The ”behind-the-shoulder” myth.

 

In the beginning was the forty-four.  And the forty-four was with the pioneers.  And one could say the forty-four was the pioneer. It was with the pioneers in the beginning.  “It won the West” it was said. One can say it did that because it shot a strong, heavy bullet that had lots of momentum going for it - like the pioneer columns it kept in food and alive in fighting.

 

From the 1873 Winchester a 225gr bullet at 750 ft/sec killed deer by going right through the shoulder into the heart and cut it open.  Behind the shoulder into the lungs it did not do much other than make a neat little hole and the heart kept on pumping and the deer ran away and died some time later.  But there were many deer and many Forty-fours so nobody needed to learn to follow tracks unless there was a hallway of blood ahead to show the way;  but from a high lung shot it is not possible to pump out lots of blood to follow. That stuck and son's were taught to do heart shots.

 

Then, after the 30-30 and 30-40 and 30-06 which were all good at heart shots through the shoulders came Winchester’s Two-Seventy and Two-sixty-four, the prophet and messenger of the new gun religion which was based on the trinity of Lo-Weight and Hi-Vel and Kay-Ee.  And little 130 gr bullets were born that broke up on a deer's shoulder and never actually reached the heart despite the big holes it made sideways and not penetrate - and the deer limped away and died in the brush because the heart kept on pumping for a long time, filling the chest cavity with blood that seeped through cuts in the diaphragm.  There were also cuts in the trachea from little slivers of copper and lead and the deer kept on inhaling and drowning in their own blood. But there were many deer, and Jack O’Connor sold many Two-Seventies for Winchester.  Sometimes a hallway of blood followed the deer’s tracks over the early snows so deer with big blown out holes in the shoulder were found and folks coined the term “meat spoilage” and that was seen as the norm when shot placement was to get to the heart. Everybody hated heart shots through the shoulders.

 

Some folks started to try and put the bullet to the rear of the bullet-breaking-bone-and-meat of the shoulder - but the 130 gr Winchester “silver tip“ (only thing that could kill Count Dracula, remember?)  oftentimes zipped through, so there was no blood trail reminiscent of a crime scene to follow.  Then Nosler made bullets even lighter-to-go-even-faster and the front end jackets by necessity got thinner and was even assisted by a plastic tip for explosive expansion on first contact.  Air ballistics became more important than on-buck ability and entry wounds progressed from: