Hear me out on my reasons for wanting to try them first.

I have used Shockwaves, Hornady XTP's, Hornady XTP mags, and Hornady SST's. I killed 2 deer with the XTP Mags, 2 with the Shockwaves, 1 with a regular XTP and one with a SST. Every deer I have shot with these bullets I have basically gotten a caliber size hole in and a caliber size hole out. I found every deer I shot but every single one ran anywhere from 75 to 125 yards despite double lung broadside shots. Blood trails were sparse to say the least. And the woods are thick in my area of Alabama. A deer that runs 100 yards with a poor blood trail can be a booger to find here. Even using 150 grains of pyrodex I can see no sign that these bullets expanded at all on deer. When dressing these deer the wound channel looked basically like you sharpened one end of a round steel rod and just poked a hole through them. Lethal? Sure especially through the lungs but kind of like shooting them with a full metal jacket. And yet I hear people praising these bullets and their terminal performance online all the time.

All I hear about Powerbelts is that they expand too much. But after my experiences so far more expansion is starting to sound pretty good. I just find it hard to believe that a 295 or 348 grain bullet backed by 100 grains of pyrodex won't shoot through an Alabama sized deer on a broadside rib shot. I fully realize that it is just electroplated lead but still given how overly tough those other bullets have been can these really be that far to the other end of the spectrum?