How to score a mule deer
A mule deer is scored like a whitetail: inside spread, main beams, typical points and four circumferences per side, minus the differences between sides. What changes is the shape. A typical muley branches into two forks on each side, so only four points per side are measured, and two of the circumferences sit in different places.
Tape and rules
- Use a flexible steel tape and write every measurement to the nearest eighth of an inch. Eighths keep the adding simple: 4 3/8, not 4.375.
- A projection counts as a point only if it is at least one inch long and longer than it is wide at one inch or more of its length.
- The beam tip counts as a point but is not measured as one.
- Tip-to-tip spread and greatest spread go on the score chart, but neither counts in the score.
Rules quoted from Boone and Crockett's measuring instructions, reprinted with the Club's permission on New Jersey's trophy form.
The typical mule deer frame
- G1 is the brow tine (eye guard). Many mule deer have a tiny one or none; a missing G1 is simply 0.
- G2 rises off the main beam and forms the back fork.
- G3 grows off G2: it is the other tine of the back fork.
- G4 rises off the main beam ahead of the back fork. The beam tip finishes the front fork.
Points beyond that pattern are abnormal, and are totalled separately.
Measurements
Inside spread at the widest point between the main beams, credited up to the length of the longer main beam. Main beams (F) from the lowest outside edge of the burr, over the outer curve, to the most distant point of the beam. Points from where they leave the beam (or, for G3, where it leaves G2) over the outer curve to the tip.
Circumferences
- H1: between the burr and G1.
- H2: between G1 and G2.
- H3: on G2, between the main beam and G3.
- H4: on the main beam, between G2 and G4.
Wide bucks and the spread cap
A wide muley can carry more spread than beam, and the extra does not count. B&C entry 18378 has a 30 7/8 inside spread, but its longer main beam is 30 1/8, so the spread credit is 30 1/8. With 2 5/8 of abnormal points, it grosses 235 2/8; subtracting 3 4/8 of side-to-side differences and the 2 5/8 of abnormal points leaves a net typical score of 226 4/8.
A cleaner example, B&C entry 830991: gross 182 5/8, differences 2 7/8, net typical 179 6/8.
Add it up for you
Open the free score calculator
Score from a trail-camera photo instead: Tinewise, an iPhone app, traces the beams, points and circumferences on the picture, every line drawn where you can check it. Coming soon to the App Store.
More scoring guides
Unofficial. Not affiliated with the Boone and Crockett Club or any record book. Only an official measurer, at least sixty days after the kill, can score a rack for entry.