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 2cAttachment 214917
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.

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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...

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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

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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

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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.

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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?

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

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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?

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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.

There isn't really a magical gap between the important bits in the chest cavity. Its quite full of important squishy bits, and fatal if you actually hit it. For animals that are shot and lost with that as a point of aim, missing entirely or a poor hit are the most likely rational explanations. For animals that actually are hit to take some time to die even when hit well in the lungs/heart isn't particularly unusual at all with any calibre and any shot angle. Nothing except hitting the off switch in the CNS guarantees a drop right there.

I blame the 270 first, pathic Cal lol.:D Secondly, Hornady can be crap at close range, i hate them under 60m .
I have shot a few deer now front on with the mighty 243 and using softnoses and everyone of them have gone straight down, dead! i aways take that shot if i had a chance as they all drop.

Its possible just hit bad, missing all the vitals, crap ammo for close range or just missed . Its one of the three lol. Use a 243 and its dead and use softnose rounds under 100m as they work
a hell better than many other ropunds up close

On a lost deer you don’t know for certain how good shot placement was. Your guessing. Even good shooters can err.

AB projectiles expand well at close range when driven hard at the chest and shoulders.


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I hate front on shots for the reasons given above and that they dont give the paralyising stun up the ribs to the spinal cord that a side on shot does.
The solution for me now is to aim at the neck then its dead or its a miss

I'm with Micky duck and Stug on this.
I have done the slipped up under a shoulder and missed the vitals entirely before.....got another shot in to anchor it luckily.
The last front on shot I took I worried I had done the same thing again as it ran off seemingly untouched then eventually fell over,Shot was ok had taken out a lung but had hit zero bone so no shock value.
Took me quite a while to even find the entry hole, it had gone in the osophagus.
The projectile had expanded but quite delayed I think. Atip

Attachment 214964

This is the heart of the red spiker that ran 80m in my earlier post.
Dead but he didn’t know it
Attachment 214969
Attachment 214970

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Originally Posted by Cigar

This is the heart of the red spiker that ran 80m in my earlier post.
Dead but he didn’t know it
Attachment 214969
Attachment 214970

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Likewise with a fallow - it ran off and after 50? Yards ran headfirst into a tree and fell over.

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Originally Posted by stug

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.

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Happened to me with a little fallow spiker. Thank god the 129gr ABLR had enough speed for hydrostatic shock to the right lung and the thing ran out of air after 150m. No blood and would have never found him in thick bush.

Alert deer are much harder to put down than a deer shot unawares. A sika stag at close range during the roar is most certainly an alert deer, they are often sneaking in on you and are very much ready to bolt should something smell or look not quite right. Additionally their testosterone levels are very high at that time of year and that can sometimes enable them to go quite a ways with some serious damage. In some steeper country they can cover quite a distance before any blood shows up particularly if there is no exit wound. My two longest tracking jobs were on close range sika during the roar. In my experience it doesn't seem to matter too much what cartridge/projectile you shoot them with. If you don't hit the cns or front shoulders an alert deer will usually run. Sometimes a long way.....

Front on shot is harder than it looks. Base of neck, hydraulic shock the spinal cord and get it on the ground - hard - even if it isn't an immediately fatal hit. The best option is taking out the central comms harness, combined with hydraulic shock - next best is tear out the plumbing and bleed the thing out. This will shut down the brain and the processing bits and also bleeding the muscles out and removing the blood is the best option for meat quality.

If you look at the size/layout of the central organs from the front on perspective (very narrow side to side and quite deep), they are really arranged in a very difficult to hit manner and the other possibility is the bullet striking bone and deflecting out away from the vitals (the rib cage is almost purpose built for this if you consider sparring stags and the tine points going somewhere they aren't supposed too...).

It's funny how everyone is agreeing with a post i made a while back. Albeit from very limited experience I suggested the same thing but had a couple say I was a little misguided.
Seems to be a lot that suggest it is a real thing.

ive had 2 memorable front on experiences, both on Fallow.

1st one was probably 5-6 years ago on a Fallow near Rotorua, using a 168gr AMAX out of my 308. was 220y away and I aimed just in front of its left shoulder intending for the bullet to enter there and go though the chest cavity and exit behind the right shoulder. Shot him 1 shot and he did not move or react so i though i missed and shot again and he dropped on the spot. When I went over to get him I found 2 entry wounds exactly where I aimed about 1.5" apart, upon further inspection both bullets passed though the gut and were found under the skin on the right rump, both bullets had passed the length of the deer (it was quite a small spiker) and destroyed a lot of the meat throughout the deer. I have no idea why it just stood there after the 1st shot as it was a vital shot, all the internal organs were pretty much soup.

2nd one, also a fallow but a doe this time a but further south in the Waikato a year or 2 ago. Shot it front on from about 120y with my 22 250Ackley Improved and the bulk 55gr hornady sotfpoints, i should have headshot it really but I wanted to see how the bullet does at this short range at this speed as I've shot several deer with it in the 300y range and it worked well. Was pretty much the same scenario, shoot in front of the one shoulder aiming for the back of the other, on the shot the deer dropped but when I approached it, it bolted. I found it about 50y away sitting behind a fern and finished it off with a headshot, inspection showed that somehow the bullet got the shoulder blade of the shoulder I was aiming for and deflected around the outside of the shoulder blade so only made a surface wound.

EDIT, Just remembered a fallow from down Whanganui a few years ago. Was bedded down looking straight in my direction at 110y. I put a 155gr HBC Optimus from my 308 right between its eyes and it completely removed the top half of the head. the deer did not move at all and the head contents were sprayed all over the grass behind it.

I lost one that i hit at 40m with a 30-30 170gr with a front on center chest shot late last year.....no blood trail but a tuft of hair on ground that i saw come off when the bullet hit......animal turned and trotted off completely unfazed and i didn't find it, i traced the footprints for about 50 meters but saw no blood....the no blood trail bit i don't understand.

First one i've ever pulled trigger on and not found in 25 years.

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Originally Posted by csmiffy

It's funny how everyone is agreeing with a post i made a while back. Albeit from very limited experience I suggested the same thing but had a couple say I was a little misguided.
Seems to be a lot that suggest it is a real thing.

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The spiker you shot with me just under the hair of his chinny chin chin was text book. It makes a difference too if the are above, below or on the same level as the shooter

@Moa Hunter yup different thing that. there seems to be some leeway possibly depending on calibre and angle that suggests (as you discussed with me) that it is possible to put a shot square in the chest and pretty much everything other than the guts.
It would be akin to shooting it with an arrow. Bullet hasn't hit anything too major to mushroom up and make a bigger hole through everything
Nothing major hit or at least nothing bleeding quickly and no bone damage so they probably die a lot later if not found quickly.
Maybe different with an old school 303, 3006 etc that has enough mass to come out the back and smash a rear leg.
That is only a theory though

All I can say is, it’s amazing how small of a divet or short of shrub can conceal a carcas, and even more amazing how small these animals become when dead and laying flat. That said, front on shots especially shooting free handed leave a small vital zone, bullets can easily slip down between shoulder and rib, armpit and rib, animals can run a mile on adrenaline, especially one that’s pumped up on testosterone when in the rut

This thread has really surprised me, I have never had anything but bang flops from hitting the opening at the clavicle. Like, literally collapse where they stand. Just lucky so far maybe?

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Originally Posted by LMcNab

This thread has really surprised me, I have never had anything but bang flops from hitting the opening at the clavicle. Like, literally collapse where they stand. Just lucky so far maybe?

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Me too. It’s one of my favourite shots. Poleaxes them, DRT.

I do however believe that it’s got a lot to do with using a soft bullet that mushrooms broadly and sheds some weight. I’m aiming to put the bullet through the aorta as it comes down in between the front of the lungs. A front on hilar shot. Very deadly.

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Originally Posted by LMcNab

This thread has really surprised me, I have never had anything but bang flops from hitting the opening at the clavicle. Like, literally collapse where they stand. Just lucky so far maybe?

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I think it is more a case of being unlucky if it does happen. It’s an anomaly. Definitely not the usual outcome. As I think I said initially, I have shot plenty of animals front on but only ever had one run off not to be found.

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Originally Posted by Shearer

I think it is more a case of being unlucky if it does happen. It’s an anomaly. Definitely not the usual outcome. As I think I said initially, I have shot plenty of animals front on but only ever had one run off not to be found.

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Yup, happens to all of us. Because we haven’t found the deer, we’ve got no idea what went wrong. Because we understandably feel bad it leads to a great deal of speculation.

I don’t buy the argument that there’s a gap between the lungs down the middle of the deer that allows for a bullet to pass through doing minimal damage. If you are truly front on, and hit centre but a little bit high, you are still highly likely to massively damage the windpipe, main arteries and the major nerves running down from the brain. The peripheral shock damage will tear up the soft tissue of the lungs on the way through. The bullet will pass over the top of the hilar and the heart and into the liver behind the diaphragm. It might run a ways but the deer will die of blood loss in relatively short order, but as we know they can still make a surprising amount of ground.

Those that have lost deer and then come back later with the dog and then found that the deer was right there - like me not long ago - learn the hard way that deer can be bloody difficult to find in long grass and scrub once they fall over.

What I have seen firsthand (and proven with the skinning knife) is a deer shot front on at extremely close range and being struck a glancing blow. In the excitement old mate pulled the bullet to one side - too easy for it to glance off the outer side of the scapula or the humerus and exit the back of the shoulder without doing any internal damage. On that particular occasion the zoom was too high and the parallax set to 200yd or so, so the deer looked very blurry and in the haste of the moment that parallax error is potentially a miss or a wounded animal.

I remember one time in W.A. I was after a problem fox that had been causing havoc in the backyard. I only ever saw it at distance so when I went out one night looking for him I was set up to shoot him at 200+. Of course the bastard walked out of the scrub right in front of me, no more than 10m, and stopped to stare at me long enough for me to chamber around and shoot at him. All I could see in the scope was a red blur. I missed. Very cross.