Going down South of San Antonio later this year to hunt my brother in laws place. The whole place is setup similar to the picture below. Bulldozed lanes and then stuff so thick you can’t possibly walk through it. In the past I’ve only taken doe so I’ve taken head shots. This year I may have the opportunity to shoot a buck so I want to be sure if I get the opportunity I don’t lose a buck the buck to the brush.


Only rifle I have is a .308. Extremely accurate with match ammo but have any actual hunting loads I can use. Amax and FGMM have been fine when taking head shots. Would you focus on a shoulder shot with a bonded type hunting round(which of course are extremely difficult to come by) or a neck shot? Upper or lower neck? What is your point of aim? Or buy a 300wm or .338 Lapua and leave no doubts? My brother in law swears by his .270 wsm and I’ve seen him take a number of deer and none have made it out of the shooting lanes. Does the .270 mag really hit that much harder?


Any wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

.270 fine for south texas deer

308 you have is good, just get a good hunting bullet. Personally I would never ever shoot a buck in the neck. Shoulder or behind it but I’m sure others will elaborate on placement.

.308 is fine. High shoulder shot will anchor them

I can’t speak to match bullets but a regular soft point will be fine

If you shoot a deer in the center of the neck it makes no difference what you shoot it with.

In the brush country, never ever shoot a buck in the shoulder or behind it. Unless you like tracking and losing bucks.

Shoot them at the base of the NECK or high shoulder. They drop and don’t get up.

Mid/High frontal shoulder to anchor. .308 is more than sufficient for WT.

When I hunt South Texas I'm hunting horns, so my aiming point is high shoulder. I use a .270 Win & 130 gr SP. They drop DRT . Your .308 will work fine with any good deer bullet of 150 gr or heavier.

I have killed a lot of deer in South Texas with .270 and 130 grain Remington Core-Lokt. You can shoot them thru the shoulders if you can break both shoulders they can not run...but you have to break both shoulders. I prefer a high shoulder/point of the shoulder/neck meets the shoulder shot. Last few years I have been using a Suppressed Remington .308 with Hornady SST provided by one of the ranches I get to hunt on.

This

I like that spot, and this:
You get Circulatory and nervous system with a wound channel here. This is the rear legs fold up buck straight down shot for me.

308 has taken many a whitetail...Shot placement is the ticket

But nothing wrong with buying more guns. Me personally, I like the 7 mag.

I like straight up the leg bone and high. Where the shoulder blade, spine, and lungs all meet. Most of the time it folds deer up. There isn’t much blood trail to follow shooting that high though. Your 308 with a good hunting bullet will work just fine. Good luck

Nice pictures STXRM, they will benefit many. The 308 is one of my favorites, hunted STX since the '60s with one. I favor the old school Rem Core-Lokt.

I'm a handloader and ran out of the Rem way back. Fortunately, Black Hills Shooting Supplies (a distrubtor) is doing something with Rem and many of the old favorites are now available again through their dealers. Fortunately, the various inventories where not favored by the "defense" shooters and have been avialable. As hunting season approaches, the inventories of these hunting bullets seem to be drying up. I use Duck Creek Sporting Goods website. I found a lot of bullets this year that I've really missed in the Core-Lokt line especially for my 25-20 Win and Rem 600 35 Rem.

For the OP, I would be sure the rifle and you are up to the task. I sure would spend some range time shooting at the distance you expect.

Extremely accurate 308. You’re good. Put it where ^^^^ they say to.

I’m a 270win/core-lokt guy too but 3250fps 150gr will put a hurtin’ on em from a WSM. I’d still rather have the confidence you have in your 308 though

At what point in time did the bucks in South Texas become super indestructible creatures that required safari rifles to make a clean kill?

The biggest South Texas Whitetail isn't close to a Corn Fed Illinois buck or a Saskatchewan bruiser in size.


The .308 is one of the most used rounds in South Africa and their brush is just as thick and nasty as ours and their animals quite a bit tougher than a whitetail.



Use enough gun, but past that its about putting the round where it needs to go

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I load 150gr Sierra KG for my 308 heavy barrel savage and I promise there is not a deer in S TX it will not smoke out to 400 yards given a good anchored up rest!!

I've killed big bodied S TX deer with it with shoulder shots and they don't make it 30 yards...even those that are well north of 200 lbs live weight.

If your 308 shoots match bullets like a tack driver, just build a load for it with good hunting bullets and it'll do exactly the same thing!

High shoulder shot with 150gr SST through my .308 anchors them just fine

While some went that direction, this thread was never about can a .308 kill a deer. Rather, how do you keep a buck from getting out of a shooting lane. If a deer gets even 20-30 yards out of the lane they would be essentially unrecoverable. The reason I even mentioned about caliber was in wondering if it would have a significant chance to improve the ability for a DRT

The high shoulder shot/spine shot will address what I need and have faith the .308 will get it done.

Some people still appear to be trying to take a shoulder and lung shot “5 inches from top of back” is this as reliable as getting the spin when you hit the shoulder extremely high?

There are definitely some places in S TX that so thick they are not easily navigated on foot, I've got a couple areas like that on my little place, but saying a deer is unrecoverable 20-30 yards off a sendero?

Maybe your BIL is yanking your chain a little. I think you'll be fine with any of heart, lung, high shoulder shot. A hunter unwilling to retrieve a downed deer 20-30 yards away through thick brush or a mesquite flat, well, that's completely different situation.

That shot 5" down from the top of the back right on the point of the shoulder will drop them in their tracks! I shoot a 30-06 with Hornady Whitetail ammo. The deer I have shot over the last few years have dropped with the exception of one who went 30 yards with his heart blown out of a fist sized exit wound in his brisket. The others have been one neck shot, one high shoulder, and one right behind the front shoulder, 110 yard average shot all dropped in their tracks.

I was thinking the exact same thing HWY72.
Hell, I've come out of the brush with thorns literally in every damn part of my body. Several times the only way through the black brush was on hands and knees navigating hog trails!

I think the bottom line here is if you want to anchor a deer in his tracks you break his spine somewhere. That said, it leaves very, very little room for error and if you make that error there's a good chance of never recovering that animal and having him/her die an awful death.

I've never been an enthusiast of neck or spine shots for that exact reason. Quartering away and send one right behind the shoulder or quartering to with one right in the point of the shoulder and I get a knockdown 90% or more of the time and 100% of the time I hit vitals with that shot and the animal rarely goes more than 30 yards even if he does get up after knocking him down. Hell, I get more sausage meat of the thick neck of a big buck than I do off the one shoulder that is basically ruined anyway. lol

Ain't buying the 30 yard thing anywhere in South Texas, but it should always be your goal to plant them right there. Quartering away, right behind the shoulder and directly in to the one opposite.

Hunt the south texas thorns described above. It may not be as much fun to track one through the brush but its surely doable.

my kids killed them with a 243 in south texas, pretty sure you can do it with a 308