The green tip 62 gr. SS 109 NATO rounds our troops currently are packing in the great sandbox have considerable penetration. Underneath the jacket is a hardened steel penetrator tip. I recently shot one through a fairly new railroad tie that had a piece of 3/8" mild steel bolted to the backside of it. The bulletpunched through this like an end mill. I don't think there is any animal in earth that couldn't be dropped with one of these rounds fired into theanimal's brain.

What I would expect to happen in the elk/moose scenario described in the original post is that the bullet would make a very small hole through the bones of the shoulder - not really shatter the bone structure, but leave a tiny hole that would not necessarily disable the animal.