Thank you for the clarification, Chap. I was trying to be careful not to start a "bullet war" either, which is why I chose my words carefully.

The reason I asked about trying them yourself is that while I would totally agree that it is important to point out the positives and negatives of any bullet/gun/equipment for new shooters, it is equally important to be fair and clarify whether you have gleaned this information for first-hand experience or second- or third-hand. With the way things change and things are lost as the story changes hands, I use a large grain of salt with any second- or third- hand information. I know you're still of the opinion that they can pencil through the ribs and such, and when I'm interpreting that it's important to know if this happened to you or it's off product reports etc. This is why although I don't personally use the Barnes MZ because of my personal experience with the shotgun version, I am very hesitant to tell people THEY should not be using the Barnes MZ because I have not personally tried and had the bad experience with that exact version of the bullet.

"I believe the same thing is true of the SW, you can use them for a long time and have good performance and good results, but then your gonna get a shoot thru the ribs and a small hole thru the lungs and your not going to get the animal. Just like your post with the bonded SW (way too tough for deer), I think the pencil hole thru also happens with regular SWs when they hit between the ribs on entry, then you got a long trailing job, now add to that shoot in thick cover with a lot of smoke and you got a perfect setup for a non recovered deer. I think that happens to a lot of new MLer shooters who don't know what to expect from a MLer hit."

Anything can happen. The longest run I ever had after a double-lung hit was a 300gr soft lead gaping hollowpoint. To be fair, as I noted in the post with the pic of the lungs, that was about the least damage I had ever seen from a SW. Typically they look a lot worse for wear but I never take pics. I will next time but that will have to wait a year!

I've got nothing more to share on this I guess, until next year when I get to do more "testing"

Happy shooting, whatever you are flinging downrange...