HuntingNet.com Forums - shot placement questions

Quote:

ORIGINAL: Indiana Whitetail

I shot an 9-point two years ago with an accidental neck shot he was about 30 yards out and at a trot after a doe, well he stopped a split second before i pulled the trigger and i was leading him, BOOM down he goes, stopped him in his tracks but that was with a 12 gauge, it was nice not having to track him but i would never intentionally take that shot. 99% of the time i wont shoot at a moving target but he wouldnt stop for my grunts and whistles.

Very similar to my first whitetail: walking around in the late morning after sitting in a stand in a wet snowfall all morning. Just stretching my legs and walking over to talk to a friend. Too impatient. Up jumps a nice buck and pauses for a second with a perfect broadside shot. Brought gun up, acquired "boiler room" in scope, shot. Deer went down like pole-axed: perfect spine shot in neck! Bad shot on my part, really lucked out.

But.....

That's why we aim for the boiler room as close to the shoulder as possible. There is alot of room for error: a little too high you still hit the lungs and maybe the spine over the back. Too low, you either hit the lungs or miss. A little to far back, you will hit the liver (or if it's a bad shot, a gut shot, which NOBODY wants!) too far forward, you have a lot of good "misses" - fatal and cripling shoulder shot and maybe the neck shot.

My lessons learned: I haven't taken an off hand shot since even though I practice with it a lot since then. Always aim for the middle of the boiler room (every shot since then has been a clean double-lunger).