Given That I usually don't have much time to line up the perfect shot I shoot'em in the biggest available place.and keep shooting till they stay down. Tracker, big woods.hunting. High shoulder shot is good.
But then I'm a good shot at 10 yards better at 8

Generally, I will double lung them. If the shot lines up right I will either take the heart or just above to take out the great vessels. About 1/3 of the deer I shoot are head shots. All of them are inside 50 yards with a single exception in almost 60 years. When I do shoot the head, it's not really the head, but just below so it takes out the brain stem which does a better job. When I don't want them moving it's generally a high shoulder shot.

I have learned that taking out the shoulder doesn't necessarily stop them from running. I shot one with a ML at 50 yards with a Barnes T-EZ. Through the base of both scapula. Lungs were red soup but for a fist sized chunk from the bottom of one. Heart was also shredded. Bambi made it 50-60 yards and hardly bled and didn't go down when hit. Wasn't even a big deer.

Most deer run 40 to as much as a 100 yards with a shoulder shot, The claimed DRT clowns proclaim all deer fall to the shot, my reply is both of them?..As long as I have a exit hole and a good blood trail Im good with that, Ive had Impala run 200 yards or so shot with a 375 or 416 on occasion. Its no big deal IMO, and usually not a lot of blood shot meat.

Fast DRT kills are more prone to happen with a 220 Swift or 22-250, but then ever so often one runs and is lost, no blood or he just travels too far or the bullet explodes on the shoulder blade or a rib....Take your pick..I like the double lung shot a bit high, never lost one shot that way,

A friend that had killed hundreds of elk at the time and I found a bull elk down just a bit lower with his head down eating face on. He shot between the shoulders with a .300H&H 180gr unk brand. This was back in the early '60s.
The bull sat down looking up like: 'WTH hit me?"
Once he connected things, he ran full speed right past my buddy and across in front of me at about 25 feet. I kneeled down and put a 150gr '06 on the point of his shoulder that never fazed him, or made a side step from it.
He went down about 30yds and I blew his head apart with another one. YES, that was too light a bullet I used. I had little experience at the time.

When we checked that bullet to the shoulder had blown a bubble 6" dia and pulverized half inch or so of bone. We figured the first shot is what put him down.

Since then I NEVER make a shoulder shot. IF that's all that's offered I don't shoot period.

I've never had an animal get away wounded except a p/dog I blew a front foot off, then couldn't hit it twice more. later it came back out and I nailed it though. I still feel bad about that bit of suffering.

George

We are the sum of our personal experiences.

I sat and watched a hunter kill a 5x5 bull elk on private land just north of Vega Reservoir outside Collbran Colo., a few years back with one shot from a .270 using a 150 grain bullet. Best that we could figure using a brand new Range Finder was that the bull was around 500 yards maybe slightly more out.

The hit was in the left shoulder, the bullet broke that shoulder, clipped the heart and lungs and broke the right shoulder.

As has been said before, you hunt long enough and shoot enough critters you will see some strange thing happen.

Hmmmm, if a person killed hundreds of bull elk in the 60s where was he hunting, he had to be a big time poacher..Hunting laws were pretty strict in the 1960s. shame on him!