LAST EDITED ON Oct-17-06 AT 06:02AM (MST)[p]Almost everyone measures outside (widest point to widest point even if that point is the end of a nontypical "sticker," and then if it's close to 30, they add a generous fudge factor. People talk about "main-frame" to describe the actual main set of anterlers on a nontypical so that you can better visulize the anterler configuration.
In truth, BC uses three inside (wides point between the inside main beam left and main beam right) tip to tip, (main beam) AND the widest spread outside to outside.
I often wondered the same question. I hear guys throw spread numbers out all the time. I tried to get a staight answer a year ago and got a buch of questions like, "what difference does it make, why do you want to know, spreads not everything."
I think it would be nice to standardize it so that when a guys says "o, I shot a 31 inch" buck, we can get an idea of what that looks like. If it's a 24" main frame 4x4 with a couple nice kickers, they will have just shot themselves a "30 inch" buck. . . but what we think of is usually not a 24 incher with a couple kickers.
In any event, it's safe to go with outside spread and subtract a couple, its kind of like fishing, a nice fish is always a few inches longer than it really is. If you see a photo of the buck, that's the real measure, you can usually guess with in an inch or so, the spread on a mule deer buck. assuming you can see the ears, or there's no drastic exagerations or exesive use of super wide angle camera lenses. It gets a lot harder to estimate or guess with big non typicals.
Here's a link to the BC online scoring program.
http://www.boone-crockett.org/bgRec...=bgRecords&type=Typical+Mule+Deer+&+Blacktail