In general, when I heart shot or when I double lung them they do not make it 100 yards. I have had at least one deer manage just past 200 yards after cutting the heart loose with a 2 inch broad head. I never touched the heart per se, but it did pass just over the heart and severed all the great vessels. I had one that I passed a broadhead top to bottom through the heart managed just over 100 yards. I had one deer that jumped the string and I hit it dead broadside, but a couple inches in front of the diaphragm manage just over a mile. I had another that was a picture perfect broadside shot just behind the shoulder manage about 400 yards. One buck, tight behind the shoulder dead broadside went 200 yards. By the time I got there he was down but still alive. After giving him the better part of an hour to die he managed to get up and make it another 250 yards before he died. I have had them drop where they stood with both heart shots and double lung shots, with both an arrow and with a bullet.
I have given up speculating how far they will go after I shoot them and just make sure I am prepared to follow them as long as I have to in order to make dinner out of them. I don't get to have any say in how far they go if I do not CNS them with a rifle. A couple years back I shot a nice doe with the crossbow. I hit her right under the neck and above the sternum, facing me dead on. She did not bleed well at all. She managed 700 yards total and it took me almost a full 24 hours to find her. The arrow did not hit bone. It did not penetrate the chest. I could find no major vessels it cut. There was a large opening in the hide where it hit and minor muscle damage under that. No blood inside the chest. Near as I could tell not a fatal wound. I saw the arrow hit where it was aimed and come out behind her and bury into the ground. During gutting and butchering it was obvious she had bled out, but the last 400 yards she traveled, 200 of it I could find ZERO blood and 200 was mainly tiny specks of blood every 10 feet or so. Probably wouldn't have amounted to 2 ounces total. If it wasn't for a crow showing interest I doubt I would have found her.
You can't explain them all, and you sure as hell cannot predict what will happen after the shot. A good guess might cover most of them but enough head scratchers happen that it's humbling.
