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

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.