Semisane,

I happened to walk up on the deer and he and I spotted each other about the same time. He was facing me almost directly at about 70 yards and the bullet entered the chest cavity, traveled through the body and lodged in the hide on the offside just behind the ribs. He ran about 70-80 yards after the shot with an extreme blood trail. The bullet was pushed to around 1800 fps out of the 20 inch barrel. The bullet did separate some but was effective. I typically use 300 grain gold dots but have so many of these noslers that I hope they will be ok. I suspect the muzzleloader will be similar to the 44 mag rifle and a broad side shot would reduce the tracking. The gold dots have always punched completely through both sides of the hogs that were shot with them with large exit holes, but the hogs always ran a bit with them. The hogs that have been shot with other 240 grain bullets typically drop on the spot and the bullets rarely exit. I would like to try the 250 grain deep curl bullets but have about 200 of the noslers to go through first. In reality, they will probably perform about the same as the deep curl, but I have only shot the one deer with the nosler.