Why concern ourselves with meat damage?

[roysclockgun]

Since killing my first white tail in the early 1960s, I have concerned myself first with making a quick, clean kill with minimal suffering. When I took my doctor on his first hunt, he bagged a mule deer and a pronghorn. Both were heart shots. By time we walked to the animals, they were very still. The doctor, a surgeon, remarked that the animal likely felt a sting, not unlike a bee sting and then quickly went into shock and within a minute, was dead. He said that the animals that he killed that week, suffered far less than cattle we saw going to market.
On other deer, however, heart shots have many times not put them down, as I want them to go, bang/flop! So, on shots that I am assured a neck hit, I take it. Further out, I go for breaking the shoulders and putting the animal down. Does a shoulder shot spoil some meat? Yes, but I accept that meat loss rather than have a deer run off. Many heart/lung hits do not make for bang/flop. Neck shots and shoulder breaking shots do.
Of course on head-on shots I go for the chest and for angling away shots I hold back on the ribs so that the bullet lances through into the boiler room, heart/lung.
For what area do you usually go?
Steven in DeLand

 

[Guy Miner]

Seems that you and I prefer much the same shot, and much the same effect on target.

A quick or instant drop is my goal when I squeeze the trigger. I don't like losing meat, but a little discarded meat is acceptable for those great "drop it here, drop it now" hits.

Guy

 

[gerry]

I don't like losing meat either but if the range is long or need to get off a shot quickly at close range (like with my moose this fall) I shoot for the lungs even if a shoulder is in the way. If I am close and have time I will usually shoot an animal in the neck. What I don't like is when guys shoot both shoulders on an animal with an explosive bullet and then leave the front half of the animal in the bush. I know that's not what Steven is talking about here but I have known guys who do that but their personal ethics are very poor anyway. Using a good quality bullet that will perform well in the cartrdge picked will cut down on meat damage considerably.

 

[Bruce Mc]

Same here, solid shoulder shot brings 'em right down. On the small deer we have 'round here I don't loose much. How many of ya'll use that shot on Elk?

 

[DrMike]

I gladly sacrifice some meat in order to ensure that I don't have to track game in dense bush. High shoulder shots give me the insurance needed to avoid the unpleasant task of tracking game.

 

[JD338]

I like the high lung shot, 2/3 up from the bottom and tight behind the shoulder. Hitting a rib in or out transfers shock to the spinal cord. They drop right there and never get up.

JD338

 

[Kodiak]

Sometimes, no matter how well we place the shot, the animal may/may not DropRT. A shoulder hit that passes-thru can be one that drops the critter instantly. We all strive to get them down as fast as possible and spine hits can do that also, with some loss of meat. And then there's the head/neck shot; not much meat lost there. Should we take this kind of shot? Sure, dropped lotsa deer and antelope with a face-on neck-shot or right in the ear-hole, if its a clear shot. Shot a griz once, right in the eye :grin: , DRT

Yeah, we're gona lose some meat, mostly because thats how it all works out, but we will make the most of whats left-over. When we take up the gun and persure wild animals, it's our duty to do the very best we can as hunters.

An ol' guys $0.02,

Jim

 

[onesonek]

I like the high lung shot, 2/3 up from the bottom and tight behind the shoulder. Hitting a rib in or out transfers shock to the spinal cord. They drop right there and never get up.

JD338

High impact speeds do more damage to meat via bloodshot than bone hits in my experience. But I tend to stay with more modest velocity rounds. Be that as it may, I do agree with most here, and like Jim prefer higher shoulder placement. I even tighen it up some, and put it through the scaplua. Hit there, and they simply don't go anywhere, unless spooked and have some adrenaline going, and then not more than a step or two.

 

[JD338]

I like the high lung shot, 2/3 up from the bottom and tight behind the shoulder. Hitting a rib in or out transfers shock to the spinal cord. They drop right there and never get up.

JD338

High impact speeds do more damage to meat via bloodshot than bone hits in my experience. But I tend to stay with more modest velocity rounds. Be that as it may, I do agree with most here, and like Jim prefer higher shoulder placement. I even tighen it up some, and put it through the scaplua. Hit there, and they simple don't go anywhere, unless spooked and have some adrenaline going, and then not more than a step or two.

Right on buddy!
That high lung shot is basically a rib shot so meat damage is minimal.

JD338

 

[mcseal2]

For broadside shots I hold 1/3 of the way up the body tight behind the shoulder out to an estimated 225yds, center of body behind the shoulder for longer shots. Most of my guns are sighted in for a 3" maximum rise over line of sight which ends up being about a 240yd zero for my big game rifles. I hold this way because I feel it gives me the most room for error while still making a clean kill. Quartering shots I either take out a shoulder going in, or aim to hit the off-side shoulder.

I got in this habit shooting coyotes. I found that if I had over a 3" maximum rise over line of sight I started shooting over coyotes on shots around 180yds. By sighting in my yote guns to have a 2.8" max rise over line of sight and holding like I said above I got that problem fixed. This lets me hold dead on out to at least 300yds, longer with most of my rifles, without ever being over 3" high or low. I've been doing it long enough now it's instinctive.

I have no problem taking out both shoulders either if that is the only shot presented, or if I want to anchor a critter right there. I did that on my whitetail this year because he was 15yds from the property line. I've taken a neck shot once or twice when I didn't have anything else and they worked, but I like having more room for error.

 

[onesonek]

"Many heart/lung hits do not make for bang/flop."

To delve into this subject a bit deeper,,, I find the the heart shot about a 50-50 proposition.
A heart hit while Diastolic, has nearly negative pressure in the vascular system, whereas Systolic has positive pressure. If you hit the animal's heart during Diastolic, it is most likely to be felt as that bee sting refered to, and bring flight response. If hit during Systolic, it over pressurizes the system, and in short is like a massive stroke, and the animal drops. This is because there is hemorrhage most everywhere. While not overly visual due to the dark redness of most game meat, but one can see it as tiny specs (bloodclots) of blown blood vessels sometimes throughout the entire animal if a enough energy is applied. This has been proven somewhat by examining the brain where its most visual. This will also give the meat a stronger or more minerally taste,,,for lack of better words. That high lung hit generally disrupts the CNS along with everything else, making the hit nearly instantaneous in most cases. Now like the doc said,,, it most likely feels like a bee sting with shock following almost instantly also.. Otherwise, so long as it is a bleedout, airout placement, it will be lethal,,,,,in time.
Thats my 2 cents or thoughts on it.

 

[Elkman]

mcseal says:
For broadside shots I hold 1/3 of the way up the body tight behind the shoulder out to an estimated 225yds, center of body behind the shoulder for longer shots. Most of my guns are sighted in for a 3" maximum rise over line of sight which ends up being about a 240yd zero for my big game rifles. I hold this way because I feel it gives me the most room for error while still making a clean kill. Quartering shots I either take out a shoulder going in, or aim to hit the off-side shoulder.

These are similar thoughts to mine. I have killed several elk with the high shoulder shot and also a bit farther back. The problem I see with both is that its not to hard to shoot over the animal especially when shooting down hill. In addition if you are behind the shoulder with your bullet and just below the spine they may fall, but can also get up as 3 or 4 have done to me. A little lower, tucked right against that shoulder gives you at minimum a 12" diameter target. If you wobble, the animal moves or is slightly quartering that target area gives you a little insurance. If you are foward you get one or both shoulders, back a little, the lungs, low, the heart, and high either the lungs or spine. Too high and you get to hunt some more.
On the heart shot. It seems to make little difference at to what stage of beat the heart is in. If the bullet does its job you have a blood trail, and an elk a short distance away. I am not sure that I have seen one DRT with a heart shot.
I do not believe that I have ever killed an elk with a first bullet neck shot. I have killed several with head shots but will not take either a head or neck unless close and thats the only option. I have had two failures in my life on head shots, both deer, I believe one recovered and the other died a painfull death.
My two biggest bulls, both under 20 yards were taken with body shots. One was feeding quartering away, and took two from the Win Mag, one would have done it but he didn't know it yet and neither did I. The other was standing at the edge of a clearing trying to see what I was, I hit him at the point of the near shoulder, and exited out behind the far one, I heard him pile up about 50 yards away.

 

[Oldtrader3]

I try to get my bullet into the area of a high lung shot through both lungs whenever it is possible. If offered a standing side shot, I try to hit an inch high and an inch behind the leg joint, about 35% up the body, where the aortic arch and both lungs will be affected by the shot.

On deer this shot usually paralyses them in where they stand and with elk it usually kills them pretty fast. This is an optimal shot that may not always be available. I have, on a couple of occasions, hit the bottom of the spine using this shot when shooting uphill at a high angle.

 

[Elkman]

Another advantage of the behind shoulder, midway up the body shot is that a modest ranges you really don't have to fuss over bullet placement. I have said that when I shoot an animal at a modest distance, I am not conscious of trigger pull, nor given some thought particularly fussy about placement. When everything looks right and in the right area the rifle goes off and 99% of the time my hunt is over. I know that may sound a bit odd but the more I think about it the more that I believe that is the case. Out past 300 yards I take a lot more time for bullet placement but this side of 300 its more of a "yup thats good" boom.! I have also been shooting the same rifle for 41 years.

 

[Guy Miner]

"this side of 300 its more of a "yup thats good" boom.!"

Exactly!

 

[SJB358]

Another advantage of the behind shoulder, midway up the body shot is that a modest ranges you really don't have to fuss over bullet placement. I have said that when I shoot an animal at a modest distance, I am not conscious of trigger pull, nor given some thought particularly fussy about placement. When everything looks right and in the right area the rifle goes off and 99% of the time my hunt is over. I know that may sound a bit odd but the more I think about it the more that I believe that is the case. Out past 300 yards I take a lot more time for bullet placement but this side of 300 its more of a "yup thats good" boom.! I have also been shooting the same rifle for 41 years.

I think I have been around old goats like the Bill's of the world and don't overly think about meat damage really. I take the shot I have and put my bullet on course to do the most damage I can. I know I sound a little backward, but if I have a shot of anything less than broadside, I try to imagine the bullet striking the far leg bone. That is my compass for bullet placement. If I have a long shot I will think more about the placement, but like Bill says, when you have a shot, you oughta take it quick, cause it probably won't be there for too long. Scotty

 

[Guest]

Shot placement is something I've paid more attention to since having to track my buck last January. I shot him hard quartering away, and took the only shot I had, which was a little forward of ideal. It turned out to be a little more forward than I thought, but broke the left leg on entry and dropped him in his tracks. Unfortunately, it only clipped the front of the left lung in the process. I watched him thrash a bit, like death-throes, and then be still, so after waiting about 40min, I got down and went up the ridge to him. To my surprise he jumped up and bolted down the ridgeline and away from me. I tracked him a little bit, trying to get a clear shot in the dark (via flashlight and rifle - a difficult task at best). I bumped him up once more, and decided to let him lie until morning. The fact that it was about 25deg and there was 3-4" of snow on the ground eased my mind. I found him the next morning right where I thought he'd gone, laying up under a grove of Eastern Red Cedars. Since then, I've reconceptualized how I shoot just a bit.

What I do now is picture a 10" ball in the center of the deer's chest, and make every attempt to angle my shot through the center of that ball. Two deer this year have found out how well that method is working for me. The second one was interesting, in that the first shot went straight through the lungs, with some expansion, but not much, having hit between ribs going in and out. It was a kill shot, for sure, but the doe just jumped and kicked once, and then continued walking and feeding through the patch she was in. I waited a moment to see any further reaction, and when a second opportunity presented itself I took a follow-up shot, as I didn't want a tracking job. Turns out the second shot wasn't necessary, and for whatever reason the deer just didn't feel the first shot more than a bee sting, but was dead walking afterwards. Another minute and she would have collapsed, I'm sure. But I've taken to using follow-up shots if I'm not 100% sure the animal is down. Deer do funny things when they're shot, for sure.

 

[jmad_81]

I was brought up head shooting all our deer because it saved meat. Once I started hunting in the "real world" and not on the farm, I quickly realised that head shots were not going to cut it. I started going for lung shots behind the shoulder because I still didn't want to loose a bunch of meat. I'm slowly coming around to the fact that the faster the critter hits the ground the less it suffers, and the less tracking I have to do (I'm not a great tracker). So I have changed my habbits a bit go for a shoulder shot to anchor my game faster. I loose a bit of meat, but run less of a risk of loosing the whole critter. I have also found that shooting a tough bullet helps a bit with the meat damage. A AB through the shoulders will do less damage than a BT/cup and core style bullet.

 

[super-7]

I find myself using the high shoulder shot more and more, with a well constructed bullet getting thru shoulder and into lungs is not an issue. A little meat loss but zero tracking

 

[1Shot]

I used to help work as a control hunter on a big farm and have killed hundreds of deer. When it all boils down there is not that much REAL meat on a deers front shoulders. You get most of the REAL meat off the triceps. The rest of the meat is full of that plastic type membrane that is tough eating anyway. I always try to put a bullet into or angled to come out a front shoulder when possible. If the deer is broad side I use a high shoulder shot. If the deer is facing me with it's head up I place the bullet high up in the chest where the neck meets the body especially if I am in an elevated stand so the angle will be going down. If in an elevated stand,which is where I hunt mostly, I try to wait until the deer puts it's head down. Then I place the bullet a couple inches forward of were the shoulders make the hump on the back in the neck on a downward angle. I did shoot one deer through the right eye at 210 yards on purpose once. It was a wide racked buck that I thought was an 8 point but turned out to be a 7 because he was missing a left brow tine. He must have spotted me move or heard me or something a few days before. It was exactly 210 yards to a big pine tree in the woods that was 10 yards off the edge of a crop field I was hunting over by laser. This buck came to stand behind this big pine tree 3 evenings in a row about 15 minutes before dark thirty. He would stand there and not move anything but his right ear that I could see. I could only see the right half of his head. I knew that with the 3" high zero at 100 yards of my Leupold VXII 3-9X50 scope on my custom Rem 700 Shilen SS barreled 25-06 that where the heavy part of the duplex cross hair on the top vertical part met the finer part was dead on at 200 yards. This rifle will shoot less than 1/2" groups at 200 yards. I decided that the next evening which was my last day to hunt that if that buck came back I was going to shoot him through the right eye. He showed up right on time the next evening. I had my sand bags with the rifle set up and ready. Placed the junction of the cross hair heavy and light point on the center of his right eye and squeezed the trigger and I heard POP as the bullet struck. Went over to retrieve him and found that the bullet had entered in the eye but destroyed half his head. Head shots ARE MESSY with a 117 gr Sierra from a 25-06. I made a set of rattling horns for a young fellow who wanted to try that out of the rack.