Depends on what I am hunting and where. If I want it to drop on the spot, #1 with a heavy slug in the shoulder or something. Down side lots of damaged meat.

I prefer two with a quality bullet. And if you are using a rifle with enough velocity it will still most likely drop them on the spot from what I have seen and heard (never hunted with a high powered rifle though, only seen video)

With my muzzle loader and jacketed controled expansion bullets it leaves a small hole going in, and a fairly small one going out. However when field dressing the animal and surveying the spot I shot it at the vitals were destroyed. The lungs are liquafied and some them actually get pulled out of the body with they bullet. And if you hit bone by accident (or on purpose) they usally pentirate the bone as well since that is what they are designed to do.

You might have to track them a few hundred feet maybe, but if you put the bullet in the right spot it shouldn't be much farther, if that.

Paul