My experience with the Ballistic Tips have been good until last year. I had been shooting a .300 Win Mag all my hunting life and had excellent results with them. I used to reload them about 10 years ago (or maybe longer) before they were available in premium commercial loads. Last year I bought a .260 Remington because the .300 was way too much gun for these small whitetails we have here. If you don't know anything about the ballistics of a .260 it is just slightly less velocity and energy than a .270, so it is plenty of gun for whitetail. Anyway, I shot 3 deer with it last year.....I only recovered 2. I was not getting an exit would at all. the bullet was fragmenting inside the deer. justrecently I read an article by Craig Boddington on the BT's, and it confirmed my findings. Basically it said that the smaller caliber (less than .30 caliber) BT's are great for varmints since they have a thin jacket designed for rapid, violent expansion. .30 cal and above has a thicker jacket to aid in penetration, but by no means is to be put into the same class as the Partition as a penetrating round.

For the Elk, I think I'd have to go Partition minimum and seriously consider the Fail Safe, especially in the .270. You are correct though, on the range the BT's will shoot consistently better groups than the other 2. But since you really have to make the 1st shot count, I wouldn't let that be a huge concern.