Head shooting deer?

[spife7980]

a mans got to know his limitations,

 

[Hydenseek]

a mans got to know his limitations,

 

[cath8r]

I'll guarantee shotgun and muzzleloader hunters wound way more deer than bowhunters. It's that way around here.
I don't know any bowhunters with a 'blase' attitude gutshooting deer.
I'm sure your exaggerating. Likely more rifle hunters doing that too at 'long range'.... Cuz it's the cool thing to do.

 

[johnfred1965]

23 yards out the back door of the shop,,50 yards off the front porch,,thats it,,

I am often up late at night, the thrill of the hunt you put into your posts makes me want to move out of town!!

 

[pirate ammo]

I am often up late at night, the thrill of the hunt you put into your posts makes me want to move out of town!!

been pig free for awhile,but always on standby alert.

 

[Terry_M]

Head shots are fine as long as you have a clear shot and are sure to hit where you want.

 

[johnmventers398]

Out of curiosity, why not a front shot?

For me it seems to be the one headshot I take the most - on alert, frozen deer, aim top nose. The bullet have not failed to smash through the whole head yet.
At the skull/neck intersection from behind also works well, the jaw/ear intersection is rare with me.

I use 6,5mm 123gr and 140gr bullets.

sorry fpr the delay. i dont do the front shot becuase i have seen more than one deer take a shot up the nose like a champ and require a follow up. that horrid moment when its stood there with its face all busted up is not worth the rush. i will always wait for another shot.

i also had an exsperiance when i went out and did a mercy kill on a small heard of old wild sheep. one of them took a 150 7mm rem mag right in the nose at 60m and it just stood there! never flinched or fell just dumbstruck by what was going on.

that is why i will not take the front shot. it is just not for me.

 

[hawkeyeshoooer]

I have taken neck shots on hogs and they are very effective. I just don't think i would ever risk a head shot. I've been shooting for 10 years now and while I'm no sniper, I feel very confident with all my guns. I too use a 270 a lot and love it. Many of the guys at the range that are bragging about head shots can't even get a 3 inch grouping. Thats pretty inadequate to me for a heart or lung shot let alone a head shot.

 

[rr2030]

A few years ago while in South Dakota I saw a buck laying in a ditch, had his lower jaw blown off. Never saw an animal that looked liked it had suffered so much in my life, he just wanted to be dead. I have never shoot a deer or any other big game animal in the head for just that reason and I never will. Just put one in the boiler room, you can live without the 3 oz of meat you wast to humanly end an magnificant creatures life.

 

[Someoldguy]

I understand your point.

I have found exactly -0- deer missing the lower jaw in the woods. And I've spent a considerable amount of time there.

I can not count on both hands the number of gut-shot deer I've found during the same time period.

If the hunter can't shoot straight, the result is the same.

 

[Mr. Ten-X]

It's not a head shot, it's a BRAIN shot.

It's not a neck shot, it's a SPINE shot.

There's a lot of neck and head that can be hit without a humane kill.

 

[ckaberna]

View attachment 1053582

Dang!!

 

[AckleymanII]

Head shots, use a 6-20 or 6x24 with a super accurate rifle, no big deal.

Practice shooting golf balls off a T at 200 yards to build up confidence.

If you are going to plan on being a head shooter, plan on having a support for your right elbow if you are a right handed shooter.

The Back of your pick up will be a mess.

 

[johnmventers398]

And that is material how? He can also move on his feet...

If it is facing 90° from you and you hit him forward in the snout you would have also missed the heart and hit it in the brisket which is only musecle. If you missed the other way behind you either hit it in the spine or its a clean miss. With a body shot and you missed behind you shot him in the diaphram missing the vitals as well.

In either case have no business shooting it if you cant make the shot correctly and the result is you wounded a deer that will hopefully die quickly instead of days later. If hes facing you no snout is going to stop a bullet from flying through its head and away from you is the same story.


Heres a picture of a cull buck someone shot in the brisket that didnt go down for quite awhile based on his trail. Notice how it ran far enough for long enough for coyotes to have eaten him up in the time it took for us to get out there and track it down 2 hours later after learning about the shot at dinner.

You tell me whats the more humane kill: brains splattered about on the spot it was shot or hoping he expired and was not merely wounded while being eaten alive?

I am sorry to have witnessed a client of mine hit a deer square on the shout with a 140gr 6.5 X 55. It did not die. When I found it I could only describe it as a bloody horrendous. Face missing and flesh dangling down arou d whare the shout should have been. With every breath I could hear the slurping and gargling.

When I was new to the profession I saw a guest shoot a stag in the snout for him simplty turn tail and run. We followed it for ten hours... Never found it again. He was shooting 150 gr 308 win.

You cannot say for certain that a bullet will just juggernaut on

 

[hammerjack]

It's getting close to deer season with the head shooting thread back on top.

 

[jpretle]

Head shots and neck shots---DON'T DO 'EM!!!!!!!
I hear guys bragging about one shot head and neck shots and w/ a 22 cal, even. The 'brag' you don't hear, are those that weren't one shot or were never found.

 

[Capt. Oblivious]

I haven't shot an animal anywhere but in the head/brain in the last 10 years, know your limitations and know your rifle.
I cant imagine having a more humane kill than sending a bullet into his brain without the animal even knowing about it, over here anyway allot more animals die alone in the woods/fields with bullets in the gut than without a jaw.

 

[370bc]

i blasted a raccoon in my neighbor's attic the other day. I had to pop it exactly in the head. I had my .22 10/22 zeroed with Eley hunting. Perfect results under tough aiming, in a confined space. (Standing on a ladder with the ruger 90% throughout the attic access hole). No exit.
I popped a wounded doe that had been hit on the road that I farmer request that I would dispatch. The only shot that I had, had a shed directly behind her. My nephew argued about the shot. I informed him that the 110 Vmax out of my 270 BAR was zeroed dead on and that the Vmax is a frangible design. I used a bipod and got the job done with a head shot @ 80 yards. No exit.
You have to know your abilities and your equipment 100%. Otherwise, I personally would choose a different impact placement.

 

[ballisticxlr]

If you're going to aim at small targets, be 100% certain of your ability to hit small targets. One day I was 50 feet from a trio of 1000lbs+ eland. I was proned out wih a rear bag, suppressed .338WM and tucked nicely into some brush. It would have been a triviality to reliably blow that bad boy's noggin into the next county but I couldn't see anything but 3 heads in the brush and didn't know if there was something I didn't want perforated behind it. My guide said I could take the shot if I wanted to but I was wary to risk a head shot on a thing that's that big and close and prone to moving unexpectedly and unexpectedly quickly. I waited till it wandered off a little ways and wasn't stomping-my-arse close anymore before putting one in the hydraulic pump. He walked 2km before we could put the finisher in but he had zero chance of escape because he chose to mosey off across wide open brushless country.

A week before that I was in the back of a land rover with a rifle sitting on the rack bar in one of the least stable positions I've ever been in with the crosshairs dancing over the head of a ewe impala at 75yrds. The rifle I was using was a 1-hole machine and we'd just confirmed zero. There were other animal bodies behind her body but there were no animal bodies in my line of sight to her head or beyond it and she looked like she was fixin'a grab her hat and take a jog so I exhaled and applied pressure to the trigger and the next thing I hear is, "Pink mist!".

I almost will not shoot big game in the head. Almost. With only 3 exceptions that I can think of over the last 30 years, I simply shoot things in the heart and they die right there or within rock throwing distance of right there. One thing of which I'm extremely proud is that whenever I have put crosshairs on for a heart shot, the heart has always gotten a bullet first time. I might be a kind of middling shooter whilst doing other things but it seems I don't miss pumping stations when I point aty them.

 

[Chuksniper]

Same here,I know when I die I rather go fast instead of the suffering.

Absolutely, if you really want the bang flop, dust of the old 10ga. And hit one in the top shoulder, there out before they roll! An it's an ethical kill with out the chance of mangeling it if a miss.