that i shot, but couldn't find). the buck's (lungs) wound channel looked like a pencil ran thru it. it was also the point that i hated factory loads and i got into handloading.

a couple of years later, i had a rem m7 in 243 win. it didn't matter what load i used, the deer ran (shoulder/behind the shoulder) about 100-125 yards. then the barnes x bullet came out and i "gotta" get one of those. well, after a lot of shooting, i finally found my load. it was a 85gr x bullet with imr4831 that goes about 1 1/2 -2" at 100 yards(5 shots). the second best group was around 3" at 100 yards and it goes from there. i took it out deer hunting and i got a doe that was about 40 yards away. she ran and boy did she!!! i shot her behind the shoulder about 1/3 of the way up. there was no blood, but there was snow. i tracked her about 50 yards when i first seen a drop of bright red blood. after 200-225 yards (or was it 300?) and 2ish hours later, i found her, dead. my "autopsy" found that the 85gr x bullet did not open up, instead a smaller than pencil wound channel (lungs) that did her in. to make myself happy, i sold the 243 and got a rem m7 in 7-08. in my mind, the 243 is a piece of s@#$... er, junk and it deserves to hunt groundhogs. BUT my friend has a rem m788 in 243(100gr rem-win-fed factory loads) that kills deer with a lightning bolt from above. he loves it.

nowadays, i use cast in hunting. from the 30-40 krag to the 45-70 and in between, it is a one shot kill. i haven't had to coup de 'grace anything yet. its either a DRT or runs about 10-40 yards.

[Smoke4320]

My experience is they don't go very far when hit with a Dodge! You guys and your silly firearms.

Ram 'em good ..

[Texas by God]

My experience is they don't go very far when hit with a Dodge! You guys and your silly firearms.

The last one I hit at 70mph went 20 yards through the air. All I remember is what it looked like before everything tasted like airbag......

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

[gumbo333]

I thought we were talking about firearms. Unfortunately I've gotten about half as many with vehicles and a fawn with a combine. But not this year, we lost a bunch of deer this summer.

[Plate plinker]

Plate plinker that's hysterical!

I seldom hunt deer, but when I do the powerfactor is off the charts.

Gumbo did your area herd get the black tongue disease? Takes 2 or three years to bounce back.

[MT Gianni]

2021 had three downed whitetail. All shot with 308, 150 gr Hornaday. Ranges from 320 yards to 80 yards. Two were double lung hits, one took out the liver. One shot each.
My worst experience was with 165 gr Remington Corelocks in 1987. I shot a 4 x 4 Mule Deer 7 times through the lung, liver area and watched him slowly amble off. He went around the hill and laid down. He was dead when I got there but showed no signs of being hit. That made me take up reloading.
Second was an antelope with 100 gr Hornaday BTSp in 243. He was quartering towards me. 1st shot hit him behind the left shoulder and exited in front of the left flank. I was then shooting at a running antelope with guts hanging out. # 2 was too far back, a solid gut shot, #3 took off his nose and #4 broke his shoulder. I still have no idea what caused the first bullet to turn. I probably killed 30 other head of game with that combo.

2 Whitetail and 1 antelope killed with the 311440 all one shot kills. The last deer I shot that took two, was with the 311165 Ranch Dog. I hit him and he didn't lay down so I shot him again. It wasn't necessary but he was still up. Elk I shoot as long as they are standing. Moose can be fatally hit and it takes their nervous systems a while to realize it.

[Mk42gunner]

My experience is they don't go very far when hit with a Dodge! You guys and your silly firearms.

A Chevy Impala does quite well also. I was almost stopped, the airbag didn't even go off.

Robert

[gunseller]

I have been shooting deer sense sometime in the 60s. I have no idea how many I have killed as I don't notch my weapons. I have used bows, handguns, shotguns, muzzle loaders and rifles. Ranges have been from 600 down to leaving powder burns. Where you hit a deer matters, what the deer was doing just before the shot, the bullet used and sometimes it is just if the deer feels like dieing right there or not. I have seen bucks hit in antlers knocked out come to partway through field dressing get up and run. Never make it far but there is a big space where intestines were. The only way to put deer down is like putting people down. Brake bones or disrupt the central nervous system.
Steve

[white eagle]

My experience is they don't go very far when hit with a Dodge! You guys and your silly firearms.

mine is a Peterbuilt you guys and your silly Dodge's
seriously though as many a it takes
most of the time 1 shot is all that is needed, however there are times when that one shot goes somewhere other than where it is intended and a follow up shot is needed
I once shot a buck, (the only time I used this shot) in the shoulder and it went 50 yards but was not dead and I needed a follow up shot
the buck was standing broadside at 45 yards and was shot with a 25-06
it happens so there is no pat answer

[Plate plinker]

mine is a Peterbuilt you guys and your silly Dodge's

HA HA I bow to your superior machine!