Yes, I am as you described and if it isn't a passthrough with decent expansion on the exit side, which it is most of the time (like the buck in the picture), normally it's around an estimated 75%-80% weight retention when I find the bullet. I very seldom ever take other than a broadside shot through the ribs on an animal. The one I described on the mulie's right front leg with the SST while quartering toward me was a shot I had to take or he would have been back into thick stuff with no assurance that he would have come back out. My feelings are that if I had shot him with the BTSPs I'm using now that the entry would have been much smaller and it would have driven on into the vitals and even into the left ham. In fact, I shot one good whitetail buck at 225 yards with a SP in a 25-06 years ago down in Texas before Dad gave the gun to me with the same scenario. The bullet entered just inside the right front leg and was found with perfect expansion in the left ham and I'm guessing it had retained upwards of 70% of it's weight. The buck started to go down on his front legs and then ran into the brush. Knowing I had made a good shot on him I went down from the tower blind and kept searching the area for a good 15 minutes or more with Dad because there was no blood trail or tracks in that soil down there and he was found within 50 yards of where he was shot. He had bled out completely inside because of no exit wound and where the small 25 caliber entry hole was located. Those are about the only two animals of many that I have shot that I can think of that I have not shot broadside because of the terrain those two were in and I couldn't chance waiting for a better shot that might not happen. As I mentioned earlier (knock on wood), I have never lost an animal that I've shot, so I must be doing something right! I wish I had better eyesight, but as I am well into my 60s with several eye problems, I now have to limit my shots to under about 300-350 yards to have as close to 100% certainty that the animal will take a fatal hit.
