Yeah its a little bit PG-13, but its part of the game. The TSX is getting raving reviews from the PHs I know in Africa. They just love the thing. The benefits of a solid with the big wound channels of an expandable. African game is WAY tougher than what we have domestically. Dropping an African animal where it stands is nearly always due to a head/spinal shot. It seems the only way to turn them off like a light...its to cut the cord so to speak.

About the BTs and dropping deer; when you are shooting at the back of the vitals, you are taking out the upper portions of the lungs, liver, and likely most of the arteries and veins that run near the backbone (unless you hit high and get the spine itself). That the BT expands so rapidly, coupled with the fact that lungs are really little more than a massive system of capilaries and are slam full of blood (maybe as much as half the blood in the animal), I suspect the animal passes out (if you can call it that) from a rapid loss of blood pressure. That gallon jug full of water we have all seen being shot with a rifle and exploding like a water balloon is a fairly good depeiction of what a rapid expanding bullet will do to the lungs of a deer. The only issue I would have with that shot to the back of the vitals, is that if your shot does go high, or does go back, you have either shot directly through the backstraps, or worse by shooting too far aft, gut shot the animal. No doubt, you may well get the liver too, which will kill the animal, but a deer with a ruptured liver can live for quite some time...at least compared to lung/heart shot deer. It can take up to a couple of hours to kick off, depending on how bad/good you got the liver and what else you got with it.

One way or another though, if you get both lungs (no matter where), that animal has about 15 seconds until its off to the big corn pile in the sky. But, as we have all no doubt seen, a deer can go some distance in 15 seconds, and if you have a river or swamp near your stand....thats right where he's headed.

Thats the reason I like the front of the shoulder/base of the neck....everything runs together right there. Its dropping the bomb on grand central station. If you hit forward, you will still catch the spine, major arteries, wind pipe. Low, you are going through the shoulder and taking out the archialbracial arterty (pardon the spelling), the corrodied arterty and the jugluar vein as they leave/return to the heart. High, you will either miss entirely, or hit close enough to the back that it will knock the deer down almost like you did it right...but watch'em...thats where you can get burned. But, that most likely will NOT kill the deer. As long as you don't hit bone..its just a muscle hit. If you shoot too far back....well...thats right behind the shoulder, which is where most people shoot deer anyway..and you can read about that in the second paragraph.

I just like having two holes instead of just one in the deer. Not that I have to track many of them with that shot....but....it takes a little studying and practice to perfect. There again though...the margin for error in any direction is fairly as safe as any where on the animal. I'll see if I can find a good picture of a cutaway, as that will better explain exactly what I'm talking about.