I was watching "Burke's Law" last night. The show's original airing was 1963. The case involved the murder of a famous big game hunter named Cable Roberts. Cable had been shot in his trophy room with his own rifle, and then hung on the wall like a trophy.
One of the detectives, who seemed to be up on the whole big game scene, noticed that whoever killed Cable had been another big game hunter. There was a shot to the chest at some distance with a .300 H&H with a finishing shot to the neck. The rest of the episode revolved around which of Cable's friends from safari had done him in.
1) Was it ever really customary to deliver a coup de grace to the neck?
2 Wouldn't it be a tad dangerous to walk right up to a lion(a film clip was shown as an example) that you didn't think was dead and plug him in the neck?
3) Wouldn't this risk really screwing up the mount?
BTW: The trail led back to Cable's brother, Paul Lynde, who basically played himself. In between whimpering, and sniveling, there was a confession that he did it. One of the big reasons was he couldn't stand to see all those beautiful animals reduced to trophies on the wall.
