Thread: Front on shots at Deer.

I was looking through the ".223 on deer thread" recently and saw a couple of posts about deer being shot front on and escaping.
I personally know of 3 instances of this happening so though I would relay them and see what theories people come up with. I am obviously not the only one to have come across this before.
The first was a friend Sika hunting during the roar. He roared up a stag and shot it front on at (according to him) about 30m. It turned and ran off and was not found after an extensive search. He did not find any blood. Did he miss altogether? Maybe, but knowing him I would be surprised if it had been a complete miss at that distance. He was shooting 130gn SSTs from his Winchester .270win.
The second occasion was another friend (very experienced and competent hunter) who was out with his son in Sika country. An average Sika stag came over a small brow and my mate shot it front on and according to him "bowled it flat on it's back". Once again the range was short (<50m) and the hit was definite. They walked over to the animal, put their rifles down and prepared to start butchering it. My mate, with knife in hand, said he couldn't believe it when the stag jumped up and ran off down into a creek and up the other side out of sight! They tracked it for a while with very little blood to follow, and after 2 hours gave up the search. He was shooting 130gn Hornadys from his Sako 85 .270win.
Finally it was my turn. Again a Sika stag, average size body 6 pointer. I had roared him in and he was sideling around the head of a gully on a game trail at my level. I was tucked behind a Punga trunk and knew that if he kept to the trail he would appear front on to me at less than 5m away. As he briefly went out of sight I knelt down and put the rifle to my shoulder. He appeared and stopped at 6 paces. I fired into the center of his chest and he spun around and ran back the way he had come. I listened to him crash off and thought I would wait for 5 minutes before going to retrieve him. Long story short, I spent over an hour looking for him that day and an hour the following day. The bush was relatively open and I combed a huge area in my search. Again there was very little blood and being red/green colour blind I find it difficult to see it anyway. I was very confident I had made a good shot and at 5m why shouldn't I have been. I was shooting 140gn Accubonds @3000fps from my Ruger .270win.
Now some of you will have noticed a couple of common traits to these 3 stories. Firstly they were all Sika stags but I consider this a coincidence. Secondly, we were all using .270 Winchesters so the .270 haters can be first to reply to this. Could we all have just plain missed? (In the second scenario obviously not) or is it something else. I have my own thoughts on what has happened in these situations but would be interested in what others think.

gone in and through between the lungs and expended itself in the gut bag....didnt hit any bone on way in or through... how it misses major blood vessels etc is beyond me but thats my theory or it has gone under shoulderblade and flicked outwardsmissing everything vital.

ive shot sika, reds and fallow all front on, usually with bigger calibers. eg. 168gr berger vld 7mm saum, and 230g atip out of a 300 norma mag, some at 200m some at 580m. and the run about 2 m before collapsing and hemorrhaging everything internally and turning into a soup.. actually wastes alot of meat...

The other option is that the shot was not actually fully front on and the projectile has gone between the front leg and ribcage and has not actually entered the chest cavity at all.

I believe the problem with a front on chest shot is not hitting bone. This means 2 things. less energy transferred into the animal and less damage from bone fragments. In that situation it's better to aim a bit higher and go for the neck. my 2c
My first 8 point Sika. Shot in the chest and ran a fair way.
No exit so not too much blood to follow.

In September I shot a red spiker front on from about 15-20m, it turned and ran.
No blood that I could see, though it was raining at the time, which also made it hard to see which tracks were fresh. But I followed the dog and found the deer lying dead about 80m from where it was shot. The heart was torn to pieces.
A few years back I shot a fallow spiker side on. The bullet hit a tree and gouged a big mark down the side of it. No blood, but I searched for the deer for over an hour, lots of tracks everywhere (the spiker was with a weaner, and I spooked another deer while searching), and I couldn't find anything. I went back to the start and followed a set of tracks uphill (even though wounded deer are supposed to only go downhill), saw the weaner and shot it. As I was walking up to it I looked to the right and the spiker was lying dead, over 60m uphill from where it was shot.
I guess the moral of my stories is if there is no blood and you can't find a carcass, that doesn't mean it isn't dead somewhere not too far away.

Edit: Rifles were 308 and 30-30

Shot a chamois front on, ( 308, 165grn Lapua) at about 15 yards.
Chamois merely hunched up, turned right and started to trot off.
A second shot (bless the speed of a lever action!) sideways anchored it.
1st bullet was found under the skin at rear of left rear leg.
I suspect it had gone between the lungs and above the heart but hard to say for sure as second shot made a mess of the lungs etc.

Originally Posted by Larskramer

ive shot sika, reds and fallow all front on, usually with bigger calibers. eg. 168gr berger vld 7mm saum, and 230g atip out of a 300 norma mag, some at 200m some at 580m. and the run about 2 m before collapsing and hemorrhaging everything internally and turning into a soup.. actually wastes alot of meat...

I have shot a number of deer front on that have been anchored on the spot. What I am talking about is an anomaly. I do make a point now of aiming further up the neck than at the top of the brisket.

I've had a similar experience last May with a sika stag downhill charging up towards me on a spur at around 40 yards. The only shot despite me being patient and waiting was front on so I decided it was now or never. I've never taken the front on shot ever. So I let the 243 with 100 grain rip, and it was low and exited low through front right leg. No vitals or serious damage it ran off down hill coming to a halt standing but limping. In pursuit I gave a a rushed shot hit low on the neck, and the third and final in the engine room.

Not my finest hunting moment as all my 1st shots have been in the vital area sometimes followed up with a second if required. You live and learn.

130sst at high velocity out of a 270 at close range may have blown up on the brisket, SST work better at a slower speed (<2800fps)

The 140accubonds are a very hard projectile and may have pencilled through, I used them for a bit years ago bush hunting but gave up as I was having to put another shot into animals and once 3 into a roared up stag! They just don’t tear up the engine room.

As for general front on shots it’s easy to either go over the top of the lungs or between them and not hit anything vital or as Stug said miss the chest cavity and go down the inside of the shoulder, I’m with Chur “in the neck”
I once shot a roaring stag front on close and he dropped, as we walked up he got up and started to bolt, luckily I had reloaded and banged him again, I’d pulled the first shot and it had hit the point of the shoulder knocking him over but hadn’t hit anything vital since then it’s the neck or if I’ve got a good rest then slightly off Center chest to hit the lung and not to high

Originally Posted by outdoorlad

130sst at high velocity out of a 270 at close range may have blown up on the brisket, SST work better at a slower speed (<2800fps)

The 140accubonds are a very hard projectile and may have pencilled through, I used them for a bit years ago bush hunting but gave up as I was having to put another shot into animals and once 3 into a roared up stag! They just don’t tear up the engine room.

As for general front on shots it’s easy to either go over the top of the lungs or between them and not hit anything vital or as Stug said miss the chest cavity and go down the inside of the shoulder, I’m with Chur “in the neck”
I once shot a roaring stag front on close and he dropped, as we walked up he got up and started to bolt, luckily I had reloaded and banged him again, I’d pulled the first shot and it had hit the point of the shoulder knocking him over but hadn’t hit anything vital since then it’s the neck or if I’ve got a good rest then slightly off Center chest to hit the lung and not to high

Interesting you say that about the ABs. They were my favorite projectile in the .270win (@3000fps) and I had tried 8 other varieties. How fast were you pushing them?

Aiming at the brisket is too low. With archery frontal shots you need to aiming slightly above where the neck comes out of the chest. Look a deer side on and draw a horizontal line that goes through half way up the chest. Look at where on the front of the animal this height is, a lot higher than the brisket.

Look at this link https://johnstallone.me/frontal-shots-with-a-bow/amp/

Scroll down the link and there are a number of pics with aiming locations for frontal shots.

Originally Posted by Shearer

Interesting you say that about the ABs. They were my favorite projectile in the .270win (@3000fps) and I had tried 8 other varieties. How fast were you pushing them?

Factory federal, I think they were 2850? Someone on here years ago was running the 130gn accubonds at 3200fps and said they worked well.

Originally Posted by Shearer

Interesting you say that about the ABs. They were my favorite projectile in the .270win (@3000fps) and I had tried 8 other varieties. How fast were you pushing them?

Factory federal, I think they were 2850? Someone on here years ago was running the 130gn accubonds at 3200fps and said they worked well.

Was discussing this with a life long mate the other night. He's not that keen on big walks or having to put in too much hard work, but many many years ago we were driving home down a popular riverbed and I looked up to see a chamois feeding up hill in a large area of waist high matagouri. We we able to sidle out below it and climb unseen until we were above it. We snuck out through the matagouri and sat down on a clear bit of shingle and waited. I could hear it walking up, but he's pretty deaf, so I gave a running commentary. Told him to just wait, and that chamois was gonna walk right up to us. And it bloody did! Popped out of the matagouri only 15 odd metres away. I whispered for him to shoot it. He couldn't see it! Once he did find it he whispered back "Where do I shoot it?" And I told him "Any where in the big bit, shit, its only 15 metres [yards] away" So he did, smack bang in the middle of the chest. And it just stood there and looked around. After a minute or so, it couldn't figure out what all the noise was about it just started to walk off. Thinking he may have missed a bit, or a lot, I told him to shoot it again. And then it fell over! It appeared that it was totally unaware that it had been shot, but on gutting it, we only got 2 back legs and some horns. They were a good 10" and still hang on the wall in his gunroom.............the rifle was a Brno 270 shooting 130's.