Originally Posted by Pat Williamson
Lung shots and heart shots usually run 60-75 yds before they run out of gas. Shoulder shots high in shoulder usually drop, but not always..... they can be tough. I prefer behind shoulder to purge a lot of blood

OR head/neck shots will also shorten the tracking job. I took 3 does from a customers place on Saturday with the muzzleloader between 130 and 167 yds. within 40 minutes of each other. 2 high "shoulder" shots that were behind the scapula but clipped the spine. Both of those deer never took a step. The last shot was right at the base of the ear and out the other side. No tracking with that one either. With the last 2 shots, I could have reloaded and shot the 4th deer because the other 2 were behind it and they never made any noise, just went straight down and never moved. I'm using a 195g Barnes 40 caliber bullet @ 2750 fps in the .45 caliber Savage Muzzleloader.

I shot one deer 2 or 3 years ago in the heart and it never took a step. I was amazed, but guys that I've talked to that used the same bullet reported the same thing. The amount of shock going into the deer is what I think is causing the heart shot to drop them. The biggest piece of the heart that I found was smaller than a golf ball. I was using the Pittman Bullet for that one.

Pittman Aeromax bullet

Now granted that deer was about 80 yds away, and I was shooting the 300grain Aeromax from my Savage Muzzleloader at 2800 fps, and it kills on BOTH ends, but I never expected the deer to drop with that shot. I fully expected it to do the typical 50-100 yd dash before piling up.


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