I generally shoot till they drop no matter what game I am shooting at. Most of the shots around where I hunt can be quite lengthy but some how I seem to get close to game. Last elk season, it was nearly dark and very difficult to see through my scope. At 60 yards, a bull appeared and I shot once. He began to run. As I was always told and have been taught, I "shot until they're on the ground." I shot two more times after the initial shot and the bull dropped on the last shot. As ran up to the bull, and he was stone cold dead. So obviously, what the 2nd and 3rd shots did that the 1st one didn't was kill the bull. I might add the all three shots were behind the front shoulder. Two high in the lungs and one in the heart. The bull didn't travel 100 yards.

On another occasion last year while bear hunting. I spotted a bear near 150-200 yards, immediately pulled up off-hand,and shot 3 consecutive times. The bear was rolling down a small slope after the first shot. All three shots were behind the front shoulder and the beast went a mear 15 yards. Now, I'm sure if I had shot one lone time I would have never found that bear. He was in the middle of a 30 acre blackberry briar patch and one .270 bullet into a bear at 150-200 yards generally doesn't leave good blood for very long.

Now for deer, I can't relate with you whitetail hunters since we onlyhave the smaller blacktail subspecies where I live. If I was shooting a deer and the deer failed to fall from the first shot I would take as many "back-up" shots as needed to the animal fell. My reasoning comes from these stories above. Again, what the 2nd and 3rd shots did that the first "perfect" shot didn't do was kill the animal.

And as far as wasting meat... If you make shots behind the shoulder in the boiler room, bread basket, etc... Then all you are ruining is rib meat.. Petty keilbasa, jerky, or pepperoni meat.. A couple lbs. at most...