Measurements of animals

[okie2]

What is the measurements from the belly line or chest to top of back.
average deer
average antelope
average elk
Here is why I ask I have a 30" 264 win mag and with a 140 grain bullet at 3353 fps .535 BC zeroed at 500 yards the highest point of travel is only 12.4 inches high at 250 & 275 yards. so I should be able to just point low in chest area and fire and not shoot over them up to 500 yards. No scope ajustment or hold over shots.
My guess is a deer is at least 14 to 16 inches top to bottom.
Am I wrong?

[EFBell]

A mature whitetail has about a 7 or 8 inch kill zone. What your really trying to acomplish is what is called "Maximum Point Blank Range". Whereas you hold center mass of kill zone regardless of range out to a maximum distance where the bullet never rises or dips below 1/2 of the kill zone. your PBR is probably closer to 375 for a no guess shot  on a whitetail and maybe 425 or so for Elk with a 12" kill zone.  

 If this is what your after anyway.

OK, ran some numbers for ya on point blank.

 7" kill zone Deer: zero at 300 yards, maximum pbr 355 rounded to nearest 5, 2.66 high at 100 yards
 12" kill zone Elk: zero at 375 yards, maximum pbr 440 rounded to neares 5, 4.02 high at 100 yards

[okie2]

thank you ED I do understand the PBR but you are talking about a heart lung shot I'm talking about bringing an animal down where it stands
(like knock out the front running gear) which is a much bigger area than your point of view.
I made a 3 deer kill 2 years ago and all of them were right below the spine above the shoulder with my 264 mag 100 grain ballistic tips at about 175 yards all three layed not 10 feet apart. they all dropped where they stood

[pphreed]

Okie  I have to go with ef bell  on this one I use pbr and 8 in on about everything for zeroing then zero at  what evever at 100 yds and never  more than 4 high or low out to pbr then after that if need be you can udjust your hold upward I print out the pbr table and wind drift table from my sierra program and put  it on the side of my stock it works well 

[Apache]

FWIW I've always used a 5" circle.

Mainly for heart shots and also allows a bit for bad range estimates or wind when shooting for lung/shoulder shots at greater distances.