Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Punch the shoulder or slide it through the ribs?

Experienced hunters know you don't always get a choice. You may get a clear broadside or just as likely have to shoot thru a window in willow or aspen thicket. Your shot can be straight on , straight away, sharply angled or a broadside. Your shot can be 300yds or 50yd. I want a tough bullet that will penetrate thru the worst possible angle I may be presented with. No C&C for me. For the last 20+ years I have used the Barnes mono & it has never let me down.

I have 3 neck shot and they drop like bag of rocks.
3 rib /heart /lung shot. The heart shot they walk like 20 feet in a circle and drop.
If you shoulder shoot too far forward and you don’t hit vitals they will run off.

Of the 20 or so elk I've shot, only ONE has been a perfect broadside shot. 2 'behind' the ear, most at an angle of some sort. I was taught by my Idaho Uncles to aim for the off shoulder. On the one perfectly broadside shot, I punched through both shoulders.

I am just a youngster, having only been hunting for meat for three decades and a bit, but I have always had a choice. If no other choice, I still choose to shoot, or pass. When you are planning to eat the meat, punching the gut is the last thing you want to do, and for me, the faster the lights go out, the better. A head shot or spine shot gives me that, as does the autonomic plexus shot. I am not interested in putting a bullet into the south end of a northbound animal and reaching the lungs via the intestines. So I pass on those shots. As I pass on any shot that will result in damage anywhere aft of the diaphragm. As far as shooting through a window, if I cannot see enough of an animal to target a lethal shot, I pass. If the shot will traverse anything aft of the diaphragm, I pass. If I cannot see enough to know these things, I have no business taking the shot, and I pass. Never been hungry enough to break these rules. Never been out enough money on a hunt or so desirous of a trophy, that I would break these rules, either. My own rules, of course, and others will do as they see fit. My only point is that we always have a choice about the shots we take at game, no matter how experienced we are.

When it comes to bullets, the point of my original post was to call attention to the idea that when we talk about a bullet and it’s performance, relevant data such as caliber, weight, velocity at muzzle and impact, and the tissues penetrated, should be part of that discussion if there is to be any realistic evaluation of the bullet’s performance. How often do we hear a person complain that the premium bullet they sent through the lungs of a dink failed to open, or that a cup and core exploded at impact on one animal or another? How are we to draw any conclusion about the cause of such failures, unless the previously mentioned data is included? Put another way, someone reads a glowing account of what a bullet did to a bull elk or moose, and tries that bullet, perhaps in a completely different caliber and weight and at a radically different velocity, or tries to impact a different target, and ends up with a rodeo, because the choice was made on less than complete information. Simply mentioning the specifics of the bullet and it’s use could avoid a fair amount of this. Bullets are simply bits of various metals formed into projectiles under certain design parameters, in order to fulfill a certain purpose. The same bullet will generally act the same way if shot the same way and impacting the same target. The trick for the hunter is to find the bullet that fits his method of operation and to stay within the parameters that the bullet was designed for, when using it. Understanding those parameters is made easier when those with experience with the bullet include the relevant data points in their review of its performance.

That pretty much it... if a guy didn’t know any better you’d think elk were the North American Cape buffalo.. 🤣🤣

I try to visualize a path thru the grapefruit sized heart target suspended between the forelegs in the bottom third of the chest. Then shoot at whatever point of aim gets the bullet on that target path. I try not to overthink this simple schidt, just go out and find elk to shoot! I use a genuine elk caliber, not looking for the minimum pansy recoil rifle, loaded with tough bullets. I’m just not into long tracking exercises.

Good question!!
I don’t want to carry elk meat or a large buck up steep terrain. On the plains or It’s possible to get close via. pickup or horse or other such means then lung shots may be fine.

If you’re old like me, and you shoot a big animal you do not want it to run where it means steep ravines, flowing rivers etc. then a shoulder shot may not look to bad.

If I’m unsure what the hunt will bring, I want a bullet that expands if shot through the lungs and holds together if the shot is in the shoulder. For deer I depend usually on good non-premium bullets - first choice Interlocks, because my rifle may likely be ‘06 class. For bigger animals and the velocity of the bullet is say up to 3,000+ fps, then premiums, for me that usually means Partitions - my first choice, my rifle choice will likely be a magnum (7mm, 300, 338 or??)

I have only hunted elk for about ten years. With that said everyone I have killed didnt give me the time to line up a perfect broadside shot and pick a precise location. If given the choice I put one in the scapula to eliminate them running into some God forsaken place.

Same same!

Dawns on me that I've only seen one elk shot perfectly broadside. I wasn't the one shooting it. None of mine have been perfectly broadside. That said, I will take a straight-on shoulder shot on a quartering-to elk, even with my "soft" bullets. I've never had one fail yet. More often, I've aimed for the off-side shoulder on various angles angle away. This always gets the bullet into the lungs. Have used neck shots a few times. My brother uses them a lot, and we hunt elk together most of the time. He makes some spectacular (and intentional) neck shots. I prefer not to shoot into meat, but with elk, I take the shots I'm given. Still get ridiculous elk fever after all these years, and I have my hands full just trying to breathe when the sights are on elk.

140 gr Accubond out of a .280 into heart/ lung area.
HD

+1

The last two bulls that I shot were with my .300 Weatherby, one shot with a 168 grain Barnes TSX shot through the ribs just behind his shoulder, and the other with a 168 grain Barnes TTSX shot quartering toward me through his shoulder. Both bulls fell dead less than 20 yards from where they were when I shot them. NO tracking needed.

The bull shot through the ribs had probably the smallest amount of meat loss than any other elk that I have shot with a rifle.

On the bull shot through the shoulder, the bullet hit the humerus bone just below where it connects to the shoulder blade, and at least half of his shoulder was a bloodshot mess.

Either one works. I prefer behind the shoulder. Been using a 30/06 with 180 grain factory ammo since 1977. Never had a problem----no reason to change.

I do both. In areas where I do not expect a trophy or I’m filling a tag for a female of the species, I like to pop a rapidly-expanding bullet through both lungs without touching major bones. The Nosler Ballistic Tip in 6.5, .277 and 7mm sizes has always been my favorite for this work, but there are now many more of these types of bullets that work just as well or better. I’ve had a surprising number of DRTs with this method, as well.

If I’m hunting bull elk or trophy anything else, I use a heavy, controlled-expansion bullet that will penetrate deeply, break large bones and get to the vitals. For 30 years that meant Nosler Partitions. I didn’t early-adopt Barnes bullets but started dabbling when the TSX came out. They worked well, always exiting and providing one-shot kills. However, I did have a couple that appeared to pencil through, allowing an essentially dead animal travel farther than I was used to before hitting the ground. The TTSX pretty much eliminated this and has been my bullet of choice for busting big bones and anchoring big bucks and bulls ever since. I’ll drive ‘em through both shoulders when presented with a broadside or through the offside joint if given a quartering angle. They work every time.

Conversely, I once hammered a 130 Etip from a 270Wby into the hip joint of a straight away escaping bull that had been shot through the chest. There was almost zero meat loss on that quarter, I cut steaks with a bullet hole going down the middle of them with no bloodshot.

Bullets do strange things sometimes and all critters are different. But I believe monometal bullets are definitely less likely to cause catastrophic meat loss on shots that hit bone.

Public land or near a steep canyon through the shoulder. Or actually I aim for the far (front) shoulder. No rear shoulder shots for me.

IThrough the shoulder can put them down quickly but in my limited experience, through the ribs and into the heart/lungs kills them quicker.

Whilst not an elk photo I am a shoulder guy that hunts with either the TSX ot TTSX.

I prefer avoiding the shoulder, but whatever. The off side shoulder on an angle away shot works well.. I love cns if I can get it. In open country I usually go for just behind the shoiulder. In dense timber I prefer a cns if possible, but a shoulder shot will work- preferably high shoulder/spine.

Once on a moose about to leave Dodge, a spruce covered him all the way back to behind his ribs. 250 grains into the spine just forward of the pelvis cost me about 5 lbs of backstrap, but the other 500 lbs of meat ate just fine. The follow up shot to the head at 5 feet cost me no meat at all. I'd have done the head shot from farther away, but the deadfall/grass crap was that thic and tall......

What placement I choose depends largely on the situation at the moment, but I usually take the first most certain shot that I can get.

Nice tiger EDM.....



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I mainly shoot partitions of AB for deer and pronghorn and aim straight up the back of the leg, 1/3 way up. Usually catch the back of the scapula (not much meat there anyways), top of heart and both lungs. If im worried about a deer running into something nasty or onto private I will take a base of the neck shot over a shouler shot........On Elk I shoot A-frames or Etips and I aim high shoulder to try to break them down. I also keep shoooting until they are on the ground.