Originally Posted by
WV Hunter
I agree that this gives a baseline to see how these bullets performed in this test. I would like to think they would have similar or better performance on game...but who knows. It appears from the two bullets recovered from game, this appears to be the case.
If anything I would expect better performance on game, at least from the bullets you tested that I have used on game. Though it is an interesting test and provides a good baseline, I wouldn't jump to any major conclusions from it.
For example, I have shot a fair number of deer with the 200 XTP and the 200 SST. In your son's test, they both penetrated 9.5". When shooting live deer however, I found that the 200 SST/Shockwave always out-penetrated the 200 XTP, usually by a large margin.(this is with similar powder charges and ranges)
In general, I always recovered the 200 XTP in the deer, usually under the off-side hide. With the 200 SST/Shockwave, I only every recovered one bullet, the rest being pass-thrus. The only bullet recovered was on a deer facing me head on- bullet was found in one of the rear hams after penetrating almost the entire length of the deer. So real-world results may vary....
However, thank you (and your son) again for doing this, I found it very interesting.