If a 225gr Powerbelt driven by 80gr T7 3f could take this shoulder shot and put it down within 5 yards with an excellent blood trail, i dont see why a thick copper jacketed bullet like the XTP can not.

Dumped right into the shoulder

That is very sound advice. the .430 240gr bullet is a very good bullet.

At the range (120 yards) and the load you are describing (2 T7 pellets), I highly doubt bullet failure on the part of the XTP is to blame for you being unable to recover the deer. Most likely, either you hit it too low in the leg, or too far forward in the shoulder and missed the heart. This happened too me once, and the deer required tracking and a second shot.

XTP's are fairly tough, and I've only seen fragmentation and jacket separation on very high velocity impacts.

XTP bullets have always worked okay for me, several deer and an antelope. I don't push them too hard, and they don't appear to break up as all have been pass throughs. I can't believe a shoulder shot would stop the bullet, it appears to me that you just hit low and broke a leg. Guess you'll never know as deer was not recovered. None of us are perfect and everyone misses their mark every now and then.

MD, that looks more like a Heart Shot Deer than a Shoulder Shot? mabey a few more inches to the right and you'd be in the Shoulder. Now I did'nt see the Deer's wound in Person, but by the Pic that's what it looks like to me. Now you might have caught a tiny part of the Shoulder wich caused the Powerbelt to explode and fragment thus causing alot of internal damage resulting in the quick kill.
(BP)

No fragments. I think it lost something like 14 or 16 grains in all. That was some years back so the memory is a bit faded.

Went through both shoulders, sucked the lungs, guts and other innards deep into the chest cavity. You should have seen the deer later on that we shot with the same load! Holy moly.

Dang MD what do you live on here, just kidding. Good Shot reguardless of the outcome. All I know is I cant wait untill next Saturdays Opener :fighting0007:so I can unleash the ACCURA and a XTP, the Freezer's EMPTY!
(BP)

good luck! Hope you see a hell of a more animals than i did during 9 days of hunt. Pffft! 1 deer and 40 turkey, zero elk. Last time i ever hunt this unit!

I think there are a couple things to remember. #1 is that not all bullets will preform beautifully EVERY TIME. Just doesn't happen. Bullets are equipment and equipment fails sometimes.

Secondly, deer react weird sometimes. Sometimes they simply just don't bleed well.

I wanted to try the Gold Dot (or Deep Curl as it's now called) this year. I have always heard about how well it performs on deer. Friday I made a great shot on an 8 pointer and he didn't bleed at all until where he fell. (about 40 yards) I still believe they are good bullets but the point is, sometimes deer just don't bleed and there is not magical bullet that will always give you the perfect blood trail.

If you don't have confidence in the XTP, then find something else. But my point is, you may still have this same experience with another bullet as well.

Thank's MD. Im getting Pumped. My Wife had here Wrist Surgery in August and she's not up to par yet for shooting Her Mler. I have Her ACCURA loaded with a 240gr XTP with 70gr's of Pyro. She's shot it a few times after I sighted it in to make sure it was sighted in close for Her, a few adjustments and it's on. The ACCURA with a Scope is Pretty Heavy so the Recoil is'nt so too bad at all. All she has to do is lay it accross the rails of the Stand and Shoot, no off hand shooting.
If anyone's reading this, is 70gr's enough? Im sure it should be. She's going to limit her shots to about 50-60 yds tops.
I feel for ya MD, I've had ELK a few times and I LOVE IT! wish we had them here. Is your Season over?
(BP)