Given a broadside shot, what is your preferred shot on deer?

[JWILCHE]

I shot behind shoulder on my first 223 kill with a 50 grain hornady polytip. Only ran 30 yards but no blood trail and if I didn't see where he went could have been all day tracking him. I immediately swapped to 64gr speer golf dot soft points. I ended up on 55gr Hornady Soft points because of the price. Never had one run from a neck shot.

 

[howl]

Anywhere on the neck with a high velocity expanding bullet will punch the ticket.
View attachment 8235216

Heart and lung shots are fine too, but just makes a bigger mess to clean up when processing the deer.

Crosshairs are too low on the neck. Do that with the wrong bullet, or defective example of the right bullet, and the deer will get up and run off to never be round. Good rule of thumb to put it on the neckbone is to divide the neck into thirds. Put your bullet one-third down from the top in line with the bottom of the throat patch. This works IF you can hit it, which most of the time, most people cannot. Instead they rely on quck bullets coming apart quickly to cover for their misses.

The whitetail version of these were better for testing yourself, but they're out of print. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1555402904...=2047675&ssuid=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

[howl]

Did you have a bad experience with a 243?

I've spent a lot of time, over the years, looking for deer other people shot with .243s. The study posted above shows it's the usual thing with that round.

 

[Fatal_Bert]

Crosshairs are too low on the neck. Do that with the wrong bullet, or defective example of the right bullet, and the deer will get up and run off to never be round. Good rule of thumb to put it on the neckbone is to divide the neck into thirds. Put your bullet one-third down from the top in line with the bottom of the throat patch. This works IF you can hit it, which most of the time, most people cannot. Instead they rely on quck bullets coming apart quickly to cover for their misses.

The whitetail version of these were better for testing yourself, but they're out of print. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1555402904...=2047675&ssuid=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

All I can say is I've shot many right in that spot with a 35rem and 270 and it's dropped every single one in their tracks. May not be the best on paper or the interwebs but until it fails me I'll continue.

 

[Fatal_Bert]

I've spent a lot of time, over the years, looking for deer other people shot with .243s. The study posted above shows it's the usual thing with that round.

All I can say is I've shot many right in that spot with a 35rem and 270 and it's dropped every single one in their tracks. May not be the best on paper or the interwebs but until it fails me I'll continue.

Never mind, I looked again at both pictures we posted and yours is more inline with how I aim. My picture is a little low where it shows the bullseye.

Broad side I do aim a little higher than dead center of the neck. Another other than broad side I aim dead center.

 

[howl]

All I can say is I've shot many right in that spot with a 35rem and 270 and it's dropped every single one in their tracks. May not be the best on paper or the interwebs but until it fails me I'll continue.

Ever thought you must have missed?

 

[Fatal_Bert]

Ever thought you must have missed?

I've missed 3 deer in my life. 2 I'm 100% sure it was a complete miss. One was a bad shot on a nice buck that was staring right at me and turned to bolt the second I was squeezing the trigger. Don't know where I hit him but it was a long frustrating blood trail that went cold.
Aside from him I can honestly say I've never tracked a blood trail. Always saw them drop dead and flop or run 15 yards or less and drop.

 

[Comanche]

It differs when I’m using a rifle vs archery.

 

[GFB]

It differs when I’m using a rifle vs archery.

Question specifies rifle