Can You Show Some Bucks With Known Scores?

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TX_Diver

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He's a cool buck for sure!

General question for guys that are good at this...

Do you factor in proportionality on a buck? Specifically, some of the 170 bucks look similar to 180-190 bucks, but on the bigger bucks the antlers just look like they are disproportionally large compared to the head. Juan_IDs buck is a good example, even with the small fronts his antlers look big compared to his head which seems to indicate he'd score higher than expected? I'll try to quote some other examples in a minute.
 
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TX_Diver

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This buck I was pretty surprised that he scored under 180. He has a nice frame, apparently decent forks, reasonable mass, etc.


This buck I would have guessed as similar. Maybe a bit bigger, but has a smaller back left fork. But he's 15" bigger. He has a big head but even still the antlers just look a little out of proportion (bigger) compared to the rest of him.

View attachment 639324View attachment 639325View attachment 639323


191” gross if I recall. He was deceptively big..massive head and 26” ear to ear. His mass doesn’t come through on pics well, 43” or so IIRC. I thought he was maybe 180 until I started measuring later.

This buck is maybe a bad example as he just looks big! But his antlers make his head look small.

Juans buck is probably the best example, but with the smaller front forks he doesn't break 180. But he scores pretty well and his antlers just dwarf his head/body it seems like.
 

Juan_ID

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He's a cool buck for sure!

General question for guys that are good at this...

Do you factor in proportionality on a buck? Specifically, some of the 170 bucks look similar to 180-190 bucks, but on the bigger bucks the antlers just look like they are disproportionally large compared to the head. Juan_IDs buck is a good example, even with the small fronts his antlers look big compared to his head which seems to indicate he'd score higher than expected? I'll try to quote some other examples in a minute.
I’ve been asked about that one a lot it seems. Not sure if it’s the drastic contrast in colors of the dark night and the light velvet or what. I’m not big on long arming trying “showcase” the animal or anything like that so it could be a few things I’d guess. The contrast of the colors and maybe the slightly lower camera angle accentuate it more? He had a real big body but also had the short summer cape so his neck and head look skinny. He was about 27” wide outside and pretty tall. I do think in hand he is bigger than most think, just a big framey buck.
 
Joined
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He's a cool buck for sure!

General question for guys that are good at this...

Do you factor in proportionality on a buck? Specifically, some of the 170 bucks look similar to 180-190 bucks, but on the bigger bucks the antlers just look like they are disproportionally large compared to the head. Juan_IDs buck is a good example, even with the small fronts his antlers look big compared to his head which seems to indicate he'd score higher than expected? I'll try to quote some other examples in a minute.
Yes proportion is a huge factor. I never realized that until the last few years. My 187 buck had an ear spread of 26 in. Those big mature bucks in Colorado are very deceiving. I thought he would be mid 170s when I shot him. My nephew shot a buck that I thought was 140 in Colorado this year and ended up going 170, just a giant body, old old buck.
 
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So I went back and scored this one. "Air guess" was 180-185, but plugging in numbers to the B&C calculator I ended up with 193... Net of 175, but I'm assuming 176 is gross score?

He's got decent width, forks, reasonable mass, and I figured 6" of extras...

Any assumptions way off here or did I just add an inch to everything across the board basically?

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A little long on most of the measurements. I think you have G2 and G3 backwards. We always think we are good at judging because we see a buck but we never really get to measure it most of the time. I bet we are more off than we think some of the time.
 
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TX_Diver

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Right at 200” gross green.


View attachment 641570

Awesome!!! That kind of shows the "proportionality" I was trying to describe. At a glance I'd think big buck, but then I look at how his antlers make his head look tiny, and realize I need to scale everything up quite a bit!

That is a beautiful deer man. Nice job.
 
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