I think there's a lot of variables to that as with most things. What animal? How far away? Shot placement?
The bigger the diameter and the higher sectional density on the bullet, the more forgiving they're going to be. But based on the amount of expansion I've seen from 180's, I don't think I'd want the impact speeds to be much above say 2600 (the MV from my 284) for a boiler room shot on a red?? My preference is to get an exit wound and I strongly suspect that, M's mushroom out a bit too quickly and dump their energy before punching all the way through, with too much speed or after hitting bone. I've had one fail to exit a big red at 100m - high shoulder shot, impact about 2450. The deer got back up and ran (not far, fortunately). Mangled bullet recovered under the opposite shoulder, so what's that? About 10" penetration??? Boiler room shot would have been better but wasn't an option. On the other hand, the above fallow was at 150m and yeah... pretty emphatic results. I've taken another fallow at 500m (so impact was around 2000fps), vertical spine shot, and the wound channel was perfect, exited bottom of the ribs with very little meat damage.
Only shot one deer with a 147. Red hind. 200m. Boiler room, quartering away. She ran too (probably close to 100m). Second bullet opened up the bottom of the ribs and she died quickly. Bullet mushroomed nicely and was recovered under the offside skin. Should have potentially gone for a hilar shot on that one.
Resident 6.5 Grendel aficionado.
6.5 140 grn Amax at 2800 mv mainly pass through ordinary sized deer from 100 to 300 yards if it doesn't hit a big bone.
The Amax were (are, because I have 300) exceptional. I expect the same from ELDM.
This big bloke was 275 yards and hit in the crease. The Amax (as above) reached the far shoulder. He ran about 15 yards.
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