There is no way a deer can take even a hard cast bullet through the vital organs and not die; I use quite a variety of cast bullets and took some big deer with them in IL, only one time did I have one go over 150 yds after he was hit. I have used SW for a long time and never lost a deer with them. They some times don't leave a good blood trail especially with a high hit but hit in the right place they rarely have gone 100 yds.
If you get a high in and out hit with any bullet the deer bleeds inside, a gut shot would be plugged up by the insides and not leave a good trail. Even so I have to agree that the blood trails from a shock wave fall short of what you would get from a Lehigh or a Nosler partition. A heart shot deer shot with a non-expanding bullet will go quite a way but shot that low they will leave a blood trail.
I wonder some times if some shots are not deflected by branches or something like that.