One of our elk camp members brought these with him a couple of years ago (180-gr, in .300 WSM). Their performance was somewhat clouded by his poor marksmanship, so I don't want to say it's entirely the fault of the bullet.

Most of us still shoot some version of the old cup-and-core bullet in .284 and .308. Those that we recover generally look much like you would expect. We saw something different with those trophy bondeds, however. The one we were able to recover didn't seem to open up like the cup-and-core do. That shot was a textbook broadside through the boiler room at a little over 200 yards. We found the bullet under the hide of the off-side shoulder, it had "mushroomed" very little compared to what we would have expected from a cup-and-core bullet.

I'm not fan enough of some of these newer bullets yet that I'll use them myself. However, I wonder if the jackets might be that much "tougher" that they need more velocity to upset them? Or, if they're simply more suited to game that demand greater penetration?

Our elk camp member lost two animals prior to downing that third one. One of those we did pick up later the same day and another hunter knocked it down, the other we found about a week later and we weren't able to salvage. I don't believe the animal that we picked up would have survived the night, but we've had a few "bad hits" with cup-and-core bullets under similar conditions where the animal was recovered in minutes rather than hours. Needless to say, our elk camp member was given an ultimatum. Get your shooting together or pick up a new camp title - "Cook"

So, bottom line - I agree with RR. You SHOULDN'T have a problem with them. They WILL work. And although my experience is decidedly limited otherwise, I'll caveat that with my suspicion that they may make marginal hits worse in terms of recovering wounded animals.