Berger Hunting VLDs: Heart/lung vs Shoulder

[Almondgrower]

I just got done butchering an old bull elk I shot with my bow and I discovered the reason this bull wasn't using his front left shoulder while walking, he had an old bullet wound from a highly fragmenting bullet. The bullet hit the leg bone near the "elbow" knuckle and disintegrated into the nearby tissues. The wound was completely calcified over and impossible to tell what bullet or caliber it was, but the thin jacket pieces I found look like a VLD type bullet to me. That shoulder had almost zero calf muscle and only half the meat of the right shoulder the bull used to get around on. The would definitely affected the bulls antler growth, was a heavy 6x4 approx. 7-8 yr old when I shot him but I'd bet he had a lot better antler growth previous years.

My wife shot a cow elk right in that same elbow knuckle with a 140 VLD in a 7mm-08 and that bullet had zero penetration into the vitals, same as this case (second shot was better). I also witnesses a 5 pt bull with a soft point bullet in its shoulder and moving on 3 legs 18 hours after being shot. So just a warning to those who haven't experienced shooting an elk in the bone with a light bullet, just don't do it, you wont like the results and the elk wont either. Crap happens, but its always in my mind to stay away from leg bones when I have Bergers loaded.

 

[wsq]

I'm shooting 150 vld's h at 3175 FPS out of a 270wsm front shoulder shots are devistating nothing has ever gone more than 30yds most are drt bullets fragment and don't usually exit

 

[Bravo 4]

high shoulder if you need to anchor them right there. It sucks to lose the meat, but better than losing the whole critter.
Whitetail can easily go 100 yards with a perfect heart shot. They don't always do that, but certainly can. With two broken shoulders, they don't go anywhere.

Didn't make it off the first page and not even reading the rest of the responses to this thread... what he said!
I started smashing deer through the shoulders (both if possible) after "losing" 2 deer that ran off even though shots were well placed behind the shoulder, with 7mm mag and deer appropriate bullets. One was the biggest whitetail I will probably ever shoot that ran about 200 yards and was stolen by another hunter. The next was a buck that ran about 75 yards and jumped into some heavy flowing water only to never be seen again.
Another example would be my daughter's first deer: doe @ 150 yards broadside. Same 7 mag with 162 SST, great behind the shoulder shot that instantly resulted in seeing the red rose of death (and had a nasty exit wound). Deer hunched up, ran a short distance, stopped and looked at the deer behind her and went back to feeding! A second shot several seconds later dropped her. No telling how far she could have went.
I would rather lose a little meat than get none at all. Put that Berger through the shoulders, the deer won't go far if at all.