So I tend to avoid head and neck shots as far too risky. I'll only take one if the range is close, the animal is stationary and I'm very steady with a rifle of known and dependable accuracy--and, for whatever reason, that's the only shot I have. Far the best options, to me, are the heart shot, low through the shoulder on the centerline of the foreleg, or the lung shot, a bit higher and on the rear line of the foreleg. Both shots are absolutely fatal and are easy to visualize on any four-legged game animal in the world.

The tricky part about the high shoulder/spine shot is that spine placement varies a bit from animal to animal. The kudu's hump atop the shoulders is misleading, caused by dorsal projections. Between the shoulders, the actual spine lies about a third down.

Angles complicate things, of course, and as game gets larger it's important to match the caliber, cartridge and bullet to the game. But plain old chest shots work every time. They also offer the solid advantage of the largest target and the greatest margin for error.

The heart shot is actually quite low in the chest. Trying to work with the greatest margin, my "heart shots" often wind up over the top of the heart, about a third up from the brisket. This destroys the major vessels, creating instantaneous and catastrophic loss of blood pressure--just as effective as centering the heart muscle itself. The central lung shot is a little farther back and about halfway between backbone and brisket. This is the largest target area, with the greatest margin for error. It is the safest shot by far.

Unfortunately, there are two things in common about all the permutations of chest shots into the heart and/or lungs. First, as stated, they are absolutely fatal. Second, it's most unusual for the animal to actually drop to the shot from a "pure" heart or lung shot.

It can happen. If the animal has just exhaled and his body is low on oxygen, he may well drop to a central lung shot, especially with a rapidly expanding bullet that does a lot of damage. A through-the-shoulder, dead broadside heart shot with a bullet that penetrates well enough to break both shoulders may also drop an animal and keep him down, but it's shoulder damage that did that, not the heart shot itself.

No two animals react exactly alike upon receiving a bullet, but with any heart or lung shot it is absolutely normal for an animal to run perhaps an average of 50 yards before succumbing to loss of blood, oxygen or both. If the final run is 20 or 30 yards and you see the animal go down, you were fortunate.

Considerably farther isn't unusual, but if the trail leads much more than 100 yards it's time to reevaluate the shot: Either you didn't hit the animal exactly where you think you did or your bullet didn't do what you expected it to do. (These days, hunting bullets are so darned good that the former is far more likely.) After 150 yards there remains some chance of finding the animal dead; you may have slipped behind the lungs into the liver, or you may have slipped a bit high and caught the top of the lungs. There are, unfortunately, lots of other options, but you most definitely did not achieve a clean heart or lung shot.

There is another shot, rarely discussed, that offers a fairly large target and will absolutely anchor an animal on the spot. Sometimes called the spine shot, I prefer the more descriptive "high shoulder" shot. With most horned and antlered ungulates, the spine drops considerably down as it enters the chest, actually lying between the upper portion of the shoulder blades. This is where the vertebra are the thickest and heaviest, but you must ignore the actual backline. Hit there and, just like a shot over the top of the neck, you may hit dorsal spines above the actual vertebra and knock down the animal, but you cannot keep him down.