Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting DRT is over rated

This is not a new subject although it is usually associated with what caliber & particular bullet is best for the job. My issue or curiosity is with the constant mention and therefore assumption that DRT is the main goal in taking big game, but lets just stick with deer. I have been a deer hunter for 46 years, both gun and bow. I have not killed a lot of deer but I have taken enough to have an educated opinion & a good idea of deer anatomy.
A CNS hit is pretty much a guaranteed DRT. But that is a small target & for the average hunter not preferred.
I hunt a small piece of private property and I prefer my deer do not cross the property lines after I shoot one but if I aim for the typical behind the shoulder, double lung shot I expect to have to track that deer. I have had many fall within sight after a good hit here, both gun & bow but only one that actually fell right there & that was with an arrow, go figure.
One of the most spectacular DRT's was with the 150 gn from a 30-30, broadside, tight to the shoulder @ 30 yards. The deer jumped almost straight up, landed on its side, made another 30 foot leap and crashed to the ground closer to me than when I shot. I could find no blood or even the entry & exit wound without careful examination.
I guess my point here is that unless you are willing to pass on anything less than a perfect shot opportunity your chances of "DRT" are unlikely. I have shot enough deer with enough different caliber/bullet combinations & arrows to know that although most die quickly they are likely to run & all deer are different.
The attached pic is graphic but should not be to anyone on here. This was from an average size doe taken with a .58 cal. MZ round ball at about 45 yds. A little hard to see in the pic but the heart was severely damaged and the ball also struck both lungs and the edge of the liver before it exited. The deer still ran close to 50 yards before falling. I would call this pretty good performance for any bullet and an almost ideal hit.
Am I being to critical or reading to much into it but I think DRT while really awesome is over rated and un-realistic for the average deer hunter ?

I have killed lots of deer over the years, the first one was in 1954. I was eleven years old. I shot it with a 30.30 Winchester 94. It was not DRT. but close because I broke its back with the first shot. Since then I've learned some things about killing deer(remember we are not talking about pachyderms here) if putting deer down quickly is the goal( it should be) then put a fast expanding, high-velocity bullet through the chest/heart lungs/shoulder area you'll have little tracking to do. My definition of high-velocity is anything over about 2800-2900 fps at the muzzle. The headstamp makes very little difference.

Jim, yeah, it's an interesting phenomenon, for sure.

Never had one myself, in all my years of hunting, but never tried for one either.

Hunting in Boreal forest, mix of Public/Private.

Always double lung, behind the shoulder, at worst, shoot for the appropriate exit.

Only ever had to track one further than 50 yards, & that was a bad shot, on my son's part. Too far back, & got the angle wrong to boot.

Ended up a liver shot, that we pushed out of it's first bed. Backed out for 2 hours & found her 200 yards away.

For what it's worth (most common):
- .243, 95gr SST via Hornady Superformance
- 25-06, 117gr SST via same or 117gr Federal Fusion
- 7mm-08, 120gr TTSX via Barnes Vor-tx
- .308, 150gr Federal Fusion

To each their own.

I shot a good sized doe at about 75 yards this year. I watched it run about 100 yards before it ducked into the timber, and the way it was moving I wondered if it missed it somehow. It ran about 400 yards before dropping and every vital organ was liquified. Not really even any chucks left inside.

+1 to the OP. I've been hunting deer since the early 80s. I get to see the innard of about a half-dozen deer each year. I'd say a good portion 30-40% are DRT, but the rest run. It may not be all that far. Most of mine that don't drop where they're shot can be seen by standing at the impact site. However, there are the flyers. I had one doe this past season that ran about 250 yards with both lungs and the heart hit.

I retired my 35 Whelen after a decade of service. It was not producing a higher percentage of DRT's for all the extra cost and shoulder punishment. I'm not knocking the round or the Rem 7600 that it's fired from. It just wasn't better than 30-06

I have still not produced a solid DRT from my 25-06 despite several attempts.

The highest percentage of DRT's at our camp come from .308 165 grain Hornady IL's , followed by 150 grain Remmie SPCL's. However, that has more to do with the sheer volume of what we shoot.

One thing I do find interesting is the number of deer that die right at the fence. Our camp is on an abandoned far that used to have beef cattle on it. There are stretches of 3-strand barbed wire all over the place. Every pasture is ringed with it. A fair percentage of deer that run after shot make it to the nearest fence, but that's it. I've seen them crash into the fence, somersault over the fence, collapse in mid jump or some other variation. Two of my largest bucks got their racks caught in the fence while jumping and died all tangled up.

I think it's overrated myself. I like a right behind the shoulder double lung shot.

Every deer I've shot, with the exception of one, that was shot right behind the should and double lunged ran like a bat for about 35-40 yards and collapsed. If you are quiet you actually hear them drop as they crash though the brush. And this being, regardless of what they were hit with, shotgun slug, muzzle loader bullet, rifle bullet or arrow. Right behind the shoulder breaking a rib going in and going out at most makes for no wasted meat also.

The one exception was a buck I doubled lunged with an arrow at 10 yards. The arrow went right through him, and he did an about face like he got stuck in the ass with a thorn and it surprised him. After a second or 2 he attempted to sneak away and took 3 steps and fell over right in front of me.

The other thing that is nice about them running that short distance before dropping is that they bleed out thoroughly which makes for a much less messy butcher job. My son hit one a little to far back years ago with an arrow and we recovered it the following morning. It didn't bleed out and when butchering the quarters on the counter I spent more time wiping up blood than cutting steaks.

Over the years I got to where I pretty much always went for the CNS high shoulder shot first if at all possible regardless caliber used. I generally always hunted in primarily thick, overgrown woods on small privately owned acreages.

As always, YMMV.

I’m badly color blind so it matters for me when hunting alone. Learned early that velocity makes a difference and hence primarily hunt with faster rounds. Also learned that a shoulder shot was nearly a sure thing. For me, the loss of a few pounds of meat is a small price to pay. Just my .02.

I agree. I used to shoot for heart / lung area. Too many dead runs down a steep hill or into heavy bush. I hunt alone most of the time as well.

I've been killing deer for 60 years and haven't slowed down as i get older. I still kill four a year.

DRT is always good! Not having to go find them beats having to find them and drag them out of some nasty hole every time. Putting them on the ground when when it's 1/2 hour past sunset and Bambi is 300 yards out on a cut hay field beat hell out of trying to find where Bambi was standing so you can start looking for blood that may or may not be there. Shoot enough deer and you will find that some of them don't do what they're supposed to. Double lung them and generally they are down and dead inside 60 yards. But...I've seen them make it over a mile leeding heavily enough that. Ould i run i could have followed that fast. Some of them will not bleed and you do not get a say in which ones do or do not.

Out of all those deer i have only lost two. One was a broadside double lung, the otherspun into me at the shot winch to went in behind the shoulder and exited just ahead of the off side ham. The first bled very well but he just kept on moving and I am pretgy certain made it o to a highway where he was picked up. The second, I am sure died somewher within 1/4 mile, but he only left 3 drops of blood close to where he was shot.

DRT is everything it's made out to be with a bag of chips thrown in for free.

The importance of DRT varies with local conditions. May be “over rated “ where you hunt. Not for me

Killed more than my share of deer,and I'm big fan of dead right there, not dead right over there, deer are not hard to kill if you don't have a kill shot don't shoot. Rio7

Looking for hit deer is over rated; Id rather avoid it. I've had nicely lung hit deer that died in a reasonable distance, that were very difficult to find even with snow on the ground. That's more suspense than I need.

Why is DRT overrated?
It sure eliminates tracking wounded game.
I always try for DRT!

I hunt mostly open country with deep wooded canyons so since I just turned 70 packing venison out is a bag drag and only for younger men..

High shoulder shots usually do exactly what I require and stop them in their tracks 99% of the time.

DRT is NOT overrated in my book......

I prefer for them to drop right where I shot them, but plenty of sign is nice, too.

I prefer it, i'll gladly donate a couple handfuls of fajita meat, I punch shoulders.

Damn, Compound Bow?

I'm literal, so I take DRT to mean exactly that.
Yep, it's good...real good.
But dead inside 50 or so yards, with a bloody trail, is as good.
100 yards +, no blood, I ain't happy.


Seriously, I hunt from the ground, on my feet, no bait. Often offhand shots, moving game.
I just ain't good enough to make the CNS shots under those conditions. And I'm not going to lie about it.
Ribs are my target, and from 44mag to 300 mag, DRT sometimes happens, frequently not.
Inside 50? Usually.