Not a gun writer here, but took that shot as a teenager with a 30-06, 180 gn Hornady RN. I caught a 5x5 buck walking up a trail directly toward me and so I thought I'd see how close he'd get. Well, he got REALLY CLOSE, like 5 yards before I shot him. My fixed 4x Weaver pretty much just showed hair. I centered on fur and shot. The buck went up on 2 legs for what seemed like 5 seconds or more and crashed right in front of me. Scared the begeezes out of me young self when it looked like a bighorn getting ready to ram me. Can't help but remember the look in it's eyes when on 2 legs. If there can be a look of bewilderment in a buck's eyes, that sure must have been it.
Turned out that I pretty much center punched the heart.
Since then, I think every front-on shot has been to center it up on the white spot under the chin. But I'm not really a trophy hunter, so I don't care about mounts
