What's been your experience with neck shots?

[GF.]

I hit that one with a 150 gr. Sierra from 10 or 15 yards, so I don't know that I could have gained anything from any other 7mm deer bullet. Those Sierras seem to be definitely towards the soft end of the scale.

Now, possibly, the same box of BTs that got me to swear off of them for good.... A few extra feeps, being 140s, I suppose. And frangibility that puts them in a class by themselves, IMO.... Somewhere outside the 'Useful' band on that hard-soft scale...

But as a specialized load?

On a neck shot, you're aiming for bone, right? And if you're gonna shoot him in the neck, you oughtta make damn good & sure that you break it. Can you imagine making a 'good' neck shot with a bullet that just splashed out a crater in the muscle of a rut-thickened neck? Not enough to do in the spinal cord, and leaving the big pipes somewhat intact?

You take the neck shot. The deer goes down. DRT, guaranteed. Unless somehow he gets up and runs off with that god-awful wounding job....

I don't need any part of one o' those. It was bad enough when I 'only' slit his throat

[LE]

As stated, it may work or it might not. I feel I owe it to the deer to make my best shot. All mine have been the H/L and they have never gone far or gotton away. Call it luck or whatever you want.

[GF.]

I'd call it playing the percentages and shooting good

[Herne]

Yes I'm very dubious about these so called specialised loads. BTs are good for long range something else is good for this and some other fool thing is good for something else, and all one can ever guarantee is that one has the wrong round loaded with the wrong zero for the right deer.

One round fits all for me - learn to get on with it!

Same with rifles too. Learn to shoot one well.

same with zeros - 25 yards to 300 One zero. Learn what it does and know how to use it.

Just takes all the complication out of life - you know what your kit does at any sane range - you shoot deer, you don't miss.

This bullet for the woods that round for the open, lever today, bolt tomorrow. I find that difficult to keep in ones brain.

2 rifles Tikka M695 in two calibres which are ballisticaly identical as far as aiming goes, both set 2" high at 100 both shooting 8" low at 300, and on at 30. That I find I can cope with.

[Rugerman]

My favorite shot is when the deer is feeding toward me with its head down, there is a dark line down the middle of the neck that is my aiming point, I aim at the axis joint (junction of neck and head). With this if I shoot a little high I break the neck if a little low I hit the head, both shots are instant kills. I started this when my kids were little so it was easier to teach them how to field dress a deer with out the blood in the cavity and it also doesn't mess up any meat like a shoulder shot. If I can't get that shot I'll take a front on shot at the white throat patch under the chin, and if all else fails I'll take a shoulder shot. I'm a meat hunter so I don't care if I mess up a rack, last year I shot a 8 pt in the top of the head on the last day of the season, sort of made the rack a bit flexible but it didn't mess up any meat.

[Smitty5]

I have taken a lot of neck shots but mostly just in front of the shoulder blade. Very effective for sure. I also shoot most of my feral hogs in between the shoulder and ear or thru the top of the shoulders. I hunt them mostly at night so instant drops are needed. I typically use a Ballistic tip on deer and though it can be destructive Ifind the heaviest available for caliber BT's to penetrate very well. I nclude the 165 gr. 30 caliber BT as a good penetrator. I like a standard soft point or a Nosler Partition for feral hogs though. Much thicker animal and sometimes hair, mud, fat and shield can compromise softer bullets.

[Twanger]

I have shot exactly one deer in the neck, with a bow, by accident. My bow string broke during the shot.

The arrow penetrated only about one inch, maybe two, but that was enough to cut a major artery. The deer only went 70 yards with buckets of blood to follow as a blood trail.

The carcass was clean as a whistle! I wish I was good enough to take that shot every time, on purpose. Alas, I am not.

[GF.]

I was just perusing the standard whitetail deer anatomy pic... You get forward in the rib cage, and there's a very high concentration of major, major plumbing right in there....

I'm still planning on keeping my shots behind the shoulder, but I'm not so concerned bout the effectiveness of those forward-in-the-brisket shots as I had been.....

[Bill Gunn]

My experiences with neck shots with a gun (about 5 or 6) can be reduced to 2 words...

Bang & Flop

With a bow 1 (due to youth, and stupidy ) ...

Lost & deer

[Chuck S]

I prefer a higher percentage shot if the deer should twitch, the wind gust, etc. I have shot one in the neck and he was an old huge monster of a deer. The bullet hit him in one of the big vertebrae back toward the shoulder adn that .308, 180 gn Core Loct factory load came apart with portions going both directions up into the neck and down into the chest. It fractured the bone but didn't shatter it by any means and he got his head up and started off again. A shoulder shot put him down and he stayed down then. Both shots were at about 20 feet max.