The hunt is over. The mount is back from the taxidermist, and now your deer mount just needs a home on the wall. This is usually the moment a hunter first realizes how much a finished shoulder mount actually weighs. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 11.5 million people hunted big game, deer, elk, bear, and similar animals in the United States in 2022, and a meaningful share of that annual harvest eventually ends up mounted somewhere in a home.
Getting a mount safely on the wall comes down to three things, in this order: finding the stud, choosing the right height, and using hardware built to carry the load. Skip any one of those and the trophy you worked hard for can end up crooked, damaged, or on the floor.
Start With the Stud, Not the Drywall
A shoulder mount is heavier than it looks once it leaves the taxidermist's shop. A whitetail mount typically runs 15 to 30 pounds, and anything larger, elk, moose, or bigger game, weighs considerably more. Drywall anchors are rated for light picture frames, not for a mount that projects several inches off the wall and puts constant leverage on whatever it is fastened to.
Find a wall stud before you do anything else. A stud finder makes the job quick, but you can also look for the vertical line of nail or screw heads along baseboards and trim, since studs typically sit 16 or 24 inches apart in most home framing. Every wall mounting system should anchor straight into that framing using the hardware that came with it. This one step prevents the most common reason a mount ends up on the floor.
Heavier trophies raise the stakes further. The Elite System is built specifically for large game like elk or red stag, holding up to 95 pounds while keeping the mount's weight close to the wall through a reinforced arm, which cuts down on the strain any single anchor point has to carry.
How High Should You Hang a Deer Mount?
Height is where a lot of hunters second-guess themselves. A good general rule is to hang the mount so the animal looks slightly down toward someone standing in front of it, which is close to how the animal actually appeared in the field. In most rooms, that puts the base of the mount around 6 to 7 feet off the floor, though the right number shifts with your ceiling and your furniture.
A few things are worth weighing before you drill.
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Standard eight-foot ceilings leave less headroom than they seem to once the antlers are factored into the measurement, so measure the full mount from the bottom of the plaque to the antler tips before deciding on a spot, since guessing at the total height is what leads most hunters to hang a mount too close to the ceiling.
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A mantel changes the math above a fireplace, since it raises the starting point of the usable wall and often adds picture frames, a clock, or seasonal decor competing for the same real estate, which usually means the mount needs to sit a bit lower relative to the plaque line than it would on an open wall, or the antlers will crowd both the ceiling and whatever else lives on that mantel.
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Hang the mount where people actually spend time looking at it, from a chair or a couch as well as standing in the doorway, because a mount positioned only for someone walking past a room ends up feeling out of place once the furniture is arranged and the room is actually being lived in day to day, rather than just viewed from the entryway during a quick walkthrough.
Choosing Hardware That Holds
The hardware carries the entire display, so it is not the place to cut corners. Systems built from steel outperform lightweight brackets or a single nail by a wide margin, holding their shape and their grip even as a mount settles into place over months and years.
Full Range systems use heavy steel plates and swing arms rated well beyond the weight of a typical mount, which protects both the trophy and the wall it hangs on.
Use the screws that ship with the system, drive them into the stud you located earlier, and check the plate with a level before the mount goes up. A mount that hangs even slightly crooked draws attention for the wrong reason, and fixing it after the fact usually means patching new holes.
Matching Arm Length to Your Wall and Mount
Every mount needs a certain amount of clearance to look right and to let the antlers turn without hitting the wall, and that clearance is where arm length starts to matter. Full Range offers a 4-inch arm, an 8-inch arm, and a 10-inch arm, and the right choice depends on both the mount and the wall behind it.
A modest whitetail rack with a narrow spread can sit comfortably on the shortest arm close to the wall, while wider antlers or a mount with more forward projection need the extra clearance the longer arms provide to swing freely without catching on trim or nearby door frames.
Measure the widest point of the rack and the depth the head projects from the plaque before choosing an arm, since guessing here is what leads to a mount that cannot fully pivot once it is installed.
Give Yourself Room to Adjust
A fixed mount locks you into one angle for as long as it hangs there. A pivoting system changes that. Every Full Range system swings 180 degrees, so a mount can turn toward the center of the room, catch better light at different times of day, or swing away from the wall entirely when it is time to clean behind it.
That flexibility pays off in tricky layouts too. A narrow section of wall or an awkward corner calls for angles a flat bracket simply cannot use, and the corner mount system is built around exactly that problem.
If you are working with more than one mount, or trying to make the most of the odd, unused spaces in a room, the trophy room page shows how other hunters have put corners and narrow wall strips to work. You can also set your own arm length and plate type on the custom shop page to match your specific wall and mount.
Full Range Hanging Systems Builds for Hunters, Not Just Walls
Full Range Hanging Systems designs its lineup of pivoting mounts out of High Point, North Carolina, and every system in the lineup, from the Single up through the Elite, exists because a hunter somewhere ran into a wall, literally, that flat brackets could not solve.
That is why the catalog spans six different systems and three arm lengths rather than one universal bracket, since a whitetail on a narrow hallway wall and an elk on an open living room wall need genuinely different setups to look right and stay secure.
Ready to Give Your Trophy a Permanent Home
A mount you worked hard for deserves better than a guess and a drywall anchor. Once you have found your stud, settled on a height, and matched the right arm to your wall, the only thing left is picking the system that fits. Browse the full lineup of trophy mounting systems and give your deer mount a home that will hold it for as long as you own it.