Come on now!, its a deer, they dont have a heavy bone structure. I have shot elk in the shoulders with complete pass thrus using 300gr. Hornady XTP's out of a 50cal. muzzleloader

There's very little meat on a front shoulder to begin with!

Hammer em!

Another thing to keep in mind when considering the shoulder shot is that if you shoot too high or too far in front, you've got either a clean miss or an animal with agonizing wounds. And if you shoot too low, you've got an animal with a broken leg that can still escape, only to later succumb to its wounds or predators.

Just think of hunting legend Karamojo Bell. It was his fanaticism over bullet placement coupled with an understanding of his quarry's anatomy-that allowed him to tale down so many elephants with his meager .275 Rigby, a cartridge equivalent to today's 7x5 7.

I can't speak well on behalf of a muzzlelaoder, as I have only killed a couple of deer with one. Both were shoulder shots however, as my aiming confidence is not as good as with a modern rifle. But with a modern gun I always shoot in the neck. I do this for two reasons... they are always laying where you shoot them, and you don't cause any meat to become blood-shot.

I never used a muzzleloader, but I find this quite interesting. I would not have thought that a round ball was so ineffective. I did shoot a deer with my 40 pound recurve and had missed and hit it in the shoulder. The arrow knocked a hole about an 1 1/2 round through the shoulder bone (cut the deer up later) and continued through the heart. The deer ran about 50 yards and appeared to be using only 3 legs but it happened so fast I am not sure. Do muzzle loader balls only break a hole through the shoulder bone like that? I have shot plenty of deer in the shoulder with .300 Savage,6.5 Japanese, 6.5 Swede and other light cartridges and those deer go right down even if running. It is enough to break the bone. Not my preferred shot, but sometimes it is the best shot and it does not damage much meat really.

Huh? The tube that joins the mouth and the stomach? Are you sure you don't mean the spine?

its a very effective shot.and theres little meat on the front quarters of a deer anyways.

BarnesX .308 -
 

That guy means esophagus, I have seen it done with a .22 longrifle. It won't kill them with a .22 but it does drop them and they stay there unless forced to get up. If they can even get up they can't go more than 5 feet without dropping again because they can't breathe.

Are you serious???

The shoulder is a decent sized area. The only part of the head that will kill a deer is the brain...basically the size of a lemon.

They breath through the trachea (wind pipe). The esophagus is the tube they swallow food through.

Even the wind pipe is not an anchoring shot. A deer can run 100 yards with a blown out heart and no oxygen enriched blood going to the brain. I can assure you they'll go pretty far not being able to breath.

I shot in the neck will usually take out the spine and can also sever the carotid artery and jugular vein. These are probably what is causing your deer to drop.

You guys aren't vascular surgeons, are you? :D