When you are talking powerbelts and other conicals, expansion is not really as important an issue in my book. We tend to forget, you're already making a 1/2 inch hole through a vital organ. That hole should be equal to the expansion any modern center fire projectile should make. Any further expansion from that conical is a plus.

The same holds true for the simple roundball. It starts out as a .490 for example and with any slight deformation will easily make half an inch. Again, push that through the vital organs of an animal and you will harvest that animal. What a lot of people I think see with muzzleloaders is, the animal might not drop in its track, or take a couple steps and then fall over like with modern rifles. Instead they soak up the hit and take off running. Then the shooter gets upset because there is not blood sprayed all over the snow or landscape.

I think a lot of people that have poor blood trailscan account thisto the tenacity and will to live a wild animal has, and second is shot placement. If you poke them high in the lungs they will die from that but it might take a while for the lungs to fill with blood before they actually spray. Over years of harvesting deer with a muzzleloader I find the lower I hit them the better chance of a blood trail. If I want them planted then I have to do a neck shot or break them down.