i dont see the fuss about neck shots...i asked one question about exactly where to hit and got something like 74 posts on that thread and only a few had any info in it...the rest were all saying not to do it....if you know your shooting and know where to hit why not? why chance the deer running 100yds with a lung shot(sure most dont make it that far but some do even with a good hit) and loosing the trail and loosing it when you can drop it where it stands with a good neck shot? hitting 3 inches at my normal 30yd shot is nothing...i could put all my rounds there out of a box easily....i just dont know the kill zone there STILL except when they are walking away....so for me its head or lungs...one day i will find that magic spot in the neck...the head you got atleast a 3 inch cirlce again...as long as its standing broadside i feel confident...but most of my shots these days seem to be walking or running from other hunters because of the way we hunt...i took my doe this year on a dead run at atleast 40 yds...blew her right out of the air into the snow with a well placed lung shot..she never took another breath....i felt confident..and took the shot...i got the deer....many people bashed me for that shoot to...ill do what i feel confident doing and your no less of a man not taking them shots because you simply think its too hard...thats fine.....i agree the second shot was agood idea....normal neck shots are to hit the spine and kill the animal instantly...you must missed the spine....congrats on the deer.....

Mauser06The difference is that with a lung shot the deer may run 100 yards but it will die fairly quickly.If a neck shot is attempted but the spine is not hit there is a good chance of the deer escaping wounded.Do you suppose that there is a reason you got such a high percentage of people telling you not to take neck shots?You are a new hunter with very limited experience and perhaps many of the hunters telling you not to take neck shots may have a great deal more experience than yourself and may be trying to save you from having to find out for yourself why neck shots are not such a good idea.

What if you whack your scope on something? Very simple situation - you don' t find out something' s wrong until after the shot. Yes, you can put a bullet in a 2-3 inch circle at that range, but if something goes wrong, you go from a perfectly lethal shot to tracking a wounded deer across five states. You do the same thing with a lung shot, and the bullet hits: the spine (up), the heart (down), the front shoulder (to one side), or the liver (the other side). MUCH better odds of a clean kill.

Check out one of the big sites, a magazine, or a book. You can find plenty of diagrams of where the spine sits in the neck. Please avoid using the shot whenever possible, though.

121553,

See my post with " disregard" ? I asked the same thing about hunting in the spring! Don' t feel bad!

IF YOU AIMED AT HER NECK , IM SURE YOU WERE TRYING TO SAVE SOME MEAT OR PULLED REAL BAD , EITHER WAY WHY DID YOU SHOOT HER IN THE HEART WITH YOUR SECOND SHOT? IF YOU WALK UP ON A WOUNDED DEER THE NEXT SHOT SHOULD ALWAYS BE IN THE HEAD , THERE IS NO MEAT TO RUIN AND THE DEER WILL NOT TRY TO GET UP AFTER THAT , SHE' LL BE OUT!

Aim for the boiler room and leave the head and neck shots to the greenhorns. Much bigger kill zone, maybe 10-15 inches. In hunting you can only control so many of the variables so aiming for a " 3" inch target really isn' t a good idea. The general public is still trying to make up its mind on hunting. Leaving wounded animals only hurts our cause. Not saying aiming for the heart and lungs is always perfect, just plain smarter.