If you severly damage the spine he will stay down.If you graze the spine or hit close to it he will likely drop at the shot but will just as likely get up several seconds later and run away wounded.

If I need to anchor a animal I will hit it square in the shoulder (with a .340 Wby. Mag. using a 250 gr. Barnes XFB traveling a 3062 f/s 5204 fl/lb), but most of the time I will hit it right behind the front leg/shoulder at the center of the body. I don't like hitting them in the heart because I love the way heart goes with liver and onions. Good luck.

Yeah, there are minor differences inside the animal from one species to another but they are not that different to warrant changing where you aim on a deer, elk or moose.

Giving where I placed the dots on the pic I am assuming that on other than a broadside shot one would put the bullet where it needed to go whether through the shoulder, base of the neck, or what ever. Also assuming that the original question was refering to having the option of not shooting through the shoulder.


Here are three different shot angles from my signature pic blown up. Broadside, slightly quartering to, and sevearly quartering to. Given the option of not taking out the shoulder I prefer to do so but if the shot is not presented the shoulder gets the bullet.

Some good stuff there guys...thanks for the info!

Well fellers this is where I gotta disagree just a little, My shot of choice is on the top of the shoulders it will break both shoulders and the back, down they go. If it is moving then I will try for the foreleg shot. But if he will cooperate the top of the shoulders gets my bullet everytime. I also use a 300 Remington Ultra Mag 180gr. but I have killed several elk with the 30-06 180gr same shot!

I gotta go with Elkslayer54 on this one. I too shoot a 300 Ultra and on target they get results in a hurry. A little high behind the shoulder is a stopper. But I think the bottom line is we all take the best shot in the amount of time we have. I think the best hunters are the ones that know when to pass up the shot and wait for another chance when necessary.

Highpower speaks the gospel truth

I like lung shots because I eat the heart and liver.Also it is pretty hard to run with a good hole in your lungs.

This is in reponse to Roskoe's thread, "Best place to shoot an elk". I knew there were old threads on this, so I looked one up. If I knew how to paste in the link to this, I would have just done that.

Good stuff and debate in here.

buck59= the sight u need is www.bowjackson.com it has muscle, skeleton, and the circulatory systems. this is a very interesting site. it also has an arows ft lb. at differant yardage. i thought that was interesting!