Big Buck 411 Blog

Scoring Matters

Scoring Matters

By Patrick Dunning

Of the nearly 20,000 entries Buckmasters Trophy Records has recorded since its inception 29 years ago, only 13 mainframe 3x3s have met our minimum requirements (140 inches for firearms taken bucks and 105 inches for bow deer) to earn a spot in the record book. All of the 3x3s were taken with archery gear.

BTR doesn’t have a category specifically for 6-pointers, but Ohio native David Yoder’s 145 2/8-inch (126 3/8-inch without the spread) Perfect 6-pointer is the largest ever to make the book, and it surpassed the previous largest 3x3 by 4 inches.

It’s rare for a 6-pointer to have enough scorable antler to reach the bow minimum, and there are no firearms-taken Perfect 3x3s in the book. There have been some 3x3s taken with firearms that are larger than David’s, but the higher minimum score for gun-taken bucks rules them out.

No, antler scoring is not a perfect science, but we certainly believe the BTR is the most fair and accurate system available for whitetails.

People often ask two important questions regarding BTR scoring:
1) Why don’t you count spread when ranking bucks?
2) Why is the BTR necessary when there are already two other scoring systems out there?

Armchair antler enthusiasts sometimes ignore Buckmasters’ full-credit scoring system because inside spread isn’t tallied into how deer are ranked.

BTR founder Russell Thornberry, who was a whitetail guide in Canada at the time, set out to create a more fair (to both the deer and the hunter) scoring system after witnessing several troubling incidents.

The first happened when a friend wanted to show Russell a rack he had taken a few weeks prior. When the hunter pulled it out of the freezer, Russell asked him why there was a 2x4 wedged between the main beams. The answer was to keep the deer from losing any spread during the drying period, and maybe even pick up a few eighths inches.

The other occurred when one of Russell’s clients walked up to a monster buck he’d just taken and promptly shot off a long, beautiful drop tine. Stuttering in shock, Russell asked why.

The hunter replied the buck would score better without the deduction the drop tine would have caused.

Those incidents inspired Russell to come up with a scoring system that ranked bucks by only the antler grown, and with no deductions for points that don’t match from one side of the rack to the other.

Most people don’t realize the other systems’ deductions go way beyond the question of whether a buck is typical or non-typical. Even a perfect rack loses any inches that don’t exactly match from one side to the other. The same goes for main beams and circumferences – deduct anything that doesn’t match! Sound crazy? We agree.

Russell said bucks shouldn’t have to conform to man’s idea of what embodies a perfect rack. Like humans, every deer is unique genetically and therefore physically, just like God intended.

As much as possible, Russell removed the human element of scoring deer and replaced it with mathematics.

The BTR accounts for every inch of antler, and we use percentage of irregularity to compare apples to apples when placing bucks in one of our four categories. We’re in the business of measuring antlers, not air.

Our scorers aren’t required to wait 60 days for antlers to “dry,” either. The truest representation of a buck’s rack is immediately after harvest, and that should be reflected on the scoresheet.

The Buckmasters scoring system is simple − no deductions, no drying period, and no more leaving it up the scorer to decide if it’s a typical or non-typical.

You should be proud of your harvest, not kicking yourself over an irregular point.

Thank goodness for people like Henry Ford, who questioned established methods. Henry changed manufacturing and made cars affordable for blue-collar families.

The same applies to masterminds behind the BTR for blazing a new path and not settling for a broken 100-year-old scoring system.

— Read Recent Blog! Xen Moment: 29-year-old Xen McAllister's Fayette County Freak was less than an inch shy of cracking Buckmasters Trophy Records' top-10 in the irregular, compound bow category for the state of Illinois.

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Copyright 2020 by Buckmasters, Ltd