Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Bullet Performance - a tale of two dots

Funny thing is all of those dots will result in needing a sharp knife and backstraps on the fire.

Or connect em all and shoot somewhere in the middle!

Try Hammer Bullets.....maybe the best of both worlds. A mono with high weight retention for almost guaranteed exit wounds.....but, the “petals” break off at entry giving immediate and very pronounced tissue damage. They are also reputedly very easy to develop a very accurate load with!

To more directly answer the question......with Hammers, either will work nicely! memtb

An impact on the lower right dot looks like a direct heart hit with an exit through the opposite shoulder (lower part), both lungs catching some along the way.

I agree. And low-cavity shots generally bleed well.

There is a lot of margin of error for me also, especially if trying an offhand shot.

Same here.
And with the absence of some sort of shooting support, the bottom one is also the preferred spot with firearm.

Unless I'm inside about 30 yards, I don't even think about an offhand shot. Had neurological damage when I was 18, so I shake really badly. My offhand groups look like buckshot 😏

You and I think very similarly when it comes to shot placement. Though I might choose to take either aiming point with a firearm, arrow I definitely want to miss the onside shoulder.

+1

Never lost one yet in 30 years aiming there. From slugs to bullets.

Over the years I've moved my aiming point to closer to the lower red dot behind the shoulder because in my experience it puts more blood on the ground faster. I've always used heavy or premium bullets and they never opened as quickly as the SST's or BT's that I'm using now. The only rifle shot deer that I've ever not found was the withers shot with a TSX because the deer's lower body was screened by too much brush. That shot would have been about 1/3 down the body behind the shoulder. I won't try that ever again. 5 drops of blood and two days of looking on bare ground.

This fall I'll have been punching the Whitetail for 68 years and the pocket behind the shoulder shot has been my favorite. Wobble factor has grown significantly this year so center mass of front half will be my aim zone. If an aim point avails itself (really close shot) it'll be straight above the front leg about half way up. 6.5 CM, 100 grain TTSX, I ask my bullets for exit. Shooting the TTSX a strong probability of exit exists. My first Whitetail harvest was accomplished with a Winchester 40 grain .22 Long Rifle. Punched the white spot under the chin. Adequate performance! No exit but long lasting grin.

Me - I'll put my crosshair on the small brown patch between and above both dots on that shot........

I prefer both dots on the right side!

Prezactly!

A hit on the yellow dot behind the shoulder may (has) occasionally drop one in its tracks, but except for the initial spray and hair from a pass-through, it’ll be a long time before any significant blood sign appears. If the bullet doesn’t go through, you may end up with essentially nothing but tracks for quite some distance. I hit a doe just there a week ago with a crossbow, and even though she stood in one place for several minutes, neither the entrance nor exit wound leaked a bit. Only when she finally moved from that spot and wiped a little blood on the weed stems was there anything to follow, and dang little even then. She didn’t go 50 yards, and was totally bled out inside, but the blood she leaked would fit in a shot glass.

Don’t like the lower left red dot 🔴 at all. Just behind the dot you might get some heart. In the dot you’ll break bone and maybe get fragments of bone and bullet in the frontal heart and frontal lung. And you might not. If the bullet exits it will be in front of the right shoulder and probably miss the right lung; too far forward. If you hit in front of the dot you’re in for a tracking job; perhaps futile. Even if you nick the front of the upper shoulder bone a deer can go a long way on three legs and a little lung. Bad spot to intentionally hit. Right hand red or yellow is much better with anything.

Where the cross hair is and the gun goes off in the area showed deer don’t have dots on them in real life

That's where I like to shoot 'em too.

Bingo! WAM also is right. Sometimes DRT, sometimes DRAT (dead right around there). But always going home in the truck. And BTW, I AM a great field shot 😏.

Inside of 100 yards with a good solid rest? Neck! For farther or less than ideal circumstances, I'll play the dot game.