MLKeith
I have shot a 5 point bull with a ML and a 300 grain/.452 Nosler - range was not much - 70 yards - he too bolted but he was dead when he bolted got down the hill about 70 yards and piled up when he ran into a big Ponderosa Pine tree (he saw me and he was alerted to something being wrong - his adrenelin was already starting to run). I have shot at least a dozen of them with a 200 grain .308 Nosler from a 300 Win Mag and have experianced the same bolt with it and of course some have buckled and dropped in their tracks. On the other hand I have shot several elk with a 130 grain 270 and dropped them in place. Every hunting season more elk. deer, bear and others are dropped with an 06 than any other gun and they are shooting a .308/180 grainbullet. It is not size! it is velocity and bullet performance on the target and of course the almighty placement...
If you are really expecting your big conical to give you the ultimate perfromance on an elk you might be surprised - some will some will not. This really probably does not go here but if a peofessional hunter hunting dangerous game were given the choice of a conical or a proven jacketed bullet which do you think he might choose - in fact which would you choose. Heck they do not even use the 12 bore anymore - they use modern centerfires.
I have no problem with people choosing to shoot conicals in fact i really enjoy the change but given the choice and the fact that I hunt for food I would always take the modern jacketted bullet of my choice. The people with the pull in the state of Idaho even know that the sabot and jacketted bullet is more deadly and accurate over all the varibles than the conical - we can shoot conicals but we can not shoot jacketted bullets during ML season. The conical will not do the collateral damage that a good copper clad bullet will do on the way theanimal. And again I will use the case of the broad head as an example... shoot an arrow with a soft lead tip or shoot a broad head designed to turn and cut on the way through.
Conicals work but, the right copper clad or all copper bullet will out perform it and do it quicker.