Shoulder shot

[jojotater]

There has been a lot of debate about light bows. One thing that comes up is you can't get the arrow through the scapula with a light bow.

What weight bow (with razor sharp broadheads) does it take to punch through the shoulder of a whitetail at 20 yards? Of course I understand you shouldn't be trying for that shot. But what if it happens?

[Shawn Leonard]

I have had enough penetration to kill mature whitetails thru the shoulder shooting 5o# bows and arrows at around 8gpp. I should not these arrows had a very high FOC, which is now proven to penetrate better than an arrow of the same weight but not the high FOC. Shawn

[Dave2old]

Bow weight is not so important as arrow weight and other elements, like FoC as Shawn advises. Check in on the Ashby room on this site. How low are you wanting to go in bow weight, and why? Also, "whitetail" is a very gray term. The difference between a perfect broadside shot on a small doe that gets lucky and doesn't hit a rib going in ... and a should hit on a big buck is tremendous. To assure good outcomes on your hunts and lack of guilt for wounds that could have been avoided, we must always prepare for the worst, not the "best case" scenario. I killed my first whitetail with a 43-lb bow, 2-blade head and 500grn. cedar arrows and got a full pass through ... but didn't hit any bone; very lucky!

[jojotater]

Thanks Dave, but I understand and agree with you on what you said. Instead of whitetail, let me say a nice buck.

I'm not looking to go to the lightest bow, nor do I want to start that debate. I already have the bow I'm going to hunt with and if I decide to go heavier it will be when the funds are acquired. I'm just asking how heavy of a bow does it take to get through the shoulder. Shawn has done it with 50 lbs, and described his setup--thanks Shawn.

[the Ferret]

The scapula or shoulder blade is made like a bridge abutment. It is very thick down the middle and on the edges with some thinner webbing to each side of the main thick part (boy that has to be a mental picture). Anyhow it's not too difficult to get thru the webbing with enough poundage and a good strongly tipped broadhead. However busting thru the main part of the bone would be rather difficult to say the least and in most cases would result in nothing more than an inch or so of penetration and a bent tip on the head. IME

[Guru]

What Mickey said...all parts of a scapula are not created equal...every situation is different..

...to do it consistently......maybe,and I stress maybe a very fast moving 800 gr. arrow....but I still wouldn't count on it.....

[Landshark160]

I've posted this several times before.  I hit one square in the shoulder blade with a 92lb. compound shooting a 700+ grain arrow at 236 fps with a cut on contact head (razor sharp).  I did NOT get enough penetration to kill him.  He was seen a couple weeks later.  

If you hit the blade just wrong, it ain't going through.

[Orion]

9 times out of 10, it won't happen, regardless of the weight you're shooting.  Don't even think about shooting an animal in the shoulder, particularly from a tree stand.

[Kindred Mark]

I agree with Orion, don't even think about a shoulder shot.  If you are then your mind is not right and you have a problem with focus.  If we worse case every shot we would all be shooting 100 pound bows for deer sized game.  A heart shot is sexy and makes for great stories and pictures; a clean double lung shot puts just as much meat in the freezer and does not flurt with big bones.

[Burnsie]

I hit A nice buck in the shoulder with 55#.  Arrow went in about an inch and fell out immeadiatly when he took off.  Curled the tip over on my zwickey.  About an hour later he came back around to the same field following a doe like nothing had happened??  It can happen if you are trying to tuck the arrow tight behind the shoulder and miss a little, but I would never aim for the shoulder intentionally.
Burnsie

[schnitz]

yea i shot thru the thick part on tpp last year about 2 inches thick but i was shooting 82 lbs with a 700 grain arrow only got i long but i got him dont want to try that again lol

[eagle24]

Slight quartering away angle makes the likelihood of hitting the shoulder much less.  I want my arrow through both lungs, if I happen to hit the heart that's great, but I don't want any part of the shoulder or forward of it.  I'll take a screw up too far back anyday over one too far forward.  I can back out of the woods and recover a deer (later) that is hit to far back.  Can't say that about one hit too far forward.

[Rick McGowan]

Look at a good cutaway diagram of a whitetail, I'll bet at least nine out a ten bowhunters would draw the scapula in the wrong place. The only way you need to shoot through the shoulder BLADE on the way to the heart/lung is from a HIGH quartering ON shot, such as from a treestand with the deer almost facing you, nearly the worst angle shot you can take. I've shot THROUGH the shoulder on loads of animals, not the blade, the muscle. Including, bears, hogs, gemsbok, wildebeest and water buffalo. Arrows go through muscle easy, not so good through bone. I have made some VERY long tracking jobs on animals that were shot through the scapula, its because on a broadside animal the only thing behind the scapula is more bone and muscle. Most of what people call the "shoulder" is only soft tissue, Things got a lot easier when I started getting serious about animal anatomy.

[eagle24]

I agree Rick.  If you NEED to shoot through the shoulder, IMO you have taken what should have been a "no shot" due to the angle.  I gotta think more times than not "it will turn out bad".

[Curtiss Cardinal]

in my experience it takes a heavy bow flinging a heavy(at least 12 grains per pound) to center punch a scapula. I did it once to a 300+ boar at 10 yards with a 73# Marriah Thermal and a 800 grain arrow. Blew through the near scapula and hung up almost through the far one. I had already shot the boar through the heart and was trying to issue a coup de grace when he dropped dead straight down. 225 grain Wensel Woodsman on a 2417 with weedwhacker line in it. even given all that I don't want it to ever happen again on any animal.

[Pete W]

Best bet is to plan on not hitting it.
Next time you butcher a  big deer save the blades and see how poorly arrows perform on the thick parts, and the area that is close to the ball joint.
If we hit the blades we Missed and there is no way of knowing what bones we did hit. Don't forget to think about the ribs behind the blades too.
Better still try it on moose blades!!!!
Then take your best AXE and swing it as hard as you can at the Moose shoulder joint. That should cure you of thinking about bone smashing broadheads.

Sometimes we do get lucky, but more than often we don't.Many of the perfect hits are burried in bones and the animal is lost.  Bad hits can happen to anyone,  planed bad hits have no excuse.

Pete

[Dan Worden]

I hit one square in the shoulder blade Oct 5th. Maybe got 1-1/2" of penetration (55# 620gr, 20%FOC) The deer was killed with the arrow (carbon) still in the shoulder blade and intact on Nov 23rd.