Every hunter should strive for an ethical kill. What better way to do it than with one shot every time?
Outdoor Life has some good information for them one shot kills.
How do you guarantee a drop-it-where-it-stands shot? For Anthony DeNicola, owner of White Buffalo, a top deer-control operation, it’s all about the brain.
“Draw a line from tear duct to tear duct, then go 2.5 to 2.75 inches above that line, centered,” says DeNicola. “That’s where you want to place your bullet–first and best option.”
A bullet in the brain instantly incapacitates the animal; death follows in seconds. Of course, DeNicola and his team have an advantage over hunters: They shoot at night with infrared optics, from raised, mobile platforms, over bait, at known distances (usually 50 to 60 yards), and (where legal) with suppressed rifles.
DeNicola uses .223-caliber rifles, firing 50- to 55-grain frangible varmint projectiles that expend all their energy into the brainpan. In the urban and suburban environments in which he works, DeNicola can’t afford to have a round exiting an animal.
Second option: A brain shot from the side. Third: A shot just below the back of the skull in the first four cervical vertebrae of the spine.
“The deer drop immediately,” DeNicola says of the vertebrae shot. “Heart and lung functions will cease. They lose consciousness and die in eight to 12 seconds.”
If he’s only got a shot lower down on the neck, DeNicola will usually wait for a better option. In his business, body shots are way too risky.
The Double-Shoulder Shot
Woods, a noted whitetail biologist, did much of his deer-control work on golf courses. There, shots usually ranged between 200 and 300 yards. His first choice was the double-shoulder shot, with a .308 round entering a shoulder blade on one side, slamming through the body and into the far shoulder blade. [ Continued]
