A history of what? Not doing magic with a poor shot?

Most of the "history" you reference is people who never found the deer so they have no idea where they actually hit it so they say it "penciled thru" when in reality many times they probably made a poor hit; lung shot animals don't run off far. One of the few reliable (ie deer found) stories I've heard recently the bullet was recovered and the failure traced to bad loading technique. A jag was being used that damaged the nose behind the plastic tip so that when it impacted the bullet folded inward rather than outward -- not a design problem but a loading jag problem.

The XTP is a good bullet but actually stronger than the 250SW. The 250SW is, if anything, too soft and opens too much at close range. This judged by people who recover deer and post pics of the bullets (or fragments) not lost deer where the analysis is speculatory at best. As with most bullets there are a few valid exceptions searchable on the subject, I think we had one on here in 2008.

Top row in the picture is two recovered 200SWs (out of the 40+ deer I've taken with them) flanking a new bullet. Bottom row is an XTP also recovered from deer.

All three bullets did their job, and none of the deer took a step from where they were shot. Despite the SWs impacting out at 180-200 yds and the XTP at about 60-80 yds if memory serves, it's quite clear which ones (SW) created the larger wound channel:

The SWs were recovered under the far side skin, the XTP I lucked upon lying on the ground after the shot.

Bad angles happen. Hang-fires resulting in poor hits happen. Nobody's perfect. Bullet selection cannot be counted upon to make up for bad placement however. Like I said I've killed 40+ deer with the SW and never lost one...but I've never hit one in the guts either.