I've always had a problem with the Elmer Keith Raking Theory. The less than perfect shot is not a shot. It's not shooting. It's chunking lead and hoping you hit a major bone structure and the animal slows down so you can get a follow up shot or if lucky enough you caused enough damage the animal dies of it's wounds. It's not a good philosophy. It don't work 50% of the time. So if the aka less than perfect shot don't work 50% of the time then a premium bullet with a less than perfect shot won't work 50% of the time either. There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying a well constructed bullet. If it makes you feel more confident then by all means use it. After guiding elk hunters for 25 years I'll give you an honest take on bullets and how I think they are best used based on what I've seen in the field and bullet recovery.

0-200 yards shots. Most bullets perform well at these ranges. Core lokt, Power Point, Partition, A-Frame and most soft point bullets from multiple company's. If the bullet is going over 3000fps 100yard and under shots are really touchy for the ballistic tip bullets. They seem to expand way to fast which causes massive tissue damage but not the desired penetration. I've seen power points and core lokt bullets come apart with close range and high velocity. But not on the rib cage but in cases like shoulder shots and sad but true shot in any other heavy bone. Speer and Sierra boat tail soft points seem to hold their own. It doesn't get much better than the Nolser partition and Swift A-Frame at these yardages, they open up and drive deep. Most times you don't recover bullets at these ranges unless your shooting through a massive part of the animal. Accubonds and alot of the other ballistic tip bullets are mediocre depending on the velocity of the bullets.

200-400 yards- This is the range where you can say most to all bullets perform well on expansion opening up a tad slower while retaining more bullet weight to drive deep on penetration. As mentioned before core lokt, power point, partitions, A-frame all work good. But I didn't say a lot about the Accubond style bullet in the 0-200 yard distance. That's because I really don't care for it under 200 yards unless you stick to ribcage shots. But this is the distance where Ballistic tip bullets start to shine. They don't open up as fast at this range and seem to deliver the perfect expansion rate. They have great ballistics for longer ranges. There's a lot of soft point bullets that will perform well in this category, at these velocities it's getting really hard to have bullets come apart. Once again partition type bullets rate pretty well.

400-600 yards- In this range most bullets work well here also but here's where the bullets like Ballistic Tip and Soft Point Boat Tails have the advantage. More retained velocity which in a lot of cases perform like most standard bullets in the mid range yardage. Nice penetration and expansion. For those that mostly stick to long range shots Boat tail bullets are the best for long range shooting. Most soft point bullets will not have a problem at this range but there's quite a difference between flat base bullets and boat tails 500yds and beyond.

As an overall take on hunting bullets you don't want a match style bullet for taking game in the field just in case you get A LESS THAN PERFECT SHOT. Up to 400 yards use what ever you want in bullets but stick it in the boiler room. For the the regular joe hunter I'd say a Partition is about as good as you can expect in most cases. Shot placement out performs power and bullet construction every time. There's a few new bullets I'm waiting on to see how they perform on game but for the most part you can't re invent the wheel and lead kills things a lot better than copper and a lot faster.

I didn't mentions the Barnes TSX. I'm sorry for those I'm about to offend but every elk I've seen shot with a TSX I've had to track for distances of 1/2 mile. I have come up on these elk still alive and I'm not even going to put that bullet in the respectable list. While I've seen the video Barnes put out and heard so many success stories I'm standing here saying this bullet does not always open up even at close range. I've recovered bullets with bent tips and no expansion or only expanded just a little at the tip not creating much of a impact. What amazes me the most is it starts to veer off into the animal in different directions instead of staying on a straight path. Sorry Barnes after 10 elk that we actually found your bullet SUCKS.