3D-Printed Skulls Mean Hunters Don’t Have To Boil Heads To Mount Trophy Antlers

The 3D printing revolution has reached the hunting world; hunters have the option of buying 3D printed big game skulls on which to mount their trophy horns and antlers.

It’s a growing niche market that’s been around for a while. Utah hunter Shawn Sanchez is one of the latest to join it. He launched Buck N Bull Skulls a few months ago and has been marketing to hunters in Wyoming and other states.

The appeal is that it saves hunters the time and trouble of preparing skulls for European mounts, he said.

European mounts are big game trophy mounts that include only the animal’s stripped and bleached skull, with the antlers or horns attached.

Until 3D printing technology came on the scene, hunters had a few options. They could boil an animal’s skinned head for hours, making it easier to scrape off the remaining flesh or blast it off with a pressure washer.

They could also search for somebody who kept a tank full of carnivorous beetles, eager to devour the flesh and brains, picking a skull clean.

Time to Get Creative

Sanchez worked for years as an automotive technician. Then a back surgery sidelined him from that occupation, and he started considering other options.

“I was trying to find some way to make money when I was down, recovering from back surgery,” he said.

He has a friend in Tennessee, Dan Smith, who knows 3D design, and Smith helped Sanchez hatch his idea for an entry-level 3D skull-printing business.

As an avid hunter himself, he knew the work that could go into preparing his own big game skulls to make European mounts — or the expense involved in having somebody else do it for him.

Also, natural skull mounts are prone to yellowing with age or becoming brittle and breaking, he said.

Moreover, things happen in hunting that can remove the option of a natural skull mount.

Head shots are rare in western big game hunting. Most hunters won’t attempt them. But for those who do, “it just ruins the head, and you can’t make a European mount,” he said.

What’s more, shed hunting is becoming increasingly popular. That’s the sport of going out in the spring or early summer and looking for the antlers that deer and elk shed earlier.

3D printed skulls give shed hunters a chance to mount their antlers for display, Sanchez said.

And taxidermists also like to sometimes use 3D printed skulls in their work.

Different Species, Sizes

Sanchez bases his printed skulls off of scans of real skulls. There is a fair amount of uniformity in natural deer skull sizes and configurations.

Elk skulls are more challenging, he said.

A deer skull might take 11 hours to print, whereas elk skulls might take up to 50 hours, he said.

The 3D printed skulls also come in different sizes, up to extra-large.

So far, his business has done well with pronghorn and elk skulls, and deer skulls from various species. Some of the deer species include mule deer, white-tailed deer and Coues deer – smaller cousins of white-tailed deer that live in southwestern deserts.

He hopes to start making 3D printed bighorn sheep and mountain goat skulls.

Don’t Want Loose Moose Antlers

He’s also working on mock-ups of Shiras moose skulls. Shiras moose are the North American species that live in the southern end of moose habitat, in places like Wyoming.

They’re smaller than Alaskan moose, which live in Canada and Alaska.

Sanchez said that Alaskan moose skulls are too big for his printer, so he probably won’t try to break into that market.

“If somebody goes to Alaska or British Columbia, Canada, and shoots a huge moose, they are probably going to want a full shoulder taxidermy mount of that animal anyway, not a European mount,” Sanchez said.

The 3D printed Shiras moose skulls are undergoing “stress tests,” to make sure they can safely hold heavy moose antlers, he said.

“We don’t want an antler busting off and hitting a kid in the head at home,” he said.

The antlers or horns attach to the 3D printed skull through an adjustable, bullet-shaped spline system.

There’s a general uniformity among antler bases, Sanchez said, so the base spline system works in most cases.

When there’s an exception, he can do custom work.

For instance, one customer needed to mount a set of mule deer antlers that had “bases the size of Coke cans,” he said.

Another customer had a series of shed antlers from a particular buck. So Sanchez made a set of several 3D printed skulls, so the customer could build a display for outdoor conventions “so people could look at that and see how that deer grew through the years,” he said.

Wyoming Hunters Say There Could Be a Market

Hunter Adam Ashmore of Hartville told Cowboy State Daily that he can see the appeal of 3D printed skulls for some applications.

“With shed antlers, you don’t really have a choice,” for mounting them, he said.

Also, if a skull somehow got broken during transport from the field, it could be handy to replace it with a printed skull, he said.

Even so, Ashmore said he’ll probably stick with natural skulls for his European mounts.

Alex Maher of Jackson has hunted for many years and said that he has plenty of big game skulls.

“I’ve done so much hunting, I have plenty of opportunities to have natural skulls,” he said.

He also noted that if somebody wants to submit their trophy for the Boone and Crockett (B&C) trophy record books, B&C would probably insist on precise measurements from a natural skull.

Otherwise, he can see the appeal for hunters who don’t want to prepare natural skulls for European mounts.

“If somebody wants to have a decoration for their house, bar or restaurant, it (a 3D printed skull) would be fine,” he said.

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.