Corey,
In my opinion these bullets are too pancaked out, meaning they are being shot too hard with high velocity, much better to drop your charge 10 to 20 grains. Look at the Gold Dot 300g that Semisane showed on page 2 of this thread, man they were a thing of beauty.Your bulletslike they are soft enough to wrap around the core and keep going, but really what that means is the bullet is spending all it energy wrapping the bullet not driving flesh, bone and blood vessels out. This is of course an "art", but if you do some reading about bullet design, they design bullets in their velocity range to have long shanks and expanded head (Swift Scarraco, Nosler Partition, A-Frame, etc). If you compare the XTP to the Gold Dot head to head you will see the GD are better, because they cost about the same, $20 for 50 and they do not fragment or pancake. The XTPs will loose their jacket, now you undoubly will have a dead deer, but you will not get shoot thru with the XTP 250, with the GD you will. Now I like the XTP Mag, same cost, but tougher jacket, higher velocity range. I have shot them and I have taken deer with them, they are very good for a low cost bullet.

</true confessions>
I use to have a "low cost" attitude about bullets when I first started MLing, basically "any bullet will do". I believe that is true for bow shots behind the shoulder on broadside deer, but then you start talking about penetration, no fragmentation, shoot thru and expansion you quickly must go to a bonded or premiuum bullet to get that kind of performance. I now believe only a bonded bullet or premiuum bullet should be used for hunting, because it has to do with game killing ability, and you want a bullet that kills game quickly and efficiently at any angle that the shot presents itself, i.e. quartering to you front shoulder shot, or straight on brisket shots. For the bone shotsthe premiuum or bonded bullets give much better penetration into the vitals, and if your hunting thick cover like we do in VA, then you may only get a quarting to you shot.

I base this change of attitude on this scripture verse:

Proverbs 12:10 (Whole Chapter)
A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.

So I have to regard the life of the beast that I hunt (the Bible says that "God gave them over to their hand, over and over, so where do we get our hunting ability?"), and shootthe beast that God give over tomy handso it does not suffer (quick death, no lingering death from poor hits), that is what "have regardth the life" means,otherwise my actions are cruel and I am a wicked man. An yes, I have had deer get away in the past from lack of penetration on good broadside shot (150g, 30 yards with 295g PB hollowpoint), but I have learned to shoot premiuum bullets, and that has made a huge difference. Premiuum is not high cost, premiuum is bonded or well constructed (Nosler with H, Barnes with all copper), does not fragment, expands beautifully in soild, long shanks (like Semi's 300g pictures), excellent accuracy. That is what premiuum means to me.


Hope that helps someboday along the way, buying your gun in not your most important MLing decision, buying your bullet is your single most important ML decision/choice, "choose well Grasshopper".
</end true confessions>

Respectfully submitted in year of our Lord 7/4/08,
Chap Gleason