As luck would have it I got more test results today:

Omega X7 launching a 300gr BONDED Shockwave with 120gr FFg 777; purposely avoided the shoulder blade for this test, shot behind it for a high lung hit at 81 yards:


The bullet hit no bone and very little tissue -- being high in the lungs there was minimal width to traverse, maybe 6-8 inches of hide, thin ribcage muscle and lung. That was it. Did the bullet expand? Well, I honestly doubt a huge amount as this is really a TOUGH bullet to be shooting at a deer (this gun was set up for elk) and it didn't have to go through much. You can see the holes in both lungs, one right in the center of the picture and the other off to the right.

Honestly this is about the least damage I have ever seen from a Shockwave. This does not surprise me as this bullet is a lot stouter than the 200gr version, which I'm sure opens much easier. Another reason I am comfortable with 200-250gr bullets on deer.

No massive trauma, no foot-wide wound channel. Damage was restricted to a 2-inch circle around the bullet's path. Typically with the 200gr there'd be 2-3 times as much damage. So I think this shows the 200gr opens better than the 300gr bonded on deer-sized game.

This is my point though. I purposely shot a hard bullet through an area unlikely to encourage massive bullet expansion -- but I poked both lungs, and she was DRT. If your deer are running off where you can't find time, I question the impact location. I could have seen this deer running 50-70 yds if it's been spooked when I shot but lung-shot deer don't go far in my experience.

I certainly agree there are better bullets for close-range-only shooting or situations where a good blood trail is a must. For example if I were hunting a field of goldenrod where they are impossible to follow/find without excellent blood. I don't think there's that big of a trade-off as one might think though.

I am always leery of over-expansion, I want an exit. I have a buddy who swears by the Barnes Expander too, and while I have never tried them in a ML I did try them in a shotgun and was turned off -- the 12ga bullets are bigger, so if you hit the shoulders you ruined half the deer and they rarely exited, which concerned me. This concern was borne out when I shot a small doe with one and the bullet exploded on the surface of the shoulder blade without penetrating. I've never heard of this in a ML but with so many options I could never get myself to try them.

Overall I think I'm a little cynical about the touted differences between different bullets and bullet designs. I've had good luck with SWs. I've tried soft lead hollowpoints when I needed the deer to go down DRT, and they actually ran further than a SW shot in the same place. I have not tried some of the newer designs but HTPs, XTPs, SWs, Keith Nose hollowpoints, QT, DCs, I could not tell the difference. Shoot them in both lungs, down they go. Shoot only one lung or the heart, they could go 150-200 yds. Shoot them anywhere else, anything from DRT to off to the races. I can see a pattern in the result by where I hit the deer, but not by the bullet.