Why a high shoulder shot?

[Buffalobob]

If a bullet drops 4 MOA between 1000 yards and 1100 yards then that is about 40 inches. So to simply the math lets us just say it drops one yard in 100 yards. That is one percent. So in traveling through a twelve inch wide animal standing 1000 yards away, it would drop one tenth of an inch while in the animal.

 

[kcebcj]

Ebd10

Your right and your wrong. If a bullet was spent it's vertical fall would be greater than its horizontal movement.

If you keep your calculations within a bullets kill zone you will find that the horizontal movement is huge compared to the fall or vertical movement of the bullet.

A 338 depending on the load with a 250 gr. bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2800 fps has about 372 inches of drop at a 1000 yards with a 200 yard zero. Its velocity at that range is about 1150 fps. If you do the math you will find that there is only about .124 inches of fall per foot of lateral movement in 3000 feet. So if your target was 2 feet thick there would be about .248 inches of difference from where the bullet entered and where it exited at a 1000 yards.

 

[kcebcj]

Hey Buffalobob

I did not realize you had posted. Your numbers are right on and we are close to the same so all of that grammar school math is maybe paying off for me.

 

[tjonh2001]

the reason that you do a high sholder shot on long range animals is that it gives you more room for drop at those ranges. so if you hit low heart, hit back spine/ lungs, forward spine/complete miss, hit alittle high spine. its a win win all over. traditional behind the shoulder. first of all the animal will get adrenilan and run before dies. to far back gutzzz. low miss/ wounded, high spine. forward heart. this can be switched if animal is turned around. point being i dont want to shoot and animal at 800 yards. then walk over there only to start trailing it or to realize that i gut shot it. its all about what puts them down. and it does....

 

[Pdvdh]

Never had troubles behind the shoulders. Long range or any other range. It provides the greatest margin of error equally in all directions from the point of aim. Yes, if you aim at the shoulder you have more allowance towards the diaphram but less allowance for error in front of the shoulder. I could say aim at the liver and I'd have a lot more room for error towards the shoulder but little into the guts. It's a mish-mash of words. Aim dead center on the largest kill zone on the animal, and I have some allowance for error in all directions.

I've seen two moose walk off with broken front leg bones and shoulder shots that were too far forward. Didn't get away because of follow-up hits, but they weren't stopping or dying with a broken leg/shoulder. Never seen one walk or run far with a hole through the lungs.

You don't think a shoulder shot animal is pumping adrenaline? Now these shoulder shots are beginning to sound like magic. The shoulder shot animal is going to live about the same length of time as an animal shot just behind the shoulder, and I can assure you the adrenaline is pumping. I'd be curious as to the logic on the no-adrenaline shoulder shots.

Shoot through the shoulders if you don't mind throwing the shoulder meat away. Shoot behind the shoulder if you want to eat front shoulder roasts. I understand that long range shoulder shots cause less meat damage than short range shoulder shots. But the shoulder shot still ruins more meat than the behind the shoulder shot at equivalent distances.

Maybe the difference is, I don't mind if the animal moves 50 yards before dying. Never have. Started archery hunting when I was pre-high school and have always enjoyed tracking an animal to where they fall. Don't tell me it's inhumane to let the animal run 50 yards before it expires. Shoulder shot animals are living just as long. Only difference is mine may walk, trot, or run until collapsing because they still have four healthy legs and normally use them until no longer able.

The only thing I'll give for the shoulder shot is it looks good on camera for the uninformed if they see the animal drop at the shot - provided that the camera is then pulled off the animal until he stops kicking and thrashing on the ground. What doesn't look good on camera is the animal in its death throws, which is why the camera is often quickly pulled off the animal until the thrashing ends. An animal that runs naturally after the lung hit and finally falls deader than a door-nail 50-100 yards away looks much better on TV than a shoulder shot animal that thrashes in a panic on the ground until expiring. I won't go into ethics other than to argue the animal's death is relatively equal time-wise either way - through the lungs or through the shoulders. I'll just end up with a little more meat in the freezer compared to the shoulder shot animal.

 

[esorensen]

High Shoulder

The high shoulder shot does allow for more windage error. At long range the wind owns you. Elevation is infinately easier with lasers and exbal on palm, kestrel pocket weather etc. As far as terminal performance, arrows into the vitals cut and bleed the animal to death with BROADheads. The actual fpe of an arrow is quite low in comparison however it is enough to insert 2,3,4 scalpels into stuff that leaks air or blood. Bullets kill with much more traumatic damage. At long range the performance of the projectile becomes highly suspect. High shoulder gives you bone to break the animal down, and to become secondary projectiles. So if the bullet won't expand because of lack of speed into soft tissue,(behind the shoulder) it probably will on bone and those bone pieces are hell on heart and lungs. It seems there is also some neurologic shock imparted as well even if the spine is not hit directly. I believe this is because of the proximityof the spine to the impact. It does damage more meat, but attempting to track a deer hit at 100 yards and one hit at 1000 yards is two different things. Try it. It works. It is the long range solution.

 

[Pdvdh]

Last fall I shot a bull caribou at 850 yds with a high shoulder hit which clipped both shoulder blades and took out the spine. The animal dropped in its tracks on the opposing mountain face, but continued moving it's head, neck, and front legs. He didn't die in the first two minutes and wasn't going to die without another shot - a fatal one. It was going to take about 35 minutes to get to where I could fire a killing round from closer range due to the terrain and distance needed to be covered to bring the animal into full view. The animal was horizontal on the ground and the only portion visible was the top of the head and the back of the neck almost down to about the junction with the front shoulders. Even that portion would have been obscured if the antlers weren't proping the head and neck up off the ground. The rest of the torso was pointed away from me and lie underneath the horizon of the knoll the animal fell on. In the effort to end this bull's life sooner than later, I took another shot and was fortunate to hit the much smaller lethal target now available to me, which was the neck. This second shot didn't dead center the neck vertebrae, but grazed the vertabrae and was close enough to damage the central nervous system such that the animal expired very quickly after impact. Point is, I'd have preferred to double lung the animal and watch him fall a little later - dead.

I will agree that the immediate impact from the high shoulder hit does seem to impart a physiological nervous system response that can be immediately or at least momentarily disabling at the longer ranges in comparison to simply punching out both lungs. In my observations, the same thing applies at closer ranges also. And I see merit in the argument that striking bone could help ensure bullet expansion at long range. I consider the range and terminal bullet velocity prior to taking a long shot and try to ensure there will be enough ramaining velocity to initiate expansion. It sounds like the Berger VLD bullets are performing very well in that regard, from what I've read on this forum. And I agree that it's normally easier to allow for elevation at long range than for the windage.

I'm not following the argument that there's the benefit of more windage error with the shoulder shot. I've got to allow for the wind whether I'm centering the kill zone or aiming nearer one edge of it (shoulders). If I don't allow for windage properly while aiming for the shoulders, I can wound the animal in front of the shoulders or end up just fine in the other direction with a fatal hit through the lungs. Aiming just behind the front shoulders I can tolerate some point of impact shift in either direction and still have a lethal hit.

I agree the front shoulder shot can kill the animal just as effectively as lung shots missing the front shoulders at long range. But I think there's very little difference in lethality between the two, and point of aim for the lung shot allows a bit more latitude for impact error in any and all directions, compared to targeting the shoulder.

 

[Natty Bumpo]

about 372 inches of drop at a 1000 yards with a 200 yard zero. Its velocity at that range is about 1150 fps. If you do the math you will find that there is only about .124 inches of fall per foot of lateral movement in 3000 feet

At the risk of splitting hairs, your math presumes a linear relationship between bullet drop and distance. Bullets don't drop in a straight line with a constant slope. If I recall my physics homework in trajectory correctly, they follow a parabola. The amount of drop between 800 and 900 hards will be more than the amount of drop between 200 and 300 yards.

 

[ebd10]

At the risk of splitting hairs, your math presumes a linear relationship between bullet drop and distance. Bullets don't drop in a straight line with a constant slope. If I recall my physics homework in trajectory correctly, they follow a parabola. The amount of drop between 800 and 900 hards will be more than the amount of drop between 200 and 300 yards.

That's what I thought. I was thinking that a high shoulder shot would take advantage of this because the bullet would enter the animal high on the shoulder and then, continuing on the same path, push diagonally down through the heart and lungs of the animal.

Guess I'll just have to work towards getting set up to find out for myself.

 

[kcebcj]

Natty Bumpo-ebd10

You are absolutely right. As the bullet slows down the fall increases per foot of travel. Buffalobobs explanation is more accurate than mine as it takes into account the bullet slowing down. I was just trying to show that any given bullet that still had enough energy to take an animal (deer elk) had very little difference between the entrance and the exit. Sorry if I confused anyone.

 

[Ian M]

Last season I was involved in a management cull where a large number of does had to be killed to meet some Quality Deer Management goals. All the meat went to charity, there was a great bunch of volunteers handling the skinning and meat prep. I shot from pop-up ground blinds, ranges from 60 yards out to 3-400 yards. Some shots were longer. I waited for the animal to assume the same position for each shot, full broadside. Cartridge was .308 Win with 150 AMAX bullets. Every deer died identically. At the shot and as I came out of recoil I saw a flash of white belly hair in the scope picture. Every deer went down in its tracks, all lying on the side the bullet exited. There was no kicking or nervous reactions, the deer simply went down on their side and that was it. Another guy was doing the same shot, he had identical results. The guides on the property were very impressed because they did not have to track one of our critters. I shot close to twenty deer, my friend well over double that all with the same result. This is not practical in a hunting scenario but it was interesting that the animals died so uniformly. I also shot a few with a .260 Rem LR rifle with 142 Matchkings and had identical results out at 3-400 yards. My friend made kills out to 725 or so with the same results with that .260, it was a killing machine. I am adding this to the topic because we had extremely good results with the high shoulder shot location. Obviously we were taking out the nervous system with uniformity. I cannot discuss meat loss because I did not spend time at the meat handling facility, we were there to run up the kill numbers. Our group did over one hundred deer in fairly short time and the high shoulder shot guys made the guide's recovery job much easier.

 

[Buffalobob]

That's what I thought. I was thinking that a high shoulder shot would take advantage of this because the bullet would enter the animal high on the shoulder and then, continuing on the same path, push diagonally down through the heart and lungs of the animal.

The next time you kill an animal you might want to look and see if the heart is one tenth of an inch below the spine. To accomplish what you are talking about the bullet would be dropping nearly 12 inches in twelve inches of travel. That would be 3600 inches per hundred yards. Long range hunting is about a lot of math and a lot of field verification. There are numerous free ballistics programs that you can use to check your opinions.

At the risk of splitting hairs, your math presumes a linear relationship between bullet drop and distance. Bullets don't drop in a straight line with a constant slope. If I recall my physics homework in trajectory correctly, they follow a parabola. The amount of drop between 800 and 900 hards will be more than the amount of drop between 200 and 300 yards.

The approximation I posted demonstrated that the average rate of drop between 1000 yards and 1100 yards for the cartridge I shoot and which I have personally field verified to be correct is close to one tenth of an inch per foot. I have also used it to make a high shoulder shot at about that distance and it didn't go through the heart. It is impossible to go high shoulder and hit the heart with out a deflection occurring or shooting down from a cliff or up a cliff.

The biology of a deer or elk is fairly well known and the heart is not up into the top of the chest cavity. Here are a series of pictures of deer and elk biology

And for the people who wish to see the central nervous system of a quadruped here is one.

And as far as where to aim, I pretty much agree with phorwath, on the difficult shots you need to use all the margin of error available to you.

 

[Rimfire]

The high shoulder is a quick kill it shocks the system and results in DRT. I dont know if I buy into the whole "kill zone" or "dead zone" for the arc of the bullet path. I've looked at many cull dear / crop damage shot at 5-700 yards and there isn't any real sign of tthe exit hole being lower. This theory may come into play at distances alot further than I am comfortable on game.
Bottom line for me is high shoulder at long range is a safer shot. Shot goes high dead deer hit in the spine, shot goes even higher clean miss no wounded animal. Shot goes low = lungs even lower shot = low lung and heart.

Aiming for traditional behind shoulder shot goes high you're OK shot goes low it could be a 3 leg deer or guts hanging out NOT FOR ME

I guess I'm not a traditional hunter and neither is LRH so I stick with the high shoulder at long range unless bow hunting

 

[Pdvdh]

Bubbalobob;
Glad you set the record straight that the shoulder shot offers no advantage based on the logic that with a high shoulder shot the bullet will still drop down into the heart and take it out too. The heart is located at the very front bottom of the brisket - at least I've never located one in any other location on the game I've gutted. Except one mid-sized black bear. His heart was missing, but that heart shot was taken from about 70 yds with a good stable rest and I could afford to target the heart. 338 WinM.

Ian M;
I don't feel like there are hard fast rules that absolutely predict an animal's immediate response to the hit because there are so many different caliber, bullet speed, bullet construction, bullet performance, and animal size combinations to work with that it would be difficult to predict with certainty an animal's immediate response to the hit. When I read your post and you described the closer ranges the deer were being killed at, my initial response was that the bullets you were using typically expand dramatically and quickly and on a deer-sized animal; the results are often immediate lights out - sometimes even with a non-CNS lung shot. I've seen deer-sized game drop like lightning when shot through the lungs with high speed frangible type bullets, and have read that a .220 Swift will commonly produce such results when hit through the ribs. Even with my 1000 plus pound brown bear, a simple lung shot was instant lights out. Enough velocity combined with sufficient bullet penetration and expansion can evidently overwhelm the CNS on even a 1000 +lb bear with a simple broadside lung shot. That's something I didn't expect, but observed with my own two eyes.

But then you described some longer 700 yard shots with the same instant kill results on these deer. If your shoulder shots were also spine shots then you pulled off some admirable shooting at those longer ranges, and those kind of results on deer-sized animals with those shot placements are very plausible.

As to meat damage, the higher the velocity of the bullet the greater the difference in the increased meat loss between a shoulder shot animal and a double-lunged animal shot through the ribs. To the point that if you center the shoulders on a deer-sized animal on a broadside shot with a 300 Win Mag caliber-type round anywhere inside 300 yds, 1/2 and even more of both shoulders will be inedible due to bloodshot bullet damage. The monolithic copper bullets are a little better at reducing meat damage on the closer shots than are the lead jacketed expanding bullets. First they don't expand as violently and second they don't send lead and jacket shards out into the meat surrounding the wound channel. I suspect you've shot and cleaned enough game to accept this as a 95% plus fact. Even if you've always targeted the shoulders, you've probably struck a few animals through the lungs aft of the shoulders.
With hyper velocity, even a through-the-ribs lung shot can create an impressive amount of bloodshot meat on the entry side of the ribs. When I'm taking closer range shots on large game with high retained bullet velocity, I very deliberately avoid the front shoulders. I just don't see the sense in wasting the front shoulder and backstrap meat when the lung shot will kill the animal just as surely and do so with relatively minimal meat loss on the ribs. But it is true that the through-the-rib double-lunged shot animals are more likely to travel 50 yds before expiring, and if 50-100 yards means the animal might jump off a cliff before expiring, then that's a rare case where I would either delay the shot until the animal relocated, or else aim for the high-shoulder spine shot. Did that once on a mountain goat from short range. That billy expired lights out just like your deer did, except he was already bedded. Simply rolled over downslope a couple rolls. I also shot another mountain goat about 100 yards from a deep, steep cliff from which the animal could not have been recovered without technical rock climbing equipment. I was shooting a 338-378 Weatherby and lung shot the animal broadside through the ribs. Now goats have a reputation for being suicidal. Distance was about 220 yards and to reach the cliff the goat would have to travel directly towards me, presenting a head on followup shot. The bullet was moving at sufficient speed that I could see the fur blow outwards from the impact to the side of the chest. The animal almost lost his feet at the shot but, wouldn't you know it, started hobbling toward the cliff. I got ready for a frontal charge-style followup shot but the billy only peg-legged it for about 8 yds before piling up.

Interesting thread. Perhaps some more ultra-experienced forum members will sound in.