Thread: Neckshot placement

Phil, if a bullet from a rifle will pass through both shoulders of a deer, or even one shoulder and exit the other side of the body, then it will certainly not have a problem with those neck muscles of a stag that you mention! (You can commonly recover bullets or peices of them from neck vertibrae though because they are tough bones and hard on bullets.)
As for your other query, the answer is that the localised shocking power of a high velocity bullet is considerable and even if you do not squarely impact the vertibrae, the impact damage will cause the animal to drop immediately. The severed carotid and jugular will mean that he is effectively dead in seconds after that. High speed bullets like the .243,.25/06 and .270 come to mind. Thinking about it the .44 magnum for example might be different as they just bore a calibre sized hole right through; the slowest bullet I have neckshot a stag with is a .30/30 from memory (worked fine, no pass through, bullet impacted vertibrae) but realistically, the neck is an intensely vulnerable target, and with anything like reasonable shooting you are golden.