Iv'e had 4 good kills (and hopfully a 5th & even a 6th on sunday) so mabye Im bais, but for now Im gonna chalk the SW failures to "somtimes bullets do wierd things". Muzzleloader are not CF rifle, (which have their problems w/ bullet performance too), they're are many different variables, such as powders& charges, sabots, barrel cleaning ,seating pressure and the shooter themselves, to put blame on the bullet alone.

In my expierience SW ,bonded and std, expand good from ranges of 20 yds to 90 yds, and Im sure much farther , at MV of 2000fps in my savage. Most were pass throughs, somtimes as much as 30" of penetration,w/ big holes and destroyed vital organs. The one recoverd bullet I found(bonded 250) was completely flat and weighed 237grs.