Why a high shoulder shot?

[silvertip-co]

Lunger.

No wind, down they go.

 

[Ian M]

phorwath,
This was the first time I deliberately went for high shoulder and it was a unique situation where I could wait for full broadside positioning. I have shot hundreds of deer and usually just hold behind the shoulder, if the shot is close I go for the nervous system. From doing a lot of culling I learned that head-on close shots into the center of the white-patch are instantaneous, even with small caliber bullets. Shot 19 problem deer one evening, all in the throat with the .223 with dead in their tracks results.

This does not relate to the topic at hand, for long shots I hold a bit high but take into consideration wind in case I have boo-boo with my call. We have killed a lot of deer in the 500 - 750 yard range in recent years with the .308 Win and have been fortunate to not lose any wounded.

Toughest long range shot in my opinion is head-on. If you are OK with the wind a bullet into the brisket drops the animal in its tracks. Have had some run slowly 30-50 yards also but usually they drop, lift their head once or twice and done.

Agree with your comments on solid copper bullets and fragmentation. Have seen some nice kills with a variety of latest Barnes bullets. The newer lines are accurate, not as finicky as the old solid copper X's. We find some of the meat grinder bullets perform much better out a ways, the Nosler Ballistic Tip is a wonderful performer out past 300 in the .308. Usually get a mushroom instead of core-jacket separation. We have also used Matchkings and AMAX with good results, might lean toward AMAX for closer shots and not having the bullet come apart.

Heck of a deal with that big brown bear, they do not all react that way do they!
Thanks for the info.

 

[dwm]

You guys want to see some high shoulder shots, watch the Berger Bullet DVD. Its a great video.

I might be wrong, but the first thing I thought of when I watched that video was: those guys are taking high shoulder shots.

Most, if not all animals dropped like a rock, right where they stood, and at long range too. Very impressive.

I have to say that is what I'm after, DRT.

 

[trailhunter]

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 long range 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.

Talk about a dream job gun)

Very good thread ive wondered about this subject for some time now.
Thanks for the insight.
Cheers

 

[Tikka Lover]

Africa high shoulder shot experience????????

Hopefully someone can respond to this. Has anyone tried this shot on African plains game? I am going to South Africa in 1 month and am curious. The animals over there are much stronger and will survive longer,even with a well placed shot. Any first hand experience?

 

[WSmitty01]

I have killed two elk. the first was with a .53 patched round ball from about 75 yards with a high shoulder shot, the elk went down like he was poll axed,,,1 step and folded. The second was from an 8mm rem mag at about 500 yards quartering away down hill. Took the same high shot with the same results. The front legs on both the animals just buckled and they couldn't get back up. This was in the mountains in Northern New Mexico. My guide and close friend, who has propably killed more elk in his 60 years told me if I didn't want to chase that bull all over the Rockies, was to go for the shoulders not any of the traditional low behind the shoulders. I never doubted the advice, since the dozens of huge elk racks on his shed, proved to me that he certainly knew what he was talking about. And by the way the only gun he ever hunted with (bear, cougar, elk and mulie) was an old Model 94 open sighted Winchester! He was amazing!

 

[Elkhunter1]

Great pictures and great dialogue. I see these high shoulder shots on VS and Outdoor channel all the time...pretty dramatic imagery.
I still prefer the heart/lung shot as it doesn't waste meat, and that's really the deciding factor for me as to why I choose to kill versus buy my groceries.

 

[Len Backus]

Hunting season is upon us. Time to have this discussion again.

 

[6.5x300]

Have not taken high shoulder shot and certainly no expert on hunting or bullet placement, but do have strong ethics twards wasting little meat. Just purchesed .338 edge shooting 300 smk and thought a shoulder shot was the way to go till I saw this picture. My congrats to the lucky hunter but how much of either shoulder is edible? Coincidently the first large 4 pt mule deer I shot in the neck at 50 yards had allready been shot high sholder. Bullet clipped top of both shoulder blades just missed top of spine and hit dead center both back straps. Tracking hunters arived some 45 minutes later to me allready packing deer up.

 

[Ridge Runner]

In long range hunting, the bullet will almost always exit a deer, the reason I use a high shoulder shot is, like has been stated, it puts them down, NOW. you have no idea how many times I've saw the deer go bang/flop and once walking to where I thought the deer was, even after carefully marking the location, I get there......nothing looks like it should, and a dead deer laying belly up is alot easier to find than torn up leaves where the deer made its death sprint. Besides, after the bullet slows down a bit due to distance, the damage isn't as great as a point blank close up shot.
So I find it advantageous to give up a lil shoulder meat for a quick recovery.
RR

 

[petenz]

High shoulder shot, .243, DRT.

 

[bigg_sexy1]

I will be trying this out for the 1st time this year, I have been using the traditional aimpoint of bottom 3rd- just behind the shoulder for my whole hunting career, but I am sold on all the propoganda that I have seen on the high shoulder shot. All of the bang- flops I have seen are very appealing. Hopefully I will have something to report when I get back from my Elk hunt in 2 weeks.

 

[Down Under Hunter]

Just read this interesting thread and thought I'd throw my 2 cents in..

I have shot a heap of big game at from 50- 500 yards and in the last couple of years got the long range bug and bought a DE 338 edge.

All of my deer have been in the past with a shot placement low behind the front leg , mainly shooting a 30-06.

Since getting my 338 my first kill was with the same shot placement form 963 yards. Spotting my own shot I saw little to tell me where and if I hit him. So 10 min before dark I didn't know what I had. ... Turns out I hit him through the centre of the lungs but he made 250 yards into a nasty hiding spot where I did not find him for a month !

When my next opportunity came I went high shoulder (610 yards) to both break his front legs out from under him, but also again spotting my own shot have some very noticable reaction from the target to tell me what I had on impact. The leg pic in previous post is of this deer and personally I loved every minute of it ! Thats why I bought the rifle, serious damage at serious range.

I guess another reason I had not seen anyone talk about was from a spotters perspective in being able to determine a good solid hit from a complete miss., as i have shot many deer with precise lung shots and they reacted like I never touched hair ?

DUH

 

[J E Custom]

I'm sure that I'm not the only one that feels That there is no one best
place to shoot a game animal.

There are many variables that determine where the best place to hit an animal to
achieve the best results.

If your in a very difficult place to retrieve an animal if it travels after the shot then
a neck or high shoulder shot Is what I would use (Also if it was a once in a life time
trophy the shoulder is not as tricky at any range) and meat loss is not the main concern.

If your meat hunting behind the shoulder (Heart/Lung area) is the preferred placement
as long as you can see/track for 3 or 400 yards and if range permits a neck shot is
also a quick kill.

Also sometimes the type of bullet your using dictates shot placement for the best performance with that bullet.

So in my opinion the decision should be determined based on all of these parameters.

And when one makes thier choice they have to live with the outcome. so choose
wisely.

Just my 2 cents
J E CUSTOM