Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Head shot on an elk?

You probably have never taken a headshot before, have you?

An un-leaded bullet to the head and the animals is dead!<----you can quote me on that, I coined the term first!

I have shot many animals in the head and if you're a very good shot, it works wonders. I've never taken a headshot at more than 300 yards though.

Why not use a leaded bullet if it's a headshot?

Hey, when you are out in the bush killing schit, you just do the best you can. It ain't like the bozos on The Outdoor Channel.

Sometimes messing up a critter with a bullet in the back of the head at twenty yards is the best shot. Sometimes (often), the medula oblongata is perfect; sometimes, it's both carotids. And occasionally, you bust the bugger down with a bullet at the top of the tail. Hunting ain't a perfect world and you just do the best you can.

Of course, I haven't killed many elk nor have I seen hardly any elk killed, so all of my comments are strictly "in theory."

Steve

If Dogzapper says it....I usually listen.

Some great posts here......

Many years ago, we always had doe tag in our pocket while elk hunting Each member of our party had to bring a bottle of his favorite whiskey to camp and the first person to head shoot a doe won all the whiskey. I won a lot of whiskey back in those days, and never lost or maimed a doe.

There was one fellow that I always lost to if he made thehunt.He would always ask me before opening day if I wanted him to shoot one in the eye or ear. What ever I answered, that is what he did.

A mans got to know his limitations!!!!

A 40gr BT from a Swift WILL knock a BIG, WT, doe flat as a fritter at 300yds... if it is placed right where the neck meets the head... Thats not really legal in Kansas but I think he shot her in ... Colorado, maybe Texas..cant remember..

Amen, Thanks Steve!!!!!!!

Thanks for all the replies,I got a good education out of it.

Please trust me when I tell you that I was only willing to try the Head shot if it were there and at a reasonable distance.
I'm a firm believer in shutting down the boiler room or breaking a shoulder or both.
what I know about Elk could fit in a thimble, thats why I was amazed at the reaction I got when I proposed the head shot.the whole reason I proposed it was to let the guide know I wasn't going to wound anything with my "under powered" slug chucker.

I knew the 308 was enough for an Elk but I guess they have their reasons for caliber limitations.

thanks again fellas

Not you Dogzapper, but sadly that is true of a lot of the internet "advice"

Hemi

I just wanted to add that my comments on head shots have nothing to do with my friend Steve DZ, but were general comments on the nitwtits who ONLY shoot for the head, regardless of range, wind, etc., and the claim head shots only kill clean or miss clean. How the hell they can tell when an animal runs off after the shot when some distance off I do not know.

Like Steve, I have shot more than one animal in the head (or precise parts of the neck) over the years. My wife has too, most notably a fallow deer she shot for the lodge table in New Zealand last year. But in each case we knew within a fraction of an inch where the bullet would go, and the range and conditions were right.

But when such precision might not be possible, we owe it to the animal to play the odds and go for the chest.

Only under very specific circumstances would THIS lug nut take a head shot. If things are up close and steamy, I'm too shaky, as evidensed by my rather humbling [bleep] on my buck this year. If it's farther away, it's probably too far for me to be shooting at such a small target. I'm sure somewhere in there is a circumstanse where a head shot would be an acceptable shot given my skills... maybe... <grin>

I guess it comes down to knowing, and respecting, your own personal limitations or lack thereof. For a cold blooded assassin things might be different but killing is very intense for me.

I have taken a neck shot similar to the one DZ mentions except the buck was coming towards me. I figured I had all kinda latitude vertically so I just put the vert crosshair on the spine and let 'er rip. Dumped the buck as you'd expect.

I would guess, just a WAG, that a lot of blown-off jaws are the result of guys sighted in way high at 100 yards, then taking a 30-yard head shot and forgetting to aim high...

I was hunting elk near John Day, Oregon and a small herd of elk was spooked to me. I heard them coming so just froze and waited. They stopped about twenty yards in front of me. A bull was perfectly lined up on the far side of a cow. I already had the rifle to my shoulder and just waited for the cow to lower her head. When she did I took the bull right where the skull is bolted onto the neck. I used a .338 WM with handloaded 210 gr. Nosler Partitions. Elk tipped over. I'm thinking a .243 Win. would have done the same thing. I simply took the shot that was available, the double lung was not available.

1flier

Medula oblongata. Kills the heck out of elk and deer. It's a spot shot, but it is the perfect kill. Shuts down all of the central nervous system most rickey-tick.

I've used that shot quite a bit. Another shot that is wonderfully deadly is very slightly lower on the neck and it severs both carotids. Both shots require a perfect rest, fairly close range and that the animal be as still as possible. I've never ever screwed up one of these shots, but I am very, very, very careful.

hey, if the animal scoots, you can always shoot the friggin lungs; that's bigger than a handkerchief, for pity's sake!!!!

In fact, I killed an Asian water buffalo with my .280 Ackley by severing both carotid arteries with a 154 Hornady Interlocked. He simply rolled over and gushed a fountain of blood three feet in the air. Another perfect kill.

Steve

My cousin who lived out here in he West since 1964, killed 22 bull elk with his pre-'64 Win. 70 Featherweight .308 Win., and I don't know how many Mule deer, several Black bear, etc. He used standard factory ammo, 180 grains bullets, as he did not reload.

He never lost an elk and he never made head shots.

The outfitter who told you the .308 Win. was "not enough gun" for elk, doesn't know much about rifle calibers and elk hunting.

FWIW.

L.W.

AMEN. Although no one is perfect, I have learned that DZ's word is absolutely reliable.

BMT

The two best head-shots I ever made were total opposites, one completely accidental and the other perfectly deliberate.

The accident was on the first good whitetail buck I ever killed, a 5x5. He jumped from behind a lone juniper in a coulee in eastern Montana, running very fast, and I swung the .270 with him and shot as the crosshairs passed his chest. He rolled like a rabbit, and it turned out the 130 Sierra had taken him just behind the ear. The bullet broke his skull on the far side, the antler flopping down--the reason that in the few surviving photos I have both antlers grasped in my hands.

The other was a springbok on a cull shoot in South Africa a few years ago, where we were commanded to take head shots if at all possible. I was sitting in a turn-table rest when a female ran up about 100 yards away, directly upwind, and saw something suspicious. She stood there with her head up, looking at me, perfectly still. My .30-06 was sighted-in 2" high at 100 yards, so I put the crosshairs on her nose and pulled the trigger.

A few minutes later the PH and Chub Eastman (an old friend of both mine and Steve DZ's) drove up to pick up dead springbok. They got out to pick up the "ewe," then drove over to me. Chub got out, grinning, then pointed to the bullet hole, so perfectly between the eyes I couldn't have drawn it there. Lucky too--but also a dead rest and an accurate rifle. I can't remember if Chub took the skull home or not.

But the wind was strong enough that day that at any springbok over 100 yards I aimed for the chest.

John:

That is funny that one of your best head shots is an accident.

Mine--brain stem on a CA wild Hog--was also. A rookie (me) with an iron sighted Savage 99 in 308 and 150 grain corelokts.

Offhand at 200 yards on a walking hog.

Logically, I should have never taken the shot.

Today, I would have used a tight sling from the sitting position -- and shot at the chest.

But hey, its the shot all my buddies still talk about . . .

BMT

There is nothing wrong with the 308 for elk. I'd get a Federal 180gr HE load and not look back. Head shots are another story. Holes in the ear are not big deal, just ask your local teenager but a blown off jaw is another story. There you are condeming the animal to a slow death of starvation and that's not right.

[email protected] not enough gun on elk. .308 can be used on anything in NA. Personally I'd rather not take a head shot but if you wish to, knock yourself out. It's all good.

It's tiring after a while to see how caught up some are with the magnum craze. In the end, you just don't need magnums for over 90% of all shots on all game in NA.